Notes on Debates, 10 February 1783
Notes on Debates
MS (LC: Madison Papers). For a description of the manuscript of Notes on Debates, see , V, 231–34.
For The Report of the Committee on the Resolutions of Va.1 concerning the contract Under which Tobo. was to be exported to N. Y. and the admission of circumstancial proof of accts agst. U. S. when legal vouchers had been destroyed by the enemy, see the Journal of this date.2
Mr. Mercer informed Congress that this matter had made much noise in Va.3 that she had assented to the export of the first quantity, merely out of respect to Congs. and under an idea that her rights of Sovereignty; had been encroached upon;4 and that as a further quantity had been exported without the licence of the State,5 the question was unavoidable, whether the authority of Congs. extended to the act. He wished therefore that Congress wd. proceed to decide this question
Mr. Fitzimmons in behalf of the Committee observed that they went no farther than to examine whether the proceedings of the officers of Congs. were conformable to the Resoln: of Congs. & not whether the latter were within the power of Congs.6
Mr. Lee. sd. the Rept. did not touch the point that, the additional quantity had been exported without application to the State, altho’ the first quantity was licenced by the State with great reluctance, in consequence of the request of Congs. and of assurances agst. a repetition, and that the Superintendt & Secy of Congs. ought at any rate to have made application to the Executive before they proceeded to further exportations.7
Mr Rutlidge sd. the Rept. went to the very point, that Va. suspected the Resols: of Congs. had been abused by the Officers of Congs. & the Rept. shewed that no such abuse had taken place;8 that if this information was not satisfactory, and the State sd. contest the right of Congs. in the case, it wd. then be proper to answer it on that point,9 but not before; He sd. if the Gentleman (Mr. Lee) meant that the Come. authorised by Congs. on the day of to10 make explanations on this subject to the Legislature of Va. had given the assurances he mentioned, he must be mistaken: for none such had been given. He had he sd. formed notes of his remarks to the Legl. but accordg to his practice had destroyed them after the occasion was over, and therefore cd. only assert this from memory. that nevertheless his memory enabled him to do it with certainty.
Mr. Lee, in explanation sd. he did not mean the Come.[;] that the abuse complained of was not that the Resolun. of Congs. had been exceeded, but that the export had been undertaken without the Sanction of the State.11 If the acts were repeated, he said, great offence wd. be given to Va.12
The report was agd. to as far as the Tobo. was concerned without a dissenting voice.13 Mr. Lee uttering a no, but not loud enough to be heard by Congress or the chair. The part relating to the loss of Vouchers, was unanimously agd. to.14
Come. of the Whole.15
The Rept. for valuation of land amended by insertion of “distinguishing dwelling houses from others.”16
The Come. adjourned & the report was made to Congs.17
Mr. Lee & Mr. Jarvais moved that the report might be postponed to adopt another plan to wit “to call on the States to return a valuation: and to provide that in case any return sd. be not satisfactory to all parties, persons sd. be appd. by Congs. & others by the States respectively to adjust the case finally.[”] On this question N. H. was divd. Mas: no. R. I. ay. Cont. no. N. Y. divd. N. J. no: Pa. no. Va. no. Mr Madison & Jones no, Mr Lee & Bland ay. N. C. ay, S. C. ay, so the motion failed.18
1. Adopted on 28 December 1782 by the Virginia General Assembly, submitted on 27 January 1783 to Congress by the delegates from that state, and referred four days later to a committee with Thomas FitzSimons as chairman (, V, 459–60; 461–63; , XXIV, 96, 106; Delegates to Harrison, 28 Jan. 1783, and n. 2). The committee had rendered its report on 6 February (, XXIV, 106, n. 3).
2. , XXIV, 121–23. See also nn. 6 and 14, below.
3. That is, the contract between agents of the United States and the merchants-capitulant at Yorktown, concluded in accordance with a provision of the Articles of Capitulation of 19 October 1781 and, as amended, ratified by Congress on 11 February 1782. For the “noise” caused in Virginia by “this matter,” see , XXII, 70–71; , IV, 163, n. 4; 245, n. 7; 267, n. 8; V, 342, and n. 2; 412; 413, n. 5; 461–63; 464 nn.
