We have seen that the treaty of peace could not be executed; that the Confederation could do nothing to secure the republican governments of the States; that the commerce of the country could not be protected against the policy of foreign governments, constantly watching for advantages which the clashing interests of the different States at all times held out to them; and that, with the rule which required the assent of nine States to every important measure, it was possible for the Congress to refuse or neglect to do what it was of the last importance to the people of the United States they should do. Finally, we have seen that what now kept the existing Union from dissolution, as it had been one immediate inducement to its formation, was the cession of the vast Northwestern territory to the United States; and that over this territory new States were forming, to take their places in the band of American republics, while the Confederation possessed no sufficient power to legislate for their condition, or to secure their progress toward the great ends of civil liberty and prosperity. A retrospection, therefore, of the previous history of the Confederacy, while it reveals to us the public appreciation of the national wants and the national failures, displays the general purposes contemplated by the States when they undertook effectually to provide for "the exigencies of the Union." But what the nature of the proposed changes was to be, and in what mode they were to be reached, was, as we have seen, left undetermined by the constituent States when they assembled the Convention; and we are now, therefore, brought to the third preliminary fact, necessary to be regarded in our future inquiries, namely, the condition of the actual powers of that assembly. The Confederation has already been described as a league, or federal alliance between independent and sovereign States, for certain purposes of mutual aid. So far as it could properly be called a government, it was a government for the States in their corporate capacities, with no power to reach individuals; so that, if its requirements were disregarded, compulsion could only be directed--if against anybody--against the delinquent member of the association, the State itself.