[10] North Carolina was not represented in the first Session of this Congress, not having at that time accepted the Constitution.
[11] Rhode Island, for the same cause, did not appear till the third Session.
[12] Mr. Bland deceased during the second recess of Congress, and was succeeded at the third Session by William B. Giles.
[13] See notes to list of Senators.
[14] Ibid.
[15] For a list of the Representatives in the first Congress, see p. 20.
[16] For this list see the Senate Journal.
[17] This scale of duties, thus offered by the Continental Congress of 1783, and agreed to by the States, after proposing small specific duties on a few enumerated articles, (wines, spirits, teas, coffee, cocoa, molasses, sugars and pepper,) proposed an ad valorem duty of five per centum upon all other goods, computed on the value of the article at the time and place of importation.
[18] In bringing forward the measure for imposing impost and tonnage duties, Mr. Madison proceeded in the approved parliamentary form, of first discussing and agreeing upon the provisions of the measure, and then appointing a committee to bring in a bill according to what had been agreed upon. Long experience had proved that to be the safest mode of legislation, giving full scope to the whole intelligence of the House, before the measure had taken a form which it might be difficult to alter, as is always the case when a committee brings in a detailed bill, (without previous instructions from the House,) and which, as an act of a committee, and as a matured plan, (though done by a few,) has an authority which resists alteration, and renders amendments, at the instance of a member, most difficult to obtain. This wise and safe practice, of settling the provisions of a bill beforehand, has been nearly abandoned by our Congress—to the great prejudice of beneficial legislation.
[19] Not additional. The enumerated articles were not to be subject to the ad valorem duty of five per centum.