Annapolis Convention of 1786

America’s first constitution · The movement for reform

The Annapolis Convention

September 11–14, 1786

From commercial reform to a stronger federal constitution

Twelve commissioners from five states met at Mann’s Tavern in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786. Their gathering was too small to carry out its intended commercial mission, but it produced a consequential recommendation: another convention, with broader powers, should meet in Philadelphia the following May to address defects in the federal government. John Dickinson chaired the meeting; Alexander Hamilton drafted the address adopted by the commissioners. ^[1][2]

Why Annapolis matters. The commissioners proposed improving the constitution of an existing union. Their language, followed by Congress’s February 1787 resolution, supports understanding the Articles of Confederation as the United States’ first national constitution. The demand for stronger powers demonstrates dissatisfaction with that constitution’s operation, not the absence of a constitutional government. ^[3][4]

Annapolis Convention report: manuscript image retained from the original page. Select the image to inspect the linked enlargement.

1. The commercial problem
2. The twelve commissioners
3. The report and its constitutional meaning
4. Congress and the road to Philadelphia
5. Document images and collection history
6. Notes and sources

The commercial problem under the Articles

The Articles established a continuing Congress and delegated national powers, including diplomacy, war, finance, and specified forms of adjudication. They also reserved undelegated powers to the states. Congress lacked the broad authority to regulate interstate and foreign commerce later conferred by the Constitution of 1787. The problem should not be described simply as a lack of power over intrastate trade: the Annapolis mission concerned a more uniform commercial system for the United States. ^[3][5]

Nor did the Articles leave commerce entirely unmentioned. Article IV addressed interstate privileges of trade and movement; Articles VI and IX dealt with treaties and commercial restrictions. Article IX’s treaty power was qualified by protections for state legislative authority. The commissioners confronted an inadequate distribution of governing powers, rather than a document wholly silent about economic relations. ^[5]

The participating states’ instructions were not identical. New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia principally sought a coordinated commercial arrangement. Delaware explicitly required congressional agreement and confirmation by every state legislature. New Jersey’s commission reached beyond commerce to other important matters. That broader mandate helped the meeting frame a proposal for comprehensive reform. ^[5]

The twelve commissioners

Five states were represented. Dickinson was unanimously elected chairman. The roster below uses modern expanded names. ^[6]

Commissioners present at Annapolis

State	Commissioners
New York	Alexander Hamilton; Egbert Benson
New Jersey	Abraham Clark; William Churchill Houston; James Schureman
Pennsylvania	Tench Coxe
Delaware	George Read; John Dickinson; Richard Bassett
Virginia	Edmund Randolph; James Madison Jr.; St. George Tucker

The report said that New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina had appointed commissioners who had not attended. It also said the meeting had received no information of appointments by Connecticut, Maryland, South Carolina, or Georgia. With only five states present, the commissioners declined to proceed with the intended commercial business. ^[7]

A recommendation to repair the federal constitution

The commissioners considered a draft on September 13 and adopted the report unanimously, with amendments, on September 14. Hamilton’s authorship rests on Madison’s later testimony; the surviving evidence does not establish precisely how much other commissioners altered his draft. Dickinson’s chairmanship and Hamilton’s drafting role should therefore be distinguished. ^[2]

The report reasoned that an effective commercial power would affect other parts of the federal system. It recommended a convention at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May 1787, with proposals afterward submitted to Congress and confirmed by the legislature of every state. Copies were to be sent to Congress and to the executives of the other states. The commissioners acknowledged that even making this broader recommendation might exceed the strict scope of their appointments. ^[8]

“to render the constitution of the Fœderal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union”

—Annapolis commissioners’ address, September 14, 1786 ^[4]

This language is significant because the Philadelphia Constitution did not yet exist. The report was discussing the governmental framework then in force. Its constitutional vocabulary reinforces the Articles’ institutional substance: an organized Congress, delegated powers, interstate obligations, adjudicatory procedures, and a prescribed method of alteration. At the same time, the Articles retained strong compact features and extensive state sovereignty. Calling them the first national constitution does not require denying those features. ^[3][4]

The meeting itself could neither amend the Articles nor enact a new constitution. Its achievement was to formulate and circulate a proposal for further deliberation. ^[8]

Congress and the road to Philadelphia

On February 21, 1787, Congress endorsed a Philadelphia convention. The journal records a failed New York proposal followed by a Massachusetts motion that Congress amended and adopted. The old page’s description of Congress simply revising and approving New York’s resolution obscured that sequence. ^[9]

The operative resolution read:

Resolved that in the opinion of Congress it is expedient that on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates who shall have been appointed by the several States be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States render the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union.

