The Articles of Confederation, Lesson 3: Congress Under the Articles: Debates, Departments and Power

The Congress That Ran the Confederation

Lesson 2 read the thirteen Articles one at a time. This lesson reads the record of the body that had to carry them out. The Articles took effect on March 1, 1781, when Maryland signed, and the Congress that met under them was the same body, with the same secretary, Charles Thomson, that had been running the war since 1775.¹ What changed in 1781 was less the cast than the rules. Congress had long acted through committees and boards made up of its own members. In the first months of 1781 it began to put single officers at the head of departments, and it spent the next seven years learning what a body of delegates from thirteen states could and could not do through them.

The questions below are practical ones. Where did Congress sit, and how often did it move? How were votes counted, and what did the nine-state rule of Article IX mean on a day when only seven states were in the room? Who ran foreign affairs, war and finance, and what powers did they have? What did Congress ask the states to pay each year, and what came in? How did it handle its army at the end of the war, its peace treaty, and its dealings with Spain? The answers come from the Journals of the Continental Congress, the daily record Thomson and his clerks kept. Where the Journals print a roll call, a letter or a report, the lesson gives the volume and page range in the notes. Where the Journals give only a motion or a draft, the notes say so.

Two cautions apply from the start. First, the Journals are a record of what Congress decided and what it was told, not of what the delegates thought. The debates of these years survive mainly in the notes James Madison took in 1783 and 1787 and in private letters, and the Journals print only some of Madison's notes. Second, the Journal's own page numbers are used here, but the scanned text of the thirty-four volumes at the Internet Archive contains reading errors, so a page range in a note can be off by a page or two. The volume, the date and the quoted words are the dependable guide.

The lesson is organized by function. It begins with the thing the Journals show most plainly, which is how often the delegates were not there. It then follows the departments, the money, the army, the treaty and the foreign business, and it ends with the claims about the Confederation that the record supports and those it does not. The Articles themselves, the drafting history and the constitutional consequences are in the other lessons of the series, and the notes point to them where they matter.

Nine Stints in Eight Years: Where Congress Met

A reader who pictures the Confederation Congress in one hall in Philadelphia has the wrong picture. From December 1776, when it left Philadelphia for Baltimore, to January 1785, when it settled in New York, Congress held sessions in eight different towns across nine separate stints. Figure 1 in the Pictures and Numbers section marks each move on a timeline. The record behind it is a run of Journal entries that start a new volume of business in a new town, and several of the moves show how the body worked.

Baltimore, Philadelphia, Lancaster and York, 1776 to 1778

With a British army advancing across New Jersey, Congress left Philadelphia in December 1776, and the Journal shows it sitting at Baltimore on December 20, 1776. It was back in Philadelphia on March 12, 1777.² That autumn the British took the capital. Congress met for a single day at Lancaster, on September 27, 1777, and then from September 30 at York, Pennsylvania.³ The Articles of Confederation were adopted at York, on November 15, 1777, in a small Pennsylvania town far from the fighting. Congress returned to Philadelphia only in the summer of 1778. On June 27 it adjourned to Thursday next, to meet at the State House in Philadelphia. It was sitting there on July 2, and on July 7 ten states appeared.⁴ These first moves were forced by the army that threatened the city. They matter for what came after, because they established that Congress, which had no territory and no troops of its own, depended on a state to protect the place where it met.

The mutiny of June 1783 and the move to Princeton

The dependence became a crisis in the third week of June 1783. The notes of debates printed in the Journals for 1783, which are James Madison's, give the sequence. On June 19 Congress learned from the executive council of Pennsylvania that about eighty soldiers, expected to be followed by discharged men of Armand's Legion, were marching from Lancaster to Philadelphia, saying they would go to the seat of Congress and demand justice. A committee of Hamilton, Peters and Ellsworth conferred with the council and reported that the militia of Philadelphia would probably not take up arms until some actual outrage provoked them. Madison records that Ralph Izard, John Francis Mercer and others "signified that if the City would not support Congress, it was high time to remove to some other place."⁵ The soldiers entered the city on Friday, June 20, professing to want a settlement of their accounts.

On Saturday, June 21 they drew up in the street before the State House, where Congress was sitting and where the executive council sat under the same roof. President John Dickinson came in and explained that the militia could not be relied on without some outrage on persons or property. General Arthur St. Clair was sent to try to turn the soldiers back and reported no encouragement. Izard proposed that Congress adjourn, Hamilton that St. Clair and the council take order to end the mutiny, and Joseph Reed that St. Clair promise the troops that Congress meant to do them justice. Congress agreed to stay until the usual hour of adjournment, about three o'clock, without taking up the soldiers' grievances or any other business. Madison notes that no violence was offered, that individual soldiers pointed muskets at the windows of the hall, and that members passed through the ranks when Congress adjourned.⁶

That evening Congress reassembled and passed the resolutions the Journal prints. The entry, made by George Bond of the Secretary's office, resolves to tell the president and supreme executive council of Pennsylvania that "the authority of the United States having been this day grossly insulted by the disorderly and menacing appearance of a body of armed soldiers about the place within which Congress were assembled," and that with "the peace of this city being endangered by the mutinous disposition of the said troops now in the barracks," it was "necessary that effectual measures be immediately taken for supporting the public authority." A committee was to confer with the council. If it appeared that there was "not a satisfactory ground for expecting adequate and prompt exertions of this State," the president, on the committee's advice, could summon the members to meet "on Thursday next at Trenton or Princeton, in New Jersey." The Secretary at War was directed to tell Washington of the troops' disposition so that he could send a force.⁷

The conference with the council produced "nothing but a repetition of doubts" about the militia, Madison writes, and on Tuesday, June 24, at about two o'clock, the committee advised the president to summon Congress to Princeton. He did so verbally to the members present. The mutineers submitted after Congress left, most accepting furloughs, and gave up their leaders, among them a deranged officer named Carberry.⁸ The Journal for June 30, 1783 is headed "Princeton," and on that day the Rhode Island delegates William Ellery and Jonathan Arnold presented their credentials there. A motion by Alexander Hamilton, made that day, directed Major General Robert Howe to march troops to Pennsylvania, to arrest those who had instigated the mutiny and to disarm the rest. Congress adopted it on July 1 on a committee report.⁹ Congress never sat in Philadelphia again. The episode is the clearest case in the record of what it meant for a body with no troops and no territory to depend on the state around it.

Annapolis, Trenton and New York, 1783 to 1785

On October 9, 1783 Congress resolved to sit at Annapolis until the first Monday in June and then adjourn to Trenton.¹⁰ The weeks around that vote show how hard the choice was. On October 7 Congress had resolved to erect buildings for its own use at or near the falls of the Delaware. On October 17 Elbridge Gerry, seconded by Arthur Lee, moved that a second set of buildings go up at or near Georgetown on the Potomac, so that Congress could sit alternately in two places. The motion's preamble records that the earlier resolutions did not satisfy "a respectable part of the United States, five of which, on the 8th instant, voted for a reconsideration." Abraham Clark, seconded by Richard Peters, answered with a motion to postpone Gerry's proposal to the first Monday in April and to send copies to the state executives.¹¹ Four days later, on October 21, Congress adopted the two-place plan. It resolved that buildings be erected at or near the lower falls of the Potomac, or Georgetown, "provided a suitable district on the banks of the river can be procured for a federal town," that until the buildings were ready its residence would be "alternately at equal periods, of not more than one year, and not less than six months in Trenton and Annapolis," and that the president adjourn Congress on November 12 to meet at Annapolis on November 26.¹²

Annapolis was where Congress was weakest. Members first met there on November 26, 1783 without enough states, and business began about December 13.¹³ The low point of attendance and the scene of December 23, 1783, when Washington resigned his commission there, are taken up below. The definitive treaty of peace was ratified at Annapolis on January 14, 1784, and the same town hosted the 1786 convention that Lesson 6 describes.

The Journal for the spring of 1784 shows the next move being set up. An act of April 26 authorized the president to adjourn Congress on June 3 to meet at Trenton on October 30, and members who wanted to stay and finish business tried more than once to change that date. On June 3 the Journal records the president adjourning Congress to Trenton, as the act directed.¹⁴ The Committee of the States, the body Article IX allowed Congress to appoint for the recess, was to sit in the meantime, and Lesson 2 tells how that experiment went. Congress itself reassembled at Trenton on November 1, 1784. Four states were present on November 11, six on November 29, and eight on November 30, the day Richard Henry Lee was elected president.¹⁵

The delegates did not stay in Trenton long. On December 21, 1784 Charles Pinckney, seconded by John Jay, moved that Congress decide on a place to sit until buildings could be erected in a federal town and repeal the plan of alternating between Trenton and Annapolis. On December 23 Congress resolved to adjourn the next day and meet at New York on January 11, 1785, and to hold its sessions there until the buildings were ready.¹⁶ It met in New York on January 11, with New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York and New Jersey present, and Lee for Virginia and Hugh Williamson for North Carolina.¹⁷ The buildings on the Delaware and the Potomac were never built, and New York remained the seat of Congress for the rest of the Confederation.

What the moves meant for business

The Journals do not total what the moves cost the government, and no figure is claimed here. They do show the effect on business. Each move meant carrying the Secretary's papers and the departments' papers, finding a hall, and waiting for delegates to reach a new place. The opening weeks of the stints at Annapolis and Trenton were spent waiting for enough states, as the dates above show. The next section looks at that problem directly, because attendance, more than any clause of the Articles, set the pace of Congress's work.

The choice of a seat also divided the delegations. The October 1783 motion about a second set of buildings recites that five states had voted for reconsideration, and the roll call of December 21, 1784 on where to sit records at least one divided delegation, marked "div." in the Journal. A body whose states voted as units, and whose states could not agree on a capital, spent part of 1783 and 1784 debating one while it was short of the states it needed to decide other questions.

Counting Votes: One State, One Vote, and Who Was in the Room

The rules for voting are in Articles V and IX, and Lesson 2 reads them clause by clause. In brief, each state had one vote, whatever the size of its delegation, and each state sent between two and seven delegates. Article IX named the acts that needed "nine States" to assent: war, letters of marque in peacetime, treaties and alliances, coining money, fixing the sums needed for defense and welfare, issuing bills, borrowing on the credit of the United States, appropriating money, fixing the number of vessels, land or sea forces, and appointing a commander in chief. Every other question, "except for adjourning from day to day," needed "the votes of a majority of the United States in Congress assembled."¹⁸ The wording matters. A majority "of the United States" meant seven of the thirteen states. Seven states were therefore the working minimum for ordinary business and nine the minimum for the great acts, and the Journal's attention to the number of states present follows from that.

How the Journal records a day

Each day's entry in the Journal opens with who was present, listed by state. When a state had only one delegate in the room, the Journal usually names that delegate apart from the list of states. The entry for January 14, 1784 is a clean example. It lists "Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pensylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina," and then adds a delegate from New Hampshire and one from New Jersey by name.¹⁹ Nine states are counted, and the two single delegates are noted but not counted. A reader can follow the arithmetic from the page.

