Indians, establishing post-offices, and some other matters of less importance; but for many of these, even for agreeing on the number of ships to be built, and the appointment 6f a commander in chief of the army or navy, the consent of at least nine states, in congress assembled, was requisite. From this outline it is obvious that the congress still continued in a great degree dependent on the individual states, which alone possessed the means of raising supplies. The power to coin money, when it did not possess the bullion, to emit bills of credit when it had no funds to redeem them, was purely nominal. Even the expenses of its own members, were to be defrayed by the respective states which sent them, and which retained the dangerous power to recall them at pleasure. Yet such was the fervour of freemen engaged in a common cause, that, while the war continued, the mere recommendations of congress carried with them the force of mandates, and it was not until after the peace of 1783, that the necessity of giving to the head of the union the means of supporting its own government was universally felt and acknowledged. After some ineffectual substitutes had been proposed, a convention of delegates from the different states was assembled at Philadelphia in 1787. The members were appointed by the legislatures of the respective states. The result of their deliberations was again to become a matter of recommendation which required the assent of the people to give it effect. It was communicated by the convention to congress, and by congress to the several legislatures, in order to be submitted to a convention of delegates chosen in each state by the people. This course, which had been
