[345] See Madison's account of two interviews with Guardoqui, March 13 and 19, 1787. Elliot, V. 98, 100. At the first of these interviews, Guardoqui stated that he had had no conference with Mr. Jay since the previous October, and never expected to confer with him again. [346] April 18, 1787. Madison. Elliot, V. 102. On the next day (April 19) the instructions of Virginia were laid before Congress, but a motion to refer them also to the Secretary was lost, Massachusetts and New York voting against it, and Connecticut being divided. Ibid. When Mr. Jay's report came under consideration, Mr. Gorham of Massachusetts, according to Madison, avowed his opinion, that the shutting of the Mississippi would be advantageous to the Atlantic States, and wished to see it shut. Ibid. 103. [347] Article IX. [348] Madison. Elliot, V. 104, 105. [349] Ibid. [350] September 16, 1788. Secret Journals, IV. 449-454. CHAPTER VI. 1783-1787. DECAY AND FAILURE OF THE CONFEDERATION.--PROGRESS OF OPINION.--STEPS WHICH LED TO THE CONVENTION OF 1787.--INFLUENCE AND EXERTIONS OF HAMILTON.--MEETING OF THE CONVENTION. The prominent defects in the Confederation, which have been described in the previous chapters, and which were so rapidly developed after the treaty of 1783, made it manifest, that a mere league between independent States, with no power of direct legislation, was not a government for a country like this, in a time of peace. They showed, that this compact between the States, without any central arbiter to declare or power to enforce the duties which it involved, could not long continue. It had, indeed, answered the great purpose of forming the Union, by bringing the States into relations with each other, the continuance of which was essential to liberty; since nothing could follow the rupture of those relations but the reëstablishment of European power, or the native despotism which too often succeeds to civil commotion. By creating a corporate body of confederate States, and by enabling them to go into the money-markets of Europe for the means of carrying on and concluding the war, the Confederation had made the idea and the necessity of a Union familiar to the popular mind. But the purposes and objects of the war were far less complex and intricate than the concerns of peace. It was comparatively easy to borrow money. It was another thing to pay it. The federal power, under the Confederation, had little else to do, before the peace, than to administer the concerns of an army in the field, and to attend to the foreign relations of the country, as yet not complicated with questions of commerce. But the vast duties, capable of being discharged by no other power, which came rapidly into existence before the creation of the machinery essential to their performance, exhibited the Confederation in an alarming attitude.