The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787/Volume 3/Appendix A/CCIX

by Max Farrand

ⅭⅭⅨ. James Madison in the Virginia Convention.^[1]

June 12, 1788.

The congressional proceedings are to be occasionally published, including all receipts and expenditures of public money, of which no part can be used, but in consequence of appropriations made by law. This is a security which we do not enjoy under the existing system. That part which authorises the government to withhold from the public knowledge what in their judgment may require secrecy, is imitated from the confederation—that very system which the gentleman advocates.

1. Robertson, Debates of the Convention of Virginia, 1788 (2d edit., 1805), p. 236.