erce. This convention was held at
Annapolis in September, 1786, but only five states had sent delegates,
and so the convention adjourned after adopting an address written by
Alexander Hamilton, calling for another convention to meet at
Philadelphia on the second Monday of the following May, "to devise such
further provisions as shall appear necessary to render the constitution
of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union."

The Shays rebellion and the quarrel about the Mississippi river had by
this time alarmed people so that it began to be generally admitted that
the federal government must be in some way strengthened. If there were
any doubt as to this, it was removed by the action of New York. An
amendment to the Articles of Confederation had been proposed, giving
Congress the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the
collectors. By the summer of 1786 all the states except New York had
consented to this. But in order to amend the articles, unanimous consent
was necessary, and in February, 1787, New York's refusal defeated the
amendment. Congress was thus left without any immediate means of raising
a revenue, and it became quite clear that something must be done without
delay.

[Sidenote: The Federal Convention at Philadelphia, May-Sept., 1787.]

The famous Federal Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and
remained in session four months, with Washington presiding. Its work was
the framing of the government under which we are now living, and in
which the evils of the old confederation have been avoided. The trouble
had all the while been how to get the whole American people
_represented_ in some body that could thus rightfully _tax_ the whole
American people. This was the question which the Albany Congress had
tried to settle in 1754, and which the Federal Convention did settle in
1787.

In the old confederation, starting with the Continental Congress in
1774, the government was all vested in a single body which represented
states, but did not represent individual persons. It was for that
reason that it was called a congress rather than a parliament. It was
more like a congress of European states than the legislative body of a
nation, such as the English parliament was. It had no executive and no
judiciary. It could not tax, and it could not enforce its decrees.

[Sidenote: The new government, in which the Revolution was
consummated, 1789.]

The new constitution