1. For the appointment and personnel of the committee which submitted this report, see JM Notes, 21 Feb. 1783, and n. 29. Although largely drafted by JM, the report includes specific recommendations which he had opposed, a few which he had been the first to suggest, and others which he also had supported. For this reason the report illustrates not so much JM’s originality of ideas as his talent for bringing together and clearly expressing in a fairly short document a group of recommendations designed to counterbalance opposing sectional, economic interests and to appeal to all members of Congress except uncompromising nationalists and state-sovereignty advocates. Even so, in at least one important matter of paragraph arrangement, JM as draftsman was obliged to defer to the judgment of a majority of the committee. See JM Notes, 7 Mar. 1783, and n. 2.

2. Except for the addition of the words, “necessary to the restoration of public credit and the punctual & honorable discharge of the public debts,” and the omission of the phrase, “after the first day of May, 1781,” the report to this point reproduces almost exactly the first two paragraphs of the 5 per cent impost amendment adopted by Congress on 3 February 1781 (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XIX, 112–13). See also JM Notes, 24 Jan., and n. 20; 28 Jan., and nn. 29–31; 29 Jan., and nn. 18, 20, 25, 38; 12 Feb., and nn. 1, 3; 13 Feb., and n. 1; 18 Feb.; 19 Feb. 1783, and n. 3.

3. Immediately after this word, “per 112 lbs.” was added in the committee’s report as printed in the journal of Congress for 6 March and as copied by JM in his notes for the next day. See JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 171.

4. JM Notes, 27 Feb., and nn. 8–10, 14; 28 Feb.; 3 Mar. 1783, and nn. 2, 3.

5. The words following “aforesaid” are in Charles Thomson’s hand. For the debate in Congress on the first three paragraphs of the report, see JM Notes, 18 Feb., and nn. 11, 12; 27 Feb., and n. 8; 11 Mar. 1783.

6. JM Notes, 29 Jan., and n. 25; 12 Feb., and nn. 5–9, 13–15; 19 Feb., and nn. 3, 8, 22, 23; 20 Feb. 1783, and n. 9. By 18 March, “one month” had been entered in the blank space after “within” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 189). As an addition to the closing sentence of this paragraph in the manuscript of the report, but as an immediately succeeding paragraph in the report as printed in the journal of Congress, the following words in Thomson’s hand were canceled, “and provided further that an account of the proceeds and application of the said revenues be returned to the different states annually” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 171). This passage, which is omitted in the version of the report copied by JM in his notes for 7 March, was deleted, obviously because its subject is treated in a later paragraph of the report. See n. 9.

7. The proposal in this paragraph reflects the belief that, even though the states should empower Congress to levy the 5 per cent impost and the tariffs recommended earlier in the report, the resulting revenue would be insufficient to cover the interest and principal of the war debt and the other expenses of Congress. See JM to Randolph, 22 Jan.; 4 Feb.; JM Notes, 27 Jan.; 28 Jan., and n. 11; 29 Jan., and n. 36; 19 Feb., and n. 7; 20 Feb., and n. 14; 21 Feb., and nn. 16, 27; 27 Feb. 1783.

8. The table, which JM also omitted from the copy of the report in his notes for 7 March, is in the hand of Thomas FitzSimons, a member of the committee (NA: PCC, No. 26, fol. 413). The committee proposed that Congress be furnished annually by the states with a total of $2,000,000, proportioned among them in sums varying between $320,000 from Massachusetts and $24,000 from Georgia (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 171–72, n. 4). See JM Notes, 25 Feb.; 21 Mar.; 4 Apr. 1783.

9. This paragraph, which is in Charles Thomson’s hand, appears both in JM’s notes for 7 March and in the printed, official copy of the report immediately after, rather than immediately before, the paragraph beginning, “the said revenues to be collected …” (NA: PCC, No. 26, fol. 412; JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXV, 983–84). Obviously, this reversal of position provides a more logical sequence of subjects than in the present version and the one in JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 172.

The Massachusetts General Court qualified its ratification of the proposed 5 per cent impost amendment by stipulating that Congress must notify each state annually how much money had been collected and how it had been spent (NA: PCC, No. 74, fol. 193; Randolph to JM, 3 Jan., n. 8; JM Notes, 28 Jan., n. 29). John F. Mercer and other delegates had also insisted that the states should be supplied with “full information” (JM Notes, 21 Feb. 1783 and citations in n. 22). See also Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (6 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , V, 407, n. 1.

10. The mode of appointing the collectors and of equitably apportioning to the credit of all the states the revenue from impost duties, which would mainly be paid in the ports of a few of the states, had been frequent subjects of debate. See, for example, JM Notes, 27 Jan.; 28 Jan., and nn. 3, 12, 29; 29 Jan., and nn. 28, 29, 33, 34; 21 Feb., and n. 16; 26 Feb. 1783, and nn. 19, 23.

11. In the space immediately below the last line of the preceding paragraph, JM wrote, “( see 4 page).” On the fourth, or last, page of the manuscript he placed “(” before the beginning of the present paragraph. For this reason the editors have transferred the paragraph to the place in the report indicated by JM. In a footnote to his notes of 7 March (q.v., and n. 2), JM pointed out the importance of this change.

12. Judging from JM’s notes, Theodorick Bland had been the first delegate to suggest that a grant by the states to Congress should be “irrevocable” as long as Congress or “nine of the States” upheld it (JM Notes, 29 Jan., and n. 36). See also JM Notes, 21 Feb. 1783, and n. 8.

