In producing this effect, a resolution of congress had also considerable influence. New York had given her final _veto_ to the impost system, and in doing so, had virtually decreed the dissolution of the existing government. The confederation was apparently expiring from mere debility. The last hope of its friends having been destroyed, the vital necessity of some measure which might prevent the separation of the integral parts of which the American empire was composed, became apparent even to those who had been unwilling to perceive it; and congress was restrained from giving its sanction to the proposed convention, only by an apprehension that their taking an interest in the measure would impede rather than promote it. From this embarrassment, the members of that body were relieved by the legislature of New York. A vote of that state, which passed in the senate by a majority of only one voice, instructed its delegation to move in congress, a resolution, recommending to the several states, to appoint deputies to meet in convention, for the purpose of revising and proposing amendments to the federal constitution. On the 21st of February, 1787, the day succeeding the instructions given by New York, the subject, which had been for some time under consideration, was finally acted upon: and it was declared, "in the opinion of congress, to be expedient that, on the second Monday in May next, a convention of delegates, who shall have been appointed by the several states, be held at Philadelphia, for the sole and express purpose of revising the articles of confederation, and reporting to congress and the several legislatures, such alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed to in congress, and confirmed by the states, render the federal constitution adequate to the exigencies of government, and the preservation of the union."