4. Governor Benjamin Harrison, together with other prominent Virginians, had regarded the contract (n. 3), as lacking in “propriety” and as setting a “dangerous precedent,” especially since the Virginia General Assembly at the session of October 1776 had banned trade in tobacco with the enemy (, IX, 162; , IV, 244; 245, n. 7; 263–64; 266, nn. 3, 6; 297–98; 299, nn. 10, 11; 323–24). With great reluctance, in the summer of 1782 Harrison and a majority of the House of Delegates consented to facilitate the execution of the contract, even though they doubted whether the Articles of Confederation conferred upon Congress power of sufficient latitude under either the war or the commerce clauses to traverse a state law and to sanction “a dangerous intercourse” between Virginians and the enemy (, XIX, 217; , III, 223; , III, 41, 86, 106; , IV, 253–54; 254, n. 4; 425, n. 7). See also n. 7, below.
6. By the resolution of 11 February 1782, Charles Thomson, the secretary of Congress, was “empowered to grant letters of passport and safe conduct for the exportation” of the tobacco to New York, “on the conditions and under the limitations which shall,” to him and to Robert Morris, “appear most proper and beneficial to the said states, being consistent with the said capitulation: provided always, that permission be not given for the exporting of tobacco, beyond the amount of the produce of the sales of the said goods belonging to the capitulants” (, XXII, 71). Having been informed by a representative of the merchants-capitulant that their sales amounted to 44,037⅔ Spanish milled dollars, Thomson requested Daniel Clark, the agent of Robert Morris in Virginia, to limit the cargoes of the flag-of-truce vessels strictly to a quantity of tobacco equivalent in value to that sum (, V, 462–63).
For the misunderstanding of Governor Harrison and the General Assembly concerning the amount of money and tobacco involved, see ibid., V, 461; 462–63; 464, nn. 3, 8; also n. 12, below. The FitzSimons committee, knowing of the several agreements made by Thomson and Morris with the agent of the merchants-capitulant, and not instructed to consider whether those agreements encroached upon the sovereignty of Virginia, reported to Congress that the merchants-capitulant had been entitled to even more than 989,588 pounds of tobacco and that the conduct of Morris and Thomson “was in all respects conformable to the resolution of this house” on 11 February 1782 (, XXIV, 122–23).
7. On 14 and 15 June 1782, after being urged by John Rutledge and George Clymer of Pennsylvania, who comprised a deputation from Congress, to co-operate in making the contracts with the merchants-capitulant effective, the Virginia General Assembly reluctantly adopted a resolution acquiescing to the loading of 685 hogsheads of tobacco (, XXII, 289–90, 353; , IV, 340, and n. 3).
8. See n. 6.
9. See nn. 4 and 12.
10. On 22 May 1782 (, XXII, 289–90).
11. See nn. 6 and 7.
12. , IV, 253–54.
13. , XXIV, 123.
14. See n. 1. Congress adopted the recommendation of the FitzSimons committee by directing Robert Morris “to instruct the commissioner appointed to settle the accounts of the State of Virginia, with the United States, to receive such proofs as shall be exhibited to him instead of the vouchers which have been lost or destroyed, in consequence of the invasion of the said State; and that he shall transmit to the Superintendant [Morris] a special report upon all such charges, which report shall be submitted to Congress to be finally decided on” (, XXIV, 123). For the commissioners to settle the accounts of the states with Congress, see JM Notes, 5–6 Feb. 1783, and n. 9, especially the citations listed at the beginning of that note.
15. Ever since the committee of the whole convened for the first time on 29 January 1783, Daniel Carroll had been the chairman (JM Notes, 5–6 Feb., n. 5; 7 Feb. 1783, n. 3).
16. For the report, submitted to Congress on 5 February, negatived the next day, and recommitted on 7 February for further consideration by the committee of the whole, see JM Notes, 5–6 February, and nn. 9, 10, 12; 7 Feb. 1783, and nn. The amendment, offered by an unidentified member of the committee, was inserted immediately after the phrase “the number of buildings within it,” in the third paragraph of the committee’s report as recorded by Thomson (NA: PCC, No. 36, III, 451–53; , XXIV, 124).
17. Congress granted Daniel Carroll’s request, made on behalf of the committee, to permit it “to sit again” because it had not “come to a conclusion” about “sundry resolutions” (, XXIV, 123). See JM Notes, 11 Feb. 1783.
18. JM added the last four words of this paragraph in his old age. Although unrecorded by JM, Mercer’s vote also must have been “no.”