Chancellor Livingston, then
Secretary for Foreign Affairs to Congress, Robert Morris, Minister
of Finance, and his associate, Gouverneur Morris, all of whom are now
living; and we had a dinner and conference at Robert Morris's on the
subject. The occasion was as follows:

Congress had proposed a duty of five per cent, on imported articles, the
money to be applied as a fund towards paying the interest of loans to
be borrowed in Holland. The resolve was sent to the several States to
be enacted into a law. Rhode Island absolutely refused. I was at
the trouble of a journey to Rhode Island to reason with them on the
subject.(2) Some other of the States enacted it with alterations, each
one as it pleased. Virginia adopted it, and afterwards repealed it, and
the affair came to nothing.

1 "Like a stare in a cask well bound with hoops, it [the
individual State] stands firmer, is not so easily shaken,
bent, or broken, as it would be were it set up by itself
alone."--Pelatiah Webster, 1788. See Paul L. Ford's
Pamphlets cm the Constitution, etc., p. 128.--Editor

2 See my "Life of Paine." vol i., p. 103.--Editor,

It was then visible, at least to me, that either Congress must frame the
laws necessary for the Union, and send them to the several States to be
enregistered without any alteration, which would in itself appear like
usurpation on one part and passive obedience on the other, or some
method must be devised to accomplish the same end by constitutional
principles; and the proposition I made in the memorial was, to _add
a continental legislature to Congress, to be elected by the several
States_. The proposition met the full approbation of the gentlemen to
whom it was addressed, and the conversation turned on the manner of
bringing it forward. Gouverneur Morris, in walking with me after dinner,
wished me to throw out the idea in the newspaper; I replied, that I did
not like to be always the proposer of new things, that it would have too
assuming an appearance; and besides, that _I did not think the country
was quite wrong enough to be put right_. I remember giving the same
reason to Dr. Rush, at Philadelphia, and to General Gates, at whose
quarters I spent a day on my return from Rhode Island; and I suppose
they will remember it, because the observation seemed to strike them.(1)

1 The Letter Books of Robert Morris (16 folio volumes, which
should be in our national Archives) contai