—Congress, February 21, 1787; operative paragraph, excluding the preamble ^[9]

Here Congress itself called the framework to be revised the federal Constitution. Its resolution envisioned revision of the Articles, with subsequent approval, rather than granting the convention authority to put a replacement government into force on its own. ^[4]

From recommendation to convention

Date	Event
September 11–14, 1786	Annapolis meeting; report adopted September 14.
February 21, 1787	Congress adopts its convention resolution.
May 14, 1787	Scheduled opening at Philadelphia.
May 25, 1787	A quorum assembles; the convention organizes and elects George Washington its presiding officer.

The distinction between the scheduled and actual opening matters. Delegates did not obtain a quorum on May 14. Rhode Island was the only state to send no delegates to the Philadelphia Convention. ^[10]

Revision became replacement

The Constitution produced in Philadelphia went beyond ordinary amendment of the Articles. Article XIII of the Articles required congressional agreement and confirmation by every state legislature for alterations. Article VII of the proposed Constitution instead provided for ratification by conventions in nine states to establish it among the ratifying states. The constitutional transition therefore involved a change in the method and source of ratification as well as the structure of government. ^[11]

Annapolis belongs in the history of the first constitution because it reveals both constitutional continuity and the pressure for transformation. The Decree of Trenton illustrates an existing national adjudicatory process; the western ordinances illustrate governing activity and disputes over its constitutional basis; Annapolis illustrates the organized movement to strengthen the system. These are complementary lines of evidence, not claims that the Confederation possessed every power later granted in 1787. ^[12]

Continue the study

• The Articles of Confederation: America’s first national constitution
• The Decree of Trenton: interstate judgment and private land titles
• The constitution–treaty debate: correspondence and editorial notes

Document images and collection history

The images below retain the original page’s documentary material. They should be read alongside the scholarly edition of the address and the published proceedings. A manuscript image by itself does not establish a particular copy’s handwriting, ownership history, or route of transmission.

The American Museum: document image supplied with the original Annapolis page.

Hamilton and Dickinson: illustration retained from the original page.

The American Museum printing of the Annapolis proceedings, image 1 of four.

The American Museum printing of the Annapolis proceedings, image 2 of four.

The American Museum printing of the Annapolis proceedings, image 3 of four.

The American Museum printing of the Annapolis proceedings, image 4 of four.

Additional manuscript image of the Annapolis Convention material, retained from the original page.

Dona M. McDermott, identified in the original caption as archivist at Valley Forge National Historical Park, with the American Museum volume described by the site.

The original page describes the photographed item as the April 1787 number of The American Museum, in a second edition dated 1789, and records a gift by Stanley and Naomi Yavneh Klos to Valley Forge National Historical Park associated with the National Collegiate Honors Council’s 2017 Partners in the Park program. These details remain attributed to the site’s collection account. ^[13]

Caption correction. Washington’s address of March 15, 1783 was his Newburgh address to the army’s officers. His farewell orders to the army were dated November 2, 1783. The old caption combined the March date with a farewell title. The magazine’s printing of proceedings should also not be described as a complete transcript of every convention debate. ^[13]

Video retained from the original Annapolis Convention page.

Supplementary videos and material from the original page

These materials are retained for continuity with the original page. The historical argument above is documented by the numbered sources.

Honor the Forgotten Presidents

Penn Wharton School and America’s Four United Republics curriculum

Seven Flags of New Orleans Tricentennial Exhibit

Supplementary graphic retained from the original page

Editorial update: OpenAI, ChatGPT, provided assistance with historical research, source verification, and HTML editing for this website.  October 1, 2026. ^[14]

