State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."

This Confederation, which was not ratified by all the States till 1781, was rather a league than a national government, for it possessed no central authority except an assembly in which every State, the largest and the smallest alike, had one vote, and this authority had no jurisdiction over the individual citizens. There was no Federal executive, no Federal judiciary, no means of raising money except by the contributions of the States, contributions which they were slow to render, no power of compelling the obedience either of States or individuals to the commands of Congress. The plan corresponded to the wishes of the colonists, who did not yet deem themselves a nation, and who in their struggle against the power of the British Crown were resolved to set over themselves no other power, not even one of their own choosing. But it worked badly even while the struggle lasted, and after the immediate danger from England had been removed by the peace of 1783, it worked still worse, and was in fact, as Washington said, no better than anarchy. The States were indifferent to Congress and their common concerns, so indifferent that it was found difficult to procure a quorum of States for weeks or even months after the day fixed for meeting. Congress was impotent, and commanded respect as little as obedience. Much distress prevailed in the trading States, and the crude attempts which some legislatures made to remedy the depression by emitting inconvertible paper, by constituting other articles than the precious metals legal tender, and by impeding the recovery of debts, aggravated the evil, and in several instances led to sedi

tious outbreaks.1 The fortunes of the country seemed at a lower ebb than even during the war with England.

Sad experience of their internal difficulties, and of the contempt with which foreign governments treated them, at last produced a feeling that some firmer and closer union was needed. A convention of delegates from five States met at Annapolis in Maryland in 1786 to discuss methods of enabling Congress to regulate commerce. It drew up a report which condemned the existing state of things, declared that reforms were necessary, and suggested a further general convention in the following year to consider the condition of the Union and the needed amendments in its Constitution. Congress, to which the report had been presented, approved it, and recommended the States to send delegates to a convention, which should "revise the Articles of Confederation, and report to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union." 2

1 Rhode Island was the most conspicuous offender. This singular little commonwealth, whose area is 1085 square miles (less than that of Ayrshire or Antrim), is of all the American States that which has furnished the most abundant analogies to the Greek republics of antiquity, and which best deserves to have its annals treated of by a philosophic historian. A curious feature in its politics is the frequent hostility of the agricultural party in the country to the commercial population in the towns which was at its height in 1788. By making herself an alarming example of what the unbridled rule of the multitude may come to, Rhode Island did much to bring the other States to adopt that Federal Constitution which she was herself the last to accept. See the remarks of Mr. M. Smith, Elliot's Debates, ii. 335.

2 The insurrection then raging in Massachusetts may have helped to stimulate Congress to prompt action, for it revealed the want of strength in the State governments.

Mr. Justice Miller remarks with reference to the origin of the Annapolis Convention, "It is not a little remarkable that the suggestion which finally led to the relief, without which as a nation we must soon have

The Convention thus summoned met at Philadelphia on the 14th May 1787, became competent to proceed to business on May 25th, when seven States were represented, and chose George Washington to preside.1 Delegates attended from every State but Rhode Island, and these delegates, unlike those usually sent to Congress, were the leading men of the country, influential in their several States, and now filled with a sense of the need for comprehensive reforms. The instructions they had received limited their authority to the revision of the Articles of Confederation and the proposing to Congress and the State legislatures such improvements as were required therein.2 But with admirable boldness, boldness doubly admirable in Englishmen and lawyers, the majority ultimately resolved to disregard these restrictions, and

perished, strongly supports the philosophical maxim of modern times, that of all the agencies of civilization and progress, commerce is the most efficient. What our deranged finances, our discreditable failure to pay our debts, and the sufferings of our soldiers, could not force the several States to attempt, was brought about by a desire to be released from the evils of an unregulated and burdensome commercial intercourse."-Memorial Oration at the celebration of the hundredth anniversary of the promulgation of the Constitution, 17th Sept. 1887.

1 For some remarks on Constitutional Conventions in the United States see the note to this chapter at the end of this volume.

