RESOLVE ON CONTINENTAL CONGRESS.

J. MSS

[April 14, 1784 ?]

1. Resolved that the object of the several states in appointing delegates to meet in General Congress, being that they may therein preeeed transact for the good of their states several of the Union in general and their state in particular, those matters which the Confederation has submitted to the direction of Congress, the said delegates ought to be invested in the place where they may be sitting with such privileges and exemptions immunities as will leave them in cover them from molestation and disturbance, and leave them in freedom & tranquility to apply their whole time and attention to the objects of their delegation.

2. That territory and exclusive jurisdiction in & about the place of their session is not necessary to attain these ends and would subject them to avocations from their proper objects.

3. That the legations which have been practised among long experience has led the civilized nations of Europe have led to a long course of experience to an ascertainment of those privi. leges and immunities which are necessary for the free exercise-of their functions which may enable the representatives of an independent nation exercising high functions within another that they may to do the same unawed and undisturbed and that therefore the privileges and immunities annexed by the law and usage of nations to such characters to these legations should be allowed to the Congress of the United States collectively and to their members individually by the laws of the states in and adjacent to which they may be sitting, and should be secured in their continuance by sufficient sanctions.

4. That legal provision should also be made for protecting and vindicating those privileges and immunities to which foreign ministers & others attending on Congress are entitled by the law of nations.

5. That Congress will rely on the honour and affection of the states in and adjacent to which they may be sitting as a security that measures shall always be provided for preventing violations of their rights when foreseen before stated in general and duly punishing them when arising too suddenly for prevention.

6. That the United States should be made capable of acquiring

& holding in perpetuum such grounds and buildings in and about the place of their session of Congress as may be necessary for the transaction of business by their own for their body, their committees & officers for-the-transaction of business and that each state should be made capable of acquiring and holding in perpetuum such grounds and buildings as they may at any time think proper to acquire & erect for the personal accomodation of their delegates: and that all these grounds and buildings before mentioned so long as they shall be so long as Congress or a Commee of the states shall be resident at such place shall should be exempt from taxation.

7. That as in time of war the enemies of these states might employ emissaries and spies to discover the views & proceedings of Congress, Congress that body should have authority within a certain distance of the place of their session to arrest and deal with as they shall think proper, all persons, not being citizens of any of these states nor entitled to their protection, whom they shall have cause to suspect to be spies.

8. That as the United States in Congress assembled represent the sovereignty of the whole Union, their body collectively and their President individually should on all occasions have precedence of all other bodies & persons.

9. That during the recess of Congress the Committee of the states being left to pursue the same objects & under the same circumstances their body, their members & their President, er phairman should respectively be placed on the same footing with the body the members & the President of Congress-respectively.

TO GEORGE WASHINGTON.

J. MSS.

ANNAPOLIS, Apr 16. 1784.

DEAR SIR, I received your favor of Apr. 8. by Colo. Harrison. The subject of it is interesting, and, so far as you have stood connected with it, has been matter of anxiety to me; because whatever may be

the ultimate fate of the institution of the Cincinnati, as in it's course it draws to it some degree of disapprobation, I have wished to see you standing on ground separated from it, and that the character which will be handed to future ages at the head of our revolution may in no instance be compromitted in subordinate altercations. The subject has been at the point of my pen in every letter I have written to you, but has been still restrained by the reflection that you had among your friends more able counsellors, and, in yourself, one abler than them all. Your letter has now rendered a duty what was before a desire, and I cannot better merit your confidence than by a full and free communication of facts & sentiments, as far as they have come within my observation. When the army was about to be disbanded, & the officers to take final leave, perhaps never again to meet, it was natural for men who had accompanied each other thro' so many scenes of hardship, of difficulty and danger, who in a variety of instances must have been rendered mutually dear by those aids & good offices to which their situations had given occasion; it was natural I say for these to seize with fondness any proposition which promised to bring them together again at certain & regular periods. And this I take for granted was the origin & object of this institution; & I have no suspicion that they foresaw, much less intended, those mischiefs, which exist perhaps in the forebodings of politicians only. I doubt however whether, in it's execution, it would be found to answer the wishes of those who framed it, and to foster

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those friendships it was intended to preserve. members would be brought together at their annual assemblies no longer to encounter a common enemy, but to encounter one another in debate & sentiment. For something I suppose is to be done at these meetings, & however unimportant, it will suffice to produce difference of opinion, contradiction & irritation. The way to make friends quarrel is to put them in disputation under the public eye. An experience of near twenty years has taught me that few friendships stand this test, & that public assemblies, where every one is free to act & speak, are the most powerful looseners of the bands of private friendship. I think therefore that this institution would fail in it's principal object, the perpetuation of the personal friendships contracted thro' the war.

The objections of those who are opposed to the institution shall be briefly sketched. You will readily fill them up. They urge that it is against the confederation-against the letter of some of our constitutions; against the spirit of all of them-that the foundation on which all these are built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every preeminence but that annexed to legal office, & particularly the denial of a preeminence by birth; that however, in their present dispositions, citizens might decline accepting honorary instalments into the order, a time may come when a change of dispositions would render these flattering, when a well directed distribution of them might draw into the order all the men of talents, of office & wealth, and in this case would probably pro

cure an ingraftment into the government; that in this they will be supported by their foreign members, & the wishes & influence of foreign courts; that experience has shewn that the hereditary branches of modern governments are the patrons of privilege & prerogative, & not of the natural rights of the people whose oppressors they generally are: that besides these evils, which are remote, others may take place more immediately; that a distinction is kept up between the civil & military, which it is for the happiness of both to obliterate; that when the members assemble they will be proposing to do something, & what that something may be will depend on actual circumstances; that being an organized body under habits of subordination, the first obstructions to enterprize will be already surmounted; that the moderation & virtue of a single character has probably prevented this revolution from being closed as most others have been, by a subversion of that liberty it was intended to establish; that he is not immortal, & his successor, or some of his successors, may be led by false calculation into a less certain road to glory:

What are the sentiments of Congress on this subject, & what line they will pursue, can only be stated conjecturally. Congress, as a body, if left to themselves, will in my opinion say nothing on the subject. They may however be forced into a declaration by instructions from some of the states, or by other incidents. Their sentiments, if forced from them, will be unfriendly to the institution. If permitted to pursue their own path, they will check it by side blows when