on December 4, 1787, stated that within a week he had “spoken with a gentleman, who had not only his memory, but full notes that he had taken in that body”.[1] Whatever may be the accuracy or the value of these various statements, at least they indicate that there once existed material of which we have no present knowledge, but which may at any time be found. It is not probable, however, that any such new material would modify to any great extent our conceptions of the Convention’s work, and it has, therefore, seemed worth while to gather in the present edition the existing records of the Federal Convention.
Supplementary Material
Although the sessions of the Convention were secret, and it was understood that the delegates would regard the proceedings as confidential, when the question of the adoption of the Constitution was before the country, and in later years when the interpretation of the Constitution was discussed, many of the delegates referred to and explained the action or the intention of the Convention upon particular subjects. Such statements are to be found in the private correspondence of the delegates, in contributions to the press, in public orations, in the debates in state legislatures and conventions, and in the debates in Congress. The farther away from the Convention one gets, the less reliable these reports become, owing to the deforming influence of memory. But taken as a whole, this supplementary material throws not a little light upon the work of the Convention, and in particular upon the parts taken by individual delegates, and upon opinions and personalities.
In the present edition, all of this supplementary material that could be found has been collected and reprinted in Appendix A; but a few words of explanation are necessary. In the first place, this collection could not be made exhaustive without covering practically all of the material, printed and unprinted, on American history since 1787; the editor has accordingly confined his efforts to the more obvious and accessible sources. In the second place, a distinction has been made
- ↑ Appendix A, CXLIX.
