bought for distribution under a Senate resolution of February 18, 1847.18

Another print of the engrossed copy "compared with the original in the Department of State, September 17, 1872" was issued under the Government Printing Office imprint. For the Senate in 1877 Ben Perley Poore prepared the Organic Laws of the United States of America, from which the engrossed copy of the Constitution was taken for printing in the front of the second edition of Revised Laws of the United States of America in 1878. Since that date the engrossed copy of the Constitution has been the commonly accepted archetype. It has been regularly reproduced from that period in both the House and Senate Manuals and in the United States Code. The Department of State issued an edition "compared April 13, 1891" and has published it as a "literal print" in 1895, 1902, 1907, 1908, (1912), 1916, 1920, 1921, 1923, 1924, 1933 (Pub. 435), and 1934 (Pub. 539).

THE PRINTED ARCHETYPE

The printed archetype authorized by the motions of the Federal Convention of September 15 and 17, 1787, was put into type at Philadelphia in the shop of John Dunlap and David C. Claypoole, who published the Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser. The report of the Committee of Style and Arrangement of September 12 had been set up in this shop and the "Report of the Convention' was corrected from that text under the direction of the committee to embody the changes made from September 13 to 17. The 500 copies printed for the Convention were on 6 pages measuring 26 x 40.5 cm. and were distributed on September 18.19 Dunlap and Claypoole reset the preamble in 36-point type and made up the type in 4 pages for publication in No. 2690 of the Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser of September 19.20 Both of these Philadelphia prints included the resolution of the Convention and the letter of transmittal. The wide type measure was 16.4 cm., 39 m's pica.

The Independent Journal or, the General Advertiser, which was published Wednesdays and Saturdays in Hanover Square, New

18 Journal of the Senate, 29th Cong., 2d sess., 204. Such purchases continued for several years. Hickey's book, of which the last edition was in 1879, began the "alphabetical analysis" which is the basis of the Index to the Constitution since familiar in Government prints. In his 1846 edition he numbered the clauses, on which Secretary of State Buchanan in his certificate commented: "The small figures designating the clauses are not in the original & are added merely for convenience of reference." They had been used since the Bioren and Duane edition of the laws in 1815.

19 Several members of the Federal Convention, including Washington, sent it to friends by letters dated September 18, 1787 and later, Documentary History, IV, 287-312; Farrand, op. cit., III, 82–3, 98-100; John C. Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George Washington from the Original Manuscript Sources, vol. 29, 276–78. This print is reproduced in The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States of America, Senate Document No. 79, 73d Congress, 1st Session; Congressional set, vol. 9747 (1934).

20 An error—“seven" in Article V instead of "eight”—was corrected in the newspaper print.

York, by John McLean, in No. 398, Saturday September 22, 1787, published an item that the President of the State had submitted the "result of our deliberations in the late Convention" to the Speaker of the General Assembly and the reader was further referred to the "Suppliment". These four pages of supplement were titled "Copy of the Result of the Deliberations of the Federal Convention" and contained the letter of transmittal, the text of the Constitution (as before without a caption) and the resolution of the Federal Convention in that order. The supplement was set in double columns (22 m's pica wide), Article 1, section 1, of the Constitution ending column I of page 1 and the signatures ending at the top of column 2 of page 4.

The Report of the Convention in the engrossed copy was delivered by William Jackson, secretary of the Federal Convention, to the President of the Congress, Arthur St. Clair, at New York on September 20, 1787, together with the resolution of the Convention and the letter of transmittal signed September 17 by George Washington, President of the Federal Convention. According to a letter dated September 21, 1787, by William Bingham, a member of the Congress from Pennsylvania, to Thomas Fitzsimons, a signer of the Report for Pennsylvania, the Report was read on September 20 in the Congress, though there is no such entry in the Journal. In the printed Journals the engrossed copy is editorially reproduced under that date with the inserted caption "Report of the Convention of the States".21

