it refused to sanction the plan of the Annapolis commissioners. [Sidenote: New York defeats the impost amendment.] In an ordinary season this would perhaps have ended the matter, but the winter of 1786-87 was not an ordinary season. All the troubles above described seemed to culminate just at this moment. The paper-money craze in so many of the states, the shameful deeds of Rhode Island, the riots in Vermont and New Hampshire, the Shays rebellion in Massachusetts, the dispute with Spain, and the consequent imminent danger of separation between north and south had all come together; and the feeling of thoughtful men and women throughout the country was one of real consternation. The last ounce was now to be put upon the camel's back in the failure of the impost amendment. In 1783, when the cessions of western lands were creating a national domain, a promising plan had been devised for relieving the country of its load of debt, and furnishing Congress with money for its current expenses. All the money coming from sales of the western folkland was to be applied to reducing and wiping out the principal of the public debt. Then the interest of this debt must be provided for; and to that end Congress had recommended an impost, or system of custom-house duties, upon liquors, sugars, teas, coffees, cocoa, molasses, and pepper. This impost was to be kept up for twenty-five years only, and the collectors were to be appointed by the several states, each for its own ports. Then for the current expenses of the government, supplementary funds were needed; and these were to be assessed upon the several states, each of which might raise its quota as it saw fit. Such was the original plan; but it soon turned out that the only available source of revenue was the national domain, which had thus been nothing less than the principal thread which had held the Union together. As for the impost, it had never been possible to get a sufficient number of states to agree upon it, and of the quotas for current expenses, as we have seen, very little had found its way to the federal treasury. Under these difficulties, it had been proposed that an amendment to the articles of confederation should endow Congress with the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors; and by the summer of 1786, after endless wrangling, twelve states had consented to the amendment. But, in order that an amendment should be adopted, unanimous consent was necessary. The one delinquent state, which thus blocked the wheels of the confederacy, was New York. She had her little system of duties all nicely arranged for what seemed to be her own interests, and she would not surrender this system to Congress. Upon the neighbouring states her tariff system bore hard, and especially upon New Jersey. In 1786 this little state flatly refused to pay her quota until New York should stop discriminating against her trade. Nothing which occurred in that troubled year caused more alarm than