Annapolis Convention Fails - and Succeeds

March 1, 1786

Twelve delegates from five states gathered at Mann's Tavern in Annapolis to discuss interstate commerce and accomplished almost nothing. But Alexander Hamilton drafted a report calling for a broader convention in Philadelphia the following summer. The failed meeting in Annapolis was the administrative misfire that accidentally produced the Constitution. Madison and Hamilton, strangers before Annapolis, began the collaboration that would carry the republic through its founding crisis.