The Report was assigned for consideration on Wednesday, September 26, according to the Bingham letter. On September 27according to Order Congress resumed the Consideration of the form of a Constitution framed and transmitted to Congress by the Convention of the States held at Philadelphia pursuant to the Resolve of the twenty first day of February last. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia made a motion, seconded by Melancthon Smith of New York, that the "plan of a new federal constitution" be sent to the executive of every state to be laid before their legislatures. The motion was concerned with overcoming the difficulty perceived in amendment of the Articles of Confederation in force between 13 States by a document which could be brought into force by only nine States and which was prepared by a Convention constituted under the authority of 12 States.22 Abraham Clark of New Jersey, seconded by Nathaniel Mitchell of Delaware, moved to postpone that motion in order to take up one providing that the Constitution, resolution and letter

21 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, XXXIII, 488-500. It is unlikely that the engrossed copy was actually read, since printed copies of the Convention text were available and would be more convenient to read. In any case the reading would not show the differences in capitalization and other variations between the engrossed and printed copies.

22 Rhode Island was not represented in the Federal Convention.

of transmittal of the Convention be transmitted to the executives of each State for submission by the legislatures to conventions of delegates as recommended in the resolution of the Convention. On a yea-and-nay vote the postponement was decided, 10 to 1. The Clark motion was then itself postponed on motion of Edward Carrington of Virginia, seconded by William Bingham of Pennsylvania. This motion on "the Constitution for the United States" said that "Congress do agree thereto" and recommended submission to state conventions "that the same may be adopted, ratified and confirmed". In the printed Journal of September 27, 1787, there is also given a motion of Nathan Dane of Massachusetts providing for submission of the "report of the Convention" to the state executives on the ground that members of Congress did not feel

themselves authorised by the forms of Government under which they are assembled, to express an opinion respecting a system of Government no way connected with those forms.

The Journal of Friday, September 28, 1787, reads simply: 23

United States in Congress assembled, Friday, September 28, 1787. Present, New-Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina and Georgia, and from Maryland, Mr. [David] Ross.

Congress having received the Report of the Convention lately assembled in Philadelphia,

Resolved, unanimously, That the said Report, with the Resolutions and Letter accompanying the same, be transmitted to the several Legislatures, in order to be submitted to a Convention of Delegates chosen in each State by the people thereof, in conformity to the Resolves of the Convention made and provided in that Case.

CHAS. THOMSON

This resolution, adopted unanimously, deftly left the problem of approval, in the several aspects contemplated in the previous motions, to the conventions in the States, which were thus implicitly recognized as having plenary authority to decide.

In fulfilment of the resolution, Thomson required copies of the Constitution for transmission to the legislatures. The Supplement of the Independent Journal of September 22, which was standing in type, was used for the purpose after some important corrections.24 The print which was ordered was without caption, began with the Constitution, followed by the resolution of the Federal Convention, the letter of transmittal to Congress, ending with the resolution of Congress. The 4-page double column text of the four

23 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, XXXIII, 548–49.

24 The preamble was reset in eight lines of 14-point type, hanging indention, instead of five flush lines of 12-point and corrected and Article I, section 2, paragraph 2, and Article VI, paragraph 2, were reset for corrections. "Judgement" was changed to "judgment", "priviledge" to "privilege", and "habeus corpus" became "habeas corpus", to give typical examples of the proof reading.

documents was printed on folios 28 x 44 cm. in size, the type surface being 19 x 35.5 cm., and an edition of 100 copies was struck.25 This print was forwarded to governors of the States by a circular letter, which read: 26

(Circular)

SIR

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF CONGRESS
September 28, 1787

In obedience to an unanimous resolution of the United States in Congress Assembled a Copy of which is annexed, I have the honor to transmit to your Excellency the Report of the Convention lately assembled in Philadelphia, together with the resolutions and Letter accompanying the same, and have to request that your Excellency will be pleased to lay the same before your Legislature in order that it may be submitted to a Convention of Delegates to be chosen by the people of the State, in conformity to the Resolves of the Convention, made and provided in that case.

with the greatest respect

I have the honor to be
Your Excellency's

Most obedient &

most hum Serv

Cha Thomson

The governors of the thirteen States or their equivalent-Delaware had a president—sent the document to the Legislatures, which in the resolutions establishing the conventions to consider ratification generally ordered the printing of editions for the use of the delegates and the information of the people.2

