ssary to
meet the solemn question whether it ought to be supported or
annihilated. Those who embraced the former part of the alternative
must consider the convention as the only remaining experiment from
which the federal government could derive powers sufficiently ample
for its preservation. Those who embraced the latter, who thought that
on a full and dispassionate revision of the system, its continuance
would be adjudged impracticable or unwise, could not hesitate to admit
that their opinion would derive great additional weight from the
sanction of so respectable a body as that which was about to assemble:
and that in such an event, it was greatly desirable, and would afford
some security against civil discord, to put the public in possession
of a plan prepared and digested by such high authority. "I must
candidly confess," he added in a letter to Colonel Humphries, "as we
could not remain quiet more than three or four years in time of peace,
under the constitutions of our own choosing, which were believed in
many states to have been formed with deliberation and wisdom, I see
little prospect either of our agreeing on any other, or that we should
remain long satisfied under it, if we could. Yet I would wish any
thing and every thing essayed to prevent the effusion of blood, and to
avert the humiliating and contemptible figure we are about to make in
the annals of mankind!"

Earnestly as General Washington wished success to the experiment about
to be made, he could not surrender his objections to the step its
friends urged him to take, without the most serious consideration. In
addition to that which grew out of his connexion with the Cincinnati,
and to the reluctance with which he could permit himself to be drawn,
on any occasion, into a political station, there were others which
could not be disregarded. A convention, not originating in a
recommendation of congress, was deemed by many an illegitimate
meeting; and as the New England states had neglected the invitation to
appear by their representatives at Annapolis, there was reason to
apprehend they might be equally inattentive to the request now made
them to assemble at Philadelphia. To appear in a public character, for
a purpose not generally deemed of the utmost importance, would not
only be unpleasant to himself, but might diminish his capacity to be
useful on occasions which subsequent events might produce. "If," said
he in a private letter to a military friend