at
their doors. Bad roads kept them isolated and want of intercourse bred
much ignorance and prejudice in even honest men. Were the recorded
grievances of these inland groups brought together, they would show a
surprising agreement.

Set over against this interior population with predominant agrarian
interests were those classes, urban for the most part, whose income was
derived from personal rather than real property. Even at this time a
capitalist class of no mean proportions existed. No inconsiderable part
of this personalty was invested in shipping and manufacturing. A part,
not easily determined, was tied up in Western lands, which appealed
strongly to the speculative instincts of the American. The amount of
money at interest was also considerable in States like Massachusetts. As
creditors of the debt-burdened farmers these classes were everywhere on
the defensive. To this group should be added the holders of public
securities, both state and continental, who could not have remained
uninterested witnesses of the demise of the Confederation.

The logic of events was drawing these holders of personal property
together. Capitalists with idle money found the avenues to profitable
investment closed by the inability of Congress to offer protection to
either manufacturing or shipping; creditors with money at interest
witnessed with alarm the inability or unwillingness of state
legislatures to resist attacks upon private contracts and public
credit; holders of public securities shared the general contempt for a
Government, which, so far from providing for the ultimate redemption of
its obligations, could not even pay interest on its debts; speculators
in lands despaired of a rise in values so long as the Government could
not defend its borders and protect its frontier population. The desire
of all these classes, from Boston to Charleston, was for a Government
which would govern.

Under these circumstances the idea of a special convention to revise the
Articles of Confederation grew in favor. Some of the States, notably
Delaware, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, had employed constituent
conventions to draft new frames of government. The legislature of New
York had in 1782 proposed a convention to revise the Articles of
Confederation. At the suggestion of Governor Bowdoin, the General Court
of Massachusetts had resolved in 1785 in favor of such a convention; but
the delegates in Congress, for reasons best known to themse