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1. DEBATE OVER CONSTITUTION
Richards and Company, and the Virginia Herald, and Fredericksburg
Advertiser, printed by Timothy Green and Company. Fewer than twenty
issues exist for each newspaper.
The Shenandoah Valley town of Winchester had two newspapers-
Matthias Bartgis and Company's Virginia Gazette, and Winchester Ad-
vertiser and Richard Bowen and Company's Virginia Centinel; or, the
Winchester Mercury. The Gazette printed both Federalist and Antifed-
eralist material, while the Centinel was a Federalist newspaper estab-
lished in April 1788 to counteract the Gazette. The files of both news-
papers are almost complete.
The last Virginia newspaper, the Kentucky Gazette of Lexington, was
owned by John and Fielding Bradford until 7 June 1788, when the
latter retired from the paper. The Gazette published only a few items
on the Constitution. It was a strong supporter of statehood for Ken-
tucky.
Pamphlets and Broadsides
Virginia printers published a large number of pamphlets and broad-
sides concerning the Constitution. In late September and early Oc-
tober, the printers of the Winchester Virginia Gazette and the Alex-
andria Virginia Journal each printed the Constitution as a broadside,
while the printers of the Richmond Virginia Independent Chronicle and
the Richmond Virginia Gazette and Independent Chronicle published it
as a pamphlet. The latter pamphlet was published by order of the
legislature. (See "The Publication of the Constitution in Virginia," 26
September-3November, I below.)
In November and December three pamphlet anthologies were printed
in Richmond. One, and probably another, was published by Augustine
Davis, while the third was printed by John Dixon. Davis' pamphlets,
the second of which (Various Extracts on the Federal Government. .)
ran to sixty-four pages, included Federalist and Antifederalist pieces
from outside the state and Antifederalist items from Virginia (Evans
20824). Davis also published a pamphlet edition of the "Dissent of
the Minority of the Pennsylvania Convention" (Evans 20621). Dixon's
pamphlet, a complete copy of which does not exist, contained Fed-
eralist and Antifederalist items from inside and outside the state. Thomas
Nicolson of the Richmond Virginia Gazette, and Weekly Advertiser pub-
lished George Mason's objections to the Constitution in a folio broad-
side, while some unknown printer apparently published Richard Henry
Lee's 16 October letter to Governor Edmund Randolph as a pamphlet.
In the spring of 1788, before the meeting of the state Convention,
two original pamphlets were printed, one Federalist and the other
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