between notes taken as a part of, or in connection with, the work of the Convention, and information supplied to others; accordingly, letters written while the Convention was in session, and such items as Charles Pinckney’s Observations and Luther Martin’s Genuine Information have been classed as supplementary material. In the next place, the editor has tried to discriminate carefully between statements of proceedings in the Convention and theoretical interpretations of clauses in the Constitution; only the former are included. And finally, to render this material serviceable, in foot-notes to the main text of the Records, references have been made to this supplementary material wherever it seems to throw any light on the proceedings.[1]
In the present edition, the original manuscripts have been reprinted exactly, except that in abbreviations superior letters have not been used, and in the few cases where it occurs the tilde has been resolved into the corresponding “m” or “n”. In the case of Yates’s Secret Proceedings, Mason’s notes, and the supplementary material in Appendix A, the most reliable printed texts have been followed. Footnotes in the originals are marked by “*” and “†” while the editor’s notes are numbered consecutively for each day. Because Madison’s records have proven to be the best and most reliable source of information, the editor’s notes and references have been attached, in most cases, to Madison’s Debates.
- ↑ Attention should be called to two items in Appendix A—CXLVIa and CXLVIb—the original records of McHenry’s and Martin’s reports to the Maryland House of Delegates, which were obtained too late to permit a complete series of cross-references to be made.
