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VIII The Completion of the Articles LTTLE time was needed to finish the task of writing the first constitution of the United States once the major issues had been settled. Further changes were relatively minor, but on the whole they tended to shear from Congress powers granted to it in the Dickinson draft. This was especially marked in the provision dealing with the regulation of trade. The Dickinson draft had expressly prohibited the states from levying duties or imposts which might interfere with the provisions of treaties made by Congress.1 On October Z I an amendment to this article was proposed , providing that a state might levy on foreign goods the same duties that its own citizens were required to pay when importing ; that it might prohibit exportation and importation altogether ; and that it might refuse privileges in its ports to the citizens of any foreign country which did not grant equal privileges to the citizens of that state.2 This provision gave each state protection against any adverse regulatory action on the part of Congress. At first the states divided evenly on the amendment and it was lost,3 but a second effort was successful. To the "sole and exclusive" power of Congress to enter into treaties and alliances with foreign states was added a provision that no treaty of commerce should be made whereby the legislative power of the respective states would be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners as its own citizens were subject to, or restrained from prohibiting importation and exportation. All the 1 Journals, 5:547-548• "Ibid., 9:8z(Hl%7. This seems to have been the work of Richard Henry Lee. The Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 47, f. 109, contain the motion in his handwriting. • Journals, 9:8z7-8z8. The votes were not recorded by states in this instance . Another amendment to this article was passed, however. It was moved to strike out "hereafter" and to insert "in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by Congress to the courts of France and Spain." The acceptance of this modification left the restriction rather ambiguous. Ibid., 8}3, 911. The Articles of Confederation states except New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut accepted this amendment. Even men so closely connected or allied with the merchant class as Robert Morris, James Duane, and William Duer supported it.4 A possible explanation of their vote lies in the prevailing sentiment in their states at the time. The radicals in New York and Pennsylvania politics were distinctly antimerchant , and the political life of congressional delegates depended on their reflection of state views in common affairs. The result of the amendment was to leave Congress with the power to regulate trade by treaties, but to provide no effective check upon practical regulation by the states. A second significant change was made in the character of the body which Dickinson had called the "Council of State" and which the final draft called the "Committee of the States." The very titles selected are indicative of a wide divergence of opinion between those who drafted the one and those responsible for the other. Among the "sole and exclusive" powers of Congress in the Dickinson draft was that of appointing a "Council of State, and such committees and civil Officers as may be necessary for managing the general Affairs of the United States, under their Direction while assembled, and in their Recess, of the Council of State." 5 This Council of State was apparently designed as the beginning of an executive organization, a permanent bureaucratic staff of the central government. In the final draft of the Articles the power to control committees and civil officers was not granted to the Committee of the States, which, instead of being a permanent body, was defined as "a committee to sit in the recess of Congress ." 6 The Council of State, on the other hand, was to be appointed annually and was to be a permanent body functioning whether Congress was in session or not.7 The powers of the Council of State had been detailed in a separate article of the Dickinson draft. While it could make no agreements binding on the United States, the powers it did have were to be permanent, since they were embedded in a "perpetual" document relatively free from the danger of amendment.8 No specific powers were delegated to it; it was to have only such • Journals, 9:835. 7 Ibid., 5:551, 553...

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