11 commissioners from Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New
Jersey, and New York assembled at Annapolis. Others had been appointed
by North Carolina, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, but
they were not present. Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland, and
Connecticut had taken no action upon the subject. As five States only
were represented, the commissioners "did not conceive it advisable to
proceed on the business of their mission," but they adopted an address,
written by Alexander Hamilton, to be sent to all the States.

All the represented States, the address said, had authorized their
commissioners "to take into consideration the trade and commerce of the
United States; to consider how far an uniform system in their commercial
intercourse and regulations might be necessary to their common interest
and permanent harmony." But New Jersey had gone farther than this; her
delegates were instructed "to consider how far an uniform system in
their commercial regulations _and other important matters_ might be
necessary to the common interest and permanent harmony of the several
States." This, the commissioners present thought, "was an improvement on
the original plan, and will deserve to be incorporated into that of a
future convention." They gave their reasons at length for this opinion,
and, in conclusion, urged that commissioners from all the States be
appointed to meet in convention at Philadelphia on the second Monday of
the following May (1787), "to devise such further provisions as shall
appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the federal
government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

In the course of the winter delegates to this convention were chosen by
the several States. Virginia was the first to choose her delegates;
Madison was among them, and at their head was George Washington.

CHAPTER V

IN THE VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE

That the Annapolis Convention ever met to make smooth the way for the
more important one which came together eight months afterward and framed
a permanent Constitution for the United States was unquestionably due to
the persistence and the political adroitness of Mr. Madison. But it was
not exceptional work. The same diligence and devotion to public duty
mark the whole of this period of three years through which he continued
a member of the state legislature. As chairman of the judiciary
committee he reduced with much labor the old colonial statutes to a