In the making of the government under which we live, these five names—Washington, Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, and Marshall—stand before all others. I mention them here chronologically, in the order of the times at which their influence was felt at its maximum.
During these troubled years Congress was busy with plans for organizing this territory, which at length resulted in the famous Ordinance of 1787 laying down fundamental laws for the government of what has since developed into the five great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
An amendment to the Articles of Confederation had been proposed, giving Congress the power of levying customs-duties and appointing the collectors. By the summer of 1786 all the states except New York had consented to this. But in order to amend the articles, unanimous consent was necessary, and in February, 1787, New York's refusal defeated the amendment. Congress was thus left without any immediate means of raising a revenue, and it became quite clear that something must be done without delay.
In the old confederation, starting with the Continental Congress in 1774, the government was all vested in a single body which represented states, but did not represent individual persons. It was for that reason that it was called a congress rather than a parliament. It was more like a congress of European states than the legislative body of a nation, such as the English parliament was. It had no executive and no judiciary. It could not tax, and it could not enforce its decrees.
The famous Federal Convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and The Federal Convention at Philadelphia, May-Sept., 1787. remained in session four months, with Washington presiding. Its work was the framing of the government under which we are now living, and in which the evils of the old confederation have been avoided. The trouble had all the while been how to get the whole American people represented in some body that could thus rightfully tax the whole American people. This was the
Perhaps the only thing that kept the Union from falling to pieces in 1786 was the Northwestern Territory, which George Rogers Clark had conquered in 1779, and which skilful diplomacy had enabled us to keep The northwestern territory; the first national domain, 1780-87. when the treaty was drawn up in 1782. Virginia claimed this territory and actually held it, but New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut also had claims upon it. It was the idea of Maryland that such a vast region ought not to be added to any one state, or divided between two or three of the states, but ought to be the common property of the Union. Maryland had refused to ratify the Articles of Confederation until the four states that claimed the northwestern territory should yield their claims to the United States.
Such laws were passed by New York to interfere with the trade of Connecticut, and the merchants of the latter state began to hold meetings and pass resolutions forbidding all trade whatever with New York.
