of Almighty God, and those who have the superintendence of them to his holy keeping."

The next day he arrived at Mount Vernon, prepared to enjoy Christmas Eve, and, as he said in a letter to Governor Clinton, to spend the remainder of his days "in cultivating the affections of good men, and in the practice of the domestic virtues."

O, for a drop of that terse Roman's ink
Who gave Agricola dateless length of days,
To celebrate him fitly, neither swerve,

To phrase unkempt, nor pass discretion's brink,
With him so statue-like in sad reserve,

So diffident to claim, so forward to deserve!

CHAPTER XVI.

FORMING A NEW GOVERNMENT.

PEACE for several years the country was involved

EACE did not bring quiet and order immediately,

and

in the discussion of questions which did not readily resolve themselves. The union between the States, entered with reluctance, and never resorted to except in time of fear and under the pressure of danger from abroad or from enemies at home, had become weak; commerce was prostrate; currency seemed to be in a state of confusion, from which order could not easily be brought; the power of the Confederate Congress, always undefined and precarious,* was now little respected, and even the representatives of the States scarcely thought its meetings of sufficient importance to demand their attendance.

In this condition of affairs men were ready to take rash measures to secure relief, and insurrections broke out in different portions of the land. Goaded by poverty, harrassed by creditors, and seeing no

*The condition of affairs is clearly indicated by Breck in his "Recollections." "The laws were a dead letter; the States, collectively and individually, were bankrupt; the public debt at ten or twelve dollars for a hundred! Each State was pulling against the others, and the fruit of our seven years' war for independence did not then appear worth gathering. Disunited from Maine to Georgia, the elements of self-government seemed to be lost, and we were fast sinking into anarchy and confusion."

reasonable hope for relief at the hands of the irresolute and almost powerless Congress, many recklessly determined to oppose the collection of debts or taxes, to demand the emission of paper money, or to set up independent governments of their own, or, as in the case of Vermont,* to coquette with Canada. Before the new government was established, the inhabitants of Eastern Tennessee, who, in 1771, had formed themselves into the "Watauga Association," independent of all English governments, organized the "State of Franklin," under the laws of which they lived from 1785 to 1788.

It was evident that a better understanding between the States was requisite, and that their relations to the central government should be defined. Before the war had closed, Alexander Hamilton had broached the subject of the formation of a National Constitution, and the feeling had been growing ever since that this should be done. The demands of trade proved the stimulating influence which finally brought the people to act, for the merchants saw that, owing to the want of a uniform system, for

* When Vermont was first settled, in 1724, near Brattleborough, the spot was supposed to be within the limits of Massachusetts. Later, Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, claimed it for his State, and it became known as "New Hampshire Grants." In 1763, New York claimed it, and attempted to dispossess the settlers. Under Ethan Allen and others the people resisted, and whipped with beechen rods every officer sent to enforce processes of ejection. The strife continued for years, when Governor Tryon offered bounties for the leaders, who retorted by offering a reward for the apprehension of the attorney-general of New York. The revolution stopped the controversy, and in 1776, the settlers asked to be admitted to the Confederacy, but in vain. The next year the State declared its independence, and again asked to be admitted. Owing to the jealousies of other States, she was kept waiting until March 4, 1791.

A NATIONAL CONVENTION.

339

eigners were reaping harvests which should belong to Americans. It was this that led to the meeting of citizens of Maryland and Virginia to arrange some plan for regulating the commerce of the Chesapeake and the Potomac. These commissioners met first, in 1785, at Alexandria, Va., and also at Mount Vernon, James Madison being of the number. They found their purposes could not be attained without enlarged powers, and a convention was effected at Annapolis the following year, at which five States were represented. Hamilton was present on this occasion, and took the opportunity to renew his proposition, first made in 1780, for a National Constitutional Convention, which, it was agreed, should be called to meet in May, 1787, at Philadelphia.

Virginia was the first to take action upon this proposition, and right nobly did its General Assembly express itself, saying that the crisis had arrived at which the people were to decide the solemn question whether they would reap the just fruits of independence and of union, acquired at the cost of so much blood, or would allow their unmanly jealousies and prejudices to wrest them away, and calling upon the other States to send delegates to a convention to devise and discuss all such alterations and provisions as might be necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union. Other States followed, and Congress doubtfully issued a call of its own, limiting the purposes of the Convention to the revision of the Constitution. The Convention actually met at the State House, in Philadelphia, on the fourteenth of May, 1787. So slow were the people even to consider the propositions for a closer union, that it was not until

eleven days later that a majority of the States were represented and the body able to proceed to business. Washington was chosen President. The deliberations lasted four months, and then a Constitution was presented to the States for acceptance.

While this august body was sitting in Philadelphia, the last session of the Continental Congress was in progress at New York. It rendered itself memorable by passing "the most notable law ever enacted by representatives of the American people" - the law setting up the Northwestern Territory. Virginia, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut had ceded to the general government their rights to the vast territory northwest of the Ohio River, and treaties had disposed of the titles of various tribes of Indians to the region. Before these cessions had been effected, in 1784, a committee of Congress of which Jefferson was chairman, had presented a plan for the organization of this territory, by the formation of seventeen States,* all to be free after 1800; but the project was postponed until the title should be perfected, and in the meantime the prohibition of slavery was voted down.

The ordinance of 1787 † provided that not more than five nor less than three States should be formed from the territory, and its chief provisions were made a solemn compact between the people of the thirteen States and the population that should in the future

*The names that Mr. Jefferson suggested for ten of these States were Sylvania, Michigania, Cheronesus, Assenisipia (from Assenisipi, Rock River), Metropotamia, Illinoia, Saratoga, Washington, Polypotamia, and Pelisipia.

† See page 293.