Convention Report
The convention ended with a report and resolutions, signed by the delegates present, and adopted on the day before final adjournment. The report said that New England had a "duty" to assert its authority over unconstitutional infringements on its sovereignty—a doctrine that echoed the policy of Jefferson and Madison in 1798 (in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions), and which would later reappear in a different context as "nullification".
The Hartford Convention's final report proposed several amendments to the U.S. Constitution. These attempted to combat the policies of the ruling Republicans by:
- Prohibiting any trade embargo lasting over 60 days;
- Requiring a two-thirds Congressional majority for declaration of offensive war, admission of a new state, or interdiction of foreign commerce;
- Removing the three-fifths representation advantage of the South;
- Limiting future Presidents to one term;
- Requiring each President to be from a different state than his predecessor. (This provision was aimed directly at the dominance of Virginia in the presidency since 1800.)
Read more about this topic: Hartford Convention
Famous quotes containing the words convention and/or report:
“No convention gets to be a convention at all except by grace of a lot of clever and powerful people first inventing it, and then imposing it on others. You can be pretty sure, if you are strictly conventional, that you are following genius—a long way off. And unless you are a genius yourself, that is a good thing to do.”
—Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)
“How easily some light report is set about, but how difficult to bear.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)