It was a wild journey to take in those days. Washington traveled nearly seven hundred miles on horseback, and had to carry camping conveniences and many of his supplies on pack-horses. He had especially in mind to see if there might be a way of connecting by a canal the water system of Virginia with the Western rivers. After he came back, he wrote a long letter to the Governor of Virginia, in which he gave the result of his observation and reflection. He was not merely considering how a profitable enterprise could be undertaken, but he was thinking how necessary it was to bind the Western country to the Eastern in order to strengthen the Union. Many people had crossed the mountains and were scattered in the Mississippi Valley. They found the Mississippi River a stream easy to sail down, but the Spaniards held the mouth of the river, and if the latter chose to make friends with those Western settlers, they might easily estrange them from the Eastern States. Besides this, Great Britain was reaching down toward this last territory from Canada. In every way, it seemed to him of importance that good roads and good water communication should bind the East and the West together. He thought Virginia was the State to do this. It extended then far to the westward, and it had great rivers flowing to the sea. It was the most important State in the country, and it was very natural that Washington should look to it to carry out his grand ideas; for the separate States had the power at that time—Congress was unable to do anything. It is interesting to see how Washington, who thought he could go back to Mount Vernon and be a planter, was unable to keep his mind from working upon a great plan which intended the advantage of a vast number of people. He was made to care for great things, and he cared for them naturally.
Chapter XXIII.
CALLED TO THE HELM.
While Washington was busy planting trees at Mount Vernon and making excursions to see his Western lands, the country was like a vessel which had no captain or pilot, drifting into danger. During the War for Independence, one of the greatest difficulties which Washington had to overcome was the unwillingness of the several States to act together as one nation. They called themselves the United States of America, but they were very loosely united. Congress was the only body that held them together, and Congress had no power to make the States do what they did not care to do. So long as they all were fighting for independence, they managed to hold together; but as soon as the war was over and the States were recognized as independent, it was very hard to get them to do anything as one nation. Every State was looking out for itself, and afraid that the others might gain some advantage over it.
This could not go on forever. They must be either wholly independent of one another or more closely united. The difficulty was more apparent where two States were neighbors. Virginia and Massachusetts might manage to live apart, though in that case troubles would be sure to arise, but how could Virginia and Maryland maintain their individual independence? The Chesapeake and Potomac seemed to belong to one as much as to the other; and when foreign vessels came up the stream, was each State to have its own rules and regulations? No. They must treat strangers at any rate in some way that would not make each the enemy of the other.
These two States felt this so strongly that they appointed a commission to consider what could be done. Washington was a member of the commission, and asked all the gentlemen to his house. They not only discussed the special subject committed to them, but they looked at the whole matter of the regulation of commerce in a broad way, and agreed to propose to the two States to appoint other commissioners, who should advise with Congress and ask all the States of the Union to send delegates to a meeting where they could arrange some system by which all the States should act alike in their treatment of foreign nations and of each other.
That was exactly what Congress ought to have been able to do, but could not, because nobody paid any attention to it. Nor did this meeting, which was called at Annapolis in September, 1786, accomplish very much. Only five States sent delegates, and these delegates were so carefully instructed not to do much, that it was impossible for the convention to settle affairs. Still, it was a step forward. It was very clear to the delegates that a general convention of all the States was necessary, and so they advised another meeting at which all the thirteen States should be represented, and the whole subject of the better union of the States should be considered.
This meeting, which was the great Constitutional Convention of 1787, was held in Philadelphia, and to it Virginia sent George Washington as one of her delegates. He was heart and soul in favor of the movement. It was what he had been urging on all his correspondents for a long time. He was at first reluctant to go back into public life after having so completely retired; but as soon as he saw that it was his duty to accept the appointment, he set to work to qualify himself for taking part in the deliberations of the convention. Probably no one in America understood better than he the character of Americans and the special dangers through which the country was passing; but several, no doubt, were better informed about the practical working of government and about the history of other confederations. He had never been very much of a reader of books, but he had been a member for many years of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and so knew how government was carried on on a small scale, and now he began to read diligently and to compare accounts of ancient and modern political unions. He made abstracts of them, and, in fact, went to work as if he were at school, so in earnest was he to learn this important lesson.
On May 9, 1787, Washington set out from Mount Vernon in his carriage for Philadelphia. He was a famous man and could not go to the convention without attracting attention. So, when he reached Chester, in Pennsylvania, he was met by General Mifflin, who was then Speaker of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and by various public men, who escorted him on the way. At the ferry across the Schuylkill, where Gray's Ferry Bridge now is, he was met by a company of light horse, and so entered the city. One of his first errands was to call on Benjamin Franklin, who was President of Pennsylvania, as the governor was then called. No doubt they talked long and earnestly about the work before them, for they were the two most eminent men in the convention.
