revenue for the wants of the government at home, or to rescue the honor of the nation from default in payments of interest on moneys borrowed to secure their independence.

The need of reform extended equally to the relation of the republic to foreign powers. Congress had no other means of fulfilling its treaty obligations than through the good-will and concurrence of every one of the states; though in theory the articles of confederation presented the United States to all other states as one nation.

The difficulty which caused these perpetual failures was inherent and incurable. Congress undertook to enact requisitions, and then direct the legislatures of thirteen independent states to pass laws to give them effect, itself remaining helpless till they should do so. A deliberative body ordering another independent deliberative body what laws to make is an anomaly; and, in the case of congress, the hopelessness of harmony was heightened by the immense extent of the United States, by the differences of time when the legislatures of the several states convened, and by a conflict of the interests, passions, hesitancies, and wills of thirteen legislatures, independent of each other and uncontrolled by a common head. No ray of hope remained but from the convention which Virginia had invited to assemble on the first Monday in September at Annapolis.

CHAPTER VIII.

VIRGINIA INVITES DEPUTIES OF THE SEVERAL LEGISLATURES OF THE STATES TO MEET IN CONVENTION.

SEPTEMBER 1786 TO MAY 1787.

CONGRESS having confessedly failed to find ways and means for carrying on the government, the convention which had been called to Annapolis became the ground of hope for the nation. The house of delegates of Maryland promptly accepted the invitation of Virginia, but the senate, in its zeal to strengthen the appeal which congress was then addressing to the states for a revenue, refused its concurrence. Neither Connecticut, nor South Carolina, nor Georgia sent delegates to the meeting. In Massachusetts two sets of nominees, among whom appears the name of George Cabot, declined the service; the third were, like the Rhode Island delegates, arrested on the way by tidings that the convention was over.

Every one of the commissioners chosen for New York, among whom were Egbert Benson and Hamilton, was engrossed by pressing duties. Egbert Benson, the guiding statesman in the Hartford convention of 1780, was engaged as attorney-general in the courts at Albany. With Schloss Hobart, the upright judge, he agreed that the present opportunity for obtaining a revision of the system of general government ought not to be neglected. He therefore consigned his public business to a friend, reported the conversation with Schloss Hobart to Hamilton in New York, and repaired with him to Annapolis. There, on the eleventh of September, they found Madison with the commissioners of Virginia aiming at a plenipotentiary general convention, and commissioners from New

Jersey instructed by their legislature to be content with nothing less than a new federal government. No state north of New York was represented, and no one south of Delaware save Virginia. It was a meeting of central states. One thought animated the assembly. Dickinson, a principal author of the articles of confederation, was unanimously elected chairman; and, with the same unanimity, a committee was raised to prepare a report. Hamilton, though not of the committee, made a draft; this the convention employed two days in considering and amending, when the resulting form was unanimously adopted. In clear and passionless language they expressed their conviction that it would advance the interests of the union if the states which they represented would agree, and use their endeavors to procure the concurrence of the other states to agree, "to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday of the next May to consider the situation of the United States, and devise such further provisions as should appear necessary to render the constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the union; and to report to congress such an act as, when agreed to by them and confirmed by the legislatures of every state, would effectually provide for the same." The proposition was explicit; the place for meeting wisely chosen; and the time within which congress and the thirteen states must decide and the convention meet for its work was limited to less than eight months.

In a few days the report, signed by the venerated name of Dickinson, was received by congress; but the delegation from Massachusetts, led by King, prevented the recommendation of the measure which the deputations at Annapolis had asked for. The governor of New York was of opinion that the confederation as it stood was equal to the purposes of the union, or, with little alteration, could be made so; and that the commissioners from New York should have confined themselves to the purposes of their errand. ‡

On the tenth of October Rufus King appeared before the house of representatives of Massachusetts, and, in the presence of an audience which crowded the galleries, insisted that the + Carrington to Madison, 18 December 1786. Hamilton, vi., 605.

*Elliot, i., 117-120.

confederation was the act of the people; that no part could be altered but on the initiation of congress and the confirmation of all the several legislatures; if the work should be done by a convention, no legislature could have a right to confirm it; congress, and congress only, was the proper body to propose alterations. In these views he was, a few days later, supported by Nathan Dane. The house of representatives, conforming to this advice, refused to adopt the suggestions that came from Annapolis; and there was not to be another session before the time proposed for the general convention at Philadelphia.*

From this state of despair the country was lifted by Madison and Virginia. The recommendation of a plenipotentiary convention was well received by the assembly of Virginia. The utter failure of congress alike in administration and in reform, the rapid advances of the confederation toward ruin, at length proselyted the most obstinate adversaries to a political renovation. On the motion of Madison, the assembly, showing the revolution of sentiment which the experience of one year had effected, gave its unanimous sanction to the recommendation from Annapolis.† We come now upon the week glorious for Virginia beyond any event in its annals, or in the history of any former republic. Madison had been calm and prudent and indefatigable, always acting with moderation, and always persistent of purpose. The hour was come for frank and bold words, and decisive action. Madison, giving effect to his own long-cherished wishes and the still earlier wishes of Washington, addressing as it were the whole country and marshalling all the states, recorded the motives to the action of his own commonwealth in these words:

"The commissioners who assembled at Annapolis, on the fourteenth day of September last, for the purpose of devising and reporting the means of enabling congress to provide effectually for the commercial interests of the United States, have represented the necessity of extending the revision of the federal system to all its defects, and have recommended that deputies for that purpose be appointed by the several legislatures, to meet in convention in the city of Philadelphia on the Madison, i., 259.

* Carrington to Madison, 18 December 1786.

second day of May next—a provision preferable to a discussion of the subject in congress, where it might be too much interrupted by ordinary business, and where it would, besides, be deprived of the counsels of individuals who are restrained from a seat in that assembly. The general assembly of this commonwealth, taking into view the situation of the confederacy, as well as reflecting on the alarming representations made from time to time by the United States in congress, particularly in their act of the fifteenth day of February last, can no longer doubt that the crisis is arrived at which the people of America are to decide the solemn question whether they will, by wise and magnanimous efforts, reap the fruits of independence and of union, or whether, by giving way to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or to partial and transitory interests, they will renounce the blessings prepared for them by the revolution. The same noble and extended policy, and the same fraternal and affectionate sentiments which originally determined the citizens of this commonwealth to unite with their brethren of the other states in establishing a federal government, cannot but be felt with equal force now as motives to lay aside every inferior consideration, and to concur in such further concessions and provisions as may be necessary to secure the objects for which that government was instituted, and render the United States as happy in peace as they have been glorious in war."

Such is the preamble adopted without a dissenting voice by the general assembly of the commonwealth of Virginia, as they acceded to the proposal from Annapolis with this one variation, that the new federal constitution, after it should be agreed to by congress, was to be established, not by the legis latures of the states, but by the states themselves, thus opening the way for special conventions of the several states.

son.

In selecting her own delegates, Virginia placed Washington at their head, surrounded by Madison, Randolph, and MaRandolph, the newly elected governor of the state, adopting words of Washington, sent the act of his state to congress, and to the executive of each one of the states in the union, asking their concurrence.

Hardly had the tardy post of that day brought the gladdening news to New Jersey, when that state, first of the