CONGRESS' R.I. TRADE BILL, 28 APRIL-I JUNE 1790

1. Reprinted: Portland, Maine, Cumberland Gazette, 3 May; New Hampshire Gazette, 5 May;
Stockbridge, Mass., Western Star, 11 May; and New Hampshire Recorder, 27 May.
Congress Considers a Bill to Prohibit Commerce
with Rhode Island, 28 April-1 June 1790
On 28 April 1790 the Senate, on motion of Maryland Senator Charles Car-
roll of Carrollton, appointed a committee to consider what to do about Rhode
Island's failure to ratify the Constitution. On 5 May the committee reported
that a bill should be prepared to prohibit commerce with Rhode Island. The
following day the committee asked for its report back so that it could be
amended. On 10 May the committee reported resolutions, which were debated
on that day and the next. On the 11th the Senate adopted the resolutions
ordering the committee to bring in a bill or bills. The committee presented a
bill on 13 May, which was read a first time. The next day the Senate read the
bill a second time and, by a vote of 12 to 7, agreed to a third reading on 17
May. The bill was sent back to committee on the 17th, reported out of the
committee the next day with amendments, read a third time, and passed by a
vote of 13 to 8. In the Senate the opponents of the bill argued that it was
premature, coercive, and would have a negative impact on the second session
of the Rhode Island Convention scheduled to meet on 24 May.
The Senate bill prohibited the importation into the United States of any
items from Rhode Island, barred United States vessels from entering Rhode
Island ports, provided harsh penalties for violating the act, and demanded that
Rhode Island pay the United States $25,000 by 1 December 1790 for its share
of the expenses that the country had incurred before 4 March 1789. An early
draft of the bill was printed in the New York Gazette of the United States, 15 May,
and the paper was brought to Providence by a gentleman from New York just
as the United States Chronicle of 20 May "was going to Press." The Chronicle re-
printed the text of the bill in that issue, as did the Newport Herald on 20 May.
The Providence Gazette reprinted the bill on the 22nd.
The House of Representatives received the bill from the Senate on 19 May,
and, despite opposition from John Page of Virginia, the House read the bill
for the first time. On the next day the House read the bill a second time and
committed it to the Committee of the Whole for consideration. On 26 May
Page renewed his objections to the bill in the Committee of the Whole, with
other members joining in the debate. On IJune President George Washington
informed the House that Rhode Island had ratified the Constitution, and the
House ordered that the Committee of the Whole be discharged from further
action on the bill.
French Counsel General Louis-Guillaume Otto informed his government in
mid-March that "many senators," exasperated at Rhode Island's antics, were
"preparing a violent motion" to put pressure on that state. They were waiting
for the right time to act (to Comte de Montmorin, 13 March, above). Repre-
sentative John Steele of North Carolina described the bill as "tyrannical, and
arbitrary in the highest degree" (to Joseph Winston, 22 May [below]). The
United States Chronicle, 20 May, printed a series of letters from members of
Congress commenting on the bill, which underscored the growing impatience

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