2 9 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



both the wisdom and the weight of their findings, they ended by ar- 

 ranging an interstate conference in Annapolis in 1786. Here opinion 

 took shape as to the use of interstate and other waterways (then the 

 sole lines of commercial movement) and as to the interdependence of 

 the states; yet so many collateral questions arose, and so decided need 

 was felt for larger authority, that no final action was taken beyond 

 arranging for a joint convention of delegates from the several states 

 to be held in Philadelphia in 1787. This convention, designed pri- 

 marily to consider interstate commerce and waterways, took up also 

 other relations between the states; the delegates found themselves con- 

 fronted by the gravest possible questions affecting the prosperity and 

 perpetuity of their respective communities and commonwealths; they 

 deliberated and gradually adjusted these with intelligence and integ- 

 rity unsurpassed in assemblages of men — and the outcome was the 

 American Constitution, which made the infant commonwealths a 

 nation. 1 



The work of the first waterways commission is significant in its 

 bearing on later conditions and events — even to-day. In a sense the 

 world was young in 1785; the sum of knowledge was but half, the 

 knowledge of North America hardly a hundredth part, of that now 

 prevailing — yet the original commissioners and first conferees and 

 final delegates all took stock, so well as might be, of state and national 

 possessions as affecting the conditions and prospects for the perpetuity 

 of a growing country. To them and to the people who later adopted 

 their findings land was the primary value, minerals a casual adjunct, 

 forests an obstruction to travel and settlement yet a convenience, water 

 an incident though a means of commerce, riparian rights an abstract 

 albeit obstructive inheritance; and in the light of these views of 

 fundamental values (the essential factors of national growth), certain 

 powers were expressly granted by the people to the federal government, 

 certain rights were expressly given or denied to the states, and any 

 inchoate powers and rights were implicitly reserved for future division 

 in accordance with the eternal principles recognized and set down — and 

 without which were the constitution, in the words of Marshall, " a 

 splendid bauble " (McCulloch v. Maryland et al.; Dillon's compilation, 

 1903, p. 277). Perhaps because it was what the great jurist afterward 

 described as the " oppressed and degraded state of commerce " (Brown 

 v. Maryland; ibid., p. 539) that led to the creation of the commission 

 and so to the conference and convention, the " commerce clause " of 

 the constitution is notably condensed and comprehensive — so con- 

 densed that even within the lifetime of many of its framers the genius 

 of Marshall was invoked to define it in opinions demonstrating that 



1 The chain of events is conveniently summarized by Woodrow Wilson, 

 " History of the American People," Vol. III., p. 60, et seq. 



