"Deeply impressed, however, with the magnitude and importance of the object confided to them on this occasion, your commissioners cannot forbear to indulge an expression of their earnest and unanimous wish that speedy measures may be taken to effect a general meeting of the states in a future convention for the same, and such other purposes, as the situation of public affairs may be found to require.

"If in expressing this wish, or intimating any other sentiment, your commissioners should seem to exceed the strict bounds of their appointment, they entertain a full confidence that a conduct dictated by an anxiety for the welfare of the United States will not fail to receive a favourable construction. In this persuasion, your commissioners submit an opinion that the idea of extending the powers of their deputies to other objects than those of commerce, which had been adopted by the state of New-Jersey, was an improvement on the original plan, and will deserve to be incorporated into that of a future convention. They are the more naturally led to this conclusion, as, in the course of their reflections on the subject, they have been induced to think that the power of regulating trade is of such comprehensive extent, and will enter so far into the general system of the federal government, that to give it efficacy, and to obviate questions and doubts concerning its precise nature and limits, may require a correspondent adjustment of other parts of the federal system. That there are important defects in the system of the federal government, is acknowledged by the acts of all those states which have concurred in the present meeting; that the defects, upon a closer examination, may be found greater and more numerous than even these acts imply, is at least so far probable, from the embarrassments which characterize the present state of our national affairs foreign and domestic, as may reasonably be supposed

to merit a deliberate and candid discussion in some mode which will unite the sentiments and councils of all the states.

"In the choice of the mode, your commissioners are of the opinion that a CONVENTION of deputies from the different states for the special and sole purpose of entering into this investigation, and digesting a plan of supplying such defects as may be discovered to exist, will be entitled to a preference, from considerations which will occur without being particularized. Your commissioners decline an enumeration of those national circumstances on which their opinion respecting the propriety of a future convention with those enlarged powers is founded, as it would be an intrusion of facts and observations, most of which have been frequently the subject of public discussion, and none of which can have escaped the penetration of those to whom they would in this instance be addressed.

"They are, however, of a nature so serious, as, in the view of your commissioners, to render the situation of the United States delicate and critical, calling for an exertion of the united virtue and wisdom of all the members of the confederacy. Under this impression, your commissioners with the most respectful deference beg leave to suggest their unanimous conviction, that it may effectually tend to advance the interests of the union, if the states by which they have been respectively delegated would concur themselves, and use their endeavours to procure the concur rence of the other states, in the appointment of commissioners to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the union, and to report such an act for that purpose to the United States in congress assembled, as, when agreed to by them

and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every state, will effectually provide for the same.

"Though your commissioners could not with propriety address these observations and sentiments to any but the states they have the honour to represent, they have never.theless concluded, from motives of respect, to transmit copies of this report to the United States in congress assembled, and to the executives of the other States."

The terms of this address were cautiously selected, so as to be in strict accordance with the thirteenth article of the confederation, while the latitude with which the object of the proposed convention is expressed, indicates Hamilton's determined purpose to establish a well-organized National Government.

CHAPTER XLIII.

IT has been seen that the conferring on congress the power of levying a national impost, was the great dividing question on which the two parties that existed in America were arrayed. By the friends of a general and enlarged policy, or, as they were then styled, of "continental politics," this measure was regarded as one involving the fate of the country, for without such a power it was obvious that the confederation, feeble and inadequate as it had proved, could not be longer preserved. Its opponents were those who had coalesced, either from disappointment in not having acquired an influence in the general councils, from a desire to retain powers in the states that might be wielded for the gratification of their ambition, from an undefined or pretended apprehension of the dangers to their liberties which might result from so large a confidence as the control of the national funds, and in certain states from a calculation of the partial benefits to be derived from peculiar circumstances of more extensive territory, favourable position, and natural advantages. These lent themselves to the most absurd suspicions, deprecated any advance towards this great object as an approach to a gulf in which every vestige of liberty would be merged, and appealing to each narrow passion, the offspring of inconsiderateness, ignorance, or pride, gratified their vanity, and increased their influence, by being esteemed the zealous watchmen of liberty, and especial guardians of state rights. This party was the proper growth of the articles of confederation.

It had acquired a complete ascendency throughout the country, thus affording another proof that false principles, while they hasten decay in the system into which they enter, give a noxious vitality to the parasitic plants which flourish in the progress of its corruption.

That ascendency was inconsistent with the preservation of the Union; nor should we know from its effects at this time that the Union existed, but that the pageantry of a congress was still kept up. The members chosen to meet in November, seventeen hundred and eighty-five, did not assemble until February, seventeen hundred and eighty-six. Their first deliberations related to the finances. The report of a committee showed that the requisitions for the four preceding years a little exceeded seven millions of dollars; that the total receipts were rather more than onethird of this sum, of which less than one-tenth had been collected within the last fourteen months; that the means for discharging the interest on the foreign debt would have been inadequate, but for the unappropriated residue of the Dutch loan; that further loans could not be obtained; that the emission of bills of credit was hopeless; that the only remaining resource was the public lands-but public securities being receivable for them, they could only aid in reducing the public debt; and that, after the maturest consideration, they were unable to devise any other than the revenue system of seventeen hundred and eighty-three. It then proceeded to state, that seven states had complied with it in part; that Pennsylvania and Delaware had only granted it provisionally, and that Rhode Island, New-York. Maryland, and Georgia, had not decided in favour of any part of a system" so long since and so repeatedly presented for their adoption." It closed with the following impressive appeal:-"The committee observe with great concern that the security of the navigation and commerce of the citizens of these states from the Barbary powers; the pro