1. Papers of Madison description begins William T. Hutchinson, William M. E. Rachal, et al., eds., The Papers of James Madison (6 vols. to date; Chicago, 1962——). description ends , V, 409–10; 410, nn.; Harrison to Delegates, 4 Jan. 1783, and n. 5.

2. JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 204, n. 1; Delegates to Harrison, 12 Mar., and n. 12; JM to Randolph, 12 Mar. 1783, and n. 5.

3. This committee, which reported on 1 April, was supplanted on 20 May by a new committee comprising Mercer, FitzSimons, and Bland. Mercer, as chairman, replaced Osgood, who had left Congress about 30 April. The new committee’s report of 29 May was recommitted on that day (NA: PCC, No. 186, fols. 89, 103; JM Notes, 20 and 29 May 1783 [LC: Madison Papers]; JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 348; Burnett, Letters description begins Edmund C. Burnett, ed., Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (8 vols.; Washington, 1921–36). description ends , VII, lxviii).

4. JM refers to 10 March 1783, when Congress failed to adopt by a margin of one vote a committee’s report, drafted by Daniel Carroll, on the commutation of half pay for retired officers of the continental line. If in that tally Eliphalet Dyer had voted “ay” rather than “no,” Connecticut would have been in the affirmative column—thus enabling the committee’s recommendation to carry (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 178–79; JM Notes, 10 Mar. 1783, and nn. 1, 2). Following that vote, the report was returned to the committee, including Dyer, which had submitted it. Ten days later the committee reintroduced almost the same proposal, but Dyer was the author of the long justificatory statement prefacing the recommendations. After Bland had seconded the committee’s motion to adopt, the report and the army memorial, which had occasioned the long deliberations on the half-pay issue, were referred to a new committee comprising Alexander Hamilton, chairman, Dyer, and Gunning Bedford, Jr., of Delaware (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 202–3, 203, n. 1).

Recalling this episode, JM told Nicholas P. Trist on 15 July 1827: “On the question for paying the army, we had eight States; it required nine. It turned on the vote of Connecticut. These representatives were Dyer, a man of gentlemanly manners, who had seen the world (he had been to England) but not of very sound principle. Wolcott, an honest man. Wolcott determined he would brave the storm that awaited him at home. Dyer hung back. He was of course very much pressed. At length, he consented, on condition that it should be referred to a committee, and that he should be allowed to write a preamble. In this he was indulged” (Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson [3 vols.; New York, 1858], II, 325–26 n.). See also JM Notes, 4 Feb. 1783, n. 10. The rest of Madison’s reminiscence about Dyer and his preamble relates to the session of Congress on 22 March. See JM Notes, 22 Mar. 1783, and n. 3.

5. For the original and amended “report of the Come.,” see Report on Restoring Public Credit, 6 Mar., and nn. 1–3, 6–10; JM Notes, 7 Mar., and nn. 2, 3; 11 Mar., and nn. 3–6, 9–12; 18 Mar. 1783, and nn. 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, 11. This report “being under debate,” Hamilton introduced a motion, seconded by James Wilson, to postpone its further consideration “in order to take up” a plan designed to provide an amount of “revenue equal to the public wants.” The Hamilton-Wilson proposal, unlike the amended report, would have (1) the customs collectors nominated by Congress; (2) a land tax and a house tax “to be credited to each State in which they shall arise”; (3) the impost revenues “to pass to the general benefit of the United States, without credit for the proceeds to any particular states”; (4) these sources of public funds to continue, not for twenty-five years only, but until the “principal of the debt due by the United States at the termination of the present war shall be finally discharged”; and (5) Congress inform each state annually of the amount of the public debt and of the proceeds and disposition of income, so that “all doubts and apprehensions, respecting the perpetuity of the public debt, may be effectually removed” (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 195–200).

6. That is, if the sources of public funds were limited in duration to twenty-five years.

7. The “mode” was requisitions upon the states by quotas, as stipulated by Article VIII of the Articles of Confederation (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XIX, 217).

8. JM Notes, 28 Jan. 1783, n. 29. The journal of the House of Representatives of the General Court of Massachusetts for the January session of 1782 notes the passage by that house and the Senate of the bill ratifying the impost amendment to the Articles of Confederation, and also the long delay before Governor John Hancock signed the bill, but does not record the vote (Journal of the House of Representatives of the General Court of Massachusetts, March 1780–January 1800, fols. 644, 657, 756–57).

The Hamilton-Wilson motion was defeated by a vote of 7 states to 4. Bland was the only Virginia delegate who voted for “postponing” a further consideration of the amended report (JCC description begins Worthington Chauncey Ford et al., eds., Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774–1789 (34 vols.; Washington, 1904–37). description ends , XXIV, 201–2).