When a delegate asked, the Journal printed the yeas and nays, as Article IX required. The roll is printed by state, with each delegate's name and an "ay" or "no" beside it, and the states' votes are bracketed. A delegation that split evenly is marked "div." and its state's vote is not counted either way. Two examples show how the notation reads. The yeas and nays on a motion of Arthur Middleton on October 25, 1781, to direct Washington to hold Lord Cornwallis and the officers captured at Yorktown until Congress gave further order, were demanded by Middleton, and the roll is printed in the Journal.²⁰ And the roll calls of August 29 and 30, 1786 on the instructions to John Jay are printed with every delegate's name and vote, so that the whole debate over the Mississippi can be reconstructed as a count of states. The foreign affairs section below takes that vote up.

When a question needed nine states and got them, the Journal says so. The requisition of October 30, 1781 is one example: "Resolved, (by nine states,) That the respective states be called upon to furnish the treasury of the United States, with their quotas of the 8,000,000 of dollars, for the war department, and civil list, the ensuing year; to be paid quarterly in equal proportions, the first payment to be made on the first day of April next."²¹ The next resolution named "a committee, consisting of a member from each state" to apportion the quotas, which is the grand committee described below. Treaties were ratified on a recital of the number present rather than a printed roll. On July 29, 1783 Congress "adopted and ratified" the treaty of amity and commerce with Sweden, "nine States being present," and on May 17, 1786 it ratified the treaty with Prussia in nearly the same words.²² The recital works as a certificate that Article IX's requirement was met.

Committees: the week and the grand committee

Congress did most of its work through committees, and the Journals show two kinds that stood outside the ad hoc committee appointed for a single question. The first was the committee of the week. On September 29, 1781 Congress elected "the committee of the week" of Jonathan Elmer, Arthur Middleton and Noble Wimberly Jones. Their job, as the entries of October 25 and 26, 1781 show, was to read the day's incoming letters, petitions and memorials and recommend where each should go: to the Board of War, to a special committee of three, or to be read to Congress itself.²³ It sorted the daily mail. The editors of the Journals for 1783 printed a table of the committees of the week that year. It lists three members for almost every week from January 6, 1783, and notes gaps: no appointment recorded for the weeks of March 24 and June 24, none between October 20 and December 13, and none for two weeks at the end of December.²⁴ The gaps fall in the weeks when Congress was short of members.

The second was the grand committee, a committee of one member from each state. Congress used it for questions that touched every state's interest and that had to be settled by agreement among the states. The quotas of the $2,000,000 requisition of October 16, 1782 were assigned "on the report of a grand committee, consisting of a member from each State."²⁵ A grand committee on the arrears of interest and the revenue for 1784, with Thomas Jefferson among its members, reported on April 5, 1784 and drove the requisition of April 27, 1784 that the finance section below discusses. On December 9, 1784 Congress named a committee of one from each state to arrange the reception of the Marquis de Lafayette's farewell.

The nine-state rule as the delegates argued it

Madison's notes for the spring of 1783 show how the delegates themselves read Article IX when too few states were in the room. On June 4, 1783, while Hamilton's motion about Robert R. Livingston's resignation was before Congress, Richard Peters moved "in order to detain Mr. Livingston in office, that it be declared, by the seven States present, that the Salary ought to be augmented." Others objected that "it would be an assumption of power in 7 States to say what 9 States ought to do," that it might ensnare Livingston, and that it would commit the states then present on a question to be open to discussion "when 9 States should be on the floor." Peters withdrew the motion.²⁶ On June 12 eight states were present and the committee's resolution on the principles of the Armed Neutrality was written in a positive style. "The question occurred whether nine States were not necessary," Madison writes, "To avoid the difficulty a negative form was given to the Resolution," and it passed unanimously.²⁷ The delegates were treating the rule as a limit on what an incomplete Congress could do even by agreement.

On June 19, 1783 Hugh Williamson, seconded by Theodorick Bland, moved to recommend that the states add to the Confederation a rule that the admission of a fourteenth state would raise the number needed for the Article IX questions from nine to ten, and that three additional votes would be required for every four additional states. The motion went to a committee of Williamson, Hamilton and Madison. Madison's note says it was made with a view to the foreseen creation of a separate state out of the western part of North Carolina.²⁸ The proposal shows that delegates understood nine as a fraction of thirteen, about seventy percent, and wanted to keep the fraction as the Union grew. Nothing came of it under the Articles.

The President of Congress

The office of president had no executive power, and the Journals show it as a post that rotated and wore people out. Under Article IX the president was chosen for a term of one year, and nobody could serve more than one year in three. He took the chair, signed the commissions and ratifications Congress approved, and received foreign ministers. Thomas McKean's letter of October 23, 1781, entered in the Journal, reminds Congress that before he took the chair he had told it that he would have to attend the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, of which he was chief justice, in October, and asks "that they will be pleased to proceed to the choice of another President." Congress accepted his resignation the same day.²⁹ The ratification of the Dutch treaty of 1783 ends with the line "Witness his Excellency Elias Boudinot, president."³⁰ And on November 30, 1784 the delegates at Trenton, eight states present for the first time that session, elected Richard Henry Lee.³¹

A case study: Annapolis, December 1783 to January 1784

The winter of 1783 to 1784 is the clearest view of what the nine-state rule meant when attendance failed. The preliminary articles of peace had been ratified on April 15, 1783. The definitive treaty was signed at Paris on September 3, 1783, and Article X of that treaty set six months from the signing for the exchange of ratifications, which put the deadline at March 3, 1784.³² Article IX required nine states to ratify a treaty. Congress was at Annapolis, and the states were not in the room.

On Saturday, December 20, 1783 Washington wrote to Congress that he had arrived in the city and wished to resign his commission. Congress resolved to give him a public audience on the following Tuesday and a public entertainment on Monday. On the same day a question went on the Journal, in the words of James McHenry's motion: "Is it the sense of Congress that seven states in Congress Assembled are competent to receive the resignation of a Commander in Chief?" The yeas and nays are printed, and nearly every delegate voted ay, with one "no" from Massachusetts, and another delegate's "no" changed to "ay" at his own request.³³ Article IX lists appointing a commander in chief among the acts that needed nine states and does not name the receipt of a resignation, and the delegates wanted the point settled before the ceremony.

Three days later, on December 23, a day on which Washington resigned in person, Congress on Hugh Williamson's motion, seconded by Thomas Jefferson, resolved to write to the executives of New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina and Georgia. The Journal's text deserves quoting. The letters were to say that "the safety, honor and good faith of the United States require the immediate attendance of their delegates in Congress; that there have not been, during the sitting of Congress at this place, more than seven states represented, namely: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pensylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, and most of those by only two delegates; and that the ratification of the definitive treaty, and several other matters, of great national concern, are now pending before Congress, which require the utmost despatch, and to which the assent of at least nine states is necessary."³⁴

The record then shows the count rising. On Saturday, January 10, 1784 only six states attended, with single delegates from New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and the president adjourned Congress until Monday. On January 12 seven states were present. On January 13 Roger Sherman and James Wadsworth of Connecticut presented their credentials and made eight. On Wednesday, January 14, Richard Beresford took his seat for South Carolina and the Journal lists nine states: Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Congress then "Resolved, unanimously, nine states being present, that the said definitive treaty be, and the same is hereby ratified by the United States in Congress assembled."³⁵ Seven weeks had passed since the members first met at Annapolis. A single South Carolina delegate's arrival in the room decided whether a treaty of peace could be ratified before the deadline.

Attendance by the numbers, 1787

The editors of the thirty-second volume of the Journals tabulated attendance for the last full year of Congress's ordinary business, and the table is the best summary of the problem. Congress first reached a quorum on January 17, 1787. Between that day and October 27 it transacted business on 112 days. On four of those days eleven states were fully represented, on six days ten, on 39 days nine, on 35 days eight, and on 28 days seven. A delegate from every one of the thirteen states was present on only two days. For six states or fewer the editors count 102 more Journal days on which Congress had no quorum of states and could do no business.³⁶ Taken together, the figures say that for roughly half of the days of its last working year the Congress that was supposed to act with nine states could not muster nine.

The cause was not a flaw in the counting rule. States paid and sent their own delegates, and the Journals show delegates leaving when their pay or their states' interest in the work ran out. A delegate could serve no more than three years in six. The nine-state rule turned a problem of attendance into a problem of government, because the acts that mattered most to a country at war or in debt needed nine, and a Congress meeting with seven could pass nothing but the day-to-day business a majority of the states could carry.

Single Officers at Last: The Departments of 1781

For the first five years of the war Congress ran its business through committees and boards of its own members: a board for war, a board for the treasury, a committee for foreign correspondence, and others. The method took delegates away from every other duty and left no one responsible when something went wrong. The Journal of April 27, 1781, two months after the plan for departments was adopted, still shows letters going to "the Board of War," orders to "the Board of Treasury" and a letter sent to "the Committee of Foreign Affairs to take order."³⁷ In the winter of 1781, as the Articles were taking effect, Congress turned to executive departments each headed by one officer who was not a delegate. The Journals show how the change came and how it worked.

The plan of January and February 1781

On January 10, 1781, on a committee report presented the day before, Congress established a Department of Foreign Affairs with a single Secretary at its head.³⁸ On February 7 it agreed on a plan for three more offices, a Superintendent of Finance, a Secretary at War and a Secretary of Marine.³⁹ The plan was agreed three weeks before Maryland's signature brought the Articles into force. Filling the offices took longer than writing the plan. Robert Morris was elected Superintendent of Finance on February 20, 1781. Of the other offices, Foreign Affairs and War were filled in the second half of the year, after months in which the older boards remained in place, and the Secretary of Marine never was.

Foreign Affairs: Livingston and Jay

Congress elected Robert R. Livingston of New York Secretary for Foreign Affairs on August 10, 1781, on the nomination of William Floyd.⁴⁰ Livingston's letter accepting the office, dated September 17, was read in Congress on September 29.⁴¹ He held it for a little under two years. On June 4, 1783 Congress resolved that the Secretary of Congress should take the papers of the office into his care until a successor to Livingston could be appointed, set the following Wednesday for the election of a successor, and passed a unanimous vote of thanks for "the ability, zeal and fidelity with which he hath discharged the important trust reposed in him."⁴² The election did not produce a Secretary. Madison's notes list the names put forward on June 10: Arthur Lee, Tilghman, Jonathan Trumbull and George Clymer, with General Philip Schuyler still in nomination, and Jefferson named but unwilling to accept. On February 27, 1784 Congress again went to an election "but not agreeing in the choice" postponed it, and Elbridge Gerry moved the same day that members of Congress be allowed to see the books and papers of the office, which the Secretary of Congress had kept "locked and sealed" since June.⁴³

On May 7, 1784 Congress elected John Jay Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on the nomination of Elbridge Gerry.⁴⁴ Jay was in Europe when elected. He took his seat in Congress as a New York delegate on December 6, 1784, and by January 23, 1785 he was writing to Congress on the duties of the Secretary, a letter that was committed to a committee of Monroe, Platt, Read, Hardy and Spaight.⁴⁵ He held the office until the Articles gave way to the Constitution.

