‘By which article a general and implied power is vested in the United States’
Congress celebrated the long-awaited ratification of the Articles of ConÂfederation on 1 March 1781. ‘A Union begun by necessity, cemented by oppression and common danger’, Edmund Burnett captured the moment in his Continental Congress (1941), ‘was finally consolidated into a perpetual confederacy of these new and rising states’.5
Delegates to Congress immediately commissioned two inquiries for the purpose of constitutional stock-taking.
First, Congress assigned a commitÂtee the task of revising its procedures (2 March 1781). A second committee was directed to prepare a plan that would guide Congress in fully developÂing its powers as a national government (6 March). Congress also assigned the latter committee this specific task: how could Congress enforce its will over a state’s determined opposition?The following timeline tracks the activities of these committees. One conÂnection serves as a unifying thread: Duane (chairman of the constitutional execution committee) received unsolicited input on the prospects for AmerÂica’s national government from Gen. George Washington’s chief staff aide, Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton’s letter was dated 3 September 1780. The internal evidence - reviewed below - suggests that Duane conveyed HamilÂton’s ideas to Congress; this took place when Duane and Madison prepared their report on behalf of the constitutional execution committee.
James Madison arrived in Philadelphia on 18 March 1780. He joined the Congress as a newly minted delegate from Virginia. Hamilton and Madison would go on, later in the decade, to advance their jointly developed reform agenda.
The timeline follows:
**3 September 1780: Hamilton composes letter to Duane.
The manner in which Congress was appointed would warrant, and the public good required, that they should have considered themÂselves as vested with full power to preserve the republic from harm.
They have done many of the highest acts of sovereignty, which were always chearfully submitted to - the declaration of independence, the declaration of war, the levying an army, creating a navy, emitÂting money, making alliances with foreign powers, appointing a dictator &c. &c. - all these implications of a complete sovereignty were never disputed, and ought to have been a standard for the whole conduct of Administration. Undefined powers are discretionÂary powers, limited only by the object for which they were given - in the present case, the independence and freedom of America.6**1 March 1781: Congress formally proclaims the ratification of its ConstiÂtution I, under the style Articles of Confederation.7
**2 March: Congress appoints committee ‘to revise the rules of the late Congress’.8
**6 March: Committee appointed to ‘prepare a plan to invest in the [United States] full and explicit powers for effectively carrying into execution in the several states all acts or resolutions passed agreeably to the Articles of Confederation’.9
**12 March: James Madison and Duane (with fellow committee member James Varnum) propose a constitutional amendment to the effect that
‘The eternal rules of justice and reason’ 55 every State shall abide by the determinations of the United States in Congress assembled on all questions which by this Confederation are submitted to them and that the Articles of Confederation shall be invioÂlably observed by every State: by which [Article] a general and implied power is vested in the United States in Congress assembled to enforce and carry into effect all the Articles of the said Confederation against any of the States which shall refuse or neglect to abide by such their determinations or shall otherwise violate any of the said Articles.10
**15 March: the Journal records the recommendations of the rule revision committee ‘delivered in’.11
**16 March: Journal notes that both the rule revision committee and the constitutional execution committee ‘delivered in their several reports’.12 **6 April: ‘Ordered, that the report of the committee appointed to revise the rules for conducting business be re-committed’.13
**2 May: Report of the constitutional execution committee approved as revised. ‘Ordered, That it be referred to a grand committee, consisting of a member from each State’.
Duane appointed, but not Madison, to serve on grand committee.14**4 May: Rule revision committee recommendations revised and adopted.15 Congress approves procedure to review state intransigence.
19. When any subject shall be deemed so important as to require maÂture discussion before it be submitted to the decision of the United States in Congress assembled, it shall be referred to the considerÂation of a grand committee consisting of one member present from each State, and in such case each State shall nominate its member.16
**26 May: Congress charters Hamilton’s Bank of North America.
**22 August: Grand committee recommends the adoption of new laws and constitutional amendments, following the lead of the committee on which Madison served.17