yland alone held
out and refused to ratify for two years longer. Her long refusal was due
to her demand for a national control of the Western territory, which
many of the States were trying to appropriate. It was not until there
was positive evidence that the Western territory was to be national
property that Maryland acceded to the articles, and they went into
operation. The interval had given time for study of them, and their
defects were so patent that there was no great expectation among
thinking men of any other result than that which followed. The national
power which the confederation sought to create was an entire nonentity.
There was no executive power, except committees of Congress, and these
had no powers to execute. Congress had practically only the power to
recommend to the States. It had no power to tax, to support armies or
navies, to provide for the interest or payment of the public debt, to
regulate commerce or internal affairs, or to perform any other function
of an efficient national government. It was merely a convenient
instrument of repudiation for the States; Congress was to borrow money
and incur debts, which the States could refuse or neglect to provide
for. Under this system affairs steadily drifted from bad to worse for
some six years after the formal ratification of the articles. There
seemed to be no remedy in the forms of law, for the articles expressly
provided that no alteration was to be made except by the assent of every
State. Congress proposed alterations, such as the temporary grant to
Congress of power to levy duties on imports; but these proposals were
always vetoed by one or more states.

In 1780, in a private letter, Hamilton had suggested a convention of the
States to revise the articles, and as affairs grew worse the proposition
was renewed by others. The first attempt to hold such a convention, on
the call of Virginia, was a failure; but five States sent delegates to
Annapolis, and these wisely contented themselves with recommending
another convention in the following year. Congress was persuaded to
endorse this summons; twelve of the States chose delegates, and the
convention met at Philadelphia, May, 14, 1787. A quorum was obtained,
May 25th, and the deliberations of the convention lasted until Sept.
28th, when the Constitution was reported to Congress.

The difficulties which met the convention were mainly the results of the
division of the States into large and small Stat