Changes

==Origins==

==Origins==

The Plan was drawn up by a committee comprising [[Benjamin Franklin]], [[Benjamin Harrison V|Benjamin Harrison]], [[John Dickinson]], [[Robert Morris]], and [[John Adams]] who was its main author.  The Plan was adopted Sept. 17, 1776.  

The Plan was drawn up by a committee comprising [[Benjamin Franklin]], [[Benjamin Harrison V|Benjamin Harrison]], [[John Dickinson]], [[Robert Morris (financier)|Robert Morris]], and [[John Adams]] who was its main author.  The Plan was adopted Sept. 17, 1776.  

The committee selected from 18th century European treaties such definitions of neutral rights as appealed to small-navied powers: the doctrine of free ships, free goods; freedom of neutrals to trade in non-contraband between port and port of a belligerent (this a repudiation of the British Rule of the War of 1756); and restricted the category of contraband to a carefully defined list of arms, munitions, and implements of war, not including foodstuffs or naval stores. Blockade was not defined. These principles were written into the Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce of 1778; into all other such treaties negotiated with European powers in the 18th century, excepting Britain; and into most of the first treaties of amity and commerce negotiated with Latin-American republics. They also appeared in the Armed Neutrality of 1780 and of 1800; and the Declaration of Paris of 1856 confirmed as international law the principle of free ships, free goods, and also a definition of blockade.

The committee selected from 18th century European treaties such definitions of neutral rights as appealed to small-navied powers: the doctrine of free ships, free goods; freedom of neutrals to trade in non-contraband between port and port of a belligerent (this a repudiation of the British Rule of the War of 1756); and restricted the category of contraband to a carefully defined list of arms, munitions, and implements of war, not including foodstuffs or naval stores. Blockade was not defined. These principles were written into the Franco-American Treaty of Amity and Commerce of 1778; into all other such treaties negotiated with European powers in the 18th century, excepting Britain; and into most of the first treaties of amity and commerce negotiated with Latin-American republics. They also appeared in the Armed Neutrality of 1780 and of 1800; and the Declaration of Paris of 1856 confirmed as international law the principle of free ships, free goods, and also a definition of blockade.