Ecclesiastical the United States would enter, it was of the highest importance that their separate folds should be organiza- marked out and governed upon definite principles. tions. Nothing else was likely to prevent collision among the more zealous, or straying away among the more lukewarm. The American branch of the church of England, deserted by the loyalists, and suspected, if not assailed, by the patriots, had but just survived the revolutionary struggle. It obtained its first bishop, Samuel Seabury, by ordination in Scotland, (1784,) his first associates, White and Provoost, being consecrated in England, (1787.) A convention of several states at New York declared their church the Protestant Episcopal church of the United States, (1784.) The Methodist Episcopal church, strongest in the centre and the south, obtained its first bishop, Thomas Coke, (1784.) Two years afterwards, the first Roman Catholic bishop, John Carroll, was appointed to the see of Baltimore, (1786.) The Presbyterians then formed their synods for the Central and the Southern States, (1788.) In the north, the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists, uniting to a certain degree, continued their ancient institutions. All over the country, ecclesiastical systems were reducing themselves to form and law. Sugges a nation al Constitution. It was time for the nation to profit by the examtions of ples and the principles that have been enumerated, -time for it to guard against the conflicts and the perils that have been described. Alexander Hamilton, as mentioned in a former chapter, conceived the idea of a Convention for forming a national Constitution as early as 1780. Other individuals advocated the same measure, in private or in public. The legislature of New York supported it in 1782. The legislature of Massachusetts supported it in 1785. In the spring of the same year, (1785,) a number of Conven Alexan dria and commissioners from Maryland and Virginia assemtions at bled at Alexandria, for the purpose of regulating the navigation of the Chesapeake and the Potomac. Annapo- They also met at Mount Vernon. James Madison lis. was one of their number, and he suggested the appointment of commissioners with additional powers to act, with the assent of Congress, in organizing a tariff for the two states. This being recommended by the commission at Alexandria, the Virginia legislature enlarged the plan, by appointing commissioners to meet others, not only from Maryland, but from all the states, and "to take into consideration the trade of the United States." Five states were represented in a Convention at Annapolis in the autumn of the following year, (1786.) They were wise enough to see two things: one, that five states could not act for the whole; and the other, that the subject of trade was but a drop in the ocean of difficulties with which the nation was threatened. At the proposal of Alexander Hamilton, one of the commissioners, and the same who had urged the formation of a Constitution six years before, the Convention at Annapolis recommended a national convention at Philadelphia in the ensuing month of May, "to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear necessary to render the Constitution of the federal government adequate to the exigencies of the Union, and to report such an act for that purpose to the United States in Congress assembled, as, when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every state, will effectually provide for the same." Action of The first to act upon this proposal from AnnapoVirginia. lis was the state so often foremost in the cause of the country. Thus spoke Virginia : "The General Assembly of this commonwealth, taking into view the actual situation of the Confederacy, . can no longer doubt that the crisis is arrived at which the good people of America are to decide the solemn question whether they will, by wise and magnanimous efforts, reap the just fruits of that independence which they have so gloriously acquired, and of that union which they have cemented with so much of their common blood, or whether, by giving way to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or to partial and transitory interests, they will renounce the auspicious blessings prepared for them by the revolution. The same noble and extended policy, and the same fraternal and affectionate sentiments which originally determined the citizens of this commonwealth to unite with their brethren of the other states in establishing a federal government, cannot but be felt with equal force now, as motives to lay aside every inferior consideration, and to concur in such further concessions and provisions as may be necessary to secure the great objects for which that government was instituted, and to render the United States as happy in peace as they have been glorious in war." Thereupon the legislature appointed its deputies to join with those of the other states "in devising and discussing all such alterations and provisions as may be necessary to render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Union." The noble example thus set was at once followed Of other by New Jersey, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Delaware. By the time these states declared them states and of Congress. selves, (February, 1787,) Congress, after many doubts as to the propriety of the course, came out with a call of its own. Instead, however, of taking the broad ground on which Virginia set herself, Congress limited its summons to a convention "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." The other states, Rhode Island excepted, went on to appoint their del egates. The credentials of some representations supported the liberal views of Virginia; those of others the narrower purpose of Congress. Only one state, Delaware, laid its representatives under a positive restriction, namely, to maintain the right of the state, the smallest but one in the Union, to an equal vote in any government that might be framed. Opening of the tion. The same hall in which the Declaration of Independence had been adopted, more than eleven years Conven- before, and in which Congress had continued to sit during the greater part of the intervening period, in the State House at Philadelphia, was chosen for the sessions of the Convention. The day fixed for the opening arrived. "Such members as were in town runs the diary of Washington, who had consented, against his inclination, to sit in the Convention "assembled at the State House; but only two states being represented, namely, Virginia and Pennsylvania, agreed to meet to-morrow," (May 14, 1787.) It must have been with anxious thoughts that the few who met found themselves obliged to separate day after day, without being able to make so much as a beginning in the work before them. At length, eleven days after the appointed time, the representatives of seven states a bare majority-assembled and opened the Convention. As a matter of course, George Washington was elected president, (May 25.) * The United States of America never wore a more Aspect. majestic aspect than in the Convention, which gradually filled up with the delegates of every state except Rhode Island. The purpose of the assembly was sufficient to invest it with solemnity. To meet in the design of strengthening instead of enfeebling authority, of forming a *New Hampshire was not represented till July 23. government which should enable the nation to fulfil, instead of eluding its obligations alike to the citizen and the stranger, - to meet with these intentions was to do what the world had never witnessed. It is scarcely necessary to say that lower motives entered in; that the interests of classes and of sections, the prejudices of narrow politicians and of selfish men, obtruded themselves with ominous strength. Many of the members were altogether unequal to the national duties of the Convention. But they were surrounded by others of a nobler mould-by the venerable Franklin, lately returned from his French mission, the representative of the later colonial days; by various members of the Stamp Act Congress, of the Congress that declared independence, and of the subsequent Congresses before and during the Confederation; by several representatives of the younger class of patriots, notably by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, who had been conspicuous in the movements preliminary to the Convention; and by many more whose names do not depend upon a volume like the present for reverential recollection. Plans of The rules of the Convention ordered secrecy of a consti- debate and the right of each state to an equal vote. tution. Governor Randolph, of Virginia, then opened the deliberations upon a constitution by offering a series of resolutions proposing a national legislature of two branches, a national executive, and a national judiciary of supreme and inferior tribunals. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina, offered a sketch of government, based on the same principles as Randolph's, but developed with greater detail. Both the plans were referred to a committee of the whole; but Randolph's, or the Virginia plan, as it was rightly called, engrossed the debate. At the end of a fortnight the committee reported in favor of the Virginia system. Things had not gone so far without opposition, to the ele |