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, "this second attempt to convene the states for the purposes proposed by the report of the partial representation at Annapolis in September, should also prove abortive, it may be considered as unequivocal evidence that the states are not likely to agree on any general measure which is to pervade the union, and of course, that there is an end of the federal government. The states which make this last dying essay to avoid this misfortune would be mortified at the issue, and their deputies would return home chagrined at their ill success and disappointment. This would be a disagreeable circumstance to any one of them, but more particularly to a person in my situation." His letters of consultation therefore, with a few confidential friends, also requested information respecting those points on which his own judgment might ultimately be formed. He was particularly desirous of knowing how the proposition made by Virginia was received in the other states, and what measures were taken to contravene, or to give it effect. He inquired too with the utmost solicitude how the members of the Cincinnati would receive his appearance in convention, after declining to be rechosen the president of that society. The enlightened friends of the union and of republican government, generally regarded the convention as a measure which afforded the best chance for preserving liberty and internal peace. And those whose hopes predominated over their fears, were anxious to increase the probability of deriving from it every practicable good, by retaining on the list of its members, the most conspicuous name of which America could boast. But this opinion was not universal. Among those who felt the importance of the crisis, and who earnestly wished that a free government, competent to the preservation of the union, might be established, there were some who despaired of a favourable issue to the attempt, and who were therefore anxious to rescue their general from the increased mortification which would attend its failure, should he be personally engaged in it. They believed that all the states would not be represented in the convention. In a letter of the 20th of January, 1787, Colonel Humphries, who was himself under this impression, thus accounts for the omission of the federal men in the assembly of Connecticut, to press the appointment of deputies. "The reason," he said, "was a conviction that the persons who could be elected were some of the be
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