War: Peters, Lincoln and an empty chair

The Board of War stayed in place after the plan of February 1781. On October 30, 1781, the day Congress was calling for $8,000,000, it elected Major General Benjamin Lincoln Secretary at War and resolved that the commissioners of the Board of War continue their duties "until the secretary at war enter upon the execution of his office." Lincoln's letter accepting the post was read on November 26, and a motion of Edmund Randolph, seconded by Thomas Smith, had in the meantime authorized Richard Peters of the Board to carry on until Lincoln took over.⁴⁶ Peters's farewell letter to Congress is printed under November 29 and takes leave "as a public officer" after more than five years' service on the board.

Lincoln served through the end of the war and then asked to leave. On October 29, 1783 Congress, on a committee report, accepted his resignation "in consideration of the earnest desire which he expresses, (the objects of the war being so happily accomplished) to retire to private life," told him it had "a high sense of his perseverance, fortitude, activity and meritorious services in the field," and resolved that he should continue as Secretary at War until November 12.⁴⁷ The office was then unfilled. On December 16, 1784 a Journal entry sends Colonel Fleury's letter to the Secretary at War "as soon as that officer shall be appointed," which shows the chair was still empty thirteen months after Lincoln left.⁴⁸ It is one of several signs that Congress found it hard to fill its own offices.

Finance: from one man to a board

Morris held the largest office, and the next section is about him. When he left, Congress went back to the older method. On May 27 and 28, 1784 it considered and passed an ordinance creating a Board of Treasury of three commissioners, who "shall have authority to exercise all the powers vested in the Superintendant of finance, by the act of Congress of the 7 February, 1781," and who would sit for a term of three years at most. Each commissioner was to receive $2,500 a year, the Comptroller $1,850, the Treasurer $1,500 and the Register $1,200.⁴⁹ On June 3 Congress elected Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Oliver Ellsworth and William Denning. Seven months later two of the three chairs were empty. On November 30, 1784 Congress resolved to elect two commissioners in place of Jenifer, "whose health will not admit of his attendance," and Ellsworth, "who has declined the appointment." On December 22 the Journal records that "Congress proceeded to the election of three commissioners to constitute the Board of Treasury, but not agreeing in a choice," postponed the election.⁵⁰ The Board did get filled and did its work, and the reports of the Board in 1786 and 1787 are among the best evidence about the requisitions that the finance section uses. But the sequence of declined appointments and failed ballots is the kind of detail that explains why the reformers of 1786 and 1787 thought the Confederation's structure needed attention along with its revenue.

Marine and the post

The plan of February 7, 1781 also named a Secretary of Marine. The Journals show that the office was never filled as planned: in 1784 entries still refer matters to "the Agent of Marine" and to "the commissioner for settling the accounts of the marine department," and the same Jefferson committee report of April 1784 prices the Marine Department's expenses for the year at $30,000.⁵¹ The Post Office, by contrast, ran under a Postmaster General, Ebenezer Hazard, whose letter of November 22, 1783 about the robbery of the mail at Princeton is among the papers the editors list.

What a department could and could not do

The departments carried out resolutions. They did not make policy. A secretary reported to Congress, or to a committee, and waited for a vote. The Superintendent of Finance, who was given the most freedom of any of them, still needed Congress's resolutions to start a requisition, and Congress still refused him some of what he asked, as the discussion of Morris below shows. The departments also had a built-in limit that no officer could cure: they spent money Congress had to get from the states, and Congress could ask for it but could not collect it. Lesson 2 explains why.

Robert Morris and the Office of Finance

The Superintendent of Finance was the most important officer Congress created, and the Journals follow Robert Morris's tenure closely enough to show what the office was and what it was not. The plan Congress agreed on February 7, 1781 gave the Superintendent a list of duties, and the list is worth reading before turning to his career. It was his duty "to examine into the state of the public debt, the public expenditures, and the public revenue, to digest and report plans for improving and regulating the finances, and for establishing order and economy in the expenditure of the public money; to direct the execution of all plans which shall be adopted by Congress respecting revenue and expenditure; to superintend and control the settlement of all public accounts; to direct and control all persons employed in procuring supplies for the public service, and in the expenditure of public money."³⁹ The verbs divide into two groups. The Superintendent could examine, digest, report and plan. He could direct and control the officers who spent the money. But "plans which shall be adopted by Congress" were Congress's to adopt, and the money he spent came from places he did not govern.

The Journal for February 20, 1781 records that Congress elected Morris, who had been nominated by William Floyd, and that the vote was unanimous.⁵² Morris did not accept at once. His letter of acceptance was read on May 14, 1781, almost three months after the election.⁵³ The Journals do not print what passed between him and Congress in the meantime, and the lesson does not guess at it.

What the Superintendent did

Morris's years in office produced more paper than any other part of the Journals of 1781 to 1783, and only the points that bear on how Congress worked are taken up here. A national bank was part of his program, and on December 31, 1781 Congress passed the ordinance incorporating the Bank of North America. A committee had told Congress that the bank could not operate without an act of incorporation from Congress itself, because Pennsylvania's legislature could not be expected to act before the middle of March. Lesson 2 gives the episode and the Article II question it raised. The Journals show the Superintendent keeping the accounts of the Treasury, writing to the governors of the states (a note to the Journal of October 22, 1781 refers to his letter of October 19 to them), and receiving the petitions and claims Congress sent him. Entry after entry in 1781 to 1783 reads "referred to the Superintendant of finance to take order."⁵⁴

What he could not do was raise revenue. Congress's own committee said so on January 30, 1783, in a reply to memorials from Pennsylvania: the objects of the memorials "must necessarily depend on the compliances of the several states with the requisitions of Congress." The same reply reports that for the year 1782 Congress had demanded eight million dollars and "only 420,031 29-90 have been received."⁵⁵ The Journal's arithmetic is carried out in ninetieths of a dollar. Morris could report such facts and propose remedies. The remedies were a matter for thirteen legislatures.

The resignation letter and the debate of March 1783

On January 24, 1783 Morris wrote to Congress that he intended to leave office at the end of May. The letter was kept under an injunction of secrecy until February 26. Madison's notes refer to its statement that Morris would not be "the minister of Injustice." On March 5 a committee reported that Congress need not take immediate steps. In Madison's words it "considered the resignation as conditional," and the date of departure was some months off.⁵⁶ The debate on this report, as Madison records it for March 4 and 5, was "lengthy & warm." Theodorick Bland and Arthur Lee disparaged Morris's administration and took his letters as an insult to Congress. Lee said that "the man who had published to all the world such a picture of our national character & finances was unfit to be a Minister of the latter." James Wilson and Hamilton defended him and warned that his resignation, if it took effect, would involve public credit and everything that depended on it. Madison reports that "the prevailing objection to Mr. Bland's motion was that its avowed object and tendency was to re-establish a board in place of a single minister of finance," and that the motion was lost.⁵⁷

The vote tells us that the delegates of 1783 did not see the single minister as a settled thing, and that the older method of rule by a board of members was still alive in their minds. On June 30, 1783, from Princeton, Morris asked leave to return to Philadelphia, and the Journal's notes record that it was granted.⁵⁸ He did stay on. The Journals show Congress still referring matters to the Superintendent of Finance in the autumn of 1783, in January 1784, and in a letter from him of May 19, 1784.

From a minister to a board

Congress turned back to a board in May 1784. The ordinance creating the Board of Treasury, reported on May 27 and passed by May 28, gave the commissioners "all the powers vested in the Superintendant of finance, by the act of Congress of the 7 February, 1781."⁴⁹ The departments section above gives the filling of the Board and the failures of the elections in the fall of 1784. For the record of the requisitions the change matters in a particular way. From 1781 to 1784 the accounts of the Treasury are those of the Superintendent. From 1784 on, the reports to Congress are those of the Board, and in February 1786 the Board produced the most complete summary of receipts that the Journals contain.

The Money: What Congress Asked and What Came In

Article VIII provided that the expenses of the Union "shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion to the value of all land within each State." Congress could say how much was needed. The states had to lay the taxes, "by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several States," and pay the proceeds in.¹⁸ Lesson 2 explains the clause. This section follows the requisitions in the order Congress made them and sets beside each the Journal's own count of what was paid.

The record has to be read with some care. Most of the receipts figures come from Congress's own committees, the Superintendent of Finance and the Board of Treasury, which were arguing for more money, and the states disputed the accounting. The Journals themselves note two things that cut the other way. The states often paid creditors directly, so that part of what they raised never passed through the Treasury. And Congress's estimates for 1782 assumed a full army and no loans, which turned out to be wrong. The figures are what the federal officers counted, and they are the best figures there are.

The impost that failed, 1781 to 1783

The first plan for revenue was not a requisition. On February 3, 1781 Congress recommended that the states vest it with power to levy a duty of five percent on imports, and on February 7 it resolved to proceed once all the states that could assemble had consented.⁵⁹ Article XIII required every state, and the plan did not survive. Congress's reply of January 30, 1783 gives its own account: "after a delay of near two years, Congress have the mortification to find, that the grant of this revenue is fettered with undue restrictions that one State entirely refuses its concurrence, that another has withdrawn its assent once given, and that a third has returned no answer." Rhode Island was the state that refused, and Congress had voted to send a deputation to persuade it. "At the moment when the committee were about to depart, intelligence was received that Virginia had repealed the act formerly passed."⁵⁵

The $8,000,000 requisition of October 30, 1781

The first great requisition was voted on October 30, 1781, six days after the news of Yorktown, by nine states. It called for $8,000,000 for 1782, "to be paid quarterly in equal proportions, the first payment to be made on the first day of April next," and named a committee of one member from each state to apportion the quotas. The table in the Journal, dated November 2, sums to exactly $8,000,000.⁶⁰ Virginia and Massachusetts were each assigned about $1.31 million, Pennsylvania $1.12 million, Maryland $933,996, and Georgia, the smallest, $24,905. The April 1784 report says plainly that "no materials have yet been furnished to enable Congress to adjust the ultimate ratio" of the war's costs by land value, so the quotas were provisional from the start.

The record of what came in is short. By January 30, 1783, Congress told the Pennsylvania legislature that "only 420,031 29-90" dollars had been received on it. By the end of 1783 the Treasury's count, in the grand committee's report of April 5, 1784, was $1,486,511.71 of the $8,000,000, about 18.6 percent.⁶¹ The same report makes two admissions that a one-sided account would leave out. It says the requisition "was estimated on supposition, that the continental Army would be completed by the states, to its full establishment," and the states were "far short of producing such an army," so that "the calls for money were proportionally abridged." It says loans were obtained that the estimate had not counted on. And it says that "instead of money, those who served and supplied the United States have received certificates only that money is due to them." On those grounds the committee reckoned that a surplus of $5,513,488.28 would remain on the requisition after meeting "all the demands which actually arose against it." The committee also counted about one million dollars of further debts for 1782 and 1783 that depended on later receipts on the requisition.

