He was on the committee which drafted the Declaration of Independence, and also on that which drafted the Articles of Confederation.
Instead of accepting the Constitution upon the condition of amendments, - in which way they might very likely have secured large concessions, - the Anti-Federalists stood for unconditional rejection, and public opinion, which went against them, proved that for all its shortcomings the Constitution was regarded as preferable to the Articles of Confederation.
It was too radically different from the Articles of Confederation.
It was largely through his efforts that the General Court in 1784 rejected the amendment to the Articles of Confederation authorizing Congress to levy a 5% impost.
In 1781 he favoured an amendment 'of the Articles of Confederation giving Congress power to enforce its requisitions, and in 1783, in spite of the open opposition of the Virginia legislature, which considered the Virginian delegates wholly subject to its instructions, he advocated that the states should grant to Congress for twenty-five years authority to levy an import duty, and suggested a scheme to provide for the interest on the debt not raised by the import duty - apportioning it among the states on the basis of population, counting three-fifths of the slaves, a ratio suggested by Madison himself.
