Notwithstanding the provisions for abolishing slavery in the New England states, the merchants and traders of those states resumed the importation of slaves from Africa to the Carolinas and Georgia immediately after the close of the war. North Carolina, however, had denounced the trade as impolitic, and imposed a duty on future importations which furnished an impediment to it, so far as that state was concerned. The confederation which, during the war, under the pressure of the public danger, had answered the purpose, was found to work very badly when peace ensued and the states were no longer stimulated to comply with the requisitions of Congress by immediate necessity. Though the states were all vested with full powers to regulate their domestic affairs, yet there was a large debt contracted in common which it was necessary to provide for, and as the states were forbidden by the Articles of Confederation to make treaties, and Congress had no power to impose taxes or duties on imports or exports, which power rested entirely in the state legislatures, there was a very great derangement of the finances, commerce and business of the country, entailing very ruinous consequences upon all classes and interests. It became, therefore, necessary to provide a remedy for existing evils, and a convention of delegates from the states assembled at Philadelphia in the year 1787, for the purpose of revising the Federal system. This convention was assembled in accordance with the recommendation of a previous one, that had assembled at Annapolis on the invitation of Virginia, but found its powers inadequate. The deliberations of the Philadelphia convention, which were presided over by General Washington, resulted in the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, for recommendation to the states for their ratification, and by the terms of the Constitution, it was provided that it should go into effect when ratified by nine states, as to the states ratifying it.