By the following midsummer many of the States had
ratified these articles, but Maryland, the last to assent, did
not accept the new union until 1781, so that Congress continued
to act for the States without constitutional sanction during the
greater part of the war.
The ineptitude of Congress is explained when we recall that it
was a revolutionary body which indeed controlled foreign affairs
and the issues of war and peace, coined money, and put forth
paper money but had no general powers. Each State had but one
vote, and thus a small and sparsely settled State counted for as
much as populous Massachusetts or Virginia. The Congress must
deal with each State only as a unit; it could not coerce a State;
and it had no authority to tax or to coerce individuals. The
utmost it could do was to appeal to good feeling, and when a
State felt that it had a grievance such an appeal was likely to
meet with a flaming retort.
Washington maintained towards Congress an attitude of deference
and courtesy which it did not always deserve. The ablest men in
the individual States held aloof from Congress. They felt that
they had more dignity and power if they sat in their own
legislatures. The assembly which in the first days had as members
men of the type of Washington and Franklin sank into a gathering
of second-rate men who were divided into fierce factions.
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