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                HISTORY

                 OF THE

     ORIGIN, FORMATION, AND ADOPTION

                 OF THE

    CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES;

                  WITH

     NOTICES OF ITS PRINCIPAL FRAMERS.


                   BY
         GEORGE TICKNOR CURTIS.


             IN TWO VOLUMES.

                VOLUME I.


                NEW YORK:
           HARPER AND BROTHERS,
             FRANKLIN SQUARE.
                  1854.




    Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, by

    GEORGE T. CURTIS,

    in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
    Massachusetts




    TO

    GEORGE TICKNOR, ESQ.,
    THE HISTORIAN OF SPANISH LITERATURE,


    BY WHOSE ACCURATE SCHOLARSHIP AND CAREFUL CRITICISM
    THESE PAGES HAVE LARGELY PROFITED,

    I DEDICATE THIS WORK,

    IN AFFECTIONATE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF TIES,
    WHICH HAVE BEEN TO ME CONSTANT SOURCES OF HAPPINESS
    THROUGH MY WHOLE LIFE.




PREFACE.


A special history of the origin and establishment of the Constitution of
the United States has not yet found a place in our national literature.

Many years ago, I formed the design of writing such a work, for the
purpose of exhibiting the deep causes which at once rendered the
Convention of 1787 inevitable, and controlled or directed its course and
decisions; the mode in which its great work was accomplished; and the
foundations on which our national liberty and prosperity were then
deliberately settled by the statesmen to whom the American Revolution
gave birth, and on which they have rested ever since.

In the prosecution of this purpose I had, until death terminated his
earthly interests, the encouragement and countenance of that illustrious
person, whose relation to the Constitution of the United States, during
the last forty years, has been not inferior in importance to that of
any of its founders during the preceding period.

Mr. Webster had for a long time the intention of writing a work which
should display the remarkable state of affairs under whose influence the
Constitution was first brought into practical application; and this
design he relinquished only when all the remaining plans of his life
were surrendered with the solemn and religious resignation that marked
its close. It was known to him that I had begun to labor upon another
branch of the same subject. In the spring of 1852 I wrote to him to
explain the plan of my work, and to ask him for a copy of some remarks
made by his father in the Convention of New Hampshire when the
Constitution was ratified by that State. I received from him the
following answer.

                             "WASHINGTON, March 7th, [1852].

"MY DEAR SIR,--

"I will try to find for you my father's speech, as it was collected from
tradition and published some years ago. If I live to see warm weather in
Marshfield, I shall be glad to see you beneath its shades, and to talk
of your book.

"You are probably aware that I have meditated the writing of something
upon the History of the Constitution and the Administration of
Washington. I have the plan of such a work pretty definitely arranged,
but whether I shall ever be able to execute it I cannot say:--'the wills
above be done.'

                    "Yours most truly,

                                            "DANL. WEBSTER."

Regarding this kind and gracious intimation as a wish not to be
anticipated in any part of the field which he had marked out for
himself, I replied, that if, when I should have the pleasure of seeing
him, my work should seem to involve any material part of the subject
which he had comprehended within his own plan, I should of course
relinquish it at once. When, however, the period of that summer's
leisure arrived, and brought with it, to his watchful observation, so
many tokens that "the night cometh," he seemed anxious to impress upon
me the importance of the task I had undertaken, and to remove any
obstacle to its fulfilment that he might have suggested. Being