Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v5.djvu/140

114 influential member,—who, having never served in Congress, had more the ear of the house than those whose services there exposed them to an imputable bias,—was so little acceptable, that it was not then persisted in. Being now revived by him, on the last day of the session, and being the alternative of adjourning without any effort for the crisis in the affairs of the Union, it obtained a general vote; less, however, with some of its friends, from a confidence in the success of the experiment, than from a hope that it might prove a step to a more comprehensive and adequate provision for the wants of the Confederacy.$69$

It happened, also, that commissioners, appointed by Virginia and Maryland to settle the jurisdiction on waters dividing the two states, had, apart from their official reports, recommended a uniformity in the regulations of the two states on several subjects, and particularly on those having relation to foreign trade. It appeared, at the same time, that Maryland had deemed a concurrence of her neighbors, Delaware and Pennsylvania, indispensable in such a case, who, for like reasons, would require that of their neighbors. So apt and forcible an illustration of the necessity of a uniformity throughout all the states could not but favor the passage of a resolution which proposed a convention having that for its object.

The commissioners appointed by the legislature, and who attended the convention, were Edmund Randolph, the attorney of the state, St. George Tucker, and James Madison. The designation of the time and place, to be proposed for its meeting and communicated to the states, having been left to the commissioners, they named, for the time the first Monday in September, and for the place the city of Annapolis, avoiding the residence of Congress, and large commercial cities, as liable to suspicions of an extraneous influence.

Although the invited meeting appeared to be generally favored, five states only assembled; some failing to make appointments, and some of the individuals appointed not hastening their attendance: the result in both cases being ascribed mainly to a belief that the time had not arrived for such a political reform as might be expected from a further experience of its necessity.

But, in the interval between the proposal of the convention and the time of its meeting, such had been the advance of public opinion in the desired direction, stimulated as it had been by the effect of the contemplated object of the meeting, in turning the general attention to the critical state of things, and in calling forth the sentiments and exertions of the most enlightened and influential patriots, that the convention, thin as it was, did not scruple to decline the limited task assigned to it, and to recommend to the states a convention with powers adequate to the occasion. Nor had it been unnoticed that the commission of the New Jersey deputation had extended its object to a general provision for the exigencies of the Union. A recommendation for this enlarged purpose was accordingly reported by a committee to whom the subject had been referred. [See Vol. I,