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Organization
The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution is divided
into:
(1) Constitutional Documents and Records, 1776-1787 (1 volume),
(2) Ratification of the Constitution by the States (23 volumes),
(3) Commentaries on the Constitution: Public and Private (6 volumes),
(4) The Bill of Rights (2 or 3 volumes).
Internet Availability
The Maryland volumes, and all other volumes, will be found at the
web site of "Rotunda: American Founding Era Collection," maintained
by the University of Virginia Press at http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu.
The Maryland supplemental documents, as well as those from the other
states, will be found on the web site of the University of Wisconsin-
Madison Libraries at http://library.wisc.edu.
Constitutional Documents and Records, 1776-1787 (Vol. I).
This introductory volume, a companion to all of the other volumes,
traces the constitutional development of the United States during its
first twelve years. Cross-references to it appear frequently in other vol-
umes when contemporaries refer to events and proposals from 1776 to
1787. The documents include: (1) the Declaration of Independence,
(2) the Articles of Confederation, (3) ratification of the Articles, (4)
proposed amendments to the Articles, proposed grants of power to
Congress, and ordinances for the Western Territory, (5) the calling of
the Constitutional Convention, (6) the appointment of Convention del-
egates, (7) the resolutions and draft constitutions of the Convention,
(8) the report of the Convention, and (9) the Confederation Congress
and the Constitution.
Ratification of the Constitution by the States (Vols. II-XII, XIX-XXX).
The volumes are arranged roughly in the order in which the states
considered the Constitution. Although there are variations, the docu-
ments for each state are organized into the following groups: (1) com-
mentaries from the adjournment of the Constitutional Convention to
the meeting of the state legislature that called the state convention, (2)
the proceedings of the legislature in calling the convention, (3) com-
mentaries from the call of the convention until its meeting, (4) the
election of convention delegates, (5) the proceedings of the conven-
tion, and (6) post-convention documents.
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