We have already spoken of the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. They are, at length, as follows:

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND PERPETUAL UNION BETWEEN THE STATES.

To all to whom these presents shall come, we, the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our names, send greeting: Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, did, on the fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord 1777, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America, agree to certain Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, in the words following, viz. :

Ara De Spe if dis Cadt deracy stall be, “* The United Sares of Amrez

Air 2 Sad Suce mains is serity, freedom, and inde pedience, and every power pirsteaua, and right which is not by 25 Cleiskers a angers" inegized a the United States in Con

Aar 1. The sul Saces league of friendship win net sevanity of their lares al binding themselves 2 1st each other against all force offered to er attacks made upon then, or my of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trale, or any other pretense whateveT.

enter into a firm cher, fie their scazon defense, the zer mural and general welfare,

Akr. IV. The better to secare and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States- paupers, vagabouds, and fagitives from justice, excepted — shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States; and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other State, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively; provided that such restriction shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property, imported into any State, to any other State of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties, or restriction shall be laid by any State on the property of the United States, or either of them.

If any person guilty of or charged with treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor, in any State, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the United States, he shall, upon demand of the governor or executive power of the State from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the State having jurisdiction of his offense.

Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these States to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other State.

ART. V. For the more convenient management of the general interest of the United States, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislature of each State shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November in every year, with a power reserved to each State to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead for the remainder of the year.

No State shall be represented in Congress by less than two nor by more than seven members; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the United States, for which he, or another for his benefit, receives any salary, fees, or emolument of any kind.

Each State shall maintain its own delegates in any meeting of the States, and while they act as members of the committee of the States.

In determining questions in the United States in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote.

Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court, or place out of Congress; and the members of Congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests and imprisonments during the time of their going to and from, and attendance on, Congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace.

ART. VI. No State, without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance, or treaty with, any king, prince, or state; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States, or any of them, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state; nor shall the United States in Congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility.

the time suggested in the report, "for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the sev eral State legislatures such alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union."

§ 14. Public opinion was on the rapid march. Many events had transpired, even after the appointment of commissioners to meet at Annapolis, and before that Convention assembled, which matured the popular judgment in favor of the proposition for a general Convention for the purposes set forth in the report.

§ 15. Still other events took place immediately after the Hamilton report was published, which still further demonstrated the necessity of such a Convention as was proposed therein. All were now satisfied that the Union was in extreme danger. No calm, dispassionate observer could ignore it.

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§ 16. "Among the ripening incidents," says a prominent statesman of that day, was the insurrection of Shays in Massachusetts against her government, which was with difficulty suppressed, notwithstanding the influence on the insurgents of an apprehended interposition of the Federal troops."

§ 17. The insurrection above alluded to was led by one Daniel Shays, who was followed by about two thousand insurgents, having for their object the open defiance and resistance of the laws under which the taxes were to be collected and private obligations and contracts to be enforced. It spread over several of the counties of that State; and so formidable was it, that United-States troops were called for to suppress it. But, by vigorous measures on the part of the State, it was overcome. Several of the leaders were condemned to death; but, on account of the popular sentiment in their favor, it was deemed unwise to execute them.

§ 18. The public debt, most of which had been contracted in the sacred cause of liberty in the struggle for independence, remained unpaid. Congress had made repeated calls on the States for payment: but these calls were either partially or wholly unheeded; one State expressly and openly refusing to take any step tending to its

liquidation. The public mind was everywhere filled with gloom and despondency.

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§ 19. In reference to the embarrassments of commerce, Mr. Madison says, The same want of a general power over commerce led to an exercise of the power separately by the States, which not only proved abortive, but engendered rival, conflicting, and angry regulations."

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§ 20. Besides the vain attempt to supply their respective treasuries by imposts, which turned their commerce into the neighboring ports, and to coerce a relaxation of the British monopoly of the WestIndia navigation, which was attempted by Virginia, the States having ports for foreign commerce taxed and irritated the adjoining States, trading through them, as New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. Some of the States, as Connecticut, taxed imports from other States, as Massachusetts; which complained in a letter to the Executive of Virginia, and doubtless to those of other States."

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§ 21. In sundry instances, as of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the navigation interests treated the citizens of other States as aliens."

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§ 22. As a natural consequence of this distracted and disheartening condition of the Union, the Federal authority had ceased to be respected abroad; and dispositions were shown there, particularly in Great Britain, to take advantage of its imbecility, and to speculate on its approaching downfall. At home it had lost all confidence and credit: the unstable and unjust career of the States had also forfeited the respect and confidence essential to order and good government, involving a general decay of confidence between man and man."

§ 23. Under these distracting and depressing influences, the States had become favorable to the call from Annapolis to send delegates to the proposed Philadelphia Convention, which convened at the time appointed. There was by no means a full representation of the States, however; there being present but twenty-nine delegates at the opening. They did not organize, therefore, until