The appraisal of the period when America was governed by the Articles of Confederation as one of stagnation, peculation, and disunion so long popular with writers of the Fiske “Critical Period” school has been attacked quite successfully in recent years by such writers as Merrill Jensen. While challenging many popular, misconceptions concerning the period, he has also demonstrated that the mercantile situation was by no means a hopeless one and that long before 1789 the states were moving in the direction of an increasing co-operation on matters affecting interstate and international trade.