ntial 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." He adds that "it was so little acceptable that it was
not then persisted in."

About the same time the action of the Maryland legislature on the
Potomac question, and the report of the Potomac commissioners, came up
for consideration. Mr. Madison said afterward that, as Maryland thought
the concurrence of Pennsylvania and Delaware were necessary to the
regulation of trade on that river, so those States would, probably,
wish to ask for the concurrence of their neighbors in any proposed
arrangement. "So apt and forcible an illustration," he adds, "of the
necessity of an uniformity throughout all the States could not but favor
the passage of a resolution which proposed a convention having that for
its object."

As one of the Potomac commissioners, he knew, of course, what was coming
from Maryland, and "how apt and forcible an illustration" it would seem,
when it did come, of that resolution which he had written and had
induced Mr. Tyler to offer. It did not matter that the resolution had
been at the moment "so little acceptable," and therefore "not then
persisted in." It was where it was sure, in the political slang of our
day, to do the most good. And so it came about. All that Maryland had
proposed, growing out of the consideration of the Potomac question, the
Virginia legislature acceded to. Then, on the last day of the session,
the Madison-Tyler resolution was taken from the table, where it had lain
quietly for nearly two months, and passed. If some, who had been
contending all winter against any action which should lead to a
possibility of strengthening the federal government, failed to see how
important a step they had taken to that very end; if any, who were
fearful of federal usurpation and tenacious of state rights, were blind
to the fact that the resolution had pushed aside the Potomac question
and put the Union question in its place, Mr. Madison, we may be sure,
was not one of that number. He had gained that for which he had been
striving for years.

The commissioners appointed by the resolution soon came together. They
appointed Annapolis as the place, and the second Monday of the following
September (1786) as the time, of the proposed national convention; and
they sent to all the other States an invitation to send delegates to
that convention.

On September