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A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774-1875
Sir, New York, 18th. Aug. 1785.
We have received your Excellency's letters under date of the 1st, the 11th, the 18th & 28th of July, and of the of August,(1) with the enclosures they severally refer to: these dispatches have been disposed of conformably to the sense of the Legislature as communicated by your excellency, except in the instance of the resolves recommendatory of a revision of the articles of confederation & perpetual union between the states; at the time we received these resolves, Congress had, & still have, under deliberation propositions to remedy the commercial embarrassments experienc'd in many of the states; the prevailing opinion discovered in the progress of deliberation, gave us no cause to expect an adoption of the plan proposed by the Legislature in the resolves referred to; we ourselves considered the object & intent of these resolves as highly important. We have delayed any communication with congress upon this subject, with an intention to state to your excellency our sentiments upon the probable tendency & consequences of the measure should it be adopted by Congress and acceeded to by the states.(2)
We are sensible that our duty points out a prompt and exact obedience to the acts and instructions of the Legislature, but if a case arises wherein we discover most clearly consequences so fatal; that had they been known perhaps the measure adopted would not have been proposed, it may not be improper to delay a final execution untill we have the instructions of the Legislature after such pernicious consequences of the measure shall have been submitted to their examination.
But this may be a questionable opinion, we will therefore, ask the advise of the supreme executive concerning it; & that they may truely know our situation, we will fully communicate our sentiments on the plan proposed for a revision of the confederation.
The business of congress requires so great a portion of our time, that hitherto we have not been able to make this communication, but it shall be transmitted to your excellency by an early post.
With the most perfect consideration & respect, we have the honor to be, your Excellency's most obedient servants. E. Gerry.
S. Holten
R. King
RC (M--;Ar: Senate Documents). Written by Holten and signed by Holten, Gerry, and King. Endorsed: "This letter was communicated to the Council, but it was apprehended the advice there requested, was meant by our Delegates to be given after they should
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AUGUST 18, 1785
Link to date-related documents.
write their Sentiments on the Subject: and their Letter of the 3d Sept. containing those sentiments, which they desire might be laid before the General Court, the Council could not consider, as there was no meeting of the Council after the receiving of that letter."
1 That is, Bowdoin's letter of August 8 concerning British naval captain Henry Stanhope that was laid before Congress August 15, for which see Charles Thomson to Bowdoin, August 20.
2 For the Massachusetts delegates explanation of their motives in delaying to act on the assembly's instructions to propose a revision of the Articles of Confederation, see their letter to Bowdoin of September 3. The enclosed July 1 resolves of the General Court, which the delegates had declined to submit to Congress as instructed, read as follows:
"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Court that the present powers of the Congress of the United States, as contained in the Articles of Confederation, are not fully adequate to the great purposes they were originally designed to effect.
"Resolved, That it is the opinion of this Court that it is highly expedient, if not indispensably necessary, that there should be a Convention of Delegates from all the States in the Union at some convenient place, as soon as may be, for the sole purpose of revising the Confederation and reporting to Congress how far it may be necessary to alter or enlarge the same.
"Resolved, That Congress be and they are hereby requested to recommend a Convention of Delegates from all the States at such time and place as they may think convenient, to revise the Confederation and report to Congress how far it may be necessary in their opinion to alter or enlarge the same in order to secure the primary objects of the Union." They were later endorsed by Rufus King:
"Resolutions of Mass. of July, 1785, for calling a federal convention to revise the Confederacy. These resolutions with the circular letters to the Governors of the several States were transmitted by Gov. Bowdoin to the Mass. Dels. in Congress, viz, Gerry, Holten & King, who doubting the expediency of the measure, suspended it till the next session of the Genl. Court, wrote to them (3rd of September) their reasons for their conduct, and the Genl. Court resolved that the same should be suspended until further notice." King, Correspondence (King), 1:58--;60.
For a discussion of the legislative context of this issue and the General Court's ultimate acquiescence in the delegates' decision not to submit these resolves to Congress, see Van Beck Hall, Politics Without Parties, Massachusetts, 1780--;1791 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1972), pp. 161--;65. For an analysis in the general context of the movement for revising the Articles of Confederation to strengthen the union, see Merrill Jensen, ed., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1976--;), vol. 13, Commentaries on the Constitution, Public and Private, ed. John P. Kaminski and Gaspare J. Saladino et al. (1981), pp. 28--;43.
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