The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution

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Volumes I–XLI

Edited by the Center for the Study of the American Constitution

An essential series documenting the speeches, letters, newspaper accounts, and other sources that informed and shaped the debates around the ratification of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Publication Dates: 1976–2025

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Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, Vol 1

Description

The signing of the US Constitution on September 17, 1787, was a milestone in creating a government for the newly independent United States. However, the act of signing itself did not create a government. Nor did it bring the new Constitution into force. The closing of the Constitutional Convention was the beginning of a long public debate during which citizens, represented in state ratifying conventions, read, debated, and ultimately voted to ratify the Constitution. The process of ratification produced an invaluable record of debates and commentaries that reveal how eighteenth-century Americans understood the Constitution and how they assessed its strengths and weaknesses.

Beginning with the publication of the first volume of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (DHRC) in 1976, editors from the Center for the Study of the American Constitution at UW–Madison have published the definitive collection of primary source material related to the ratification debates. They drew on a body of more than 70,000 documents, including official materials, such as records of town and county meetings, executive records, legislative proceedings, convention journals and debates, petitions, recommended amendments, forms of ratification, and financial records; personal papers, such as letters, memoirs, diaries, and poetry; diplomatic correspondence; and printed primary documents from newspapers, broadsides, and pamphlets. These documents were transcribed, annotated, and published in more than forty volumes over the course of fifty years.

DHRC volumes have been used extensively by historians and political scientists, cited by the Supreme Court of the United States and other federal courts, and increasingly adapted for use in classrooms at all educational levels. The volumes are essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the Constitution in historical context.

Editor Bios

The Ratification series was directed by constitutional scholar John P. Kaminski, director of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Bill of Rights series co-editors include Kaminski, Thomas H. Linley, Elizabeth M. Schoenleber, Timothy D. Moore, Dustin M. Cohan, Oindrila Chattopadhyay, Anna M. Biermeier, Christopher S. Berry, Sarah K. Danforth, and Daniel J. Hoefs.

The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution is always the first primary source I turn to. It is utterly essential to my work. . . . The project is quite literally indispensable, awesome, monumental, superb and masterful.