Congress commanded so little, and had so little power over the states and therefore over foreign policy, that other nations either ignored the young United States or ran roughshod over their interests with little fear of retaliation. The British ignored certain provisions of the Paris peace treaty and kept troops on American soil long after the treaty was signed. In addition, the Royal Navy remained in American waters, a threat to American independence of action.
When Spain closed the port of New Orleans to American commerce in 1784, Congress sent John Jay to Madrid to achieve terms to open the Mississippi to Americans. Instead, Jay signed an agreement that ignored the problem of the Mississippi in exchange for commercial advantages benefiting the Northeast (the Jay-Gardoqui Treaty.) Congress rejected the treaty, and the issue smoldered for ten more years. Congress also claimed lands in the West still occupied by the British and Spaniards but could not forcefully challenge those nations for control of the land.
The American armed forces, except for state militias, over which Congress had little control, were for all practical purposes disbanded after the war. (The U. S. Army numbered fewer than one hundred men in 1784, the Marine Corps was disbanded and the Navy sold off for the most part.) For good or ill, foreign affairs would come to dominate American public life and politics between 1790 and 1815-as Europe became steeped in the wars of the French
Revolution and Empire. But even in the immediate postwar years, America carried little weight in the world despite having won the Revolutionary War.
World History
