HKB
presentation of a literal print of the original journal, indicating by the use of larger and smaller type and by explanatory words the portions which are interlined or stricken out.
The editor has compared carefully with Madison's report, as the notes will show, the incomplete and less important records of the convention, kept by others. Of these, the best known is that of Robert Yates, a delegate in the convention from New York, who took notes from the time he entered the convention, May 25, to July 5, when he went home to oppose what he foresaw would be the result of the convention's labors. These notes were published in 1821 (Albany), edited by Yates's colleague in the convention, John Lansing, under the title, Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled at Philadelphia, in the Year 1787, for the Purpose of Forming the Constitution of the United States of America. This was afterwards reprinted in several editions and in the three editions of The Debates on the Federal Constitution, by Jonathan Elliot (Washington, 1827-1836). Madison pronounced Yates's notes "Crude and broken." "When I looked over them some years ago," he wrote to J. C. Cabell, February 2, 1829, "I was struck with the number of instances in which he had totally mistaken what was said by me, or given it in scraps and terms which, taken without the developments or qualifications accompanying them, had an import essentially different from what was intended." Yates's notes were colored by his prejudices, which were strong against the leaders of the convention, but, making allowance for this and for their incompleteness, they are of high value and rank next to Madison's in importance.
Rufus King, a delegate from Massachusetts, kept a number of notes, scattered and imperfect, which were not published till 1894, when they appeared in King's Life and Correspondence of Rufus King (New York: Putnam's).
William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, made some memoranda of the proceedings of the convention, and brief and interesting sketches of all the delegates, which were first printed in The Savannah Georgian, April, 18-28, 1828, and reprinted in The American Historical Review for January, 1898.
The notes of Yates, King, and Pierce are the only unofficial record of the convention extant, besides Madison's, and their chief value is in connection with the Madison record, which in the main they support, and which occasionally they elucidate.
December 30, 1818, Charles Pinckney wrote to John Quincy Adams that he had made more notes of the convention than any other member except Madison, but they were never published and have been lost or destroyed.[5]
[5] See p. 22, n.
In 1819 (Boston) was published the Journal, Acts and Proceedings of the Convention, etc., under the supervision of John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State, by authority of a joint resolution of Congress of March 27, 1818. This was the official journal of the convention, which the Secretary, William Jackson, had turned over to the President, George Washington, when the convention adjourned, Jackson having previously burned all other papers of the convention in his possession. March 16, 1796, Washington deposited the papers Jackson had given him with the Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering. They consisted of three volumes,--the journal of the convention, the journal of the proceedings of the Committee of the Whole of the convention, and a list of yeas and nays, beside a printed draft of the Constitution as reported August 6th, showing erasures and amendments afterwards adopted, and the Virginia plan in different stages of development.