claimed the loyalty of the colonists; and one evil feature of the Revolution was that the spirit of loyalty disappeared for a time from American politics.  There were, without doubt, many individual cases of loyalty to “Continental interests”; but the mass of the people had merely unlearned their loyalty to the Crown, and had learned no other loyalty to take its place.  Their nominal allegiance to the individual colony was weakened by their underlying consciousness that they really were a part of a greater nation; their national allegiance had never been claimed by any power.

The weakness of the confederation was apparent even before its complete ratification.  The Articles of Confederation were proposed by the Continental Congress, Nov. 15, 1777.  They were ratified by eleven States during the year 1778, and Delaware ratified in 1779.  Maryland 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.