The Articles of Confederation, Lesson 6: From Annapolis to Philadelphia

A Rule That Could Not Be Used: Article XIII

Every road to change in the Confederation ran through one sentence. Article XIII, the last article of the Articles of Confederation, said that "nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State."¹ Two steps were needed: Congress had to agree, and then every one of thirteen legislatures had to confirm. Lesson 5 showed what that rule did to the impost, which twelve legislatures granted and one would not. A rule that was too hard to meet for a duty on imported goods was not going to be met for a general rewriting of the government.

That is the setting for this lesson. Between 1785 and 1787 a group of men, most of them from Virginia and the Middle States, tried one way after another to get around Article XIII without breaking it. They began with a conference of two states about boats and ended with a convention of twelve about the form of the government. The record shows that they did not set out to replace the Articles. They kept finding that each step they took required another one, and the Journals of Congress and the reports they wrote show the process in their own words. The story is also an early lesson in how constitutional change happens in practice: by a succession of small, defensible moves, each of which looks modest when it is made.

Mount Vernon, March 1785: Two States and a River

The first step was a practical dispute between Virginia and Maryland over the Potomac and the Chesapeake. Commissioners from the two states met at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, on March 28, 1785. Maryland sent Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Thomas Stone and Samuel Chase. Virginia sent George Mason and Alexander Henderson. The compact they made is in the Virginia statutes, which Virginia's General Assembly approved on January 3, 1786.²

It settled a number of ordinary matters. Virginia disclaimed any right to levy a toll or duty on vessels passing through the capes of the Chesapeake to Maryland, and agreed that the waters of the bay and of the Pocomoke River within Virginia's limits be "forever considered as a common highway." Maryland agreed that Virginia's vessels might enter its rivers as a harbor without port duties. Warships of either state were free of port charges. Small trading vessels, up to forty feet of keel and fifty tons, could trade in either state with a permit. The Potomac was to be a common highway for the citizens of Virginia and Maryland, "and of the United States." The citizens of each state were to have property in the shore adjoining their lands and the right to build wharves, and fishing in the river was to be common.²

The compact's own terms are modest, and it can be read without any thought of national politics. Its importance is in what it showed. Two sovereign states had solved a problem of commerce on their shared waters by a negotiation between commissioners, with each legislature then confirming the result. The method worked, and others noticed that it worked. If two states could agree on the rules of a river, thirteen might agree on the rules of trade. That thought, which the commissioners at Mount Vernon had not set out to test, is the bridge to Annapolis. Accounts written later say that the idea of a wider meeting came out of Mount Vernon and the Maryland and Virginia legislatures that followed it, but the details of that chain, including which legislature moved first, were not read in a primary source for this lesson and are not asserted here.

The Powers the States Gave Their Commissioners

By the summer of 1786 a number of states had named commissioners to meet at Annapolis, Maryland, in September to discuss trade. The report that the commissioners themselves wrote at the end of the meeting summarizes what each state had authorized, and it is the best evidence of how much power was in play.³

New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, the report says, had "in substance, and nearly in the same terms," authorized their commissioners "to meet such Commissioners as were, or might be, appointed by the other States in the Union, at such time and place, as should be agreed upon by the said Commissioners to take into consideration the trade and Commerce of the United States, to consider how far an uniform system in their commercial intercourse and regulations might be necessary to their common interest and permanent harmony, and to report to the several States such an Act, relative to this great object, as when unanimously ratified by them would enable the United States in Congress assembled effectually to provide for the same."³

Delaware gave similar powers, with one difference: the act the commissioners framed was to go "to the United States in Congress assembled, to be agreed to by them, and confirmed by the Legislatures of every State." That is the amendment rule of Article XIII, restated. New Jersey went further and "enlarged the object of their appointment," empowering its commissioners to consider "an uniform system in their commercial regulations and other important matters," and to report an act that would "enable the United States in Congress assembled, effectually to provide for the exigencies of the Union."³ The phrase "other important matters" is the first opening in the record for something beyond trade.

The other states did less. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and North Carolina had appointed commissioners, but none of them came. The commissioners had no information that Connecticut, Maryland, South Carolina or Georgia had made any appointment.³ Five states were present, and the powers of four of those were limited to trade.

