The only other power with which the United States desired commercial
relations without possessing them was Spain. The Eastern States were very
anxious to obtain privileges of trade. The Spanish were willing to grant
them, but made it a condition that the Americans should not have the right
of free navigation of the lower Mississippi. Jay, acting under the
instruction of Congress, in 1786 negotiated a treaty in which he agreed to
the Spanish conditions. Instantly the West was aroused, and violent
threats were made by the people of Kentucky and the adjacent region that
if that treaty went into effect they would withdraw from the Union. "The
tendency of the States," said Madison, a few months later, "to violations
of the laws of nations and treaties ... has been manifest.... The files of
Congress contain complaints already from almost every nation with which
treaties have been formed."


57. DISINTEGRATION OF THE UNION (1786, 1787).


[Sidenote: The Confederation violated.]
[Sidenote: Danger of anarchy.]

The year 1786 marks a crisis in the development of the Union. The
inefficiency of Congress was reflected in the neglect of constitutional
duties by the States: Rhode Island recalled her delegates, and refused to
appoint new members; New Jersey felt so much injured by a New York tariff
that an act was passed taxing the lighthouse established by New York on
Sandy Hook; Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia
already had raised troops on their own account and for their own purposes,
in violation of the Articles of Confederation. Davie, of North Carolina, a