Appendix II
New York Appoints
Delegates to the Constitutional Convention
13 January-18 April 1787
On 13 January 1787 Governor George Clinton addressed the opening ses-
sion of the New York legislature meeting in New York City and transmitted to
both houses several papers, including the report of the Annapolis Convention
of September 1786 and a Virginia act dated 23 November 1786. The Annapolis
Convention report recommended that the states appoint commissioners (or
delegates) to meet in convention in Philadelphia on the second Monday in
May 1787 "to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary
to render the constitution of the Foederal Government adequate to the exi-
gencies of the Union; and to report" these provisions to the Confederation
Congress (CDR, 182-85). The Virginia act, recognizing that a "crisis" was at
hand, authorized the election of delegates to attend the convention in Phila-
delphia for the purpose described in the Annapolis Convention report (CDR,
196-98; and RCS:Va., 540-41).
The Assembly immediately considered the governor's message and accom-
panying documents in the committee of the whole and gave the committee
permission to sit again. On 15 January the Assembly, upon a recommendation
of the committee of the whole, appointed a committee of five to consider and
report on the Annapolis Convention report and the Virginia act. The matter
languished until 15 February, when the Assembly rejected an unconditional
ratification of the Impost of 1783 despite Alexander Hamilton's impassioned
speech favoring ratification. (See the section entitled "The Impost of 1783"
in the "Introduction" [above].) On 17 February William Malcolm of New York
County, "agreeable to the notice he had given" the previous day to the Assem-
bly, introduced a motion authorizing the appointment of a committee to draft
instructions to New York's congressional delegation to call for a convention to
revise the Articles of Confederation and to report such alterations and amend-
ments to Congress and to the states. After some debate, this motion, was
amended and adopted. As amended, the motion provided for actual instructions
to the state's congressional delegation. According to Senator Philip Schuyler of
Albany County, the resolution was "violently opposed by the -s [i.e., the
governor's] friends," but some felt compelled to support the resolution to dem-
onstrate that they were not entirely antifederal (to Henry Van Schaack, 13
March, below).
The resolution was sent to the Senate, where Abraham Yates, Jr., of Albany
County led the opposition with charges of "Aristocracy King, Despot, unlimited
power, sword and purse . . . in all the confusion of unintelligible Jargon. in
short he was outrageous. He had the Mortification to fail of Success" (Schuyler
to Van Schaack, 13 March, below). On 20 February the Senate concurred with
the resolution by a vote of 10 to 9.
On 21 February, when Congress considered the report of its grand com-
mittee on the report of the Annapolis Convention, New York's congressional

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