Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to levy taxes or to regulate commerce; and, as a consequence, it could not adopt navigation laws, impose duties on imports, or prevent conflicting or retaliatory enactments by the legislatures of the different states with respect to trade between the states and foreign countries, or other states of the Union. Each state could, for itself, levy duties on exports or imports, and make such commercial regulations as it saw fit. This situation was inconsistent with any uniform or beneficial regulation of commercial intercourse with foreign countries, and because of division and animosity as between the people of the several states, tended to a disruption of the Confederation. So serious was the condition that the legislature of Virginia, in 1786, passed a resolution for the appointment of commissioners from that state to confer with like commissioners from other states with reference to the adoption of some more efficient and satisfactory system of commercial regulations. These commissioners were asked to meet at Annapolis, but at the time fixed there were commissioners present from only five states, and the so-called Annapolis convention was, therefore, unable to take any efficient action; but resolutions were adopted recommending action by Congress with a view of securing amendments or additions to the Articles of Confederation, and this convention was the first formal step towards securing for the Union a better organization and a more practical constitutional system. When the constitutional convention, subsequently called, met to consider the revision of the Articles of Confederation, or the adoption of some better plan of federal government, one of the first objects which the members had in mind was a uniform system for the regulation of commerce; and the system adopted involved the grant to Congress of the power to impose duties on imports as a means of raising revenue, and the further power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce. The provision as to duties on imports has already been discussed under the chapter relating to taxation. The subject of regulation of commerce, as involving the exercise of that power by Congress and the corresponding limitations upon the power of the states, is for this chapter.