an extended amendment of the frame of National Government could correct
the difficulties in the commercial functions and in many other needed
particulars. The thought that the proposed convention, if the
proposition should be generally taken up, would include such a revision
of the Articles of Confederation, served also to soften the blow of
the Annapolis failure.




CHAPTER V

REFORMING THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT



The suggestion, emanating from the unsuccessful gathering at Annapolis,
that a convention of delegates be called from the several States to
meet at Philadelphia the following year to devise means for rendering
the National Government adequate to its task, was supported most
admirably by the condition of the times. The Shays Rebellion in
Massachusetts, its support in the neighbouring States, and the disorder
in Virginia and New Jersey, were moving arguments for immediate action.
Even Washington was forced to admit that the people were at last
sufficiently misled. The National Government, helpless to invade a
sovereign State to suppress domestic insurrection, was compelled to
finesse in taking some steps to mobilise the militia by imagining an
outbreak of Indians in Massachusetts.

Led by the alarming situation, Congress, with unusual dispatch, took