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nor emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of the United States; nor appropriate money; nor agree upon the number of vessels-of-war to be built or purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised; nor appoint a commander-in-chief of the army or navy, unless nine States assent to the same; nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning from day to day, be determined, unless by the votes of a majority of the United States in Congress assembled.

The Congress of the United States shall have power to adjourn to any time within the year, and to any place within the United States, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six months; and shall publish the journal of their proceedings monthly, except such parts thereof, relating to treaties, alliances, or military operations, as in their judgment require secrecy and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each State on any question shall be entered on the journal, when it is desired by any delegate; and the delegates of a State, or any of them, at his or their request, shall be furnished with a transcript of the said jour nal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the Legislatures of the several States.

ART. X. The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of Congress, such of the powers of Congress as the United States in Congress assembled, by the consent of nine States, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said committee, for the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled is requisite.

ART. XI. Canada, acceding to this Confederation, and joining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of, this Union; but no other Colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.

ART. XII. All bills of credit emitted, moneys borrowed, and debts contracted, by or under the authority of Congress before the assembling of the United States, in pursuance of the present Con

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delphia, in order to obtain such establishment as that their religion, laws, and liberties may not be subverted. Whereupon the deputies so appointed, being now assembled in a full and free representation of these Colonies, taking into their most serious consideration the best means of attaining the ends aforesaid, do in the first place, as Englishmen, their ancestors, in like cases have usually done, for affecting and vindicating their rights and liberties, DECLARE,—

That the inhabitants of the English Colonies in North America, by the immutable laws of nature, the principles of the English Consti tution, and the several charters or compacts, have the following RIGHTS:

Resolved, N. C. D., 1. That they are entitled to life, liberty, and property; and they have never ceded to any sovereign power whatever a right to dispose of either without their consent.

Resolved, N. C. D., 2. That our ancestors, who first settled these Colonies, were, at the time of their emigration from the mother country, entitled to all the rights, liberties, and immunities of free and natural born subjects within the realm of England.

Resolved, N. C. D., 3. That, by such emigration, they by no means forfeited, surrendered, or lost any of those rights; but that they were, and their descendants now are, entitled to the exercise and enjoyment of all such of them as their local and other circumstances enable them to exercise and enjoy.

Resolved, 4. That the foundation of English liberty, and of all free government, is a right in the people to participate in their legislative council; and as the English colonists are not represented, and from their local and other circumstances can not properly be represented, in the British Parliament, they are entitled to a free and exclusive power of legislation in their several Provincial legislatures, where their right of representation can alone be preserved, in all cases of taxation and internal polity, subject only to the negative of their sovereign, in such manner as has been heretofore used and accustomed. But from the necessity of the case, and a regard to the natural interests of both countries, we cheerfully consent to the

1 Abbreviations for nemine contradicente; signifying, no one opposing

the time suggested in the report, "for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation, and reporting to Congress and the several State legislatures such alterations and provisions therein, as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of gov ernment and the preservation of the Union."

§ 14. Public opinion was on the rapid march. Many events had transpired, even after the appointment of commissioners to meet at Annapolis, and before that Convention assembled, which matured the popular judgment in favor of the proposition for a general Convention for the purposes set forth in the report.

§ 15. Still other events took place immediately after the Hamilton report was published, which still further demonstrated the necessity of such a Convention as was proposed therein. All were now satisfied that the Union was in extreme danger. No calm, dispassionate observer could ignore it.

§ 16. "Among the ripening incidents," says a prominent statesman of that day, was the insurrection of Shays in Massachusetts against her government, which was with difficulty suppressed, notwithstanding the influence on the insurgents of an apprehended interposition of the Federal troops."

§ 17. The insurrection above alluded to was led by one Daniel Shays, who was followed by about two thousand insurgents, having for their object the open defiance and resistance of the laws under which the taxes were to be collected and private obligations and contracts to be enforced. It spread over several of the counties of that State; and so formidable was it, that United-States troops were called for to suppress it. But, by vigorous measures on the part of the State, it was overcome. Several of the leaders were condemned to death; but, on account of the popular sentiment in their favor, it was deemed unwise to execute them.

§ 18. The public debt, most of which had been contracted in the sacred cause of liberty in the struggle for independence, remained unpaid. Congress had made repeated calls on the States for payment: but these calls were either partially or wholly unheeded; one State expressly and openly refusing to take any step tending to its

liquidation. The public mind was everywhere filled with gloom and despondency.

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§ 19. In reference to the embarrassments of commerce, Mr. Madison says, The same want of a general power over commerce led to an exercise of the power separately by the States, which not only proved abortive, but engendered rival, conflicting, and angry regulations."

§ 20. "Besides the vain attempt to supply their respective treasuries by imposts, which turned their commerce into the neighboring ports, and to coerce a relaxation of the British monopoly of the WestIndia navigation, which was attempted by Virginia, the States having ports for foreign commerce taxed and irritated the adjoining States, trading through them, as New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina. Some of the States, as Connecticut, taxed imports from other States, as Massachusetts; which complained in a letter to the Executive of Virginia, and doubtless to those of other States."

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§ 21. In sundry instances, as of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the navigation interests treated the citizens of other States as aliens."

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§ 22. As a natural consequence of this distracted and disheartening condition of the Union, the Federal authority had ceased to be respected abroad; and dispositions were shown there, particularly in Great Britain, to take advantage of its imbecility, and to speculate on its approaching downfall. At home it had lost all confidence and credit: the unstable and unjust career of the States had also forfeited the respect and confidence essential to order and good government, involving a general decay of confidence between man and man.”

§ 23. Under these distracting and depressing influences, the States had become favorable to the call from Annapolis to send delegates to the proposed Philadelphia Convention, which convened at the time appointed. There was by no means a full representation of the States, however; there being present but twenty-nine delegates at the opening. They did not organize, therefore, until

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