e report, adding
the proposition that Delaware and Pennsylvania also should be invited to
enter the system and to send commissioners.

When the commissioners' report, with Maryland's action thereon, came
before the Virginia Legislature, Madison moved, as a substitute for the
mutilated bill which had been tabled previously, that the invitation to
take part in the commission go to all the States. The motion passed by a
large majority.

[1786]

Thus originated the Annapolis Convention of 1786. Nine States appointed
delegates; all but Connecticut, Maryland, and the two Carolinas; but of
the nine only Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York
actually sent them. As the powers granted the commissioners presupposed
a deputation from each of the States, those present, after mature
deliberation, deemed it inadvisable to proceed, drawing up instead an
urgent address to the States to take "speedy measures" for another,
fuller, convention to meet on the second Monday of May, 1787, for the
same purposes as had occasioned this one. Such was the mode in which the
memorable Federal Convention came about. Its seat was Philadelphia.

[1787]

The second Monday of May, 1787, which should have witnessed the opening,
was the 14th, but on that day too few deputies had assembled. So late as
the 25th only nine States were represented. They, however, effected an
organization on the 25th and chose officers. On the 28th eleven States
were present, so that on the next day business began in earnest.
Governor Randolph read and expounded the Virginia plan for a new
government, and Charles Pinckney the South Carolina plan. Both of these
were referred to a committee of the whole to sit next day.

This Virginia plan was substantially the work of Madison, and was the
earliest sketch of the present Constitution of the United States. With
the Pinckney plan, it was worked over, debated, and amended in the
committee of the whole, until June 13th, on which day the committee rose
and reported to the Convention nineteen resolutions based almost wholly
upon the Virginia plan. These were the text for all the subsequent
doings of the Convention.

The so-called New Jersey plan was brought forward on June 15th, the gist
of it being a recurrence to the foolish idea of merely repairing the
Confederation that then was. Its strength, which was slight, consisted
in its accord with the letter of the credentials which the delegates had
brought. It