Act of Confederation.

time within the year, and to any place within the united states, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six months, and shall publish the Journal of their proceedings monthly, except such part thereof relating to treaties, alliances or military operations, as in their judgment may require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each state on any question shall be entered on the journal, when it is desired by any delegate; and the delegates of a state, or any of them, at his or their request shall be furnished with a transcript of the said Journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the legislatures of the several states.

ARTICLE X. The committee of the states, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of congress, such of the powers of congress as the united states in congress assembled, by the consent of nine states, shall from time to time think it expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said committee, for the exercise of which, by the articles of confederation, the voice of nine states in the congress of the united states assembled is requisite.

ARTICLE XI. Canada acceding to this confederation and joining in the measures of the united states, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this union: but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine states.

ARTICLE XII. All bills of credit emitted, monies borrowed and debts contracted by, or under the authority of congress, before the assembling of the united states, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the united states, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said united states, and the public faith are hereby solemnly pledged.

ARTICLE XIII. Every state shall abide by the determination of the united states in congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterward confirmed by the legislatures of every state.

AND WHEREAS, it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, KNOW YE that we the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that purpose, do by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, and all and singular the matter and things therein contained: And we do further solemnly plight and engage

Signers of the Act of Confederation.

the faith of our respective constiuents, that they shall abide by the determination of the united states in congress assembled, on all questions, which by the said confederation are submitted to them. And that the articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the states we respectively repre sent and that the union shall be perpetual.

IN WITNESS whereof we have hereunto set our hands in congress. DONE at Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord one Thousand seven Hundred and Seventyeight, and in the third year of the independence of America.

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE.

Josiah Bartlett,

John Wentworth, Jun'r,
August 8, 1778.

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY.

ON THE PART AND IN BEHALF OF THE STATE OF RHODE ISLAND AND

PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS.

William Ellery,

Henry Merchant,

John Collins.

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF CONNECTICUT.

Roger Sherman,

Samuel Huntington,

Oliver Wolcott,

Titus Hosmer,

Andrew Adams.

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

Jas. Duane,

Fras Lewis,

William Duer, ·
Gouvr. Morris.

ON THE PART AND IN BEHALF OF THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY.

Jno. Witherspoon,

Nathl. Scudder,

November 26, 1778.

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

Robert Morris,

Daniel Roberdeau,

William Clingan,
Joseph Reed,

Signers of the Act of Confederation.

ON THE PART AND IN BEHALF OF THE STATE OF DELAWARE.

John Dickinson, May 5, 1779,
Nicholas Van Dyke,

Tho. M'Kean, Feb. 12, 1779

ON THE PART AND IN BEHALF OF THE STATE OF MARYLAND.

John Hanson, March 1, 1781,

Daniel Carrol, March 1, 1781.

ON THE PART AND IN BEHALF OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA.

Richard Henry Lee,

John Bannister,

Thomas Adams,

John Harvie,
Francis Lightfoot Lee.

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA,

John Penn, July 21, 1778,

Corns. Harnett,

Jno. Williams.

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

Henry Laurens,

William Henry Drayton,

Richard Hutson,
Thos. Heyward, Jun.

John Mathews,

ON THE PART AND BEHALF OF THE STATE OF GEORGIA.

Jno. Walton, 24th July, 1778.

Edw. Telfair,

Edw. Langworthy.

NOTE-Prior to the Declaration of Independence, and on the 12th day of the preceding month, a committee was appointed by the Continental Congress, "to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these colonies." The report of the committee was made on the 12th of July, and printed copies placed in the hands of members of the congress for their secret examination. For two years the articles were under discussion by the members of the several state legislatures to whom copies were sent by the new government, and on the 9th of July, 1778, the representatives in congress of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and South Carolina, signed the form above which had been agreed upon. To those states whose delegates being absent or uncertain of their power, did not sign the form at this time. Congress addressed a request for action with all convenient dispatch. North Carolina ratified the Act on the 21st of July, and Georgia on the 24th of the same month, thus giving the assent of ten states to the instrument. The remaining ratifications were given, by New Jersey, November 26, 1778; by Delaware, May 5, 1779; and by Maryland, March 1, 1781.

Congress assembled under the Act of Confederation, March 2, 1781, the day following the ratification of the act by Maryland.

WILLIAM M'KINLEY.

William McKinley, President, was born at Niles, Trumbull County, Ohio, January 29, 1843; was educated in the public schools, Poland Academy, Allegheny College; before attaining his majority he taught in the public schools; enlisted as a private in the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry June 11, 1861; promoted to commissary-sergeant April 15, 1862, to second lieutenant September 23, 1862, to first lieutenant February 7, 1863, to captain July 25, 1864; served successively on the staffs of Generals R. B. Hayes, George Crook and Winfield S. Hancock and was brevetted major in the United States Volunteers by President Lincoln for gallantry in battle March 13, 1865; detailed for acting adjutant-general of the First Division, First Army Corps, on the staff of General S. S. Carroll; mustered out of service July 26, 1865; returning to civil life, he studied law in Mahoning County; took a course at the Albany (N. Y.) Law School, and in 1867 was admitted to the bar and settled at Canton, Ohio, which has since been his home; in 1869 he was elected prosecuting attorney of Stark County, and served a term in that office; in 1876 he was elected a member of the National House of Representatives, and for fourteen years represented the congressional district of which his county was a part; as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee he reported the tariff law of 1890, but in November following was defeated for Congress in a gerrymandered district, although reducing the usual adverse majority from 3,000 to 300; in 1891 was elected governor of Ohio by a plurality of 21,511, and 1893 was re-elected by a plurality of 80,995; in 1884 was a delegate-at-large to the Republican national convention and supported James G. Blaine for president; was a member of the committee on resolutions and read the platform to the convention; in 1888 was also a delegate-at-large from Ohio, supporting John Sherman, and as chairman of the committee on resolutions again reported the plat'form; in 1892 was again a delegate-at-large from Ohio, and supported the nomination of Benjamin Harrison, and served as chairman of the convention. At that convention 182 votes were cast for him for president, although he had persistently refused to have his name conisdered. On June 18, 1896, he was nominated for president at St. Louis, receiving 661 out of 905 votes. He was elected president at the ensuing November election by a popular plurality of 600,000 votes, and received 271 electoral votes as against 176 for William J. Bryan, of Nebraska. He was again elected president in 1900. On September 6, 1901, at the PanAmerican Exposition he was shot by an anarchist, and died of his wound September 14. His remains were buried at Canton, Ohio.