American Eloquence, Volume I | Page 4

longer. Her long refusal was
due to her demand for a national control of the Western territory, which many of the
States were trying to appropriate. It was not until there was positive evidence that the
Western territory was to be national property that Maryland acceded to the articles, and
they went into operation. The interval had given time for study of them, and their defects
were so patent that there was no great expectation among thinking men of any other
result than that which followed. The national power which the confederation sought to
create was an entire nonentity. There was no executive power, except committees of
Congress, and these had no powers to execute. Congress had practically only the power
to recommend to the States. It had no power to tax, to support armies or navies, to
provide for the interest or payment of the public debt, to regulate commerce or internal
affairs, or to perform any other function of an efficient national government. It was
merely a convenient instrument of repudiation for the States; Congress was to borrow
money and incur debts, which the States could refuse or neglect to provide for. Under this
system affairs steadily drifted from bad to worse for some six years after the formal
ratification of the articles. There seemed to be no remedy in the forms of law, for the
articles expressly provided that no alteration was to be made except by the assent of
every State. Congress proposed alterations, such as the temporary grant to Congress of
power to levy duties on imports; but these proposals were always vetoed by one or more
states.
In 1780, in a private letter, Hamilton had suggested a convention of the States to revise
the articles, and as affairs grew worse the proposition was renewed by others. The first
attempt to hold such a convention, on the call of Virginia, was a failure; but five States
sent delegates to Annapolis, and these wisely contented themselves with recommending
another convention in the following year. Congress was persuaded to endorse this
summons; twelve of the States chose delegates, and the convention met at Philadelphia,
May, 14, 1787. A quorum was obtained, May 25th, and the deliberations of the
convention lasted until Sept. 28th, when the Constitution was reported to Congress.
The difficulties which met the convention were mainly the results of the division of the
States into large and small States. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina,
and Georgia, the States which claimed to extend to the Mississippi on the west and
cherished indefinite expectations of future growth, were the "large" States. They desired
to give as much power as possible to the new national government, on condition that the
government should be so framed that they should have control of it. The remaining States
were properly "small" states, and desired to form a government which would leave as
much power as possible to the States. Circumstances worked strongly in favor of a

reasonable result. There never were more than eleven States in the convention. Rhode
Island, a small State, sent no delegates. The New Hampshire delegates did not appear
until the New York delegates (except Hamilton) had lost patience and retired from the
convention. Pennsylvania was usually neutral. The convention was thus composed of five
large, five small, and one neutral State; and almost all its decisions were the outcome of
judicious compromise.
The large States at first proposed a Congress in both of whose Houses the State
representation should be proportional. They would thus have had a clear majority in both
Houses, and, as Congress was to elect the President, and other officers, the government
would thus have been a large State government. When "the little States gained their
point," by forcing through the equal representation of the States in the Senate, the
unsubstantial nature of the "national" pretensions of the large States at once became
apparent. The opposition to the whole scheme centred in the large States, with very
considerable assistance from New York, which was not satisfied with the concessions
which the small States had obtained in the convention. The difficulty of ratification may
be estimated from the final votes in the following State conventions: Massachusetts, 187
to 163; New Hampshire, 57 to 46; Virginia, 89 to 79, and New York, 30 to 27. It should
also be noted that the last two ratifications were only made after the ninth State (New
Hampshire) had ratified, and when it was certain that the Constitution would go into
effect with or with-out the ratification of Virginia or New York. North Carolina did not
ratify until 1789, and Rhode Island not until 1790.
The division between North and South also appeared in the convention. In order to carry
over the Southern States to the support of the final