It was apparent that the actual government could not exist much longer without additional means.

It was therefore necessary to meet the solemn question whether it ought to be supported or annihilated.

Those who embraced the former part of the alternative must consider the convention as the only remaining experiment from which the federal government could derive powers sufficiently ample for its preservation.

Those who embraced the latter, who thought that on a full and dispassionate revision of the system, its continuance would be adjudged impracticable or unwise, could not hesitate to admit that their opinion would derive great additional weight from the sanction of so respectable a body as that which was about to assemble: and that in such an event, it was greatly desirable, and would afford some security against civil discord, to put the public in possession of a plan prepared and digested by such high authority.

"I must candidly confess," he added in a letter to Colonel Humphries, "as we could not remain quiet more than three or four years in time of peace, under the constitutions of our own choosing, which were believed in many states to have been formed with deliberation and wisdom, I see little prospect either of our agreeing on any other, or that we should remain long satisfied under it, if we could.