Which 4 states were not present to ratify the treaty of Paris on January 14th, 1784
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1In particular, its generally good form to list (and better yet link to or quote) your source for any particularly crucial details that aren't common knowledge. Like how do you know that 4 weren't there? Who told you that?– T.E.D. ♦Feb 9, 2021 at 21:39
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1 Answer
It looks like there was a bit of a brouhaha owing to the treaty having a ratification deadline, but it being an unusually bad winter that made it difficult for states to get their representatives there within the deadline. "There" being Annapolis Maryland, where the Continental Congress was meeting at the time.
This was a big problem, not just a technicality, as any such irregularity could be seized on by one of the other signatories to claim the whole treaty was void at a moment of their own convenience, and the USA was at the time a very much militarily weaker nation than any of the other parties.
Jefferson covers this in a couple of paragraphs in his memoirs. He mentions a vote on a possible resolution that wasn't made, but his opinion on how the vote would have gone was:
Massachusetts alone would have been for it; Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Virginia against it, Delaware, Maryland & N. Carolina would have been divided.
so those appear to have been the 7 that had representatives in attendance at the time.
On January 14th he relates that delegates from Connecticut and South Carolina arrived, and that making the requisite majority of 9 for entering treaties under the Articles of Confederation, the treaty was passed.
So who does that leave out? It looks like that would be New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Georgia.