ague of friendship," or,
as the name indicates, a mere confederation of the colonies.
The parties to this league were independent political communities,
and by express terms, each State was to retain all rights, sovereignty,
and jurisdiction not expressly delegated to the Confederation. In
a Congress consisting of a single House were vested the powers thus
grudgingly conferred. Its members were to be chosen by the States
as such; upon every question the vote was given by States, each,
regardless of population, having but a single vote. The revenues and
the regulation of foreign commerce were to remain under the control
of the respective States, and no provision was made for borrowing
money for the necessary maintenance of the general Government. In
a word, in so far as a Government at all, it was in the main one
of independent States, and in no sense that with which we are
familiar, a Government of the entire people. Whatever existed
of executive power was in a committee of the Congress; the only
provision for meeting the expenses of the late war and the interest
upon the public debt was by requisition upon the States, with no
shadow of power for its enforcement.

Under the conditions briefly mentioned, with the United States
of America a byword among the nations, the now historic Convention
of 1787 assembled in Philadelphia, in the room where eleven
years earlier had been promulgated the Declaration of Independence.
It consisted of fifty-five members; and without a dissenting voice,
Washington, a delegate from Virginia, was elected its President.
Not the least of his public services was now to be rendered in the
work of safeguarding the fruits of successful revolution by a stable
Government. Chief among the associates with whom he was daily
in earnest, anxious counsel in the great assemblage, were men whose
names live with his in history. If Franklin, Wilson, Sherman,
King, Randolph, Rutledge, Mason, Pinckney, Hamilton, Madison,
and their associates had rendered no public service other than
as builders of the Constitution, that alone would entitle them
to the measureless gratitude of all future generations of their
countrymen.

When they were assembled, the startling fact was at once apparent that,
under the Confederation, with its constituent States at times in
almost open hostility to one another, the country was gradually
drifting into a condition of anarchy.

It is our glory to-day, and will be that of