In this 1786 letter to George Washington, John Jay (1745–1829), a Continental Congress delegate from New York and later the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, expressed what most U.S. leaders had come to believe: that “an opinion begins to prevail that a general convention for revising the articles of Confederation would be expedient.” It was clear that George Washington was the fulcrum around which plans to revise or even replace the articles often revolved.