" Yet a suggestion in 1781 for an amendment,
giving power to Congress to employ force in compelling States to obey
the Articles, met with no favour.
Monroe thought that the Articles were practicable and, with a few
alterations, the best plan that could be devised. Hamilton, on the
contrary, regarded them as hopeless. Even before they were adopted,
he predicted a speedy failure. They were "neither fit for war nor
peace," he declared. "They show chiefly a want of power in Congress."
Washington attributed the defects made in framing the Government to
too good an opinion of human nature. "Experience has taught us," he
said, "that men will not adopt and carry into execution measures the
best calculated for their own good, without the intervention of a
coercive power." He declared that requisitions made upon the States
by the central power became a perfect nullity when thirteen sovereign,
independent, disunited States were in the habit of discussing and
refusing compliance with them at their option.
"To vest legislative, judicial and executive powers in one and the same
body of men and that, too, in a body daily changing its members can
never three great departments of sovereignty should be for ever
separated and so distributed as to serve as checks on each other.
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