all be left to every state to make and execute its own laws,
except laws impairing contracts, which shall not be made at all.

"5. Congress shall not incorporate any trading companies, nor alienate the
territory of any state. And no treaty, ordinance or law of the United
States shall be valid for these purposes.

"6. Each state shall have the command of its own militia.

"7. No continental army shall come within the limits of any state, other
than garrison to guard the publick stores, without the consent of such
states in time of peace.

"8. The president shall be chosen annually and shall serve but one year,
and shall be chosen successively from the different states, changing every
year.

"9. The judicial department shall be confined to cases in which
ambassadours are concerned, to cases depending upon treaties, to offences
committed upon the high seas, to the capture of prizes, and to cases in
which a foreigner residing in some foreign country shall be a party, and
an American state or citizen shall be the other party, provided no suit
shall be brought upon a state note.

"10. Every state may emit bills of credit without making them a tender,
and may coin money, of silver, gold or copper, according to the
continental standard.

"11. No powers shall be exercised by Congress or the president but such as
are expressly given by this constitution and not excepted against by this
declaration. And any officer of the United States offending against an
individual state shall be held accountable to such state, as any other
citizen would be.

"12. No officer of Congress shall be free from arrest for debt [but] by
authority of the state in which the debt shall be due.

"13. Nothing in this constitution shall deprive a citizen of any state of
the benefit of the bill of rights established by the constitution of the
state in which he shall reside, and such bill of rights shall be
considered as valid in any court of the United States where they shall be
pleaded.

"14. In all those causes which are triable before the continental courts,
the trial by jury shall be held sacred."

These at present appear to me the most important points to be guarded. I
have mentioned a reservation of excise to the separate states, because it
is necessary, that they should have some way to discharge their own debts,
and because it is placing them in an humiliating & disgraceful situation
to depute them to transact the business of internationa