Notes and sources

1. Place, dates, and attendance. Maryland State Archives, “The Mt. Vernon Compact & The Annapolis Convention”; “Proceedings of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government”, September 11–14, 1786, in Charles C. Tansill, ed., Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union of the American States (Government Printing Office, 1927), transcribed by Yale Law School’s Avalon Project. ↩
2. Hamilton, Dickinson, and adoption. Address and editorial notes 1–2. The scholarly editors attribute the drafting to Hamilton on the evidence of Madison’s later recollections; they explain that the extent of revisions by other commissioners cannot be determined. The proceedings record Dickinson’s election as chairman and unanimous approval of the report on September 14. ↩1 ↩2
3. The existing constitutional framework. Articles of Confederation, Articles II–V, VIII–IX, and XIII, National Archives transcript. Congress adopted the Articles November 15, 1777; ratification was completed March 1, 1781. “First constitution” describes the national written framework, not the beginning of American independence or the first state constitution. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
4. The constitutional language. Annapolis Address and JCC, vol. XXXII, pp. 73–74. Both documents concern reform of the existing Confederation framework. “Constitution” in these passages cannot refer to the text that the Philadelphia Convention had not yet drafted. The classification advanced in this article is an interpretation supported by this language and by the Articles’ institutional provisions; the terminology alone does not erase their compact character. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3 ↩4
5. Commerce and the scope of reform. “Annapolis Convention. Address of the Annapolis Convention,” September 14, 1786, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, Founders Online, National Archives. The commissioners compared the state instructions, described the commercial mission, and recommended broader reform. Compare Articles IV, VI, and IX for the Confederation’s actual commercial provisions and treaty powers. ↩1 ↩2 ↩3
6. The commissioners’ names. Proceedings, attendance list and signatures. Names are expanded and spelling regularized in the roster below. The transcription’s opening list gives “Schuarman,” while the signatures give “Schureman.” William C. Houston is William Churchill Houston; he should not be confused with Georgia’s William Houstoun. ↩
7. Absence and limits of the mandate. Address, paragraphs on attendance and representation. The commissioners said four other states had appointed delegates who had not attended, and that they had received no information about appointments by the remaining four. This edition preserves that evidentiary limit rather than equating absence of information with proof that no action occurred. ↩
8. The report’s recommendation. Address, concluding recommendation and transmission paragraph. Its proposal named Philadelphia and the second Monday in May, called for agreement by Congress and confirmation by every state legislature, and provided for copies to Congress and the other state executives. This was a recommendation, not an enacted amendment. ↩1 ↩2
9. Congress’s action, February 21, 1787. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789, vol. XXXII, pp. 71–74 (Government Printing Office, 1936). The New York motion to postpone for its proposed resolution failed. Congress then took up the Massachusetts proposal, amended it, and agreed to the resulting resolution. The editorial note on p. 73 identifies a manuscript in Nathan Dane’s hand with an amendment by Rufus King. The adopted operative text appears on p. 74. ↩1 ↩2
10. The opening at Philadelphia. National Park Service, Constitutional Convention daybook for May 1787, entries for May 14–24 and May 25; National Archives, “Constitution of the United States—A History”. May 14 was the scheduled opening; a quorum assembled May 25. Rhode Island sent no delegation. ↩
11. Revision and replacement. Articles of Confederation, Article XIII; United States Constitution, Article VII. Article XIII required congressional agreement and confirmation by every state legislature for alterations. Article VII provided for establishment of the new Constitution among ratifying states upon ratification by conventions in nine states. These were different procedures; the history should not collapse replacement into an ordinary unanimous amendment. ↩
12. Related constitutional evidence. The Decree of Trenton study and the main Articles of Confederation study supply the fuller documentation for interstate adjudication and the ordinances of 1784, 1785, and 1787. For primary texts, see JCC, vol. XXIV, pp. 6–32 and National Archives, Northwest Ordinance. The scope of congressional territorial authority was disputed: see Madison, Federalist No. 38. ↩
13. Collection images and the Washington caption. The supplied page identifies the photographed American Museum as the April 1787 number in a second edition dated 1789, and describes its gift to Valley Forge National Historical Park by Stanley and Naomi Yavneh Klos in connection with the 2017 Partners in the Park program. Those collection and gift details are retained as the site’s account; they are not independently authenticated accession or bibliographic records. For the date correction, compare Washington’s address to the officers, March 15, 1783 with his farewell orders, November 2, 1783 (Founders Online, Early Access transcriptions). March 15 identifies the Newburgh address, not the farewell orders. No claim of complete verbatim convention debates is made for the magazine printing. ↩1 ↩2
14. About this edition. Updated October 1, 2026 from the supplied “Annapolis Convention.txt.” Historical narrative and captions have been revised; the congressional quotation is identified as an excerpt from the published journal. The ten original images and four video embeds are retained. Unrelated presidential, spouse, and capitals tables have been removed. Supplementary promotional media are separated from the historical study. External media remain hosted by their original providers. Research and editorial assistance: OpenAI, ChatGPT. Sources checked October 1, 2026. ↩