Interest and the second call: 1782

The second requisition was for interest on the domestic debt. Congress's resolutions of September 4 and 10, 1782 called for $1,200,000, and the quotas were reported on September 9, from Georgia's $14,400 to Massachusetts's $192,000.⁶² A roll call on a motion to cut New Hampshire's quota is printed. The requisition allowed the states to apply their quotas to interest due to holders of certificates issued by their own loan offices. The result, the committee of April 1784 noted, was that the actual payments "have been uncommunicated to the Office of finance," so that the Office had no account of what had been paid. On October 16, 1782 Congress called for another $2,000,000 for 1783, in four quarterly payments beginning April 1, 1783, and on October 17 a grand committee assigned the quotas, from Georgia's $24,000 to Massachusetts's $320,000.⁶³ The address of October 1786 recalls that "the sum of 6 M was thought necessary but only 2 M were called for, as loans were then expected to be made in Europe." The Superintendent of Finance, the 1784 committee says, "found it better to receive and credit" the few payments that came in on the $2,000,000 as part of the $8,000,000.

The change of rule, April 1783

The Articles' land-value rule had never been put to use. On February 17, 1783 Congress asked the states for accounts of their lands, buildings and inhabitants. On April 18, 1783 it proposed to change Article VIII so that population, with three-fifths of the slaves counted, would measure each state's share, and it paired the change with a revenue plan of imposts and supplementary funds.⁶⁴ Madison's notes record that the rate of three-fifths was agreed to without opposition. Both proposals needed all thirteen states under Article XIII. The Journal for September 1, 1783 prints Connecticut's act agreeing to the alteration, and the committee of April 1784 said that Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and South Carolina had agreed. Lesson 5 follows the plan's later history.

The requisition of April 27, 1784

A grand committee, with Jefferson among its members, had its report before Congress on April 5, 1784. The report said that $5,480,203.33 would be wanted for arrears of interest and the year's services. It proposed that the states pay enough to bring their payments up to three-fourths of their quotas of the $8,000,000, half in money and half by "discounts of interest" with the states' own creditors, within the year.⁶¹ On April 27 Congress agreed to a revised report. The total fell to $3,812,539.33, and the share called for fell from three-fourths to one-half of the original quotas. The report's table, state by state, sums to $2,670,987.89 still wanted to bring payments up to one-half of the $8,000,000. The address of October 1786 says that on April 27 Congress "suspended the operation of the last requisition for 2 M dollars, and also one-half of the first for 8 M dollars."⁶⁵ The decision was a concession to the states, and the committee gave its reason: "Their creditors themselves will view them just relieved from the ravages of predatory armies, returning from an attendance on camps, to the culture of their fields." The address records the result: of the $2,670,987.89, "to the first of January, 1786, a space of two years there was paid only 971,475.44 dollars," although the states had been allowed to pay one fourth of it in certificates of interest.⁶⁶

The $3,000,000 requisition of September 27, 1785

On September 27, 1785 Congress called for $3,000,000, to be paid by May 1, 1786, of which $1,000,000 was to be specie and $2,000,000 was to come by discounts on interest. It described the sum as part of the $4,000,000 that the action of April 27, 1784 had suspended.⁶⁷ The address of 1786 recalls that $840,000 of the call was "absolutely and indispensibly necessary to defray the charges of the Civil government and the interest of the foreign debt." Figure 2 in the Pictures and Numbers section marks the amounts.

The Board of Treasury and a committee of Congress reported on what had come in on February 8 and 13, 1786, and their figures are the fullest in the Journals. The Board counted $2,025,089.34 of receipts on account of taxes under the earlier requisitions, of which $16,414.79 was still in the hands of the receivers, and said it was received "in the course of two years and nine months"; the committee's version dates the same sum to the three years from November 1, 1781 to November 1, 1784. From November 18, 1784 to November 18, 1785 the Treasury received $358,622.81. For November 1, 1784 to January 1, 1786 the committee gave $432,897.81. The total for the more than four years was "2,457,987 Dollars," an average of $614,497 a year, and the last fourteen months were "at the rate of 371,052 Dollars per annum."⁶⁸ The Board then set the whole of those receipts against the $4,332,276 in specie called for by the two requisitions of April 27, 1784 and September 27, 1785 and counted a deficiency of $1,874,288.65. That comparison is the Board's own, and it mixes receipts from 1781 on with the calls of 1784 and 1785, so it is better read as a rough measure than as the arrears on either call. The Board also put the foreign interest and the salaries of foreign ministers then due at $685,007, to be set against receipts running at about $371,000 a year. On February 7, Congress had resolved that the states had been called on for "upwards of seven millions" since December 1781.

The address to the states of October 6, 1786 gives the result a year after the call. It says that "only ten states out of the thirteen have passed acts apparently complying with it," with the word "eight" struck and "ten" written over it in the printed text, and that "by such as have complied not more than the sum of 100,000 dollars has been paid into the general Treasury to the present date in actual Specie." A later passage of the same address says that "eight States have passed any Acts relative to it." The two statements do not agree, and the Journal prints both. The address goes through the acts state by state. It observes of Massachusetts that "more than one Moiety of the sum proposed to be raised, is for State purposes," and that nothing in the act gave Congress's requisition priority. It says that no specie was to be expected from Rhode Island, which had set against the requisition a balance owed to contractors for ox teams in 1781. It totals "the deficiencies that have arisen on the several requisitions from the 30th October, 1781, which amount to the sum of 4,442,012.65 dollars."⁶⁶ It then names three causes, "an insufficiency in the extent of the funds provided for federal purposes," "a want of energy in collecting them," and "a misapplication of the monies when collected," and it concludes that "our difficulties have been occasioned by your misconduct."

The last count, 1786 and 1787

The last requisition for interest on the domestic debt was made in August 1786 for $1,606,560.65, one year's interest. The Journal for August 1 prints the debate. A motion by Charles Pettit to double the sum to two years' interest was lost on a roll call, and so was an amendment by the South Carolina delegates seeking credit for supplies furnished the army. An amendment by William Grayson, which required a state to pass an act "thereby providing adequate funds" before the continental loan officer in that state could issue interest certificates, was agreed to.⁶⁹ The Board of Treasury's report of September 29, 1787 included a table of payments to March 31, 1787. It gave the sum of all four domestic-interest requisitions, from 1782 through 1786, as $6,279,376.27. Payments by that date came to $1,003,725.57, most of it in certificates of interest, and nothing had been paid on the requisition of 1786.⁷⁰ By the Board's count about 16 percent of what Congress asked for interest on its debt had come in, and most of that came as paper.

Reading the record

Three conclusions follow from the record, and each rests on a number the Journals print. First, the shortfall was real. The Board's own count for the four years to January 1786 gives an average of $614,497 a year, and the address of 1786 said that $840,000 a year was indispensable for the civil government and the interest on the foreign debt alone. Second, refusal alone does not explain the shortfall. Congress's committee conceded in April 1784 that the 1782 requisition had been sized for a full army and without loans, that creditors had received certificates instead of money, and that some payments were not reported to the Office of Finance. Third, the process was the weak point. Every year Congress made a new call on thirteen legislatures, argued about quotas set without a land valuation, and collected what it could. The Articles gave it no other way to raise money, and the delegates of 1783 and 1786 said so in the documents quoted above.

The War and the Army, 1781 to 1783

Congress did not command the army in the field. Washington did, and the Secretary at War, once there was one, kept the returns, made out commissions and carried out Congress's resolutions. Under Article IX Congress held the power to appoint a commander in chief and to fix the number of land forces, both with nine states. What it also held, and what the Journals show it using, was the power over the money. Every question about pay, rations, clothing, bounties and discharges came back to the Treasury, and the Treasury came back to the states. The record of the army in these years is the record of that problem.

Yorktown in the Journal

The surrender of Cornwallis reached Congress on October 24, 1781. The Journal for that day refers Washington's letter of the 19th "enclosing the correspondence between him and the Earl Cornwallis, concerning the surrender of the garrisons of York and Gloucester, and the articles of capitulation" to a committee of four, with an instruction to report on "the most proper mode of communicating the thanks of the United States in Congress assembled, to General Washington, Count de Rochambeau and Count de Grasse." Lieutenant Colonel Tilghman, Washington's aide, who had carried the dispatches, was to be honored as well.⁷¹ On October 26 a committee of Witherspoon, Montgomery, Varnum and Sherman reported a proclamation, which Congress agreed to, recommending that the states set apart December 13 as a day of thanksgiving and prayer. It speaks of "a General of the first Rank, with his whole army" captured "by the allied forces under the direction of our Illustrious Commander in Chief."⁷²

The formal thanks passed on October 29. Congress thanked Washington "for the eminent services which he has rendered to the United States, and particularly for the well concerted plan against the British garrisons in York and Gloucester; for the vigor, attention and military skill with which that plan was executed; and for the wisdom and prudence manifested in the capitulation." It thanked Rochambeau, de Grasse and the artillery and engineers of the allied army, directed Washington to pass its thanks to the officers and soldiers, and resolved to erect at York "a marble column, adorned with emblems of the alliance between the United States and his Most Christian Majesty."⁷³ The column was not built in the Confederation's lifetime. The vote of thanks is the high point of Congress's handling of the war, and it came one day before the call for $8,000,000 described in the money section.

The officers' claim: half pay and its commutation

The army's grievances after Yorktown were about money that was owed and promises that were not secure. By a resolution of October 21, 1780 Congress had promised officers who served to the end of the war half pay for life. The commutation resolution of 1783 itself says the lifetime pension was viewed unfavorably by citizens of some states. By the winter of 1782 to 1783 the officers at the cantonment at Newburgh on the Hudson were owed months of pay and had no security for what they were owed. A committee of the army carried a memorial to Congress, and on January 6, 1783 the memorial went to a grand committee of one member from each state.⁷⁴

The grand committee reported on January 25. It found that the memorial "comprehend five different articles": present pay, a settlement of accounts of arrears and security for what was due, a commutation of the half pay "for an equivalent in gross," and settlements of the deficiencies of rations and clothing. Congress resolved that the Superintendent of Finance should pay "as soon as the state of public finances will permit." On the third article it voted that it be left to the officers entitled to half pay "either to preserve their claim to that provision as it now stands by the several resolutions upon that subject, or to accept in lieu thereof six years full pay," payable a year after the war, in money or in funded securities bearing six percent interest.⁷⁵ The record shows what Congress could offer and what it could not. It could promise a sum at some future time. It could not name a fund from which the sum would be paid, and it added only that it would "make every effort in their power to obtain from the respective states substantial funds."

