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DEBATES

IN THE

CONGRESS OF THE CONFEDERATION,

AS TAKEN DOWN IN THE YEARS 1782, 1783 AND 1787,

BY JAMES MADISON,

THEN A MEMBER,

WITH LETTERS AND EXTRACTS OF LETTERS FROM HIM

DURING THE PERIODS OF HIS SERVICE IN

THAT CONGRESS.

TO WHICH ARE PREFIXED

THE DEBATES IN 1776, ON THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, AND ON A FEW OF THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION,

PRESERVED BY THOMAS JEFFERSON.

PREFATORY NOTE.

Mr. Madison took his seat in the Congress of the Confederation on the twentieth day of March, 1780, but did not commence his diary of its Debates till the fourth of November, 1782. It was continued through the sequel of that year, and until the removal of Congress was decided, on the twenty-first of June, 1783, from Philadelphia to Princeton, where the task was not renewed.

In February, 1787, being again a member, he resumed his diary, which was continued till the second of May of that year, when he left Congress to give his attendance in the approaching Convention at Philadelphia which was to prepare a new Constitution for the United States.

On the close of that Convention he returned to his seat in Congress, which he held till March, 1788, when he was called to Virginia with a view to his being elected to the State Convention which was to decide on the Constitution proposed by the General Convention. During this period it appears that no diary was kept, the effect perhaps of the share he had in writing the Federalist. Nor was it resumed in the interval between his return from the close of

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