STATE DOCUMENTS
ON
FEDERAL RELATIONS:
THE STATES AND THE UNITED STATES.
1. Memorial from the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.
September Session, 1789.
In June of 1789, the Rhode Island Assembly for the sixth time defeated a reposition to call a convention to consider the ratification of the Federal Constitution, but hoping to avert hostile tariff legislation by Congress, it had passed in May an impost law providing for the collection of the same duties on imports as Congress might lay upon imports into the Union. In September, after re-enacting the law passed by Congress (July 31, 1 U. S. Stat. at Large, 48), they sent the following memorial, an overture for a commercial union. Congress, anticipating the receipt of the memorial, passed an act suspending the impost law in favor of Rhode Island and North Carolina until January 15, 1790. (Sept. 15, 1 U. S. Stat. at Large, 100. Memorial received, Sept. 26, Senate Journal, 1 Cong., 89 (ed. 1820).) Finally the Rhode Island Assembly called a convention for March 1, 1790, and requested a further suspension of the revenue laws. Congress granted an extension until April 1. The convention, however, adjourned without completing its work to May 24. In consequence of its action, the Senate on May 18 passed a bill prohibiting all commercial intercourse with Rhode Island after the 1st of July next, and authorizing the government to demand of that State the payment of its portion of the continental debt without delay. (Annals of Cong., 1, 976; S. J., 1 Cong., 142.) This attitude of the Senate, together with the open threats of coercion in the public press, apparently had an important influence on the convention. That body ratified the constitution, May 29, 1790, by a vote of 34 to 32, also proposing a series of amendments.
References: The text is from Rhode Island Colonial Records, X, 356, also lightly changed in American State Papers, Miscellaneous, I, 10. For the
