A High Obligation

G ENERAL George Washington, shortly retired with many honors from the Army of the Revolution, sat on the wide porch of the mansion house gazing over the broad expanse of the Potomac. Far away he could see a schooner coming up the bay. As the ship drew nearer he recognized the vessel as the one which he had sent out the day before with a cargo to England. He learned from the master of the ship that the vessel had been turned back by the Marylanders who wanted a tax on vessel and cargo. The indignation of the General knew no bounds. Similar incidents had happened before when commerce passed over the borders of one colony into another, and many exporters were wondering what was to be done. It is sufficient to point out that the meeting at Annapolis in I786 was called to remedy the situation that had so irritated the General. When the gentlemen gathered in Old Town, the problem appeared much wider than a question of trade. It extended, in fact, to many phases of colonial and intercolonial relations. In the wisdom of the Annapolis group another call was issued for a meeting at Philadelphia in the hope that a wide and permanent basis for the relations of the thirteen states might be provided. The result of the meeting was the Constitution of the United States, the outcome of the deliberations of able, brave, and conscientious men who were trying to meet the economic, social, and political situations confronting them and the states they represented. The Constitution, now almost one hundred and fifty years old, was thus the direct outcome of many intercolonial situations. The trade between the states was badly hampered by colonial laws and regulations, causing difficulties, international threats, and embargoes. When the Constitution was adopted, after a lively debate in every part of the new states, Congress went to work to create uniformity of trade regulations, to provide for a currency and banking system, to levy taxes, and to set up the judicial system provided in the Constitution. Nor have these governmental devices enacted by the early law-makers continued down through the years without many changes, some of them markedly different from the original set-up. Through the years the banking plan of Hamilton was set aside; a period of chaos followed with a national banking system emerging

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