13. The passage beginning after the semicolon and continuing to the close of the paragraph was canceled by JM and is also shown as deleted in JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 172. Both the printed official version of the report and JM’s copy of the report in his notes for 7 March omit the expunged words. For the eighth article of the Articles of Confederation, see JM Notes, 9–10 Jan., nn. 3, 8; 14 Jan., nn. 4, 6; 28 Jan. 1783, n. 19. The thirteenth article stipulated that “the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; 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” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XIX, 221).

14. For the resolutions of 6 September and 10 October 1780, see JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XVII, 806–7; XVIII, 915–16. Although Connecticut, New York, Virginia, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia claimed territory west of the Appalachian Mountains, only the first three of these states had offered to cede some or all of their claims to the United States. Virginia’s tender of most of her lands west and northwest of the Ohio River was hedged by many provisos and had been a subject of frequent debate in Congress for over two years. The proposal of Connecticut to yield jurisdiction but not title to her “western reserve” in the Ohio country still awaited the decision of Congress. New York, seeking the support of delegates from other states to her claim to Vermont, had made an unqualified and hence an acceptable offer of her doubtfully legal western claims to Congress. See Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (6 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , III, 210, n. 4; 283, n. 6; 286, n. 5; 301, n. 1; 304, n. 1; IV, 32–34; 34, n. 8; 200–202; 203, n. 16; V, 32, n. 23; 52, n. 14; 115–16; 117, n. 9; 118, n. 14; 119, n. 20; 228, n. 13; 241; 245, nn. 3, 5; 246, nn. 6, 7, 10; 366, n. 12; JM Notes, 30 Jan., n. 2; 26 Feb. 1783, and nn. 20, 24, 29, 37, 38, 40, 42, 43.

Besides the two reasons stated at the outset of this paragraph of the report, satisfactory offers of cession by the five remaining claimant states would be the more timely because of the hope, if not the expectation, that the United States in the treaty of peace would be vested by Great Britain with her title to the territory between the Appalachian watershed and the Mississippi River (Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (6 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , II, 127–35; IV, 4–7; 168–69; V, 23, n. 14; 33; 187; 189, nn. 14, 17; 418, n. 19; 443, n. 2; 444, n. 7; Comment by Jefferson, 25 Jan., and n. 1; JM Notes, 29 Jan.; 30 Jan., n. 2; Randolph to JM, 7 Feb. 1783.

15. Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (6 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , V, 457–58; JM Notes, 26 Feb., and nn. 22, 25, 28, 37, 40, 43; 4–5 Mar., and nn. 1, 2; JM to Randolph, 25 Feb., and citations in n. 7; Memo. on Revenue Plan, 6 Mar. 1783, ed. n.

16. JM interlineated “reasonable” before “expences” as a substitute for a passage immediately following “be allowed as such,” which he canceled so heavily as to leave discernible only an occasional word or letter. These vestiges permit no doubt that the deleted passage was the same or nearly the same as the following passage quoted in his footnote to his notes of 7 March (q.v. and n. 3): “provided that this allowance shall not be extended to any expences which shall be declared by nine votes in Congress to be manifestly unreasonable.”

During emergencies caused by British or Indian invasions, states often had been obliged to spend money and allocate military supplies on behalf of the “common cause” without prior authorization by Congress. Massachusetts, for example, should be enabled by this provision of the report to recover from the Confederation the full cost of the Penobscot expedition; Connecticut to secure compensation for often calling out her “militia without sanction of Congss.”; Virginia to gain reimbursement of her “excentric expenditures” in the Northwest; and the citizens of North Carolina to have their “great” claims satisfied (JM Notes, 26 Feb., and n. 22; Memo. on Revenue Plan, 6 Mar. 1783, ed. n.). Although South Carolina and Georgia would have fewer claims of this nature, since occupation by the British army had caused the government in each state to collapse, their ravaged condition would entitle them to correspondingly larger “abatements” in the amount of the financial requisitions which they owed to Congress. See Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (6 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , V, 119, n. 20; JM Notes, 27 Jan., and nn. 13, 27; 17 Feb., and n. 4; 26 Feb. and citations in n. 17; 7 Mar., and n. 4; Memo. on Revenue Plan, 6 Mar. 1783, ed. n.

17. See n. 13. The brackets and the phrase they enclose are in the manuscript of the report.

18. The passage beginning with “that” and continuing through the words “several states” is in the hand of Charles Thomson. For this reason the passage is bracketed in the Hunt edition of the journal of Congress (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 173, and n. 1).

19. Immediately following “are,” JM at first wrote and canceled “deemed slaves.”

20. This blank remained unfilled in the other two versions of the report mentioned in n. 13, above. For the issues of how frequently the enumeration should be made and how heavily the slaves should be weighted in apportioning tax quotas among the states, see Randolph to JM, 7 Feb., n. 3; JM to Randolph, 18 Feb.; JM Notes, 14 Jan.; 28 Jan., nn. 35, 42; 7 Feb.; 11 Feb., and nn. 2, 4; 17 Feb., and nn. 1, 3; 26 Feb., and n. 44; 28 Mar.; 1 Apr.; Memo. on Revenue Plan, 6 Mar., ed. n.; Amendment to Report on Public Credit, 28 Mar. 1783, and ed. n. Congress immediately had this report printed as a broadside for distribution to the delegates (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 174, n. 1; JM Notes, 6 Mar.; 7 Mar. 1783).