Annapolis, September 11 to 14, 1786

The commissioners met at Annapolis on September 11, 1786. The delegates present, according to the heading of the proceedings, were from New York (Alexander Hamilton and Egbert Benson), New Jersey (Abraham Clark, William Churchill Houston and James Schureman), Pennsylvania (Tench Coxe), Delaware (George Read, John Dickinson and Richard Bassett) and Virginia (Edmund Randolph, James Madison and St. George Tucker). John Dickinson was chosen chairman.³ The meeting lasted four days, and what it did was to decide not to do what it had been sent to do.

The reason is in the report. The report says that "the express terms of the powers to your Commissioners supposing a deputation from all the States, and having for object the Trade and Commerce of the United States, Your Commissioners did not conceive it advisable to proceed on the business of their mission, under the Circumstance of so partial and defective a representation."³ In plain words: the states that had sent men had authorized them to meet representatives of every state, and five were not enough.

The commissioners went on to write a report to the legislatures of the five states, and sent copies to Congress and to the executives of the other states. The report did two things. First, it expressed "their earnest and unanimous wish, that speedy measures may be taken, to effect a general meeting, of the States, in a future Convention, for the same, and such other purposes, as the situation of public affairs, may be found to require." Second, it dealt with the limits of their own authority, in a sentence that is worth reading slowly. If in expressing this wish "or in intimating any other sentiment, your Commissioners should seem to exceed the strict bounds of their appointment, they entertain a full confidence, that a conduct, dictated by an anxiety for the welfare, of the United States, will not fail to receive an indulgent construction."³ They knew they were stretching their commissions, and they said so.

The report then said that the New Jersey formula, extending the deputies' powers beyond commerce, "was an improvement on the original plan, and will deserve to be incorporated into that of a future Convention." The reason given is a good statement of the case for change: the power of regulating trade "will enter so far into the general System of the foederal government" that, to give it efficacy and to settle doubts about its limits, it "may require a correspondent adjustment of other parts of the Foederal System." The commissioners noted that "important defects in the system of the Foederal Government" were acknowledged by the acts of all the states that had joined the meeting, and that the defects "may be found greater and more numerous, than even these acts imply."³

The recommendation was specific. The commissioners proposed that the states appoint commissioners to meet at Philadelphia "on the second Monday in May next," to "devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Foederal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union," and to report such an act to Congress, "as when agreed to, by them, and afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every State, will effectually provide for the same."³ Notice the last clause. The Annapolis commissioners, the men most ready to move, still kept the rule of Article XIII: Congress would agree to the act, and every state legislature would confirm it. The change they proposed was to the subject matter of the next meeting, not to the amendment rule. That rule was left for the Convention itself to decide whether it could live with.

The Report Reaches Congress

John Dickinson sent the report to Congress with a letter dated September 14, 1786. The Journals' editors record from the indorsement that it was read on September 20, 1786. The Journal's own committee entry on it comes under October 11, 1786, when a committee of ten, with Edward Carrington and Lambert Cadwallader among them, was appointed on Dickinson's letter.⁴ Congress did not act on it quickly. That autumn the legislature of the Confederation was occupied with the Mississippi dispute, the Treasury's appeal and Massachusetts, as the previous lesson told, and a proposal by five states to hold another meeting was not the most urgent item on its desk.

The matter came back in February 1787, after the Massachusetts rising. A grand committee took up the subject, and its members, according to the Journal, were Nathan Dane, James Varnum, Stephen Mix Mitchell, Melancton Smith, Lambert Cadwalader, William Irvine, Nathaniel Mitchell, Joseph Forrest, William Grayson, William Blount, Bull and Few. It reported on February 19, 1787.⁵ The meeting of Congress on February 21 is the center of this lesson.

February 21, 1787: Congress Calls the Convention

The grand committee's resolution "strongly recommend[ed]" that the state legislatures send delegates to the "proposed convention." That formula, which treated the Convention as something the states were already doing and Congress was endorsing, would have been the mildest way to put the matter. It did not pass in that form. Two further motions were made, and the Journal records them in order.⁶

The first was by the New York delegates. They moved to put into the resolution the instruction their own legislature had given them, which called for a convention "for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." It lost. The roll, as read from the scan, shows Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Virginia aye, Maryland no, and Connecticut and Pennsylvania divided, but the roll calls in this volume are scrambled, so the lesson reports only the result.⁶ It is odd that the New York motion, which had the most conventional wording, failed, since it asked only for a revision of the Articles. The record does not say why. One likely reason, from the sequence of motions, is that the delegates wanted to tie the Convention to the amendment procedure in Article XIII and to avoid resting it on a grant of power from the states alone, but that is an inference.