27

The "Report of the Convention lately assembled in Philadelphia” was still not the Constitution of the United States of America. Ratifications of the conventions were reported to the Congress. By July 2, 1788, the ninth ratification, that of New Hampshire, was received and the president (Cyrus Griffin, Virginia) called attention of the members to the fact that this number was by Article VII sufficient for the establishment of the Constitution. Thereupon the Congress 28

Ordered that the ratification of the Constitution of the United States transmitted to Congress be referred to a Committee to examine the same and report an Act to Congress for putting the said Constitution into operation in pursuance of the resolutions of the late federal Convention.

The committee consisted of Edward Carrington (Virginia), Pierrepont Edwards (Connecticut), Abraham Baldwin (Georgia),

25 The cost was £3/10s, according to an entry in Dunlap's account of September 29; a second 100 copies cost £1/4s, according to Dunlap's account of October 3.

26 Documentary History of the Constitution, II, 23. The text reproduced is a transcript from the Virginia Archives. Several other States still possess their copies.

27 The Virginia House of Delegates, for example, on October 24, 1787, “Ordered, That the public printer do strike forthwith 5,000 copies of the report. . ., to be distributed among the citizens of the Commonwealth." North Carolina printed 1,500 copies and South Carolina 1,000 copies. Massachusetts and other States ordered prints without stating the size of the editions. The Poughkeepsie imprint of the document by Nicholas Power is interleaved in the Journal of the New York convention. 28 Journals of the Continental Congress, XXXIV, 281; Documentary History, II, 161, 163.

Samuel Allyne Otis (Massachusetts), and Thomas Tudor Tucker (South Carolina).

This committee on July 8, 1788, reported a resolution which recited the establishment of the Federal Convention, read in its "report", quoted the procedure laid down in the resolution of Congress of September 28, 1787, noted that the ratifications of nine States had been “returned to Congress and filed in the Office of the Secretary", and resolved concerning a date for appointing electors in the States, a date for the electors to assemble and vote for a President, and a date "for commencing proceedings under the said Constitution" at a place not yet specified.

In July ratifications of two more States were received, bringing the total to 11.29

It was not until September 13, 1788, that the Congress perfected its resolution. The debate and defeat of several proposals was on the dates in the resolution itself and the place for "commencing proceedings." The preambular clauses were modified in the resolution of September 13 in two respects. The original intention to read in the "report" of the Federal Convention was changed to say that the convention reported "to the United States in Congress assembled a constitution for the people of the United States." The list of the ratifying States was omitted, and it was stated that— the constitution so reported by the Convention and by Congress transmitted to the several legislatures has been ratified in the manner therein declared to be sufficient for the establishment of the same and such ratifications duly authenticated have been received by Congress and are filed in the Office of the Secretary. The operative resolution read:3

That the first Wednesday in Jan' next [January 7, 1789] be the day for appointing Electors in the several states, which before the said day shall have ratified the said Constitution; that the first Wednesday in feby next [February 4, 1789] be the day for the electors to assemble in their respective states and vote for a president; and that the first Wednesday in March next [March 4, 1789] be the time and the present seat of Congress [New York] the place for commencing proceedings under the said constitution.

The Continental Congress, having given effect to the ratifications of the States and provided for the operation of the Constitution, left a full record of the action. A manuscript volume entitled Ratifications of the Constitution 1 was prepared for the Secretary

31

29 The ratifications “returned to Congress” between January 22 and July 30, 1788 were: Delaware, December 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787; New Jersey, December 18, 1787; Georgia, January 2, 1788; Connecticut, January 9, 1788; Massachusetts, February 6, 1788; Maryland, April 28, 1788; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 25, 1788; New York, July 26, 1788.

North Carolina ratified on November 21, 1789; and Rhode Island, on May 29, 1790.

30 Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789, XXXIV, 521; Documentary History of the ConStitution, II, 263.

31 Preserved in the National Archives, formerly in the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division. The instruments of ratification in this manuscript are reproduced in the Documentary History of the Constitution, II, 22–309.