behson's memoir.'notes.                        135
flue J with whose concurrent agency in her legislature, she could " raise armies, maintain navies, regulate commerce and navigation, lay and collect duties on imports and exports, and tonnage on vessels, naturalise foreigners, coin monies," and assert and vindicate her rights as to her boundaries, and which she actually did, as to her northern boundaries. Except the last, however, all the rights or powers here enumerated, the indicia of sovereignty, she has; equally with the State of New York and every other State in the Union, delegated or ceded to the general sovereignty of the United States, and is now perhaps more to be likened to a corporation with certain powers, none more plenary than that of life and death for breaches of her own internal peace ; and is no otherwise independent, than as she holds such powers independent of the general sovereignty, but still, in a sense) at the will of the legislatures or conventions of three-fourths of the States."
NoteSuppletory to the above.
' The legislature of Virginia, February, 1786, proposed to the States a Convert tion of Commissioners, to meet at Annapolis, in Maryland, in September, " to consider how far an uniform system, in their commercial intercourse and regula* tions, might be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony ; and to report an act relative to this great object, which, when ratified, would enable the United States hi Congress assembled, effectually to provide for the same." The measure being approved, the legislature of this State appointed their Commissioners, Messrs. Duane,Gansevoort, R. C. Livingston, Hamilton, and me. Mr. Gansevoort wholly declined the appointment; and, when the time for the Convention to assemble approached, Mr. Duane gave notice to his colleagues of indisposition, and Mr. Livingston of a probable detention by business for some days, at least. I was attorney-general, and, at the time, in Albany, attending the Supreme Court, and it became doubtful whether the public business would not detain me. A casual conversation between the late Mr. Justice Hobart and me, the intended Convention the subject, terminated in a conclusion that the present opportunity for obtaining a Convention to revise the whole of our mode or system of general government, by confederation or league, ought not to be suffered to pass ; that I should consign over the business of the court to some friend to conduct it for me j proceed to New York, and communicate to Mr. Hamilton what had passed between us; which I did, and he instantly concurring, we set out for Annapolis, where we found Commissioners from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia. Here the same being substantially repeated, and there being the like instantaneous concurrence, a committee was appointed to prepare an address to the States, which was reported and agreed to ; the whole in the course of not exceeding three or four days, and we separated. The draft was by Mr. Hamilton, although not formally one of the committee. It is to be found printed in Carey's American Museum for April, 1787 j and concludes " with a suggestion by the Commissioners, with the most respectful deference, of their Bincere conviction, that it might essentially tend to advance the interest of the Union, if the States, by whom they had been respectively delegated, would concur themselves, and use endeavors to procure the concurrence of the other States, in the appointment of Commissioners to meet at Philadelphia, on the second Monday in May, to take into consideration the situation of the United States, and to devise such farther provisions as should appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Is this entitled to be viewed as the origin of the present Constitution 1
No. VII.Page 96.
We have Milton for it, that Sir He was expressly " formed for contemplation and valour:" has not Lady She, as often as she has chosen it, shown herself with her " softness and grace," as potently endowed 1