James Madison Papers

Resolutions on Private Debts Owed to British Merchants, Resolution A, [7 June 1784]

Resolution A

[7 June 1784]

Resolved, That so much of all and every act or acts of Assembly, now in force in this Commonwealth, as prevents a due compliance with the stipulations contained in the definitive treaty entered into between Great Britain and America, ought to be repealed.1

Printed copy (JHDV description begins Journal of the House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia; Begun and Held at the Capitol, in the City of Williamsburg. Beginning in 1780, the portion after the semicolon reads, Begun and Held in the Town of Richmond. In the County of Henrico. The journal for each session has its own title page and is individually paginated. The edition used is the one in which the journals for 1777–1786 are brought together in two volumes, with each journal published in Richmond in either 1827 or 1828 and often called the “Thomas W. White reprint.” description ends , May 1784, p. 41).

1The motion was offered immediately after a committee was appointed to inquire into “an infraction on the part of Great Britain, of the seventh article of the definitive treaty of peace between the United States of America and Great Britain, so far as the same respects the detention of slaves and other property, belonging to the citizens of this Commonwealth.” Defeated, 57 to 37 (JM voted for passage), the motion would have thwarted the purpose for which the committee of inquiry had been set up.

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