draw up an address to the states, urging them to meet in convention for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. It was characteristic of Alexander Haimilton, the delegate from New York, that, although he was not a member of the committee, the address was written by him.* Address adopt vention. The address, as unanimously adopted by the convention, recommended the states to send delegates to a constitutional convention to be held in ed by the con- Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to take into consideration. the situation of the trade of the United States; to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render 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." † One would like to know the details of the conversations between Hamilton and Madison which doubtless preceded the writing of that address. It The plan of was by no means the first time that they had worked together to secure larger powers for the national government. They had been members of the committee appointed by Congress to Hamilton's Works (Hamilton's Edition), II., 336-9. † Elliott, I., 118. answer the objections of Rhode Island to the five per cent duty asked for in 1781, and also of the committee appointed in 1783 to prepare an address to the states, urging them to accept the revenue scheme recommended by Congress in April of that year. The answer of the first committee had been written by Hamilton; the address of the other, by Madison. Having worked together so often in the cause of good government, it is impossible not to suppose that the address was part of a plan agreed upon between them after careful consideration. It is easy to divine what the plan was. According to the address, the amendments to be proposed to the Articles of Confederation were first to be approved by Congress, and then ratified by the legislature of every individual state. Unless Congress approved, and unless the states ratified, the address implied that the proposed amendments were to fail. But did not both Hamilton and Madison know that the consent of every state could not be obtained to such amendments as the Articles of Confederation imperatively required? As early as 1780 Hamilton had seen not only the necessity of a much stronger government, but the impossibility of getting the states to consent to it. He had urged the calling of a convention with full authority to give adequate powers to Congress without the ratification of its work by the legislatures of the states. The experience of the preceding years had convinced him that such a government as the one he had recommended in 1780 would not do, and had made him feel more strongly than ever that intelligent and wise action could not be expected of the states. Is it possible to suppose that Hamilton imagined that the consent of the legislature of every state could be obtained to such a government as he thought indispensable? The kind of government which Madison advocated in the convention is a proof that though his ideas were less radical than Hamilton's, they were still far in advance of the public opinion of the time. Taking, therefore, all of the circumstances into account, it is hardly possible to doubt that the address was intended by Hamilton and Madison to accomplish objects which probably they did not dare avow even in that little company of twelve men. To have confessed, in so many words, that they aimed, not to revise the Articles of Confederation, but to make a new constitution from the ground up, that they wished to strike a fatal blow at the principle of state sovereignty, would have been to defeat their object at the start. The first move in the game, if it was to be won, was to get a convention of the states. But to have shown their hand at the outset would have made failure inevitable. To state in somewhat vague terms the object of the proposed convention, to declare that its work would be submitted for ratification to each individual state, was a concession to the situation which Hamilton and Madison were absolutely obliged to make. If, by such means, the states could be induced to send delegates to the convention-especially if these delegates should consist of the most eminent men in the country, they were hopeful that the states might be induced to approve its work, even if it was revolutionary in its character. Madison was then a member of the legislature of Virginia. He exerted his influence to have that body take the first step towards making the pro- Virginia takes posed convention a reality. At the head the first step towards the federal convention. of a delegation which contained the governor of the state-Edmund Randolph-George Mason, and Madison himself was placed George Washingtonwho was urged by Madison in repeated letters to accept the appointment,* and who finally consented. So far the Annapolis plan was working well: to get a convention of such eminent men that its authority would enable it to override the Articles of Confederation with comparative impunity. * Madison's Works, I., 255, 263, 267. CHAPTER IV. ON THE VERGE OF ANARCHY. 'HE recommendation of Congress to the states to THE appoint delegates to a convention, of course settled nothing. Whether any convention would have met, and, if so, whether anything would have come of it, if only the causes we have so far considered had been in operation, is mere matter of speculation. But there were other causes, causes which culminated in an event which seems to have changed the mind of such a stubborn states' rights man as Rufus Rufus King argues against the convention. King. In October, 1786, he made a speech before the legislature of Massachusetts in which he urged that body not to send delegates to the proposed convention, declaring that Congress was the proper body to propose alterations in the Confederation. In the following February he wrote a letter to Elbridge Gerry saying that, although he still thought the convention was not legal, he was of the opinion that "we ought not to oppose but to coincide with it." "Events," he said, "are hurrying to a crisis; prudent and sagacious men should be ready to seize the most favorable circumstances to establish a more perfect and vigorous government." What had happened in the preceding three King changes his mind. * Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, I., 146. Ibid., 202. |