The only instance in which a compact can take place between the people and those who exercise the government, is, that the people shall pay them, while they choose to employ them.
Government is not a trade which any man, or any body of men, has a right to set up and exercise for his own emolument, but is altogether a trust, in right of those by whom that trust is delegated, and by whom it is always resumeable.

It has of itself no rights; they are altogether duties.
Having thus given two instances of the original formation of a constitution, I will show the manner in which both have been changed since their first establishment.
The powers vested in the governments of the several states, by the state constitutions, were found, upon experience, to be too great; and those vested in the federal government, by the act of confederation, too little.

The defect was not in the principle, but in the distribution of power.
Numerous publications, in pamphlets and in the newspapers, appeared, on the propriety and necessity of new modelling the federal government.
After some time of public discussion, carried on through the channel of the press, and in conversations, the state of Virginia, experiencing some inconvenience with respect to commerce, proposed holding a continental conference; in consequence of which, a deputation from five or six state assemblies met at Annapolis, in Maryland, in 1786.

This meeting, not conceiving itself sufficiently authorised to go into the business of a reform, did no more than state their general opinions of the propriety of the measure, and recommend that a convention of all the states should be held the year following.
The convention met at Philadelphia in May, 1787, of which General Washington was elected president.

He was not at that time connected with any of the state governments, or with congress.