A General Council, having its seat in London, was appointed. While the president, treasurer, and general secretary were to be Englishmen, each nation was to be represented in the Council by a corresponding secretary. The General Council was to summon annual congresses and exercise an effective control over the affairs of the Association, but local societies were to have free play in all local questions. As a further means of union, it was recommended that the workmen of the various countries should be united in national bodies, represented by national central organs, but no independent local society was to be excluded from direct correspondence with the General Council. It will be seen that the arrangements of the Association were so made as to secure the efficiency of the central directing power on the one hand, and on the other to allow local and national associations a real freedom and abundant scope for adapting themselves to the peculiar tasks imposed on them by their local and national position. As in founding, so in conducting the International, Marx took the leading part. The proceedings of the various congresses might be described as a discussion, elucidation, and filling up of the programme sketched by him in the inaugural address and in the statutes of the Association. Men representing the schools of Proudhon (who died in 1865), of Blanqui, and of Bakunin also exercised considerable influence; but the general tendency was in accordance with the views of Marx. It was intended that the first congress for finally arranging the constitution of the Association should be held at Brussels in 1865, but the Belgian Government forbade the meeting, and the Council had to content itself with a conference in London. The first congress was held at Geneva in September 1866, sixty delegates being present. Here the statutes as drafted by Marx were adopted. Among other resolutions it decided on an agitation in favour of the gradual reduction of the working day to eight hours, and it recommended a most comprehensive system of education, intellectual and technical, which would raise the working people above the level of the higher and middle classes. Socialistic principles were set forth only in the most general terms. With regard to labour the International did not seek to enunciate a doctrinaire system, but only to proclaim general principles. They must aim at free co-operation, and for this end the decisive power in the State must be transferred from capitalists and landlords to the workers.