In the history of the times, it is accordingly found, that the great topic, urged on all occasions, as showing the necessity of a new and different government, was the state of trade and commerce. To benefit and improve these was a great object in itself; and it became greater when it was regarded as the only means of enabling the country to pay the public debt, and to do justice to those who had most effectually labored for its independence. The leading state papers of the time are full of this topic. The New Jersey resolutions[1] complain that the regulation of trade was in the power of the several States, within their separate jurisdiction, to such a degree as to involve many difficulties and embarrassments; and they express an earnest opinion, that the sole and exclusive power of regulating trade with foreign states ought to be in Congress. Mr. Witherspoon's motion in Congress, in 1781, is of the same general character; and the report of a committee of that body, in 1785, is still more emphatic. It declares that Congress ought to possess the sole and exclusive power of regulating trade, as well with foreign nations as between the States.[2] The resolutions of Virginia, in January, 1786, which were the immediate cause of the Convention, put forth this same great object. Indeed, it is the only object stated in those resolutions. There is not another idea in the whole document. The sole purpose for which the delegates assembled at Annapolis was to devise means for the uniform regulation of trade. They found no means but in a general government; and they recommended a convention to accomplish that purpose. Over whatever other interests of the country this government may diffuse its benefits and its blessings, it will always be true, as matter of historical fact, that it had its immediate origin in the necessities of commerce; and for its immediate object, the relief of those necessities, by removing their causes, and by establishing a uniform and steady system. It will be easy to show, by reference to the discussions in the several State conventions, the prevalence of the same general topics; and if any one would look to the proceedings of several of the States, especially to those of Massachusetts and New York, he would see very plainly, by the recorded lists of votes, that wherever this commercial necessity was most strongly felt, there the proposed new Constitution had most friends. In the New York convention, the argument arising from this consideration was strongly pressed, by the distinguished person[3] whose name is connected with the present question. We do not find, in the history of the formation and adoption of the Constitution, that any man speaks of a general concurrent power, in the regulation of foreign and domestic trade, as still residing in the States. The very object intended, more than any other, was to take away such power. If it had not so provided, the Constitution would not have been worth accepting.