The second motion was by the Massachusetts delegates. Nathan Dane moved it, and Rufus King amended it, and it passed. It has a preamble and a resolve. The preamble reads: "there is provision in the Articles of Confederation ... for making alterations therein by the Assent of a Congress of the United States and of the legislatures of the several States." The resolve reads: "on the second Monday in May next a Convention of delegates ... be held at Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States render the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union."⁶

Three features of that text matter for the rest of the story. First, it begins by invoking Article XIII, so the Convention's output was to be reported "to Congress and the several legislatures." Second, it limits the Convention's purpose by two words, "sole and express." And third, it says that the alterations were to take effect only "when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States." That is Article XIII, nearly word for word. Whatever the Convention later did, it could not say that it had been given freedom from the amendment rule. On February 21, 1787, Congress had taken pains to say the opposite.

What the States Authorized

The question of what the Convention was authorized to do has two parts: what Congress said and what the states put in the credentials of their delegates. The first is clear from the resolve above. The second is more complicated, because each state wrote its own commission, and this lesson did not read the commissions themselves.

What can be said from the Journals and Madison's notes is this. Twelve states appointed delegates. That is the figure in a motion that Dane brought to Congress on September 27, 1787, which recites "that twelve States appointed Delegates who assembled in Convention accordingly." Rhode Island sent none.⁷ And Madison's notes for May 30 record that General Pinckney "expressed a doubt whether the act of Congs. recommending the Convention, or the Commissions of the Deputies to it, could authorise a discussion of a System founded on different principles from the federal Constitution," and that Elbridge Gerry "seemed to entertain the same doubt."⁸ Delaware's deputies had a commission that, Madison records George Read saying, restrained them "from assenting to any change of the rule of suffrage," and Read said that in that event it might become their duty "to retire from the Convention."⁹

The texts of the credentials of other states, which would show how many of the twelve limited their deputies to the Articles, were not read for this lesson. A reader who wants to pursue the question can find them in Farrand's Records of the Federal Convention, which prints the credentials in its first volume. The point to carry forward is that the people at the Convention themselves argued about the question, on the first day that it came up.

May 29 and 30: The Decision to Start Over

The Convention opened on May 25 and began its real business on May 29, when Edmund Randolph presented what has come to be called the Virginia Plan, in fifteen resolutions. Its first resolution fits the Philadelphia mandate: "the Articles of Confederation ought to be so corrected & enlarged as to accomplish the objects proposed by their institution." Its thirteenth provided for amendment of the new system without the assent of the national legislature, and its fifteenth provided for ratification by assemblies chosen by the people. Randolph's speech, in Madison's account, pointed to the failures of the Confederation, citing Massachusetts, paper money and violated treaties among them.¹⁰

The decisive step came the next day. On May 30 the Convention, sitting as a Committee of the Whole, took up the first resolution. A motion by Gouverneur Morris, which Randolph accepted, was to postpone it in order to consider three other propositions. The second and third are the center of the matter. The Committee was to say that "a Union of the States merely federal will not accomplish the objects proposed by the articles of Confederation," and that "a national Government ought to be established consisting of a supreme Legislative, Executive & Judiciary." Madison records that the motion to postpone "was seconded by Mr. Govr. MORRIS and unanimously agreed to."⁸

The vote on the third proposition, as moved by Pierce Butler, was recorded by Madison as follows: Massachusetts aye, Connecticut no, New York divided (Hamilton aye, Yates no), and Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina aye. "Resolved in Committee of the whole that a national governt. ought to be established consisting of a supreme Legislative Executive & Judiciary."⁸ The committee also lost, on a four to four vote, an earlier motion to postpone in favor of a more effective government. The Convention had not formally decided to throw away the Articles. It had decided in committee, on its second day of real business, that the thing to be built was a government with its own three branches, not a better Congress.