Newburgh, March 1783

The crisis came at the army's camp in March. The Journals print the record under "Paper No. VIII," Washington's letters of March 12 and March 18 with their enclosures, entered on April 29, 1783. The first letter opens: "It is with inexpressible concern I make the following report to your Excellency: Two days ago anonymous papers were circulated in the army, requesting a general meeting of the officers on the next day." Another anonymous paper, "purporting to be an address to the officers of the army, was handed about in a clandestine manner," and a further one followed in a postscript. "To prevent any precipitate and dangerous resolutions from being taken at this perilous moment, while the passions were all inflamed," he wrote, he had issued an order the next morning, and "all opinion must be suspended until after the meeting on Saturday."⁷⁶ The Journal calls the authors anonymous. Later historians attribute the two addresses to Major John Armstrong Jr., an aide to General Horatio Gates, a fact that the Journals do not record.

The meeting was held on Saturday, March 15, with Gates in the chair. Washington addressed the officers, and the Journal prints his speech. Two passages are the ones most often quoted. Of the anonymous writer's advice to suspect any man who urged moderation, he said: "I spurn it, as every man who regards that liberty and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for, if men are to be precluded from offering their sentiments on a matter which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences that can invite the consideration of mankind, reason is of no use to us. The freedom of speech may be taken away, and, dumb and silent, we may be led, like sheep, to the slaughter." He said he believed Congress had a high sense of the army's services and would do it justice, and he ended by saying that by their conduct they would "afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, 'had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.'"⁷⁷

When Washington withdrew, the officers voted, on a motion of General Knox seconded by General Putnam, to thank him, and appointed a committee of General Knox, Colonel Brooks and Captain Howard to draw up resolutions. The committee reported within the half hour, and the meeting adopted its resolutions unanimously. They declared that the officers had entered the war "from the purest love and attachment to the rights and liberties of human nature," that the army had "an unshaken confidence in the justice of Congress and their country," and that the officers "expect that the half-pay, or a commutation of it, should be efficaciously comprehended" in the settlement. They asked Washington to press Congress for a speedy decision. They resolved "with abhorrence" to "reject with disdain, the infamous propositions contained in a late anonymous address."⁷⁸ The proceedings were signed by Horatio Gates as president.

The commutation of March 22, 1783

Washington's letter of March 12 was read in Congress on March 17 and sent to a committee of five, and his letter of March 18, enclosing the account of the meeting, was read on March 22 and sent to a committee that included Osgood, Bland and Hamilton. On that same day, March 22, Congress passed the commutation. A committee of Hamilton, Dyer and Bedford had reported it, and the resolution recites that the officers had asked, in their memorial, for "a commutation of their half pay for an equivalent in one of the two modes" because the lifetime half pay "was regarded in an unfavourable light by the citizens of some of these states." It resolved that officers "now in service, and shall continue therein to the end of the war, shall be entitled to receive the amount of five years' full pay in money, or securities on interest at six per cent. per annum, as Congress shall find most convenient, instead of the half pay promised for life, by the resolution of the 21 day of October, 1780." Acceptance was to be "at the option of the lines of the respective states, and not of officers individually in those lines."⁷⁹ The number had moved from six years in the January offer to five years in the final resolution.

The Journal prints, immediately after the committee's resolutions, a different proposal by Oliver Wolcott, seconded by Jonathan Arnold. It would have let a state settle with the officers of its own line by composition or other security. The Journal prints it as a motion, and the printed record does not show whether it was voted on.

The Newburgh papers and the resolution of March 22 are close enough in time that readers often assume one caused the other. The Journal supports a more careful statement. Congress had offered a commutation in January, in the form of six years' pay, and the officers' committee in Philadelphia had been pressing for a decision for weeks. Washington's letter reporting the meeting of March 15 was read in Congress on March 22, the day the commutation passed, so the order of events does not by itself show which led to which. What the record shows is that the officers' demand reached Congress through Washington in plain terms, and that Congress settled the question that same day in the form the officers wanted, five years' pay in money or securities.

The mutiny and the discharge

The soldiers' own protest came three months later, in the Pennsylvania line, and is told in the section on where Congress met. On October 29, 1783 Congress directed that the Secretary at War "discharge all the troops in the service of the United States, who are now in Pensylvania or to the southward thereof, except the garrison of Fort Pitt," and on the same day refused a memorial from General Armand about land, resolving that "they cannot at present make any appropriations, much less can they assign certain districts to any particular corps."⁸⁰ The war's army was being sent home, and what it was owed remained a claim on the Treasury.

Washington's resignation, December 23, 1783

The last act of the war in the Journals took place at Annapolis. On December 23, 1783 Washington was admitted to a public audience, "being seated," and addressed Congress: "Mr. President: The great events on which my resignation depended, having at length taken place, I have now the honor of offering my sincere congratulations to Congress, and of presenting myself before them, to surrender into their hands the trust committed to me, and to claim the indulgence of retiring from the service of my country." He continued: "Happy in the confirmation of our independence and sovereignty, and pleased with the opportunity afforded the United States, of becoming a respectable nation, I resign with satisfaction the appointment I accepted with diffidence." The president's reply, entered in the Journal, begins by saying that the United States in Congress assembled "receive with emotions, too affecting for utterance" his resignation of the authorities under which he had led their troops.⁸¹ The same day's Journal carries the letter, quoted in the voting section, that urged six states to send delegates and said that no more than seven states had been represented at Annapolis during the sitting.

The Treaty of Paris

The Treaty of Paris was the Confederation Congress's greatest success, and the Journals show how much of the story Congress knew only at second hand. Its commissioners were an ocean away. Their letters took weeks. The terms they agreed to were not the terms Congress had instructed, and Congress accepted them anyway.

The instructions of June 1781

Earlier instructions to Adams on the terms of peace were dated August 14, 1779 and October 18, 1780. In June 1781, with the war still undecided, the Journals show a debate over how much freedom the ministers should have. On June 6 the first paragraph of a motion by John Witherspoon was put to a roll call and lost, and the report before Congress was recommitted.⁸² On June 14 and 15 Congress added Franklin, Laurens and Jefferson to Adams and Jay. The instructions of June 15, 1781, signed by the president Samuel Huntington and by Thomson, told them "to accede to no treaty of peace which shall not be such as may, 1st, effectually secure the independence and sovereignty of the thirteen states," and left disputed boundaries to earlier instructions while stating that Congress thought "it unsafe, at this distance, to tie you up by absolute and peremptory directions upon any other subject than the two essential articles." On dealings with France the text is plainer: the ministers were "to make the most candid and confidential communications upon all subjects to the ministers of our generous ally, the King of France; to undertake nothing in the negotiations for peace or truce without their knowledge and concurrence" and, in the end, to be governed by their advice and opinion.⁸³

A modern reader might call this a leash. In 1781 Congress was borrowing from France and fighting alongside French forces, and the delegates who voted the instruction held that the alliance required it. The commissioners in Paris did not follow it, and historians credit Jay and Adams with pressing the point. They negotiated directly with the British commissioner, Richard Oswald, and signed preliminary articles on November 30, 1782 without first showing them to the French court.

Ratifying the preliminary articles, April 1783

Congress took up the preliminary articles on April 15, 1783. The Journal records the articles' title as "Articles agreed upon by and between Richard Oswald, esq. the commissioner of his Britannic Majesty, for treating of peace with the commissioners of the United States of America," with John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Jay and Henry Laurens as "four of the commissioners" for the United States. The articles were to become part of a treaty to be concluded when Britain and France agreed. Congress resolved, "unanimously, That the said articles be ratified." It directed the Commander in Chief to make the preparatory arrangements for the seventh article, which provided for British withdrawal, and "to make the proper arrangements with the Commander in Chief of the British forces, for receiving possession of the posts in the United States occupied by the troops of his Britannic Majesty."⁸⁴ The Journal enters Congress's proclamation of the cessation of hostilities under April 9, on a draft that the volume's editors date as issued April 11.

On October 21, 1783 a committee of James Wilson, John Rutledge, Nathaniel Gorham, Abraham Clark and Alexander Hamilton reported on the commissioners' conduct. Congress resolved that it "entertain a high sense of the services of their Commissioners in the negotiation of the provisional articles," and also that the Secretary for foreign affairs inform them "that it is the wish of Congress, that the articles agreed to with the Commissioner of his Britannic Majesty ought to have been communicated to the Court of France before they were signed."⁸⁵ The language says that Congress had been disobeyed and chose to say so mildly, because the result was good. The posts it had hoped to receive in 1783 were not surrendered, and that story is told in Lesson 5.

The definitive treaty and the nine-state deadline

The definitive treaty was signed at Paris on September 3, 1783. Article X required ratifications to be exchanged "in the space of six months, or sooner if possible, to be computed from the day of the signature."⁸⁶ Congress's trouble was in getting nine states to Annapolis, which the voting section described. On January 14, 1784 it ratified the treaty, "unanimously, nine states being present," in a form that the Journal prints with the full text of the treaty. The ratifications were exchanged at Passy on May 12, 1784, within the six months, and the Committee of the States entered the exchange in its Journal on August 2.⁸⁷ The Committee also proposed a proclamation, entered in the Journal on August 3, that observes that the instruments of ratification were exchanged at Passy "whereby a finishing hand was put to the great work of peace, and the freedom, sovereignty and independence of these states, fully and compleately established."⁸⁸

What Congress did and did not control

Three points come out of the Journals. First, Congress controlled the instructions and the ratification, and in both it acted through nine states. Second, it did not control the negotiation. The commissioners acted on their own judgment when they thought the instruction would cost the country, and Congress approved the result. Third, once the treaty was ratified the performance was out of Congress's hands. Article V recommended that the states restore confiscated property, Article IV protected British creditors' claims, and Article VII required British evacuation of posts. Congress could ask. The states passed their own laws, and the British kept the posts. Jay's report of October 13, 1786, Congress's resolution of March 21, 1787 and the way the treaty reached the states are told in Lesson 2 and Lesson 5. The record shown here is the plain fact of how the treaty was made: Congress named ministers it could not control, accepted a result it had not asked for, and ratified it with exactly nine states in the room.

Foreign Affairs and the Nine-State Rule

Foreign affairs were the field in which the Articles gave Congress its clearest authority and its most demanding rule. Article IX gave Congress "the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war," of "sending and receiving ambassadors," and of "entering into treaties and alliances," and it added that Congress shall never "enter into any treaties or alliances" "unless nine States assent to the same."¹⁸ The Department of Foreign Affairs, created in January 1781, gave the work a daily staff. The Journals show how the two fit together. The Secretary read the dispatches, drafted letters and reported, and Congress, with nine states, decided.

