There was a lot of pride involved on all sides following the 1890 season. All three leagues - still not working at odds with each other - managed to return the same slate of clubs for the 1891 season, despite mounting financial trouble. In addition to the need for players driving up salaries, the saturation of individual markets with multiple clubs from competing leagues drove attendance down on a per-team level.
Something had to give, and over the course of the 1891 season this became increasingly apparent to all those involved.
Professional baseball was destroying itself. There were 24 teams who considered themselves "major" in quality and they were killing each other, and also killing the "minor" league teams as well because a) there wasn't enough top-tier talent to go around and b) they were all overpaying for the talent that was available.
As was the case in 1876, a man with a vision was needed - and again that man was William Whitney. While Whitney was no longer the Century League's President, he did retain a lot of influence. He also was a shrewd businessman and most of the other clubs' owners followed his blueprint in running their own clubs. Some (like the deceased James Tice) felt they knew better, but most knew they didn't.
So in the late fall of 1891, William Whitney called for what he termed a "Baseball Summit" meeting in his adopted hometown of Chicago. He invited all the club owners from the Century and Peerless Leagues and the Border Association as well as representatives of the two minor leagues with which the CL had an agreement (the Dixie League and Western Federation) and several other independent leagues. The goal was to hash out a way for all of them to get back to making money and growing the sport as a business.