d any influence in
bringing about the Constitutional Convention of 1787, it was only
because Mr. Madison, having suggested the first practical step in the
one case, seized an opportune moment in that negotiation to suggest a
similar practical step in the other case. As it is so often said that
the Annapolis Convention of 1786 was the direct result of the discussion
of the Potomac question, it is worth while to explain what they really
had to do with each other.

The Virginia commissioners were appointed early in the session on Mr.
Madison's motion. Maryland moved more slowly, and it was not till the
spring of 1785 that the commissioners met. They soon found that any
efficient jurisdiction over the Potomac involved more interests than
they, or those who appointed them, had considered. Existing difficulties
might be disposed of by agreeing upon uniform duties in the two States,
and this the commissioners recommended. But when the subject came before
the Maryland legislature it took a wider range.

The Potomac Company, of which Washington was president, had been
chartered only a few months before. The work it proposed to do was to
make the upper Potomac navigable, and to connect it by a good road with
the Ohio River. This was to encourage the settlement of Western lands.
Another company was chartered about the same time to connect the Potomac
and Delaware by a canal, where interstate traffic would be more
immediate. Pennsylvania and Delaware must necessarily have a deep
interest in both these projects, and the Maryland legislature proposed
that those States be invited to appoint commissioners to act with those
whom Maryland and Virginia had already appointed to settle the conflict
between them upon the question of jurisdiction on the Potomac. Then it
occurred to somebody: if four States can confer, why should not
thirteen? The Maryland legislature thereupon suggested that all the
States be invited to send delegates to a convention to take up the whole
question of American commerce.

While this was going on in Maryland, the Virginia legislature was
considering petitions from the principal ports of the State praying that
some remedy might be devised for the commercial evils from which they
were all suffering. The port bill had manifestly proved a failure. It
was only a few weeks before that Madison had complained, in a letter to
a friend, that "the trade of the country is in a most deplorable
condition;" that the most "sh