Ratifying treaties

The Journal's treatment of treaties shows the rule at work. On January 23, 1783 Congress took up the Dutch treaty. A committee of Madison, Hamilton and Ellsworth had compared the treaty of amity and commerce signed at The Hague on October 8, 1782 with Congress's instructions and reported that "no variations have taken place which affect the substance of the plan proposed by Congress." It noted several clauses for Congress's attention, among them a restraint on the exercise of religious worship in Article 4 and a longer period for citizens of a party to leave after a rupture in Article 18, and it advised that the treaty "ought to be immediately and fully accepted and ratified." On a second paper, a convention about recaptured vessels, the committee reported that "no express authority has been delegated by Congress on that subject" but thought the convention to the mutual advantage of the parties. Congress ratified both the same day.⁸⁹

On July 29, 1783 Congress ratified the treaty of amity and commerce with Sweden, "nine States being present," the recital that the Journal uses to show that Article IX was met. On May 17, 1786 it ratified the treaty with Prussia in nearly the same words, and on July 18, 1787 it ratified the treaty with the Emperor of Morocco that Thomas Barclay had negotiated.⁹⁰ The ratification of the definitive treaty with Great Britain, on January 14, 1784, followed the same pattern and was taken up in the voting section. In all four cases the Journal prints the whole instrument of ratification, with the text of the treaty, so that a reader can see exactly what Congress put its seal to. The recurring difficulty in the Journal's account of ratifications is the number of states in the room.

Spain and the Mississippi, 1785 and 1786

The record on Spain shows what the nine-state rule meant when Congress was divided. Don Diego de Gardoqui, Spain's chargé d'affaires, was received by Congress on July 2, 1785, and delivered a commission empowering him to treat with a person Congress should authorize.⁹¹ On July 20, 1785, on a committee report, Congress resolved that "the honorable John Jay, Secretary to the United States of America for the department of Foreign Affairs, be and he hereby is invested with full powers" to treat with Gardoqui on boundaries and the "general harmony and mutual interest of the two Nations," and instructed Jay to communicate to Congress any proposition before making it. On August 25, 1785 Congress replaced that instruction with a firmer one. Jay was "particularly to stipulate the right of the United States to their territorial bounds," and the free use of the Mississippi "from the source to the Ocean, as established in their Treaties with Great Britain," and was not to "conclude nor sign any treaty, compact or convention" with Gardoqui until he had communicated it to Congress and received its approval.⁹²

By 1786 Jay thought a treaty on those terms could not be had. The Journal for August 29, 1786 prints his letter of May 29 and a written statement of August 13 recommending a treaty of commerce with Spain on terms of "perfect reciprocity," in return for which the United States would hold back from using the Mississippi for shipping during the term of the treaty. The same entry prints a long answer from the Virginia delegates, who argued that the commercial terms would give the United States nothing it did not already have, and that the Mississippi concession would give away what Congress had instructed Jay to defend.⁹³

On August 30 the question came to a roll call. The Journal prints the votes with every delegate's name. On the resolution, as amended on the floor, that would have revised Jay's instructions, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania voted aye, and Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia voted no. The entry reads "So the question was lost."⁹⁴ Seven states were a majority of the thirteen and two short of the nine the rule called for. The Journal shows more in the days that followed. On August 31 Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, seconded by Henry Lee of Virginia, moved a resolution reciting Article IX and arguing that the August 1785 change to Jay's instructions had been made "by the assent of seven states, when nine were alone competent to such alteration and enlargement of his powers," so that Jay was not authorized to negotiate on different principles and the United States would not be bound to ratify a treaty made on them. On a motion for the previous question, moved by New Hampshire and seconded by Pennsylvania, the main question was "set aside" on a roll call, and Pinckney's resolution was never voted on directly. A motion by Pinckney, seconded by Monroe, to postpone the pending business on August 30 so as to take up a proposition to the same effect had already lost on a roll call. On September 1 Congress adopted an order, on a motion made by Rufus King on August 31, that a question set aside by the previous question could not be moved again in substance unless as many states were present.⁹⁵

Three points come out of the Journal on this episode. First, the nine-state rule applied to treaties, and the delegates argued over whether it also applied to changes in the instructions that governed a negotiator. Pinckney's motion said it did. The Journal does not show Congress deciding that question, because the previous question set it aside. Second, the rule cut both ways. It prevented a treaty seven states wanted, and by the same arithmetic it would have prevented a treaty Jay's critics wanted had they been in the minority. Third, the roll call gives a map of how the states divided: the five states that voted no ran from Maryland to Georgia, and the seven that voted aye ran from New Hampshire to Pennsylvania. The Journal records the votes, and it leaves the delegates' reasons to their letters. The treaty with Spain was never made in the Confederation's lifetime. The report Jay presented on October 13, 1786 on the treaty of peace and the state laws that conflicted with it is covered in Lesson 2 and Lesson 5, and Congress's resolution on treaties of March 21, 1787 is taken up in Lesson 2.

What the Record Supports and What It Does Not

Popular accounts of the Confederation Congress repeat several claims that the Journals can test. Five are worth testing against the entries read in this lesson.

"Congress had no powers"

The Articles listed powers in Article IX and the Journals show Congress using them. It ratified treaties with the Netherlands, Sweden, Prussia, Morocco and Great Britain. It named ministers, accepted Washington's resignation, ratified the preliminary peace, chartered a bank by ordinance, set up departments and sent amendments to the Articles to the states. It also made requisitions on the states. What the record shows it lacking is the means to collect: the first great requisition of 1781 brought in under a fifth of what it asked for by the end of 1783, and no Journal entry shows Congress with a way to compel a state to pay. The accurate statement is that Congress had authority to decide and to ask, and no authority to collect.

"Congress could not meet"

This is partly true. The 1787 attendance table shows that nine or more states were fully represented on 49 of the 112 days on which Congress transacted business, and that eleven states were fully represented on four. It also shows 102 other Journal days with six states or fewer. But Congress did meet, passed resolutions and ordinances, and ratified a treaty in a room with exactly nine states in it. The attendance record is the best evidence that the nine-state rule bound, and also that it was met on enough days for the work to proceed, slowly. Lesson 4 gives the ordinances of 1784, 1785 and 1787 that came out of it.

"The states paid nothing"

The Treasury's own count refutes the strong form of this claim. The Board of Treasury counted $2,025,089.34 received on the requisitions in the three years from November 1781, and $1,003,725.57 paid on the four interest requisitions by March 1787. These are small against the sums asked, about 18.6 percent of the $8,000,000 by the end of 1783 and about 16 percent of the interest requisitions by 1787, but they are not zero. The caveats in the finance section apply: the federal officers did the counting, the states sometimes paid creditors directly, and most of the later payments were in certificates.

"Newburgh was a coup that Washington stopped"

The Journal prints the anonymous addresses, Washington's speech and the officers' resolutions, so a reader can read them. The anonymous papers called a meeting of the officers, and the officers who met on March 15 resolved "with abhorrence" to reject the "infamous propositions" in the address. The Journals do not say who wrote the addresses. Accounts that tie them to members of Congress or to a plan of action rest on sources outside the Journal. What the Journal supports is narrower: a group of officers met, Washington spoke, the officers disavowed the address, and Congress passed the commutation a week later. The causal link between the speech and the commutation is the one the record does not settle.

"Congress had a capital"

Congress sat in eight towns across nine separate stints between December 1776 and January 1785. New York was the seat for the Confederation's last years, but the two years before it included the mutiny, the flight to Princeton, a winter at Annapolis and a fall at Trenton. The location of the government was itself a political question, and the Journals show five states voting on October 8, 1783 to reconsider the first plan for a federal town.

Key Documents

Each document was read in the text cited. Primary sources are listed in the Sources section below. Page ranges are approximate.

Why This Matters to Idaho Officials and Voters

Idaho's constitution answers several of the problems the Confederation Congress ran into. Four are plain in the record above.

The first is the vote. Under Article IX most business needed "a majority of the United States in Congress assembled," which meant a majority of the states, and a few kinds of business needed nine. The Journals show that the delegates counted states, and that a delegation that split was marked "div." and counted for nothing. Idaho's Article III, section 15, uses a different rule for a different body. A bill's final passage requires a vote "by yeas and nays upon each bill separately," entered "upon the journal," and "no bill shall become a law without the concurrence of a majority of the members present."⁹⁶ The count is of members present, not of states, and the roll is written down by member. The Confederation's Journals printed rolls by state with the delegate's name beside it, which is the older form of the same duty.

The second is the executive. The Confederation had no executive. The Journals show it creating departments of its own, losing its Secretary at War for thirteen months, and trying to elect a Board of Treasury and failing. Idaho's Article IV, section 1, names the executive department by office: a governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, state controller, state treasurer, the state's chief legal officer and superintendent of public instruction, each serving a four-year term.⁹⁷ Seven named officers with fixed terms stand where the Confederation had vacancies.

The third is the purse. The Confederation could appropriate but could not collect, and the Treasury's counts show how little came in. Idaho's Article VII, section 13, says "no money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in pursuance of appropriations made by law."⁹⁸ The Confederation Congress had that rule too, in its way, since money left the treasury only on its resolutions. What Idaho adds is a treasury that fills through taxes the state levies on its own authority.

The fourth is debt. Congress ended the war owing a domestic debt it could not pay. Idaho's Article VIII, section 1, forbids the legislature to create debt, apart from stated exceptions such as war, invasion, insurrection and ordinary operating expenses, except by a law for "some single object or work," which must provide ways to pay the interest and to repay the principal "within twenty years" and which must be approved by the voters at a general election.⁹⁹ A voter reading the 1786 and 1787 Treasury counts can see what the rule is meant to prevent: obligations without funds attached.

Using This in Reporting and Civic Life

Reading a roll call by unit

The Journals count votes by state, not by member, and a split delegation counts for nothing. A reporter reading a 1780s roll should add up the states, check the number the question required, and look for the word "div." before drawing a conclusion. The vote of August 30, 1786 on Jay's instructions shows the method: seven states aye, five no, nine required, question lost.

Separating the Journal from the retelling

Many stories about this period, such as the Newburgh crisis and the mutiny of June 1783, are retold with details that no Journal entry supports. A careful writer marks which sentences rest on the Journal, which on Madison's notes and which on later accounts. This lesson does so in its notes: the mutiny narrative is from Madison's notes, the Newburgh authorship is outside the Journal, and the causal link between Washington's speech and the commutation is left open.

Reading a financial total with its caveats

The figures for what the states paid come from the Superintendent of Finance, the Board of Treasury and committees of Congress, which were arguing for more money. A careful reader checks who counted, over what period, and whether the amounts were money or paper. The Board's own printed totals carry a ten-cent discrepancy, and its "deficiency" combines receipts from 1781 on with calls of 1784 and 1785. Treat such numbers as the best count the officers made and not as an audit.

Checking a date against the Journal

When a speaker gives a date for an event of the 1780s, the Journal usually allows a check in a minute: the entries are headed by day, and the editors' notes give the date a paper was read. This lesson found, for example, that Congress adjourned to the State House on June 27, 1778, and that the proclamation of cessation of hostilities is entered under April 9, 1783 although the editors date its issue to April 11. Small differences like these are common, and a footnote that names the volume and the page lets a reader settle them.

