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Colonial and State Records of North Carolina
Instructions from the Pennsylvania General Assembly to their Continental Congress Delegates [Extract]
Pennsylvania. General Assembly
December 09, 1783
Volume 17, Pages 28-29

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA TO THE DELEGATES IN CONGRESS.
[From Executive Letter Book.]

No. 6. Extract of instructions from the General Assembly of Pennsylvania to their Delegates in Congress dated December 9th, 1783.

“Certain measures now pursuing by some European States having a tendency materially to injure the general trade of America, the attention of this house is naturally turned to the affairs of Commerce, & therein we are struck with an apparent defect in the constitution of Congress; for as the local exercise within the States, of the powers of regulating & controlling trade, can result only in discordant systems productive of internal jealousies which are the effect of a lack of unity of Council; this house are clearly of opinion, that the

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individual as well as general good will be best consulted, by relinquishing to Congress all these separate and independent powers.”

“And this house are willing and desirous on the part of Pennsylvania, to concur in substantiating this idea by the necessary legal Acts.”

No. 6. Vide an Act of the Legislature of Virginia, Page 23.