An incident of a different character attested the consciousness of National Unity. The vast outlying territory, unsettled at the beginning of the war, and wrested from the British crown by the common blood and treasure, was claimed as a common property, subject to the disposition of Congress for the general good. One by one, the States yielded their individual claims. The cession of Virginia comprehended all that grand region northwest of the Ohio, fertile and rich beyond imagination, where are now prosperous States rejoicing in the Union. All these cessions were on the condition that the lands should “be disposed of for the common benefit of the United States, and be settled and formed into distinct _republican States_.”[28] Here was a National act, with the promise of republican government, which was the forerunner of the guaranty of a republican government in the National Constitution. The best men, in their longing for national unity, all concurred in the necessity of immediate action to save the country. Foremost in time, as in genius, was Alexander Hamilton, who was prompt to insist that Congress should have “complete sovereignty, except as to that part of internal police which relates to the rights of property and life among individuals and to raising money by internal taxes”; and still further, in words which harmonized with the Declaration of Independence, that “the fabric of the American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people.”[29] In kindred spirit, Schuyler announced “the necessity of _a supreme and coercive power_ in the government of these States.”[30] Hamilton and Schuyler were both of New York, which, with such representatives, took the lead in solemn resolutions, which, after declaring that “the situation of these States is in a peculiar manner critical,” and that “the present system exposes the common cause to a precarious issue,” concluded with a call for “a general convention of the States, specially authorized to revise and amend the Confederation.”[31] The movement ended in the National Convention. Other States followed, and Congress recommended it as “the most probable means of establishing in these States a firm National Government.”[32] Meantime, Noah Webster, whom you know so well as author of the popular Dictionary, in an essay on the situation, published at the time, proposed a new system of government, which should act directly on the individual citizens, and by which Congress should be invested with full powers of legislation within its sphere, and for carrying its laws into effect.[33] But this proposition involved nothing less than a National Government with supreme powers, to which the States should be subordinate. * * * * *