of yeas and nays which were not entered upon the journals. The journal never mentions by whom a motion was made, but it often appears upon the sheets of yeas and nays. I must revise and superintend the publication of this volume myself. …
16th.The remainder of the day I was employed in delving into the Convention journals and papers. They are to be printed by T. Wait, at Boston, which I now find to be the cause of some inconvenience. From the examination of all the papers that I have collected, it is apparent that the usefulness of the publication will depend altogether upon their arrangement. When the Convention adjourned, they passed a resolution that their journals and papers, which had been kept by Major William Jackson, their Secretary, should be delivered to their President, Washington, to be kept by him, subject to the future order of Congress, after the Constitution should go into operation. Washington kept them until the 19th day of March, 1796, when he deposited them in the Department of State, where they have remained till this time. A resolution of Congress of 27th March, 1818, directed that they, together with the secret journals of the old Congress, and their foreign correspondence to the Peace of 1783, except such parts of it as the President may think it improper now to publish, should be printed under the direction of the President. He devolved this duty upon me; but the books and papers deposited by President Washington were so imperfect, and in such disorder, that to have published them, as they were, would have given to the public a book useless and in many respects inexplicable.
It happened that General Bloomfield, a member of Congress from New Jersey, as executor of the will of David Brearley, one of the members of the Convention, had come to the possession of his papers, among which were several very important ones relating to the proceedings of the Convention. He sent them all to me. The journal itself was imperfect, and the journal of the last two days was wanting. I wrote to President Madison, and obtained from him the means of completing it.[1] There was a plan of Constitution mentioned on the journals as having been proposed by Mr. Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina. I wrote to him and obtained a copy of that.[2] With all these papers suitably arranged, a correct and tolerably clear view of the proceedings of the Convention may be presented; but there is one great and irreparable defect. In the printed journals of the old Congress the yeas and nays appear nominally as well as