2 It was strongly urged when the draft Constitution caine up for ratification in the State Conventions that the Philadelphia Convention had no power to do more than amend the Articles of Confederation. To these objections Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania made answer as follows:-"The business we are told which was intrusted to the late Convention was merely to amend the present Articles of Confederation. This observation has been frequently made, and has often brought to my mind a story that is related of Mr. Pope, who it is well known was not a little deformed. It was customary for him to use this phrase, 'God mend me,' when any little accident happened. One evening a link boy was lighting him along, and coming to a gutter the boy jumped nimbly over it. Mr. Pope called to him to turn, adding 'God mend me!' The arch rogue, turning to light him, looked at him and repeated 'God mend you ! He would sooner make half a dozen new ones.' This would apply to the present Confederation, for it would be easier to make another than to amend this."Elliot's Debates, Pennsylvania Convention, vol. ii. p. 472.

to prepare a wholly new Constitution, to be considered and ratified neither by Congress nor by the State legislatures, but by the peoples of the several States.

This famous assembly, which consisted of fifty-five delegates, thirty-nine of whom signed the Constitution which it drafted, sat nearly five months, and expended upon its work an amount of labour and thought commensurate with the magnitude of the task and the splendour of the result. The debates were secret,' and fortunately so, for criticism from without might have imperilled a work which seemed repeatedly on the point of breaking down, so great were the difficulties encountered from the divergent sentiments and interests of different parts of the country, as well as of the larger and smaller States.2 The records of the Convention were left in the hands of Washington, who in 1796 deposited them in the State Department. In 1819 they were published along with the notes of the discussions kept by James Madison (afterwards twice President), who had proved himself one of the ablest and most useful members of the body. From these official records and notes the history of

3

1 The fact that the country did not complain of this secrecy is the best proof of the confidence felt in the members of the Convention.

2 Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the delegates from Pennsylvania (being then eighty-one years of age), was so much distressed at the difficulties which arose and the prospect of failure that he proposed that the Convention, as all human means of obtaining agreement seemed to be useless, should open its meetings with prayer. The suggestion, remarkable as coming from one so well known for his sceptical opinions, might have been adopted but for the fear that the outside public might thus learn how grave the position of affairs was. The original of Franklin's proposition, written in his own still clear and firm hand, with his note stating that only three or four agreed with him, is preserved in the State Department at Washington, where may be also seen the original draft of the Constitution with the signatures of the thirty-nine delegates.

3 They are printed in the work called Elliot's Debates (Philadelphia, 1861), which also contains the extremely interesting debates in some of the State Conventions which ratified the Constitution.

the Convention has been written, and may be found in the instructive volumes of Mr. G. T. Curtis and of Mr. George Bancroft, now the patriarch of American literature.

It is hard to-day, even for Americans, to realize how enormous those difficulties were. The Convention had not only to create de novo, on the most slender basis of pre-existing national institutions, a national government for a widely scattered people, but they had in doing so to respect the fears and jealousies and apparently irreconcilable interests of thirteen separate commonwealths, to all of whose governments it was necessary to leave a sphere of action wide enough to satisfy a deep-rooted local sentiment, yet not so wide as to imperil national unity. Well might Hamilton say: "The establishment of a Constitution, in time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole people, is a prodigy to the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety."

1 The nearest parallels to such a Federal Union as that formed in 1789 were then to be found in the Achæan and Lycian Leagues, which, however, were not mere leagues, but federated nations. Both are referred to by the authors of the Federalist (see post), but their knowledge was evidently scanty. The acuteness of James Wilson had perceived that the two famous confederations of modern Europe did not supply a model for America. He observed in the Pennsylvania Convention of 1788: "The Swiss cantons are connected only by alliances. The United Netherlands are indeed an assemblage of societies; but this assemblage constitutes no new one, and therefore it does not correspond with the full definition of a Confederate Republic."-Elliot's Debates, vol. ii. p. 422. The Swiss Confederation has now become a Republic at once Federal and national, coming in most respects very near to its American model.

2 Federalist, No. lxxxv. He quotes the words of David Hume (Essays; "The Rise of Arts and Sciences"): "To balance a large State or society, whether monarchical or republican, on general laws, is a work of so great difficulty that no human genius, however comprehensive, is able by the mere dint of reason and reflection to effect it. The judgments of many must unite in the work experience must guide their labour; time