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form of legislative and convention proceedings and debates; and of
newspapers, pamphlets and broadsides. Private correspondence re-
lating to ratification is sparse, although the available letters are in-
valuable, notably those in the papers of Tench Coxe and Benjamin
Rush who supported ratification, and those in the papers of John
Nicholson who opposed it.
For the most part, the record is a public one and, with one excep-
tion, is limited to Philadelphia and the nearby areas. That exception
is Cumberland County, which, like most backcountry counties, was
the home of vigorous opponents of the Constitution. The leading
inhabitants of the town of Carlisle, and its newspaper, the Carlisle
Gazette, were Federalists, but many townspeople and the rural in-
habitants of the county were active and vocal Antifederalists who
managed to make themselves heard and to leave a record for posterity.
Thus the history of ratification by Pennsylvania is first of all to
be found in the proceedings and debates of the Assembly and the
state Convention, and in the newspapers, pamphlets, and broadsides
published in Philadelphia. Secondly, it is the history of ratification
as set forth in the deeds and words of the inhabitants of Cumberland
County, whose Antifederalists must be taken, lacking other sources,
as representative of backcountry opposition to the ratification of the
Constitution.
Acknowledgment was made in Volume I to those who have contri-
buted to the gathering of materials for The Documentary History of
the Ratification of the Constitution. However, special acknowledg-
ment is due to those who have contributed directly to the preparation
of this volume. The staffs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania,
the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the library of the In-
dependence Hall National Historical Park,. all in Philadelphia, and
of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission in Harris-
burg have been unstinting in their help. Thanks are also due to
H. Bartholomew Cox for permission to print the notes of debates
by Anthony Wayne in his private collection, to the Shippen family
for permission to print the letters of William Shippen, Jr., and to
the Massachusetts Historical Society for permission to print materials
in the papers of Timothy Pickering and Winthrop Sargent.
Finally, grateful acknowledgment is due to those who have helped
in every way in the preparation of this volume, and without whose
dedicated work it could not have been prepared. They are John P.
Kaminski and Gaspare J. Saladino who have served as associate
editors, and Esther Anken, Douglas E. Clanin, Richard Leffler, Gail
Walter, and Joan Westgate who have served as editorial assistants.
MERRILL JENSEN
6
PREFACE