Notes on Debates, 15 May 1783
Notes on Debates
MS (LC: Madison Papers). For a description of the manuscript of Notes on Debates, see V, 231–34.
,The Report relating to the Dept. of For: Affairs taken up and after some discussion of the expediency of raising the Salary of the Secy, Congress adjourned.1
1. JM’s original entry for this date probably was only “see Journal” ( , XXIV, 343–45). Upon discovering that the journal failed to mention the committee’s report concerning the “Dept of For: Affairs,” he crowded his sentence on that subject in tiny handwriting within the small space he had left above his entry, “Friday May 16. see Journal.”
On 7 May Congress had appointed a committee, Arthur Lee, chairman, to consult with Robert R. Livingston “respecting his continuance in Office” as secretary for foreign affairs (NA: PCC, No. 186, fol. 100). The committee’s report of 9 May consisted only of a letter of that date from Livingston, explaining again why he felt obliged to resign. On earlier occasions he had pointed out that his salary of $4,000 was about $3,000 less than his living expenses in Philadelphia as secretary for foreign affairs. See V, 342–43; 449; VI, 223; 224, n. 7; 281, n. 9; 418–19, and n. 4.
,Probably few of the delegates on 15 May favored an increase in Livingston’s salary, for Congress on 9 May had appointed a committee, Hamilton, chairman, “to consider and report the means of reducing expenditures in all” executive departments (JM Notes, 23 May 1783.
, XXIV, 337). See