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Note on Sources
Legislative Records
The manuscript sources for the October 1787 [15 October 1787-
8 January 1788] and the June 1788 [23-30 June] sessions of the
Virginia House of Delegates are in the Virginia State Library. These
sources include: (1) the Journals; (2) the minute books (October 1787
session only); (3) the attendance books (June 1788 session only); (4)
the legislative petitions; and (5) the papers, consisting mostly of drafts
of resolutions and bills. The House Journals for 1787 and 1788, were
both published in 1788 (Evans 21556-57) and then reprinted in 1828.
The Journal for 1788, however, is available only in the 1828 reprint
edition. Neither the manuscript nor the contemporary printed journals
of the October 1787 and the June 1788 sessions of the Senate have
been located. At least one of these contemporary versions was available
in 1828 when they were reprinted.
The legislative rosters for the House and the Senate are taken from
Cynthia Miller Leonard, comp., The General Assembly of Virginia, July
30, 1619-January 11, 1978, A Bicentennial Register of Members (Rich-
mond, 1978).
The acts passed in these two sessions were published in 1788 as Acts
Passed at a General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia ... (Evans
21548-50). These acts are also printed in William Waller Hening, The
Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, from the
First Session of the Legislature, in the Year 1619 (13 vols., Richmond and
Philadelphia, 1809-1823). The debates of 25 October 1787 on the
resolutions for calling a state convention were printed in the Peters-
burg Virginia Gazette on 1 November. The legislature ordered two
thousand broadside copies of these resolutions printed and distributed
(Evans 20839).
Executive Records
The executive records at the Virginia State Library include: (1) the
Executive Letter Books, the governor's outgoing correspondence; (2)
the Executive Papers, the governor's incoming correspondence; (3) the
Executive Communications, mostly official incoming correspondence
from other state executives and messages to the legislature; (4) the
Continental Congress Papers, letters to and from Congress and del-
egates to Congress; and (5) the Journals of the Council of State. Much
of the governor's incoming correspondence and other executive and
administrative material have been printed in William P. Palmer et al.,
eds., Calendar of Virginia State Papers... (11 vols., Richmond, 1875-
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