Where to find the records

The Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 to 1789, are in thirty-four volumes at the Internet Archive. The National Archives and the Avalon Project at Yale carry the Articles. The Idaho Legislature's website carries the Idaho Constitution at the sections cited above.

Related Lessons

Before this lesson: Lesson 1, Drafting and Ratification, which tells how the Articles were written and why Maryland held out until March 1, 1781, and Lesson 2, The Thirteen Articles, which reads the text clause by clause. Next in the series: Lesson 4, Ordinances and Western Lands, Lesson 5, The Crisis Years (the posts, the Jay report and Shays's Rebellion) and Lesson 6, From Annapolis to Philadelphia. Forward in the course: Module 1, From the Charters to Philadelphia (the constitutional background); Module 6, Amending the Constitution (how the unanimity rule of Article XIII became the three-fourths rule of Article V); Module 14, Article IV: The States and the Union (the descendants of the Articles' fourth article and of the Article IX court); and Module 16, Article VII: Ratification (how the Constitution replaced the Articles without the consent of every state).

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• Avalon Project, Articles of Confederation (March 1, 1781)
• National Archives, Milestone Documents: Articles of Confederation
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 6 (August to December 1776)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 7 (January to May 1777)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 8 (May to September 1777)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 11 (May to September 1778)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 19 (January to April 1781)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 20 (April to July 1781)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 21 (August to December 1781)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 23 (1782)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 24 (1783)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 25 (September to December 1783, with Madison's notes of debates for 1783)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 26 (January to May 1784)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 27 (May to December 1784)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 28 (January to June 1785)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 29 (July to December 1785)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 30 (January to July 1786)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 31 (August to December 1786)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 32 (January to July 1787)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 33 (July to December 1787)
• Idaho Constitution, art. III, section 15
• Idaho Constitution, art. IV, section 1
• Idaho Constitution, art. VII, section 13
• Idaho Constitution, art. VIII, section 1

