being allowed to tax. The United States only way to have defense forces was through volunteers and state militiamen. Not having an army left the states vulnerable to French and British attack. France threatened hostilities due to unpaid war debts, and British troops could come and go basically as they pleased. Citizens would demanded better defense, but they were unwilling to grant Congress the power it required to supply those defenses.The underpowered Congress continued to endure failures in diplomatic foreign affairs as well. Since each state basically went by its own rules, it was impossible to negotiate with foreign countries and have the thirteen states all follow the rules of the negotiations. American negotiators had promised Great Britain the ability to collect on pre war debts that were accumulated by the states. The problem with this was that many states were very reluctant to repay any of their debts and several states even created laws that stated they did not have to repay pre war debts to the British. The British responded to this insult by refusing to withdraw troops from posts in the Northwest Territory. Since Congress could not raise an army, they had no way of responding to this threat by the British. The U.S also had many troubles in diplomatic matters with Spain. Spain had made claims to much of the land between Georgia and the Mississippi and planned on resisting American expansion. On July 21, 1784, Spain shocked the United States by closing the lower Mississippi River and forbidding U.S citizens from using it. Again the United States government was stuck without any sure-fire way of dealing with this situation. Without the use of the Mississippi River, western farmers were devastated and the Ohio Valley was virtually shut down. In 1786, when Congress finally decided that something must be done about this situation, they sent John Jay to negotiate with the Spanish. Jay finally reached a deal with Spain. If the U...