Pinckney's and Gerry's doubts, quoted above, were the objection to this move. Gouverneur Morris answered with the distinction between the two kinds of government: "the former being a mere compact resting on the good faith of the parties; the latter having a compleat and compulsive operation." He contended that in all communities there must be one supreme power, and one only.⁸ The record shows the objection made and the vote taken. It does not show the objection answered by a reading of the commissions. The delegates went forward on the strength of the argument that no reform of a federal government could work.

Unanimity, Article XIII and What the Convention Wrote Instead

The Convention then had to decide how its work would take effect. If it wrote a plan and Article XIII governed, every legislature would have to confirm it, and the same Rhode Island that had defeated the impost in 1782 would have a veto over the Constitution. Module 16 follows in full what the Convention decided about ratification, including its votes of July 23, August 31 and September 10. This lesson gives only the part that concerns Article XIII.

The question came up for the last time on September 10, 1787, in Madison's notes. Elbridge Gerry moved to reconsider articles XXI and XXII of the draft, the ones on ratification, "from the latter of which 'for the approbation of Congs.' had been struck out." He objected to "proceeding to change the Government without the approbation of Congress, as being improper and giving just umbrage to that body," and repeated "his objections also to an annulment of the confederation with so little scruple or formality."¹¹ Hamilton agreed with Gerry about the courtesy owed to Congress, and he did not like to allow nine states to "institute a new Government on the ruins of the existing one." He proposed instead that the plan be sent to Congress first, to be communicated to the legislatures and then to state conventions.¹¹

Several members answered. Thomas Fitzsimons said that the words "for their approbation" had been struck out "in order to save Congress from the necessity of an Act inconsistent with the Articles of Confederation under which they held their authority." James Wilson said it was "worse than folly to rely on the concurrence of the Rhode Island members of Congs." and that "Maryland has voted on this floor; for requiring the unanimous assent of the 13 States to the proposed change in the federal System." Rufus King and Rutledge agreed that if the approbation of Congress were made necessary and Congress refused, "every thing will go into confusion, and all our labor be lost." The motion to postpone in order to take up Hamilton's proposal failed, and Williamson's and Gerry's motion to reinstate the words "for the approbation of Congress" was "disagreed to nem: con:"¹¹ That means no one objected to rejecting it, in the standard language of the Convention's journal.

The same day shows how far the Convention's thinking had moved on amendments. Hamilton said, earlier the same day, in the debate on amendments, that "It had been wished by many and was much to have been desired that an easier mode for introducing amendments had been provided by the articles of Confederation." Wilson moved to insert "three fourths of" before "the several States," and that passed without objection.¹¹ The result is Article V of the Constitution, which requires ratification by three fourths of the states. The unanimity that Article XIII required had become three fourths, the same change that Article VII had made for the first ratification, where nine states were enough. Module 6 tells that story in more detail.

September 17, 1787: The Resolution and Washington's Letter

The Convention signed its work on Monday, September 17, 1787. It sent Congress three documents: the Constitution, a resolution on how it should be handled and a letter from Washington as president of the Convention. All three were entered in the Journal of Congress on September 20, 1787.¹²

The resolution said that the Constitution should "be laid before the United States in Congress assembled," and that it should "afterwards" be "submitted to a Convention of Delegates, chosen in each state by the People thereof." It then said that once nine states ratified, Congress should fix the day on which electors would be appointed and the time for the new government to begin. The words "by the People thereof" are the new element. The Articles had been ratified by legislatures; the Constitution was to be ratified by conventions elected for the purpose.¹²

Washington's letter explains the reasoning in plain words. It says that "the power of making war, peace and treaties ... levying money and regulating commerce ... should be fully and effectually vested in the general government of the Union." It adds the sentence most often quoted from it: "Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest."¹² Both statements echo the lessons of Lesson 5. The powers named in the first are the ones Congress had lacked in 1785 and 1786, and the second states the general principle that the state-by-state bargaining of the 1780s had tried to avoid.

