OF THE FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. BY GEORGE BANCROFT. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. FOURTH EDITION. NEW YORK: D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 1, 8, AND 5 BOND STREET. 1884. PREFACE. VERY many years have gone by since I conceived a hope of one day writing a history of the forma tion of our federal constitution. The congress of the confederation and the federal convention having sat with closed doors and under injunctions of secrecy, materials for the work lay almost exclusively in manuscripts widely dispersed. I have visited the archives of more than half the thirteen states, and have never neglected an opportunity of taking copies of papers relating to the subject wherever I could find them. In New Hampshire members of the family of Langdon-Elwyn, of more than one generation, placed their rich collection of letters at my disposition. Papers of John Sullivan, the rival of John Langdon for public honors, and his equal in zeal for the acceptance of the constitution, were entrusted to me by Mr. Thomas C. Amory, of Boston. 130424 JK 116 .335 1884 v, 1 In turning to the rich materials that are preserved in the archives of Massachusetts, I have had most friendly and beneficial assistance from Mr. Henry B. Peirce, the present secretary of that commonwealth; and the cordial co-operation of those employed in his office. The descendants of John Adams for three generations have unfailingly been ready to further my researches. The papers of Samuel Adams came into my possession through the late Samuel Adams Wells. From Mr. John A. King I have received reports of debates in the federal convention of 1787, taken by Rufus King, who was at that time still in the public service of Massachusetts. From Connecticut valuable papers of Roger Sherman came to me through Professor Simeon E. Baldwin, of New Haven; though nothing equal in importance to the document which embodies nine articles of amendments of the confederation, and which is preserved only in Sherman's Life, by Jeremiah Evarts. Through the kindness of Mr. Oliver Ellsworth Wood, of New York, I was able to examine what remains of the manuscripts of Chief-Justice Ellsworth. The large collections left by William Samuel Johnson have been open to me through three generations of their possessors. The proceedings of the convention held at Hartford in November, 1780, a convention which was the starting-point of the regularly continued efforts for new articles of union, |