Sublime

As the first president, Washington assembled a group of luminaries without equal in American history; his first cabinet more than made up in intellectual fire-power what it lacked in numbers.

It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

The Annapolis conference determined that the only way to cure trade disputes was to perform radical surgery on the Articles of Confederation. One of the commissioners, Alexander Hamilton, drafted a bold communiqué calling upon the thirteen states to send delegates to a convention in Philadelphia in May 1787 that would “render the constitution of th