On the same day, September 20, Congress also voted pay for William Jackson, the secretary of the Convention. It set Wednesday, September 26 for consideration of the report.¹²

September 26 to 28: How Congress Sent the Constitution to the States

Congress now had in its hands a plan that went outside its own charter. It had to decide what to do, and the Journal shows the argument at its sharpest on September 27, 1787.¹³

Richard Henry Lee, seconded by Melancton Smith, moved a resolution. The text in the scan is garbled, but its meaning is clear. It said that the thirteenth Article "limits the power of Congress to the amendment of the present confederacy of thirteen states" and "does not extend it to the creation of a new confederacy of nine states." Because the Convention had been called on the authority of that Article, Lee's motion proposed that the plan be sent to the state executives for "respectful transmission" to their legislatures, without any approval from Congress. Lee was in effect saying that Congress was not free to endorse a plan that bypassed Article XIII.¹³

The Journal for the day then prints competing motions. Abraham Clarke moved, seconded by Nathaniel Mitchell, to postpone Lee's motion to take up another, that a copy of the Constitution be laid before the executives of each state to be put before their legislatures in order that they might be submitted to conventions chosen under the Convention's resolutions. Lee called for the yeas and nays on the postponement. The roll is scrambled in the scan, so the tally is not reported here. Edward Carrington, seconded by William Bingham, then moved in turn to postpone Clarke's motion, to take up a stronger resolution: "That Congress do agree thereto and that it be recommended to the legislatures of the several states to cause conventions to be held as speedily as may be to the end that the same may be adopted ratified and confirmed."¹³

Next in the Journal is a motion in Dane's handwriting, printed with an editor's note that Thomson had indorsed it as of October 1787, "which is evidently an error." Its preamble states the problem as Congress saw it. It recites the resolution of February, and that twelve states had sent delegates, who agreed on the Constitution "by the unanimous consent of the States then present." It says the Constitution "appears to be intended as an entire system in itself, and not as any part of, or alteration in the Articles of Confederation; to alterations in which Articles, the deliberations and powers of Congress are, in this Case, constitutionally confined." It concludes that the members of Congress, "not feeling themselves authorised by the forms of Government under which they are assembled, to express an opinion respecting a System of Government no way connected with those forms," should nevertheless, out of "respect they owe their constituents," send the report to the states.¹³

That last motion is the reasoning behind what passed. On Friday, September 28, 1787, with eleven states present and one Maryland member, the Journal records the final act: "Resolved Unanimously that the said Report with the resolutions and letter accompanying the same be transmitted to the several legislatures in Order to be submitted to a convention of Delegates chosen in each state by the people thereof in conformity to the resolves of the Convention made and provided in that case."¹⁴

The resolve contains no word of approval or disapproval. Congress did not say that the Constitution was good or bad, and it did not say that Article XIII had been satisfied. It transmitted the document and named the process the Convention had set. The records show a compromise between those, like Lee, who wanted it noted that Congress had no power to do more, and those, like Carrington, who wanted an endorsement. The result passed unanimously, which is something neither side had on the earlier motions. The Journal's editor notes that the documents were entered in the volume called "Ratifications of the Constitution," and that Charles Thomson, the Secretary, sent circular letters to the state executives on September 28.¹⁴

Was It Lawful? The Argument and the Answers

People have argued since September 1787 about whether the Convention and the Congress acted within their authority, and the primary record gives each side something to quote. It is worth setting out the arguments fairly, since they bear on every later claim about the origin of the Constitution.

The case that it went beyond authority is as follows. Congress had called a convention "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation." Article XIII required the agreement of every legislature. The Convention wrote an entirely new plan, said it would take effect at nine states, and proposed ratification by state conventions. Gerry called it "an annulment of the confederation." Lee said in Congress that Article XIII did not reach "the creation of a new confederacy of nine states." Dane's motion said that the Constitution was "an entire system in itself" and not an alteration of the Articles.

The case that it was proper rests on several points. The Convention had no power to bind anyone. It could only propose, and the states retained the power to accept or reject the plan. Pinckney's and Gerry's doubts were raised and a majority went on regardless, but the Convention knew that the people of each state would decide. The Annapolis report had said openly that its commissioners might "seem to exceed the strict bounds of their appointment," and had asked for "an indulgent construction." Congress, by sending the document on without objection and by unanimous vote, acquiesced. And Wilson argued on September 10 that making Congress's approval necessary would put "insuperable obstacles in the way of its success."¹¹

There is a third view, argued after 1787. The nine-state rule and the use of conventions did depart from Article XIII, they said, but the departure was justified because the Articles were a compact among states that had been broken by the failure of states to keep it. That argument belongs to a later period, and it is not found in the Journal for September 1787, so this lesson does not rely on it. What the Journal shows is a Congress that knew the question and chose to avoid it. It sent the plan to the states, said nothing about whether the plan was lawful, and left the states to settle the matter by what they did.

