The troubles ended in a call for another convention of which he was, reluctantly, compelled to accept the place of delegate. To serve intelligently he went into a course of study of the history of ancient and modern confederacies, and has left among his papers an abstract of their merits and defects. He must now learn a new trade! He must become a wise and learned statesman. One can easily see the impossibility of long and frequent visits to his mother at Fredericksburg. The man was bound, hand and foot. He longed for repose, and at first rebelled against further public duty. "Having had some part in bringing the ship into port," he said, "and having been fairly discharged, it is not my business to embark again upon a sea of troubles." The country ordered otherwise. There was a quarrel in the family, and a serious one, and the "Father of his Country" must help to settle it. Virginia had done what she could. She was rich and powerful, and the weaker states reckoned themselves at a disadvantage beside her. Virginia was the foremost advocate for equality and union, and was willing to make sacrifices to secure it. She nobly surrendered to the Federal government a great principality. All the country beyond the Ohio, now forming the states of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, belonged to Virginia. Says Esten Cooke: "Her right to it rested upon as firm a basis as the right of any other Commonwealth to its own domain, and if there was any question of the Virginia title by charter, she could assert her right by conquest. The region had been wrested from the British by a Virginian commanding Virginia troops; the people had taken 'The oath of allegiance to the Commonwealth of Virginia,' and her title to the entire territory was indisputable. "These rights she now relinquished, and her action was the result of an enlarged patriotism and devotion to the cause of Union." Thus she aided in the settlement of the questions before the great Convention of 1788, of which Washington was made President. All the great men of the country were present at this convention, and the result was that the Constitution of the United States went into operation, and Washington was elected President by a unanimous vote. In the face of these vital matters _no_ one--certainly not his brave, good, reasonable mother--could blame him that the hours of the days were all too short for the great work he had to do. CHAPTER XII THE PRESIDENT AND HIS LAST VISIT TO HIS MOTHER