Bowdoin gave the necessary impulse, and suggested the appointment of special delegates from the States to settle and define the powers with which Congress ought to be invested.1

This message caused the adoption of the first resolution, passed by the legislature of any State, declaring the Articles of Confederation to be inadequate to the great purposes which they were originally designed to effect, and recommending a convention of delegates from all the States, for the purpose of revising them, and reporting to Congress how far it might be necessary to alter or enlarge the powers of

to be necessary to cancel the debt, principal and interest, in fifteen years, and pay the ordinary charges of the government. Besides this, the State's proportion of the federal debt was to be provided for. It was in this state of things that two remarkable popular meetings were held in Boston, in the spring of 1785, to act upon the subject of trade and navigation, and to call the attention of Congress to the necessity for a national regulation of commerce. The first was a meeting of the merchants and tradesmen, convened at Faneuil Hall on the 18th of April. They appointed a committee to draft a petition to Congress, representing the embarrassments under which the trade was laboring, and took measures to cause the legislature to call the attention of the delegation in Congress to the importance of immediate action upon the subject. They also established a committee of corre

spondence with the merchants in the other seaports of the United States, to induce a similar action; and they entered into a pledge not to purchase any goods of the British merchants and factors residing in Boston, who had made very heavy importations, which tended to drain the specie of the State. The other meeting was an assembly of the artisans and mechanics, held at the Green Dragon Tavern, on the 28th of April, at which similar resolutions were adopted. It is quite apparent, from these proceedings, that all branches of industry were threatened with ruin; and in the efforts to counteract the effects of the great influx of foreign commodities, we trace the first movements of a popular nature towards a national control over com

merce.

1 Governor Bowdoin's first Message to the Legislature, May 31 1785.

the Federal Union, in order to secure and perpetuate its primary objects. Congress was requested by these resolves to recommend such a convention. A letter, urging the importance of the subject, was addressed by the Governor of Massachusetts to the President of Congress, and another to the executive of each of the other States. The resolves were also inclosed to the delegates of the State in Congress, with instructions to lay them before that body at the earliest opportunity, and to make every exertion to carry them into effect.1

They were, however, never presented to Congress. That body was wholly unprepared for such a step, and the delegation of Massachusetts were entirely opposed to it, as premature. It had been all along the policy of Congress to obtain only a grant of temporary power over commerce, and to this policy they were committed by their proposition, now pending with the legislatures of the States, and by the instructions of the commissioners whom they had sent to Europe to negotiate commercial treaties. The prevalent idea in Congress was, that at the expiration of fifteen years, -the period for which they had asked the States to grant them power over commerce, a new commercial epoch would commence, when the States would have a more clear and comprehensive view of their interests, and of the best means for promoting them, whether by treaties abroad, or by the delegation and exercise of greater power at home. It was argued,

also, that the most safe and practicable course was, to grant temporary power in the first instance, and to leave the question of its permanent adoption as a part of the Confederation to depend on its beneficial effects. Another objection, which afterwards caused serious difficulty, was, that the Articles of Confederation contained no provision for their amendment by a convention, but that changes should originate in Congress and be confirmed by the State legislatures, and that, if the report of a convention should not be adopted by Congress, great mischiefs would follow.

But a deep-seated jealousy in Congress of the radical changes likely to be made in the system of gov ernment lay at the foundation of these objections. There was an apprehension that the Convention might be composed of persons favorable to an aristocratic system; or that, even if the members were altogether republican in their views, there would be great danger of a report which would propose an entire remodelling of the government. The delega tion from Massachusetts, influenced by these fears, retained the resolutions of the State for two months, and then replied to the Governor's letter, assigning these as their reasons for not complying with the directions given to them.1

1 The delegation at that time consisted of Elbridge Gerry, Samuel Holten, and Rufus King. Their "Reasons assigned for suspending the delivery to Congress of the Governor's letter for revis

The legislature of Mas

ing and altering the Confedera tion may be found in the Life of Hamilton, II. 353. See also Boston Magazine for 1785, p. 475.

sachusetts thereupon annulled their resolutions recommending a Convention.1

It is manifest from this occurrence, that Congress in 1785 were no more in a condition to take the lead and conduct the country to a revision of the Federal Constitution, than they were in 1783, when Hamilton wished to have a declaration made of its defects, and found it impracticable. There were seldom present more than five-and-twenty members; and, at the time when Massachusetts proposed to call upon them to act upon this momentous subject, the whole assembly embraced as little eminent talent as had ever appeared in it. They were not well placed to observe that something more than "the declamation of designing men" was at work, loosening the foundations of the system which they were administering.2 They saw some of its present inconveniences; but they did not see how rapidly it was los

1 November 25, 1785.

2 Letter of Messrs. Gerry, Holten, and King, delegates in Congress, to the Governor of Massachusetts, assigning reasons for suspending the delivery of his letter to Congress, dated September 3, 1785. Life of Hamilton, II. 353, 357.

"We are apprehensive," said they," and it is our duty to declare it, that such a measure would produce throughout the Union an exertion of the friends of an aristocracy to send members who would promote a change of government; and we can form some judgment of the plan which such members would report to

Congress. But should the members be altogether republican, such have been the declamations of designing men against the Confederation generally, against the rotation of members, which, perhaps, is the best check to corruption, and against the mode of altering the Confederation by the unanimous consent of the legislatures, which effectually prevents innovations in the articles by intrigue or surprise, that we think there is great danger of a report which would invest Congress with powers that the honorable legislature have not the most distant intention to delegate."

ing the confidence of the country, of which the following year was destined to deprive it altogether.

Before the year 1785 had closed, however, Virginia was preparing to give the weight of her influence to the advancing cause of reform.

A proposition was introduced into the House of Delegates of Virginia, to instruct the delegates of the State in Congress to move a recommendation to all the States to authorize Congress to collect a revenue by means of duties uniform throughout the United States, for a period of thirteen years.1 The absolute necessity for such a system was generally admitted; but, as in Massachusetts, the opinions of the members were divided between a permanent grant of power and a grant for a limited term. The advocates of the limitation, arguing that the utility of the measure ought to be tested by experiment, contended, that a temporary grant of commercial powers might be and would be renewed from time to time, if experience should prove its efficacy. They forgot that the other powers granted to the Union, on which its whole fabric rested, were perpetual and irrevocable; and that the first sacrifices of sovereignty made by the States had been the result of circumstances which imperatively demanded the surrender, just as the situation of the country now demanded a similar surrender of an The proposal to

irrevocable power over commerce.

make this grant temporary only, was a proposal to engraft an anomaly upon the other powers of the

1 November 30th, 1785.