AMERICANA 42 “Congress Shall Make No Law”: 1791 Constitutions, First Collected Printing Of The U.S. Constitution And 12 Proposed Amendments, The Declaration Of Independence And 14 State Constitutions First edition to assemble a printing of the 1787 U.S. Constitution together with 12 proposed amendments, the first collected printing of the Vermont constitution and those of the 13 original states. Writing from Paris in December 1787, Thomas Jefferson responded to a letter from Madison that outlined the newly constructed federal Constitution. Though unhappy with its “omission of a bill of rights,” Jefferson approved of this “government which should go on of itself peaceably” (LOA, Constitution I:210). Londoners had earlier hailed a 1781 collection of state constitutions as “the Magna Charta of the American States” (Monthly Review). This scarce volume is the first to assemble the U.S. Constitution, the constitutions of the original 13 states, and that of the newly added state of Vermont. Within are the colonial charters of Rhode Island (1662) and Connecticut (1663), the 1776 constitutions of Virginia, New Jersey, Delaware, New Hampshire, Maryland and North Carolina, the 1777 constitution of New York, the 1789 Georgia constitution, the 1790 constitutions of South Carolina and Pennsylvania, and the 1786 constitution of Vermont, as well as the 1780 Massachusetts constitution authored by John Adams. Also containing the 12 constitutional amendments proposed by Congress in 1789 (with a printed note dated August 1791 on the failure of the first two to be ratified). Text fresh and clean. A handsome copy of this important work. 54(CONSTITUTION) UNITED STATES CONGRESS. The Constitutions of the United States... to Which are Prefixed the Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution; with the Amendments Thereto. Philadelphia: 1791. 12mo, period-style full brown sheep, custom box. $16,000
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDg3OTM=