NEW YORK INTRODUCTION

of the state legislatures. Such unanimous approval would give the leg-
islature the right to reject any plan that might be detrimental to New
York.
In September 1786 only Hamilton and Benson attended the Annap-
olis Convention, where they met with commissioners from Delaware,
New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. The commissioners quickly
adopted a report, drafted by Hamilton, that acknowledged the poor
attendance at the convention and the diversity of the commissioners'
instructions. Rather than deliberate under these conditions, the com-
missioners called for a general convention of all the states to meet in
Philadelphia the following May to revise the Articles of Confederation.
The Constitutional Convention
On 13 January 1787, Governor Clinton addressed the opening ses-
sion of the legislature meeting in New York City and delivered a copy
of the Annapolis Convention report to the Assembly. Two days later
the Assembly submitted to a committee the Annapolis report and Vir-
ginia's act of 23 November 1786 authorizing the appointment of dele-
gates to a general convention.
On 15 February 1787, the Assembly rejected an unconditional rati-
fication of the congressional impost, thus effectively killing the impost.
(See above.) Then, on 17 February, without any reference to the An-
napolis Convention report, the Hamiltonian forces in the Assembly pro-
posed and the Assembly adopted a resolution instructing the state's
delegates in Congress to move for the calling of a convention "for the
purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." On 20 February,
Philip Schuyler led the Senate in a 10 to 9 vote concurring. The call
for a convention could not have succeeded without support from Clin-
tonians. They supported it to demonstrate that they were not entirely
antifederal; they saw the necessity of strengthening Congress in areas
other than granting it an independent source of income, and they were
confident that they could prevent the ratification of any unacceptable
convention proposal.
Philip Schuyler believed that New York called for a constitutional
convention because several members of Congress had indicated a pref-
erence for the call of a convention to emanate from a state rather than
from the ad hoc Annapolis delegates. An opportunity for such a state
call had arisen in the New York legislature after the defeat of the impost
despite Hamilton's speech of 15 February. Many delegates voted against
the impost because of pressure exerted by the governor. According to
Schuyler, some of these delegates felt "ashamed of their conduct, and

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