Cite as: 520 U. S. 564 (1997)
Thomas, J., dissenting
Many of the States ignored the request, of course, and their "rival, conflicting and angry regulations" continued to be a source of conflict until the new Constitution went into effect. See Madison, Preface to Debates in the Convention of 1787 (Draft), circa 1836, in 3 Farrand 547; see also, e. g., William Ellery to Samuel Dick, Aug. 2, 1784, in 7 Letters of Members of the Continental Congress 579 (E. Burnett ed. 1934) (hereinafter Burnett's Letters) (predicting that Rhode Island would not agree to the national impost requested by the Congress in 1781 "until the States shall have agreed not to lay any duties upon goods imported into them from any one of their Sister States; perhaps not then" (emphasis added)); William Samuel Johnson to Jonathan Sturges (draft), Jan. 26, 1785, in 8 Burnett's Letters 13 (noting that the Continental Congress was considering asking the States "to invest Congress with the Power of regulating their Trade as well with foreign Nations as with each other," a move which "might probably overturn the System [of "duties" on "imported" goods, see supra, at 623,] Conn[ecticu]t has adopt'd as relat[iv]e to N. Y. which it is said she will counteract by regulat[ion]s of her Assembly now convening" (emphasis in original)).
In fact, the animosity engendered by the various duties levied on imports from other States was one of the motivating factors leading to the Annapolis Convention of 1786. See T. Powell, Vagaries and Varieties in Constitutional Interpretation 182 (1956) ("When the Framers spoke in 1787, the states were substantially sovereign, and their exercises of sovereign powers in adversely affecting trade from sister states was one of the factors leading to the Annapolis conference"). As noted by Tench Coxe, one of the Pennsylvania Commissioners appointed to attend the Convention: "Goods of the growth product and manufacture of the Other States in Union were [in several of the States] charged with high Duties upon importation into the enacting State—as great in many instances as those imposed on foreign Articles of
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