He did this in the hope of thereby conciliating Spain to make a commercial treaty which he thought was far more important than shipping.

Our people in the Southwest, however, regarded the closing of the river as portending their ruin, and they threatened to secede if it were persisted in.

Pennsylvania and New Jersey threw their weight with the Southerners and Congress voted against the Jay treaty.

That was the time when the corsairs of the Barbary States preyed upon American shipping in the Mediterranean and seized crews of our vessels and sold them into slavery in Northern Africa.

That there was not in the thirteen States sufficient feeling of dignity to resent and punish these outrages marks both their dispersed power and lack of regard for National honor.
After 1783 the States, virtually bankrupt at home, discordant, fickle, and aimless, and without credit or prestige abroad, were filled with many citizens who recognized that the system was bad and must be amended.