Footnotes

1. The Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 to 1789, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), thirty-four volumes, are on the Internet Archive, volume by volume, with links in each note below. Page ranges in these notes were located in the Archive's text layer and can be off by a page or two; the volume, date and quoted words are the reliable guide. Where an entry prints a text from the papers as a motion or draft, the notes say so. The Secretary of Congress, Charles Thomson, kept the Journal from 1774 to 1789; his name appears on the entries of this period.
2. Baltimore, Friday, Dec. 20, 1776, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 6, pp. 1027 to 1028 (Dec. 20, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin06unit. The Journal heads the entry "Baltimore." Return to Philadelphia, Wednesday, Mar. 12, 1777, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 7, p. 169 (Mar. 12, 1777), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin07unit. The Journal heads that entry "Philadelphia."
3. Lancaster, Saturday, Sept. 27, 1777, and York-Town, Tuesday, Sept. 30, 1777, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 8, pp. 753 to 756 (Sept. 27 and 30, 1777), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin08unit. The Journal heads the entries "Lancaster" and "York-Town."
4. Entry of Saturday, June 27, 1778 ("Adjourned to Thursday next, to meet at the State House in Philadelphia"), Thursday, July 2, 1778 ("Philadelphia"), and Tuesday, July 7, 1778 ("When ten states appearing"), Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 11, pp. 662 and 671 to 672 (June 27, July 2 and July 7, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin11unit.
5. Madison's notes of debates for June 19 to 20, 1783, printed in the back of the volume with the notes for 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 970 to 972 (June 19 and 20, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. The notes record the report of Hamilton, Peters and Ellsworth and the remark of Izard and Mercer quoted in the text. The same events are also in the Journal proper for June 19 to 21 in vol. 24, pp. 401 to 411. Page ranges for the notes are approximate.
6. Madison's notes for Saturday, June 21, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 973 to 974 (June 21, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. The account of the soldiers drawn up before the State House, Dickinson's explanation, St. Clair's mission and the proposals of Izard, Hamilton and Reed is Madison's. Page ranges are approximate.
7. Resolutions of the evening of Saturday, June 21, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 409 to 411 (June 21, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. The entry is in the hand of George Bond of the Secretary's office, as the volume's note records.
8. Madison's notes for Tuesday, June 24, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 973 to 975 (June 24, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. The editors' note names the leaders of the mutiny, among them a Mr. Carberry, "a deranged officer," and a Lieutenant Sullivan. Page ranges are approximate.
9. Journal for Princeton, Monday, June 30, 1783, and the report adopted July 1, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 411 to 421 (June 30 and July 1, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. The motion of Hamilton directing Major General Howe to march troops to Pennsylvania is printed with the entry for June 30.
10. Resolution of Oct. 9, 1783 on the place of meeting, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 662 to 670 (Oct. 9, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. The resolution sets the adjournment to Trenton on the first Monday in June.
11. Motions of Oct. 7 and Oct. 17, 1783 on the federal town and the second set of buildings, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 655 to 660 and 695 to 706 (Oct. 7 and 17, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. The preamble of Gerry's motion of Oct. 17 recites that the earlier resolutions were "not satisfactory to a respectable part of the United States, five of which, on the 8th instant, voted for a reconsideration." The Clark and Peters motion to postpone is printed with it.
12. Resolution of Oct. 21, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 707 to 712 (Oct. 21, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. The text on alternate residence in Trenton and Annapolis and on the adjournment to Annapolis is on pp. 707 to 708.
13. Journal heading "Annapolis," Dec. 13, 1783, with the editors' note that "a number of members met" earlier, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, p. 807 (Dec. 13, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
14. Act of Apr. 26, 1784 on adjournment to Trenton, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, pp. 288 to 296 (Apr. 26, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit. Adjournment of June 3, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 529 to 530 (June 3, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit.
15. Entries for Trenton, Nov. 1, 11, 29 and 30, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 637 to 648 (Nov. 1 to 30, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit. The entries for Nov. 11 and 29 record four and six states assembled; the entry for Nov. 30 records the election of Lee as president.
16. Pinckney's motion of Dec. 21, 1784 and the resolution of Dec. 23, 1784 to adjourn to New York, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 697 to 703 (Dec. 21 and 23, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit.
17. Entry for Tuesday, Jan. 11, 1785, "New York," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 28, pp. 1 to 3 (Jan. 11, 1785), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-28-jan-11-jun-30-1785.
18. Articles of Confederation (1781), Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp. Text also at the National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation. Article IX is the source of the quotations on majority and nine-state votes, on adjourning from day to day, and on the Committee of the States. Spelling is kept where the clause is quoted.
19. Entry of Wednesday, Jan. 14, 1784, with the list of states present and the ratification, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, pp. 22 to 24 (Jan. 14, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit.
20. Motion of Arthur Middleton of Oct. 25, 1781 with the yeas and nays, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1072 to 1074 (Oct. 25, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. The roll is printed by state, with each delegate's name and ay or no.
21. Resolution of Oct. 30, 1781 "(by nine states)," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1086 to 1092 (Oct. 30 and Nov. 2, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit.
22. Sweden: Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 456 to 458 (July 29, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. Prussia: Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 30, pp. 268 to 269 (May 17, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-30-jan-2-jul-31-1786.
23. Election of the committee of the week, Sept. 29, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, p. 1024 (Sept. 29, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. The committee's reports of Oct. 25 and 26, 1781 are at Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1072 to 1078 (Oct. 25 and 26, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit.
24. Table of the committees of the week, 1783, in the bibliographical notes of Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 977 to 980 (1783 table), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
25. Resolution of Oct. 17, 1782 apportioning the $2,000,000 "on the report of a grand committee, consisting of a member from each State," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 23, p. 666 (Oct. 17, 1782), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin23unit.
26. Madison's notes for June 1783 on Peters's motion, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, p. 968 (June 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. Page range approximate.
27. Madison's notes on the debate and the negative form of the resolution, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, p. 970 (June 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. Page range approximate.
28. Madison's notes on the motion of Williamson, Hamilton and Madison, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 968 to 970 (June 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. Madison's note is the source for the reference to a new state in western North Carolina. Page range approximate.
29. McKean's letter resigning the presidency, Oct. 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, p. 1070 (Oct. 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. Page range approximate.
30. Ratification of the Dutch treaty, Jan. 23, 1783, ending "Witness his Excellency Elias Boudinot, president," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 64 to 68 (Jan. 23, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
31. Election of Richard Henry Lee, Nov. 30, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 647 to 648 (Nov. 30, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit.
32. Article X of the definitive treaty of peace, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, p. 27 (Jan. 14, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit. The treaty text is printed with the ratification.
33. Entry for Dec. 20, 1783, with McHenry's motion, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 818 to 820 (Dec. 20, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
34. Entry for Dec. 23, 1783, with the letter to the six absent states, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 833 to 839 (Dec. 23, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
35. Ratification of Jan. 14, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, p. 23 (Jan. 14, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit.
36. Editors' table of attendance for 1787, in the bibliographical notes of Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 33, p. 484 (1787 table), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin33unit. The table counts days from Jan. 17 to Oct. 27, 1787 by number of states fully represented. The counts in the text are the editors'.
37. Entries for January 1781 before the plan of departments, with letters sent to "the Board of War," orders to "the Board of Treasury" and a letter to "the Committee of Foreign Affairs to take order," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 16 to 52 (Jan. 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
38. Establishment of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Jan. 10, 1781, with the committee report of Jan. 9, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 40 to 44 (Jan. 9 and 10, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
39. Plan for the departments of Finance, War and Marine, Feb. 7, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 124 to 127 (Feb. 7, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
40. Election of Livingston, Aug. 10, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, p. 851 (Aug. 10, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. The volume's index gives p. 851 for his election as Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The nomination by William Floyd is in the entry.
41. Livingston's letter of Sept. 17, read Sept. 29, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, p. 1027 (Sept. 29, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit.
42. Resolution of June 4, 1783 and the vote of thanks to Livingston, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 382 to 383 (June 4, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
43. Election of Feb. 27, 1784 and Gerry's motion on the books and papers of the office, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, pp. 104 to 105 (Feb. 27, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit. Madison's notes for June 10, 1783 list the names put forward in June 1783, in vol. 25 of the Journals, approximate pages 968 to 970.
44. Election of John Jay as Secretary for Foreign Affairs, May 7, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, pp. 355 to 356 (May 7, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit.
45. Jay's letter of Jan. 23, 1785 on the duties of the Secretary and the committee named to consider it, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 28, pp. 17 and 36 (Jan. 23, 1785), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-28-jan-11-jun-30-1785. Page range approximate.
46. Election of Benjamin Lincoln as Secretary at War and the resolution continuing the Board of War, Oct. 30, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1086 to 1089 (Oct. 30, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. Lincoln's letter of acceptance read Nov. 26, 1781, and Peters's farewell letter under Nov. 29, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1142 to 1150 (Nov. 26 to 29, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. Page range approximate.
47. Resignation of Lincoln accepted Oct. 29, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, p. 753 (Oct. 29, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
48. Entry of Dec. 16, 1784 referring Colonel Fleury's letter, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 690 to 693 (Dec. 16, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit.
49. Ordinance for the Board of Treasury, May 27 and 28, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 438 to 447 (May 27 and 28, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit. The ordinance gives the commissioners "all the powers vested in the Superintendant of finance, by the act of Congress of the 7 February, 1781." Page range approximate.
50. Election of June 3, 1784 of Jenifer, Ellsworth and Denning, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 546 to 547 (June 3, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit. The resolution of Nov. 30, 1784 on filling the places and the failed election of Dec. 22, 1784 are at Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 649 to 650 and 698 (Nov. 30 and Dec. 22, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit.
51. Entries referring matters to "the agent of Marine" and to the commissioner for settling the accounts of the marine department, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 412 and 555 (May to June 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit. The committee report of April 1784 pricing the Marine Department at $30,000 is cited in the finance section.
52. Election of Robert Morris as Superintendent of Finance, Feb. 20, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 176 to 180 (Feb. 20, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
53. Morris's letter of acceptance, read May 14, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 20, pp. 498 to 499 (May 14, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin20unit.
54. Entries referring matters to the Superintendent of Finance "to take order," for example in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 812, 815, 892 and 907 (Aug. to Nov. 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. The note to the Journal of Oct. 22, 1781 refers to Morris's letter of Oct. 19 to the governors.
55. Reply of Jan. 30, 1783 to the Pennsylvania memorials, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 100 to 104 (Jan. 30, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. The reply reports the state of the impost, that "only 420,031 29-90" dollars had been received for 1782, and the repeal by Virginia.
56. Madison's notes on Morris's letter of resignation and the debate on Bland's motion, March 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 918 to 921 (Mar. 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. The resignation letter and the committee report are in the Journal proper for Jan. 24 to Mar. 1783 in vol. 24. Page range approximate.
57. Same notes, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 902 and 920 (Jan. and Mar. 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. Page ranges approximate.
58. Entry of June 30, 1783 and the editors' note on Morris's request to return to Philadelphia, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 411 to 412 (June 30, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
59. Recommendation of Feb. 3, 1781 for a five percent impost, and the resolve of Feb. 7, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 110 to 113 and 124 to 128 (Feb. 3 and 7, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit. Page ranges approximate.
60. Requisition of Oct. 30, 1781 and the table of quotas dated Nov. 2, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1086 to 1092 (Oct. 30 and Nov. 2, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit. The table sums to $8,000,000.
61. Report of the grand committee of Apr. 5, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, pp. 181 to 196 (Apr. 5, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit. The report counts $1,486,511.71 received on the $8,000,000 by the end of 1783 and states the sum of $5,480,203.33 needed for arrears and the year's services. Page range approximate.
62. Resolutions of Sept. 4 and 10, 1782 for $1,200,000 for interest and the quotas of Sept. 9, 1782, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 23, pp. 546 to 547 and 564 (Sept. 4, 9 and 10, 1782), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin23unit. The quotas run from Georgia's $14,400 to Massachusetts's $192,000.
63. Resolution of Oct. 16, 1782 for $2,000,000 and the quotas of Oct. 17, 1782, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 23, pp. 657 to 667 (Oct. 16 and 17, 1782), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin23unit. The quotas run from Georgia's $24,000 to Massachusetts's $320,000. The Journal records that the Oct. 16 resolution was agreed to, "ten states being represented."
64. Resolution of Feb. 17, 1783 asking the states for accounts of lands, buildings and inhabitants, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 134 to 142 (Feb. 17, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. The revenue plan and proposed change to Article VIII, Apr. 18, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 257 to 262 (Apr. 18, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. Madison's note that the rate of three-fifths was agreed to without opposition is in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, p. 952 (Mar. to Apr. 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit. Page range approximate. Connecticut's act of agreement is printed in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, p. 568 (Sept. 1, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
65. Requisition of Apr. 27, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, pp. 297 to 310 (Apr. 27, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit. Quoted again in the address of Oct. 6, 1786, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 31, pp. 746 to 755 (Oct. 6, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-31-aug-1-dec-31-1786.
66. Address of Congress to the states of Oct. 6, 1786, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 31, pp. 746 to 755 (Oct. 6, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-31-aug-1-dec-31-1786. The address is inconsistent on one point: it speaks of ten states in one place and eight in another.
67. Quotas proposed July 18, 1785 and requisition adopted Sept. 27, 1785, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 29, pp. 541 to 544 and 765 to 768 (July 18 and Sept. 27, 1785), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-29-jul-1-dec-30-1785.
68. Reports of the Board of Treasury and of a committee of Congress, Feb. 8 and 13, 1786, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 30, pp. 54 to 56 and 62 to 67 (Feb. 8 and 13, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-30-jan-2-jul-31-1786. The Board's printed totals carry a ten-cent discrepancy, and its "deficiency" combines receipts from 1781 on with the requisitions of 1784 and 1785.
69. Requisition for one year's interest, $1,606,560.65, and the amendment of Mr. Grayson, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 31, pp. 453 to 460 (Aug. 1, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-31-aug-1-dec-31-1786.
70. Report of the Board of Treasury on domestic interest, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 33, pp. 570 to 572 (Sept. 1787), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin33unit. The Board totals the four requisitions at $6,279,376.27 and payments by Mar. 31, 1787 at $1,003,725.57.
71. Entry of Oct. 24, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1072 to 1073 (Oct. 24, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit.
72. Proclamation of Oct. 26, 1781 recommending Dec. 13 as a day of thanksgiving, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1074 to 1077 (Oct. 26, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit.
73. Resolutions of thanks of Oct. 29, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 21, pp. 1078 to 1083 (Oct. 29, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin21unit.
74. Memorial of the army and reference to the grand committee, Jan. 6, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 38 to 43 (Jan. 6, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
75. Report of the grand committee and the resolutions of Jan. 25, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 93 to 95 (Jan. 25, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. The text offers six years' full pay in place of half pay. The reading of "six" rests on the Archive's text layer.
76. Washington's letters of Mar. 12 and Mar. 18, 1783, with enclosures, entered Apr. 29, 1783 as "Paper No. VIII," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 293 to 312 (Mar. 12 to Apr. 29, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
77. Washington's address to the officers, Mar. 15, 1783, in the same paper, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 295 to 312 (Mar. 15, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
78. Resolutions of the officers of Mar. 15, 1783, in the same paper, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 295 to 312 (Mar. 15, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
79. Resolution of Mar. 22, 1783 on commutation and the motion of Wolcott, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 207 to 209 (Mar. 22, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit.
80. Resolutions of Oct. 29, 1783 on discharging troops and the memorial of General Armand, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 752 to 753 (Oct. 29, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
81. Washington's resignation and the president's reply, Dec. 23, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 837 to 839 (Dec. 23, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
82. Roll call of June 6, 1781 on the first paragraph of Witherspoon's motion, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 20, pp. 602 to 607 (June 6, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin20unit. The Journal records that the report was recommitted. The earlier instructions are dated Aug. 14, 1779 and Oct. 18, 1780; they are cited by date in the Journal entry.
83. Instructions of June 15, 1781, signed by Samuel Huntington and Charles Thomson, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 20, pp. 650 to 656 (June 15, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin20unit. Congress added Franklin, Laurens and Jefferson to Adams and Jay on June 14 and 15.
84. Ratification of the preliminary articles of Apr. 15, 1783 and the cessation of hostilities, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 238 to 242 (Apr. 9 to 15, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. The proclamation of the cessation of hostilities is entered on a draft reported Apr. 9 at pp. 238 to 240; the volume's introduction says it was issued Apr. 11.
85. Resolution of Oct. 21, 1783 on the commissioners' conduct, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 25, pp. 711 to 712 (Oct. 21, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin25unit.
86. Article X of the definitive treaty of peace, signed Sept. 3, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, p. 27 (Jan. 14, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit. The treaty text is printed with the ratification.
87. Exchange of ratifications at Passy, May 12, 1784, entered by the Committee of the States on Aug. 2, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, pp. 616 to 618 (Aug. 2, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit.
88. Proposed proclamation entered Aug. 3, 1784, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 27, p. 628 (Aug. 3, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin27unit.
89. Report and ratifications of Jan. 23, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 64 to 68 (Jan. 23, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. The committee was Madison, Hamilton and Ellsworth. The treaty is dated at The Hague, Oct. 8, 1782.
90. Sweden, July 29, 1783, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 24, pp. 456 to 458 (July 29, 1783), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin24unit. Prussia, May 17, 1786, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 30, pp. 268 to 269 (May 17, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-30-jan-2-jul-31-1786. Morocco, July 18, 1787, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 32, pp. 305 to 313 (July 18, 1787), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-32-jan-17-jul-20-1787. The Journal prints the instrument and the treaty; the editors' notes record that the report was read May 8 and agreed to July 18. Page range approximate. The resolution of July 23, 1787 approving Barclay is at vol. 33, p. 392.
91. Audience of Gardoqui, July 2, 1785, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 29, pp. 494 to 495 (July 2, 1785), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-29-jul-1-dec-30-1785.
92. Resolution of July 20, 1785 and the instruction of Aug. 25, 1785, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 29, pp. 562 and 658 (July 20 and Aug. 25, 1785), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-29-jul-1-dec-30-1785. Both are recited in the Journal for Aug. 29, 1786, vol. 31, pp. 574 to 575. The first entry is in the manuscript Secret Journal; its text is printed in the public volume.
93. Entry of Aug. 29, 1786, with Jay's letter of May 29, his statement of Aug. 13 and the motion of the Virginia delegates, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 31, pp. 571 to 596 (Aug. 29, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-31-aug-1-dec-31-1786. The Journal prints the proposal that the United States give up the use of the river "for years," the number of years being left blank.
94. Roll call of Aug. 30, 1786 on the resolution as amended, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 31, pp. 596 to 608 (Aug. 30, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-31-aug-1-dec-31-1786. The amendments of King and St. Clair carried; the resolution as amended lost, seven states to five.
95. Pinckney's and Lee's resolution, the previous question and the order of Sept. 1, 1786, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 31, pp. 610 to 613 and 620 to 621 (Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-31-aug-1-dec-31-1786. King's motion on setting aside a question is printed with the entry of Aug. 31, vol. 31, p. 609, and the roll call on South Carolina's previous question on it, which failed, follows. The roll call on the previous question on Pinckney's and Lee's resolution is at p. 613. Pinckney's and Monroe's motion of Aug. 30 to postpone and take up the same proposition lost on a roll call at pp. 597 to 600.
96. Idaho Constitution, art. III, section 15, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtIII/Sect15/. Read October 18, 2026.
97. Idaho Constitution, art. IV, section 1, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtIV/Sect1/. Read October 18, 2026.
98. Idaho Constitution, art. VII, section 13, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtVII/Sect13/. Read October 18, 2026.
99. Idaho Constitution, art. VIII, section 1, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtVIII/Sect1/. Read October 18, 2026.