What the Road Shows

Four points follow from the record.

First, the Convention was neither a coup nor an orderly application of the Articles. It was the product of a series of requests, each of which was made through the existing machinery: a compact between two states, a meeting of commissioners, a report to Congress, a resolution of Congress, and then credentials from the legislatures. At each step the actors said what they were doing, and the Annapolis commissioners acknowledged the stretch of their authority on the page.

Second, the question of power was raised and not answered. Pinckney and Gerry raised it on May 30. Gerry raised it again on September 10. Lee and Dane raised it in Congress on September 27. In each case the response was to continue, on the ground that the proposal had no force until the people of the states approved it. That is a way of resolving a constitutional question by a political act, and it is how the Constitution came to be.

Third, Article XIII's unanimity rule ended where it began, as a constraint that was impossible to satisfy and was therefore evaded. The Constitution gave the country a different rule. Article V requires two thirds of Congress or of the states to propose and three fourths to ratify. Article VII required nine of thirteen states for the first adoption. Module 6 and Module 16 trace those two rules.

Fourth, the ratification was put in the hands of people chosen for that single purpose. The state conventions are the subject of Module 16. The Confederation Congress had one task left, which was to send the document out, and it did that on September 28, 1787.

Key Documents

Each document was read in the text cited.

Why This Matters to Idaho Officials and Voters

Idaho's own constitution takes a different route from Article XIII. Article XX, section 1 provides that an amendment may be proposed in either branch of the legislature and, "if the same shall be agreed to by two-thirds of all the members of each of the two houses, voting separately," the legislature must submit it to the electors at the next general election, and "if a majority of the electors shall ratify the same," it becomes part of the constitution.¹⁵ No unanimity is required, and the voters have the last word, which is the principle that the Convention put forward in 1787 when it asked that the Constitution be ratified by delegates "chosen in each state by the People thereof."

A voter facing an amendment on an Idaho ballot is using a process with a long ancestry. It was designed so that a single holdout could not block the rest, and so that the people as well as their legislators decide. The Annapolis commissioners did not write Article XX. Their report, the Congress's resolution of 1787 and the Convention's September 17 resolution point toward it.

Using This in Reporting and Civic Life

Checking a claim that the Convention was "illegal"

A speaker says the Philadelphia Convention was a secret illegal act, or says it followed the law exactly. The Journals support neither flat claim. The February 21, 1787 resolution limited the Convention's purpose to revision of the Articles and invoked Article XIII. Delegates, a member of Congress and the Annapolis commissioners all said, on the record, that the plan went beyond that. The Convention proposed, and the states then decided. A careful statement gives both facts.

Reading a call for a constitutional convention

The resolution of February 21 is the closest primary example of a call that fixed the purpose of a convention in advance. Compare any current proposal for an amendments convention with it: who calls it, what purpose is stated, and who must confirm the result. The Convention exceeded the stated purpose, a history that makes the wording of such calls worth reading closely.

Quoting Washington's letter

The sentence "Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest" is in the letter that Washington sent with the Constitution, entered in the Journal on September 20, 1787. Check the quotation against that text and give the date.

Where to find the records

The Annapolis report and Madison's Notes are at the Avalon Project. The Journals are at the Internet Archive. The Maryland and Virginia compact is on the Virginia General Assembly's website, and the Idaho Constitution on the Idaho Legislature's. The sources list links each.

Related Lessons

Earlier in this series: Lesson 1, Drafting and Ratifying the Articles, which first met Article XIII, Lesson 2, The Thirteen Articles, and Lesson 5, The Crisis Years. Forward in the course: Module 1, From the Charters to Philadelphia; Module 6, Amending the Constitution (Article V against Article XIII); Module 14, Article IV: The States and the Union; Module 15, Article VI: Supremacy; and Module 16, Article VII: Ratification, which follows the Convention's ratification votes and the state conventions.

