"The present seat of Congress"
was finally adopted largely through impossibility of agreeing on
another.
[Illustration: LAST PAGE OF THE MINUTES OF THE OLD CONGRESS. Preserved
in the archives of the Department of State. It shows that members
appeared occasionally as late as March 2, two days before the new
government was to be inaugurated; the printed journals differ, stating
that members appeared until the first of November only.]
Having thus planned for its successor, having arranged the finances,
the army, the post-office, the public land system, and other national
affairs as best it could, the Continental or Confederation Congress
slowly dwindled in membership until it lacked a quorum early in October,
1788. A few members attended at intervals until the beginning of the
following March, when the thirty-nine foolscap volumes recording the
birth of the United States were closed, to be deposited among the
archives of the United States under the Constitution. A successor was
now ready to undertake the task for which the Confederation had been
found inadequate.
CHAPTER VII
BEGINNING AN EFFICIENT GOVERNMENT
In the manner of its formation and adoption the Constitution was the
product of a confederation.
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