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You may be trying to access this site from a secured browser on the server. Please enable scripts and reload this page. An Official Pennsylvania Government Website. Pennsylvania Department of State. State Athletics. The period between the Declaration of Independence in and the Constitutional Convention in had been tumultuous, marked by discord among the newly independent states. Trade had become particularly troublesome. At the time, much of the commerce between states was conducted along the Atlantic seaboard and via the waterways flowing into the Atlantic or the inland rivers.
The Articles of Confederation allowed each state the freedom to create regulations, tariffs, and currency and to tax neighboring states using their ports and throughways for interstate or foreign commerce. In , legislators from Virginia and Maryland recognized the need to work together to ensure mutually profitable commerce on the shared waterways of the Potomac River and agreed to meet.
George Washington, interested in plans to finance navigational improvements that would push the Potomac route westward to the Shenandoah and Ohio Valleys, offered the hospitality of Mount Vernon for the conference. A point agreement, covering tidewater navigational rights, toll duties, commerce regulations, fishing rights and debt collections, was drawn. The success of the Mount Vernon Conference led James Madison to write Washington about a proposal for a meeting with commissioners from other states to discuss matters of interstate commerce.
A resolution appointing commissioners was introduced in the Virginia House of Delegates. The Virginia commissioners were to meet with other state delegates "to consider how far a uniform system in their commercial regulations may be necessary to their common interest and their permanent harmony.
In , representatives from five states convened in Annapolis "to take into consideration the trade and commerce of the United States. At this meeting, Alexander Hamilton, in a proposal cosigned by James Madison and Edmund Randolph, recommended a general meeting of all the states at a future convention.
The mandate was to be broader than that of the Annapolis meeting, because, as Hamilton said, the delegates had been "induced to think that the power to regulate trade is of such comprehensive extent and will enter so far into the general system of the federal government, that to give it efficacy, and to obviate questions and doubts concerning its precise nature and limits, may require a correspondent adjustment of other parts of the federal system.
This third meeting, which was held in Philadelphia in May, , and presided over by George Washington, resulted in the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with a new United States Constitution, which was adopted on September 17, As Hamilton had foreseen, an "adjustment" was made, a profound adjustment that fundamentally restructured the government. A national executive was authorized and new powers were given to the Congress.
These included the power to "regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several states. Among the proposals which were considered at the Constitutional Convention was one by Gouverneur Morris on August 20, , to create a council of state "to assist the President in conducting the public affairs'" Morris recommended that the third member be a "Secretary of Commerce and Finance, whose responsibilities would include recommending " such things as may in his judgment promote the commercial interests of the United States.
The Constitution, however, made no provision for a council of state, although soon after Washington took office, the Department of Foreign Affairs July 27, , renamed the Department of State September 15, , the War Department August 7, and the Treasury Department September 2, were created to help administer the new government.
Treasury was given responsibility for business and commerce. The Secretaries of these departments and the Attorney General, who had been appointed under the act of September 24, , became members of the first Cabinet.
With the new government in place, North Carolina and Rhode Island, the only two states yet to ratify the Constitution, found that their commerce and manufactures were to be treated in the same manner as those of any foreign country if they were not part of the United States.
Commercial and industrial interests thus provided the vital key needed to open the door to the drafting of the Constitution and to its final acceptance by the 13 existing states. George Washington, in his first address as President, said: "The advance of agriculture, commerce and manufactures by all proper means will not, I trust, need recommendation. In December , the House of Representatives created a Committee of Commerce and Manufactures as a third standing committee.
The Senate established a Commerce Committee in Before the turn of the 19th century, another executive department was added. The Navy Department was created on April 30, , because of the impending war with France.
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