Their timidity made them see what he had accomplished not nearly so plainly as the dictator on horseback whom their fears conjured up.
During the war the sense of a common danger had lent the Congress a not easily defined but quite real coherence, which vanished when peace came, and the local ideals of the States took precedence.

Take taxation.

Congress could compute the quota of taxes which each State ought to pay, but it had no way of collecting or of enforcing payment.
It took eighteen months to collect five per cent of the taxes laid in 1783.

Of course a nation could not go on with such methods.

No law binding all the States could be adopted unless every one of the thirteen States assented.