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America’s First Constitutions and Declarations of Rights
State judges were disinclined to defend Confederation enactments in the
face of hostile State assemblymen. Thus the Treaty of Peace signed in
1783 with England, calling for the return of Tory property confiscated
during the Revolution, was openly flouted by State legislatures and ignored by State courts. In their role as agents of the Confederation, State
officials proved to be unreliable because their first loyalty was to the States
they served. What the Confederation government needed and lacked was
a system which, instead of going through the State governments, operated
directly on individuals through its own agents. Not until the adoption of
the Constitution was this serious deficiency corrected.
In light of these difficulties, it comes as no surprise that the Confederation fell woefully short of expectations. During the American Revolution, outbreaks of mutiny were a constant threat to General Washington
and his officers because the army was hardly ever paid. In despair, the
Continental Congress simply printed more money to finance the war effort, thereby devaluing the currency. In 1780 alone, more than $40 million
of paper money, a consid