common consultation at Annapolis, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, in a motion of very great length, ascribed the extension of the commerce and the security of the liberties of the states to the joint efforts of the whole: "They have, therefore," he insisted, "wisely determined to make the welfare of the union their first object, reflecting that in all federal regulations something must be yielded to aid the whole, and that those who expect support must be ready to afford it."* The motion, after being under discussion for two days, was referred to a committee of five. On the fifteenth, King, Pinckney, Kean, Monroe, and Pettit, representatives of South Carolina and the three great states, reported: "The requisitions of congress, for eight years past, have been so irregular in their operation, so uncertain in their collection, and so evidently unproductive, that a reliance on them in future as a source from whence moneys are to be drawn to discharge the engagements of the confederacy would be not less dishonorable to the understandings of those who entertain such confidence than dangerous to the welfare and peace of the union. The committee are, therefore, seriously impressed with the indispensable obligation that congress are under of representing to the immediate and impartial consideration of the several states the utter impossibility of maintaining and preserving the faith of the federal government by temporary requisitions on the states, and the consequent necessity of an early and complete accession of all the states to the revenue system of the eighteenth of April 1783." "After the most solemn deliberation, and under the fullest conviction that the public embarrassments are such as above represented, and that they are daily increasing, the committee are of opinion that it has become the duty of congress to declare most explicitly that the crisis has arrived when the people of these United States, by whose will and for whose benefit the federal government was instituted, must decide whether they will support their rank as a nation by maintaining the public faith at home and abroad; or whether, for want of a timely exertion in establishing a general revenue and thereby giving strength to the confederacy, they will hazard not only the existence of the union, but of those great and in

*Journals of Congress, iv., 617.

valuable privileges for which they have so arduously and so honorably contended.” *

Thus congress put itself on trial before the country, and the result of the year was to decide on their competency to be the guardians of the union and the upholders of its good faith. They must either exercise negation of self and invite the states to call a general convention, or they must themselves present to the country for its approval an amended constitution, or they must find out how to make their own powers under the confederation work efficiently. Should they fail in all the three, they will have given an irreversible verdict against themselves. The course of events relating to the welfare of the whole was watched by the country more carefully than ever before. Far and wide a general convention was become the subject of thought; and "a plan for it was forming, though it was as yet immature." +

New Jersey, which had all along vainly sought the protection of the general government against the taxation of her people by a local duty levied on all their importations from abroad for their own consumption through the port of New York, at last kindled with a sense of her wrongs, and in a resentful mood, on the twentieth of October voted by a very large majority that she would pay no part of the last requisition of congress until all the states should have accepted the measure of an impost for the benefit of the general treasury. Alarmed at this movement, congress deputed Charles Pinckney, Gorham, and Grayson to represent to the legislature of New Jersey the fatal consequences that must inevitably result to that state and to the union from their refusal to comply with the requisition of the last congress. Grayson looked upon their vote as little else than a declaration of independence. Again Pinckney of South Carolina took the lead, and, in an address to the New Jersey legislature of the thirteenth of March, this was part of his language: "When these states united, convinced of the inability of each to support a separate system and that their protection and existence depended on their union, policy as well as prudence dictated the necessity of forming one general and efficient * Journals of Congress, iv., 619, 620. Jay to Washington, 16 March 1786.

government, which, while it protected and secured the whole, left to the several states those rights of internal sovereignty which it was not necessary to delegate and which could be exercised without injury to the federal authority. If New Jersey conceives herself oppressed under the present confederation, let her, through her delegates in congress, state to them the oppression she complains of, and urge the calling of a general convention of the states for the purpose of increasing the powers of the federal government and rendering it more adequate for the ends for which it was instituted; in this constitutional mode of application there can be no doubt of her meeting with all the support and attention she can wish. I have long been of opinion that it is the only true and radical remedy for our public defects, and shall with pleasure assent to and support any measure of that kind which may be introduced while I continue a member of that body." "*

Pleased with the idea of a general convention, New Jersey recalled its vote, accepted within a week the invitation of Virginia to a convention at Annapolis, elected its commissioners, and empowered them "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations and OTHER IMPORTANT MATTERS might be necessary to the common interest and permanent harmony of the several states; and to report such an act on the subject as, when ratified by them, would enable the United States in congress assembled effectually to provide for the exigencies of the union.” †

