tion of a state on this side of the water, which, so soon as it should reach a sufficient degree of consolidated strength, would dispute the sovereignty of the British state as unnational and foreign. As first among these conditions and forces, I would place the geographic separation by three thousand miles of sea, equal in this day to at least four times that distance, so far as intercourse is concerned. As geographic unity is one of the most powerful of the centripetal forces in political formation, so geographic separation is one of the most powerful of the centrifugal forces; and while these thirteen colonies were thus so widely separated from the state, which was the source of their institutions, they all lay in a territory of natural unity. The physical conditions were highly favorable to the formation of a sovereignty, a state, upon this territory. Secondly, the ethnical and social conditions were conspiring to the same end. At least threefourths of the population were of English descent, the language was English, the religion was Christian and Protestant, the custom was the common law, the pursuits were agricultural and commercial. A substantial consensus in all that goes to make up ethnical unity prevailed. On the other hand, the ethnical separation from the motherland was not at all so distinct as the geographical. There were, indeed, Dutch, Germans, Swedes, and French inhabiting certain parts of this territory, and it can hardly be doubted that in New York and Pennsylvania these un-English elements were easily imbued with anti-English sentiments. There was also the negro race, making up, at the time of the revolution, about onesixth of the population, and living for the most part south of the Pennsylvania line. It was then, however, a real subject race, exerting no direct influence upon the ethnical development of the dominant race, either through an amalgamation of blood or civilization. The ethnical separation from the motherland was rather more to be seen in the differences of private law and custom than in race. The general proprietor

ship of land and general equality in the domain of private rights were quite substantial distinctions which had been worked out in the new world.

Complete geographical separation and partial ethnical separation from the motherland, together with complete geographical unity, substantial ethnical unity, and almost complete identity of interests among themselves were the forces which conspired, at last, to awaken the consciousness of the people of these thirteen colonies to the fact that they had attained the natural conditions of a sovereignty, a state. The impulse to objectify this consciousness in institutions became irresistible. Its first enduring form was the Continental Congress. This was the first organization of the American state. From the first moment of its existence there was something more upon this side of the Atlantic than thirteen local governments. There was a sovereignty, a state; not in idea simply or upon paper, but in fact and in organization. The revolution was an accomplished fact before the declaration of 1776, and so was independence. The act of the 4th of July was a notification to the world of faits accomplis. A nation and a state did not spring into existence through that declaration, as dramatic publicists are wont to express it. Nations and states do not spring into existence. The significance of the proclamation was this: a people testified thereby the consciousness of the fact that they had become, in the progressive development of history, one whole, separate, and adult nation, and a national state, and that they were determined to defend this natural status against the now no longer natural supremacy of a foreign state. French statesmen had foreseen and predicted this development and result a decade before the stamp act. The American state, organized in the Continental Congress, proclaimed to the world its sovereign existence, and proceeded, through this same organization, to govern itself generally, for the time being, and to authorize the people resident within the separate colonies to make

temporary arrangement for their local government, upon the basis of the widest possible suffrage.

The first paper constitution enacted by the American state was that of November, 1777, called the "Articles of Confederation." The one fatal and disastrous defect of this constitution was that it provided no continuing organization of the state. It created only a central government, and that, too, of the weakest character. When, therefore, the Continental Congress, the revolutionary organization of the American state and its revolutionary central government, gave way, in March of 1781, to the central government created by this constitution, the American state ceased to exist in objective organization. It returned to its subjective condition merely, as idea in the consciousness of the people. From the standpoint of political science what existed now, as objective institutions, was a central government and thirteen local governments. From the standpoint of public law, on the other hand, what existed, as objective institutions, was thirteen states, thirteen local governments, and one central government. This was a perfectly unbearable condition of things in theory, and was bound to become so in fact. The system would not work at all when it was attempted to put it into operation. A maze of contradictions was, of course, revealed at every point; and so soon as the effort was made to correct the defects, it was discovered that the system provided no practically possible way to effect the same, even in the smallest degree. Of course it did not and could not. There was here simply a struggle between the central government and the local governments about the distribution of governmental powers, which could only be settled by the word of the sovereign the state. The state, however, was not organized in the confederate constitution; i.e. it could not legally speak the sovereign command. The statesmen of the day did not know, at first, what was the matter. At length two, more far-seeing than the rest, discovered the root of the

difficulty, viz; that the sovereign, the state, had no legal organization in the system. These two were Bowdoin and Hamilton. It was, in one sense, at least, a disheartening discovery, for it meant revolution or national death. They were not long in making up their minds to the former, of course. Their chief concern was to make the revolution peaceable. The more blunt and straightforward Bowdoin proceeded openly and trustfully. He moved the Massachusetts legislature to instruct the delegates sent by it to the Confederate Congress to offer a resolution in that body providing for the call of a convention of representatives from the whole country, who should initiate a revision of the confederate constitution. Expressed in the language of political science, Bowdoin's idea was to reorganize the American state in the form of a general convention representing the whole people resident within the thirteen commonwealths, with the power to bind the whole by the vote of the majority. Those Massachusetts delegates were, however, so astounded by the revolutionary character of this proposition that they disobeyed their instructions, although they were legally bound to follow them. Manifestly some other method than the direct, and some other machinery than that of the Confederate Congress, must be employed in securing the reorganization of the American state. The more astute and politic Hamilton was better qualified than Bowdoin to seize opportunities and manipulate occasions. In the spring of 1785, the derangement of business relations between the inhabitants of Virginia and Maryland made it necessary that some understanding should be reached by these two commonwealths in regard to the navigation of the waters lying between them. Commissioners representing each were appointed, and held conference upon the subject at Alexandria in March of that year. They soon perceived that the regulation of commercial relations between Virginia and Maryland would avail but little unless all the commonwealths could be prevailed upon to adopt the

same rules. They reported this conclusion to the legislatures of their respective commonwealths. The legislature of Virginia thereupon proposed a commercial convention of all the commonwealths to meet at Annapolis in September of 1786. Hamilton saw in this his opportunity. His plan was formed at once to change this commercial convention into a constitutional convention. He secured the acceptance of the Virginia invitation by the legislature of New York and his own appointment as a delegate.

Upon arriving in Annapolis he found only five commonwealths represented. A coup d'état attempted by so small a body could not but fail. Hamilton changed his plan. He moved the convention to adopt a proposition recommending to the commonwealths the assembling of a constitutional convention. He did not express it exactly in this language. He knew that he was proposing an extra-legal act, i.e. from the juristic standpoint, an illegal act. According to the existing constitutional law, the Confederate Congress alone could originate changes in the constitution, and unanimous approval by the legislatures of the commonwealths could alone make them law. The exact wording of his proposition was for a convention "to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them 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," i.e. to the Confederate Congress, "as, when agreed to by them, and afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every state" (commonwealth), “will effectually provide for the same." 1 This is not at all what happened when the convention was successfully assembled, as we shall see. That Hamilton consciously and deliberately intended this form of words as a cloak to his real purpose, we

1 Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p. 118.