while they were there. Mr. Hoyt has reproduced these. The Davie "copy" was examined at Chapel Hill by Professor Charles Phillips, of the university faculty, who contributed an admirable paper on the subject of the " Declaration" to the issue of the North Carolina University Magazine for May, 1853. In a subsequent letter to Lyman C. Draper, Professor Phillips stated that when he first saw the Davie "copy" it "contained the last two resolutions only, and the certificate" of John McKnitt Alexander, which was the conclusion of the document, thus confirming what Henderson had said about the condition in which it was when he got it. In another letter to Draper, Professor Phillips said: "There is no evidence that John McKnitt Alexander claimed for himself the Secretaryship in 1775." Draper adds: "That introductory portion, with the first three of the Resolves, had been torn off the Davie copy' before the document reached Gov. Swain and Prof. Phillips; so they had no opportunity of testing the handwriting."10 In another private letter Professor Phillips said: "The condition of the originals in our possession here, the diversity of handwriting, the frequent interlineations, erasures, etc., show that the younger Alexander tried to set forth a poem in Alexandrian measure."

It is very doubtful, therefore, if the original Davie "copy" was "perfectly the same " as the paper in the unknown hand. By the fragment of it which was left it was impossible to show that it had ever contained the introductory narrative which was published in the Raleigh Register, and which contains so many statements at variance with well-established facts, or that the first three resolutions thereof were in the same language as the corresponding resolutions of the publication in the Raleigh Register, which contain all of the expressions stolen from the national Declaration of Independence. And it has been pretty conclusively shown that the fourth and fifth resolutions, which were left, and which, even in the Raleigh Register publication, contain nothing inconsistent with what John McKnitt Alexander wrote in his rough notes, were altered, and, even then, Professor Phillips, who compared the two original papers, says that the two resolutions differ in the two documents in perhaps one important particular.

It is now perfectly clear that the document given to Davidson by Dr. Alexander and subsequently published in the Raleigh Register was a fabrication; that Dr. Joseph McKnitt Alexander gave it to the world as a genuine copy of an original, although, by his subse

10 Lyman C. Draper's MS. history of the Mecklenburg "Declaration", vol. I., ch. IV. (Wisconsin State Historical Society.)

quent admission, he did not know its origin; and that when he himself discovered evidence to show that it was not a copy of an original he continued to deceive the public into believing that it was. In the absence of the anonymous paper, the rough notes by John McKnitt Alexander and the fragment of the Davie "copy", a charge of forgery against Dr. Alexander could not be directly proven, but we submit that the circumstantial evidence against him is very strong; strong enough to convict any man of fewer champions.

Mr. Hoyt's book shows that in addition to the original spurious. "Declaration" there have been four or five fraudulent compilations or flagrant forgeries committed at various times since 1819 to sustain the validity thereof, the most notorious of them being the Millington Miller forgery of a Cape-Fear Mercury of June 3, 1775, containing the alleged "Declaration", noticed in this magazine in April, 1906.

A. S. SALLEY, JR.

THE RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION

WHEN the Federal Convention met in Philadelphia in 1787, for the purpose of rendering the Articles of Confederation "adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union ", the members of that body were duly aware of the importance of the work they were about to undertake. Some of them were impressed. with a sense of their own importance. Men were accustomed in those days to rely for their information more upon private correspondence than upon newspapers-that is, to do their own reporting -and so quite naturally, although there was an official secretary, many of the members of this important convention kept notes of the proceedings for their own use. In the years immediately preceding when the various states had adopted their constitutions, a few days, or a few weeks at most, had been sufficient for the framing of those instruments of government; but in a national assembly the conflicting interests of states and sections could not be reconciled in any short space of time. The very importance of the work protracted the sessions of the Federal Convention beyond expectation. Convening nominally on May 14, but owing to lack of a quorum unable to begin regular work until the 25th, the Convention remained in continuous session until September 17. Other public duties or private interests called away many of the members, and most of those who remained became tired and even irritable: so that of all those who started out so carefully to keep notes of the proceedings, at the present time we know of no one but James Madison who persisted to the end.

INFORMATION UPON THE CONVENTION'S PROCEEDINGS, 1787-1818

The sessions of the Convention were secret; before the final adjournment the secretary was directed to deposit "the Journals and other papers of the Convention in the hands of the President ", and in answer to an inquiry of Washington's, the Convention resolved "that he retain the Journal and other papers subject to the

There was an adjournment of two days over the Fourth of July; and another of ten days between July 26 and August 6 to allow the Committee of Detail to prepare its report.

