[Sidenote: The Federal Convention (1787).]
Men were most unwillingly brought to this conclusion, because they were
used to their state assemblies and not afraid of them, but they were
afraid of increasing the powers of any government superior to the states,
lest they should thus create an unmanageable tyranny. They believed that
even anarchy, though a dreadful evil, is not so dreadful as despotism,
and for this view there is much to be said. After no end of trouble a
convention was at length got together at Philadelphia in May, 1787, and
after four months of work with closed doors, it was able to offer to the
country the new Federal Constitution. Both in its character and in
the work which It did, this Federal Convention, over which Washington
presided, and of which Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton were members,
was one of the most remarkable deliberative bodies known to history.
We have seen that the fundamental weakness of the Continental Congress
lay in the fact that it could not tax the people. Hence although it
could for a time exert other high functions of sovereignty, it could
only do so while money was supplied to it from other sources than
taxation; from contributions made by the states in answer to its
"requisitions," from foreign loans, and from a paper currency.
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