"If it should be determined that the reform of the confederation is to be made by a convention," so wrote Monroe at this time to Madison, "the powers of the Virginia commissioners who are to go to Annapolis are inadequate." Explaining

why more extended powers had not been given, Madison answered: “The assembly would have revolted against a plenipotentiary commission to their deputies for the convention; the option lay between doing what was done and doing nothing." #

* Carey's Museum, ii., 155. Otto to Vergennes, 17 March 1786. Report of Bertholff, the Austrian agent. + Elliot, i., 117, 118. This letter from Monroe, of a date previous to 19 March 1786, is missing. Its contents are known only from the citation of it by Madison. #Madison to Monroe, 19 March 1786. Madison, i., 228, 229.

"There have been serious thoughts in the minds of members of congress," wrote Grayson to Madison, "to recommend to the states the meeting of a general convention to consider of an alteration of the confederation, and there is a motion to that effect under consideration. I have not made up my mind whether it is not 'better to bear the ills we have than fly to others we know not of.' I am, however, in no doubt about the weakness of the federal government. If it remains much longer in its present state of imbecility, we shall be one of the most contemptible nations on the face of the earth." *

The subject lingered in congress till the third of May. Then South Carolina for a third time raised her voice, and Charles Pinckney moved that a grand committee be appointed on the affairs of the nation. "It is necessary," he said, "to inform the states of our condition. Congress must be invested with greater powers, or the federal government must fall. It is, therefore, necessary for congress either to appoint a convention for that purpose, or by requisition to call on the states for such powers as are necessary to enable it to administer the federal government." Among some of the defects in the confederation which he enumerated were, the want of powers for regulating commerce, for raising troops, and for executing those powers that were given. Monroe replied: “Congress has full power to raise troops, and has a right to compel compliance with every requisition which does not go beyond the powers with which it is invested by the confederation. All the states but New York have invested congress with commercial powers, and New York is at this time framing an act on the subject. I, therefore, see no occasion for a convention." The discussion was continued at great length, and the matter referred to a committee of the whole.+ But the discussion brought congress no nearer to the recommendation of a general convention; its self-love refused to surrender any of its functions, least of all on the ground of its own incapacity to discharge them.

Should congress then of itself lay a revision of the articles of confederation before the states for their acceptance? Here * Grayson to Madison, 22 March 1788. Thomas Rodney's Journal.

Grayson, surveying his colleagues with a discerning eye, at once convinced himself that congress could never agree on amendments, even among themselves.* For himself, he held it essential that the general government should have power to regulate commerce; to prohibit the states from issuing paper money; to prohibit the slave-trade; to fix the site of the government in the centre of the union, that is to say, near Georgetown; and to change the method of voting by states to a vote according to population. Of effecting these reforms he had no hope. He was sure if the question of commerce should be settled, Massachusetts would be satisfied and refuse to go further. "Pinckney, the champion of powers over commerce," he said, "will be astounded when he meets with a proposition to prevent the states from importing any more of the seed of Cain." New York and Pennsylvania would feel themselves aggrieved if, by a national compact, the sessions of congress should always be held in the centre of the empire. Neither Maryland, nor Rhode Island, nor New Jersey, would like to surrender its equal vote for one proportioned to its real importance in the Union. Grayson, therefore, did not "think it would be for the advantage of the union that the convention at Annapolis should produce anything decisive," since it was restricted in its scope to commerce, and the question which he proposed to Madison was: "The state of Virginia having gone thus far, had she not better go further and propose to the other states to augment the powers of the delegates so as to comprehend all the grievances of the union?"†

But Pinckney of South Carolina was not daunted. Failing to secure the vote of congress for a general convention, he next obtained the appointment of a grand committee "to report such amendments to the confederation as it may be necessary to recommend to the several states for the purpose of obtaining from them such powers as will render the federal government adequate to the ends for which it was instituted." Congress, in a committee of the whole, devoted seven days of July and six of August to the solution of the great question, and before the end of August the report, which was made by a sub-committee consisting of Pinckney, Dane, and Johnson, *Grayson to Madison, 28 May 1786. † Ibid.