It

order of Congress, if ever formed under the Constitution ".2 was understood that the members would regard the proceedings as confidential, and in general this understanding was lived up to.3 But when the question of the adoption of the Constitution was before the country, to refrain from all allusion as to what had taken place in the framing of that document, was too much to ask of human nature.

I. Franklin, moved by a pardonable vanity, copied with his own hand several of his speeches for distribution among his friends. Some of these, and particularly his plea at the close of the Convention for unanimous action, quickly found their way into print.*

2. Charles Pinckney lost no time in printing, both in pamphlet form and in a South Carolina newspaper," what is probably a speech he had prepared to deliver at the time when he submitted his plan of government, but which he was prevented from delivering by the lateness of the hour."

3. In practically all of the state conventions upon the adoption of the Constitution, delegates who had been members of the Federal Convention referred to the proceedings of that body and sometimes, in the excitement of debate, made very definite statements as to its action upon particular questions. The proceedings of several of these conventions were printed, and at an early date.

4. The Maryland delegates were required by their instructions to report the proceedings of the Federal Convention to the legislature of their state, and Luther Martin's report was published early in 1788 under the title, The Genuine Information relative to the Proceedings of the General Convention, lately held at Philadelphia. . . . This document is more of an arraignment of the action of the majority than a report of the proceedings of the whole Con

2 Documentary History of the Constitution, III. 769-770.

Both Washington and Madison felt strongly that the proceedings of the Convention should not be made public during the life-times of the members, or at least not as long as the opinions any member might have expressed in debate could in any way be used to his prejudice. J. Q. Adams, Memoirs, IV. 175, and Documentary History of the Constitution, V. 310.

*Carey's American Museum for December, 1787.

Observations on the Plan of Government Submitted to the Federal Conven

tion, in Philadelphia, on the 28th of May, 1787 (New York [1787]).

State Gazette of South Carolina, October 29-November 29, 1787. (J. F. Jameson, Studies in the History of the Federal Convention, in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1902, p. 116, note.)

*See Professor McLaughlin's explanation of the identity of this speech in AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, IX. 735-741.

For a list of printed debates of the state conventions, see Jameson, Studies, 164-167.

vention, but some interesting information may be extracted from it.o 5. For a year after the Convention was over the public press was filled with arguments for and against the Constitution.10 In this controversy, no small part was taken by members of the Convention, and not infrequently information was given upon what had taken place in Philadelphia. This was notably the case when Ellsworth indulged in some rather sharp personal criticisms of Gerry and Martin, and goaded those men to reply.11

6. Similarly when constitutional questions arose in Congress after the new government was in operation, statements were made as to what had been said or done in the Federal Convention, in order to support the speaker's argument.12

Political capital was made of the fact that Hamilton was supposed to have proposed in the Convention a monarchical form of government, and in support of that contention his sketch of a plan of government, submitted in his speech of June 18, was printed at least as early as 1801, " with a view of destroying his popularity and influence ".13

But all of these dealt with personalities or scattered incidents of the Convention, and presented no connected account of the whole. Something more of an attempt in the latter direction appeared a few years later, though again its purpose was purely political. Robert Yates of New York had kept notes of the proceedings of the Convention, as long as he remained in attendance upon its sessions, and a copy of these was made by his colleague, John Lansing. This copy seems to have come into the possession of E. C. Genet,14 former minister from France, who published anonymously in 1808 an abstract of it in A Letter to the Electors of President and VicePresident of the United States.15 This pamphlet was intended to

In the Maryland Gazette or Baltimore Advertiser of February 15, 1788, and in Carey's American Museum, III. 362-363, were printed the Resolves proposed to the Convention by the Honorable Mr. Paterson, and mentioned in Mr. Martin's Information to the House of Assembly." Jameson, Studies in the History of the Federal Convention, p. 138.

10 See "Reference List" in P. L. Ford, Bibliography of the Constitution. 11 November, 1787-April, 1788, reprinted in P. L. Ford, Essays on the Constitution of the United States.

The relevant portions of a letter of William Pierce to St. George Tucker, dated September 28, 1787, in which the former gave his general impressions of the work of the Convention were printed in the Georgia Gazette of March 20, 1788 (AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, III. 311), and indicate a class of material that would be included here.

12 See, for example, Annals of Congress, Fifth Congress, II. 1967, 1992, 2003. 13 See Jameson, Studies, p. 148.

14 See below, p. 50 and note 30.

15 A copy is in the Library of Congress.