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• Avalon Project, Annapolis Convention: Proceedings of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government (Sept. 11 to 14, 1786)
• Virginia General Assembly, Maryland-Virginia Compact of 1785
• Avalon Project, Articles of Confederation
• National Archives, Articles of Confederation
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 31 (Sept. 20, 1786: Dickinson's letter)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 32 (Feb. 21, 1787: the resolution calling the Convention)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 33 (Sept. 20, 27 and 28, 1787)
• Avalon Project, Madison's Notes, May 29, 1787
• Avalon Project, Madison's Notes, May 30, 1787
• Avalon Project, Madison's Notes, Sept. 10, 1787
• Idaho Constitution, art. XX, section 1

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• The Founders' Constitution, Annapolis Convention (University of Chicago Press; reprints the report from Tansill)
• Avalon Project, Debates in the Federal Convention (Madison's Notes; Farrand's Records print the commissions)

Footnotes

1. Articles of Confederation (1781), art. XIII, 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.
2. Maryland-Virginia Compact of 1785, Acts of Assembly 1785, ch. 27 (approved Jan. 3, 1786), Virginia General Assembly, https://law.lis.virginia.gov/compacts/maryland-virginia-compact-of-1785/. The commissioners and the March 28, 1785 date are from the act's recital.
3. Proceedings of Commissioners to Remedy Defects of the Federal Government, Annapolis, Sept. 11 to 14, 1786, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/annapoli.asp (reprinted from Tansill, Documents Illustrative of the Formation of the Union, 1927).
4. Dickinson's letter of Sept. 14, 1786, read Sept. 20, 1786 according to the indorsement, with the editors' cross-reference to the committee appointed Oct. 11, 1786 (vol. 31, p. 770 note; renewed Feb. 12, 1787, vol. 32), Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 31, p. 677 (Sept. 20, 1786), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-31-aug-1-dec-31-1786.
5. Grand committee of Dane, Varnum, S. M. Mitchell, M. Smith, Cadwalader, Irwine, N. Mitchell, Forrest, Grayson, Blount, Bull and Few, reported Feb. 19, 1787, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 32, pp. 71 to 74 (Feb. 19 to 21, 1787), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-32-jan-17-jul-20-1787. The Journal lists these names. Only surnames and initials are given for some members in the printed text.
6. Proceedings of Feb. 21, 1787, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 32, pp. 71 to 74 (Feb. 21, 1787), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-32-jan-17-jul-20-1787. The New York motion lost; the roll as read from the scan is Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Virginia aye, Maryland no, Connecticut and Pennsylvania divided, but the roll calls in this volume are scrambled. The Massachusetts motion, moved by Dane and amended by King, passed.
7. Motion of Mr. Dane, Sept. 27, 1787, reciting that "twelve States appointed Delegates who assembled in Convention," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 33, pp. 540 to 544 (Sept. 27, 1787), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin33unit. Rhode Island's absence is stated from general knowledge and from this count; the credentials themselves were not read.
8. Madison's Notes, May 30, 1787, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_530.asp. The record of the vote is Madison's; the Committee of the Whole tied four to four on the motion to postpone.
9. Madison's Notes, May 30, 1787 (Read on the Delaware commission), https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_530.asp
10. Madison's Notes, May 29, 1787, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_529.asp
11. Madison's Notes, Sept. 10, 1787, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/debates_910.asp
12. The Constitution as engrossed, the Convention's resolution of Sept. 17 and Washington's letter, entered Sept. 20, 1787, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 33, pp. 487 to 503 (Sept. 20, 1787), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin33unit. Congress also provided pay for William Jackson, the Convention's secretary, and assigned Wednesday, Sept. 26 for consideration.
13. Proceedings of Sept. 27, 1787, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 33, pp. 540 to 544 (Sept. 27, 1787), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin33unit. Lee's motion text is garbled in the OCR; its meaning is reported from legible words. The roll call on the postponement, called for by Lee, is scrambled and not reported. Dane's paper is printed in the Journal with an editor's note that Thomson indorsed it as of October 1787, "evidently an error."
14. Resolve of Sept. 28, 1787, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 33, pp. 548 to 549 (Sept. 28, 1787), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin33unit. The editor's footnote says Bankson entered the documents in "Ratifications of the Constitution" and that Thomson sent circular letters on Sept. 28.
15. Idaho Constitution, art. XX, sec. 1, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtXX/Sect1/