These, together with a provision that the authority of the old Congress should be continued to a given day after the changes should have been adopted, and that their engagements should be completed by the new government, were the great features of the system prepared by the committee of the whole, and reported to the Convention, on the thirteenth of June.[50] FOOTNOTES: [43] _Ante_, Vol. I. Book III. Chap. V. [44] Mr. Jefferson has very lucidly stated the position of the question in some observations furnished by him, when in Paris, to one of the editors of the _Encyclopédie Méthodique_, in 1786 or 1787, which I here insert entire. "The eleventh Article of Confederation admits Canada to accede to the Confederation at its own will, but adds, 'no other Colony shall be admitted to the same unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.' When the plan of April, 1784, for establishing new States, was on the carpet, the committee who framed the report of that plan had inserted this clause: 'Provided nine States agree to such admission, according to the reservation of the eleventh of the Articles of Confederation.' It was objected,--1. That the words of the Confederation, 'no other Colony,' could refer only to the residuary possessions of Great Britain, as the two Floridas, Nova Scotia, &c., not being already parts of the Union; that the law for 'admitting' a new member into the Union could not be applied to a territory which was already in the Union, as making part of a State which was a member of it. 2. That it would be improper to allow 'nine' States to receive a new member, because the same reasons which rendered that number proper now would render a greater one proper when the number composing the Union should be increased. They therefore struck out this paragraph, and inserted a proviso, that 'the consent of so many States in Congress shall be first obtained as may at the time be competent'; thus leaving the question whether the eleventh Article applies to the admission of new States to be decided when that admission shall be asked. See the Journal of Congress of April 20, 1784. Another doubt was started in this debate, viz. whether the agreement of the nine States required by the Confederation was to be made by their legislatures, or by their delegates in Congress? The expression adopted, viz. 'so many States in Congress is first obtained,' shows what was their sense of this matter. If it be agreed that the eleventh Article of the Confederation is not to be applied to the admission of these new States, then it is contended that their admission comes within the thirteenth Article, which forbids 'any alteration unless agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.' The independence of the new States of Kentucky and Franklin will soon bring on the ultimate decision of all these questions." (Jefferson's Works, IX. 251.) That the admission of a new State into the Union