The Debate on the Constitution : Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification, Part Two: January to August 1788 (Library of America) [Hardcover]

Bernard Bailyn (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 094045064X | ISBN-13: 978-0940450646 | Publication Date: June 1, 1993

"The Debate on the Constitution" charts the course of the bloodless revolution that created the government of the United States and the world's oldest working national charter. In speeches, newspaper articles, pamphlets, and letters, this unique collection captures firsthand the energy and eloquence of the stormy ratification struggle. Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Washington, Patrick Henry, and many less well known voices speak with passion and articulateness about issues of personal liberty and public order that continue to resonate in today's headlines. Along with a detailed chronology and notes, each volume also includes the full texts of the Declaration in Independence, Articles of Confederation, and Constitution.

Editorial Reviews

Review

For Americans this is Shakespeare, and more. Not only is it wonderful writing, it is wonderful thinking. -- Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio

The best resource I've seen for understanding the morning headlines in a long time. -- Bill Moyers

From the Publisher

The Library of America is an award-winning, nonprofit program dedicated to publishing America's best and most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as "the most important book-publishing project in the nation's history" (Newsweek), this acclaimed series is restoring America's literary heritage in "the finest-looking, longest-lasting edition ever made" (New Republic).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1175 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (June 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 094045064X
• ISBN-13: 978-0940450646
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 4.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #290,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars real political analysis, January 6, 2003

By 

M. A Newman (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Debate on the Constitution : Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification, Part Two: January to August 1788 (Library of America) (Hardcover)

Unlike the political commentators of the late 20th and early 21st century (watchers of Sunday public affairs programs and AM radio listeners know who they are), the commentators of the 18th century actually had something of substance to say. This was a time when education was rare, but when done was done well. The New American Library does its usual exceptional job in assembling the material in this book including some of the more important selections from the Federalist Papers as well as some of the writings of the anti-Federalists. Here the role of the government and the nature of freedom are really explored. Life was better before politics became about feeling and emotion. Every American should read this book, but only if he wants to really understand the basis of the American experiment.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid collection, could use a new format., October 27, 2009

By 

Paul L "lacaprup" (Buffalo, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Debate on the Constitution : Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification, Part Two: January to August 1788 (Library of America) (Hardcover)

"The Debate on the Constitution" is a wealth of primary source material for true students of U.S. History. Caveat emptor though. If you fancy yourself an armchair historian because you've read a few of David McCullough's readable histories, then you may find yourself overwhelmed when you try to tackle this collection of circulars, speeches, and articles. To truly appreciate the intellect imbued in many of these passages, one should probably have a background in Hume, Montesquieu, Locke, Blackstone and a host of others. If you read this volume and cannot grasp the beauty of Madison's "The Federalist X" or the sheer logical brilliance of Hamilton's "The Federalist XXXII - XXXIII," then you may need to give yourself a primer on the theoretical underpinnings of colonial history before you digest the rest of this work.

What Bailyn does collect here is not to be ignored. There are very few omissions that one should go out and hunt down in order to see the entire effort of controverting the nascent Constitution. If you find yourself siding with George Mason and James Monroe more often than James Wilson and Alexander Hamilton, then it would behoove you to pick up the entire collected works of the anti federalists, but it is not necessary to get a thorough panoramic of the debate.

On the negative side (small negative side, mind you), Bailyn uses a format that I have never enjoyed for works of this length: endnotes rather than footnotes. I have studied formative U.S. history for over a decade, and I still needed to read several of the notes. Most readers should read all of the notes. Therein lies the problem. One has to flip 600-700 pages forward and backwards in order to find the relevant notes, and do the same thing again if one wants to read the brief biography of a lesser know writer. Had Bailyn used the footnote format, much of this needless page-turning would have been abrogated.

While the format of the notes is a negative, the notes themselves are a big positive, as are the timeline and the biographies. The timeline is an excellent refresher on a number of issues. Mind you, it is not a substitute for actual knowledge of given events, but it does allow the learned reader to refresh a fact or two on a mentioned event. I found it particularly helpful when evaluating the debates in the Pennsylvania Convention. In the entire timeline I was only able to find one issue that I felt serious enough to mention. Bailyn claims on page 1111 that " (the) Peace overture (to France) splits Federalist party into Adams and Hamilton factions" during February of 1799. This is a bit late. The Federalist party was silently split against Adams before he was ever elected and many openly followed Hamilton in his disgust over the Alien and Sedition Acts in the summer of 1798.

Overall, this is first rate and should be on the shelf of any actual U.S. Historian. Having a wealth of primary sources collected together is an invaluable resource. The other shoe does have to drop though. The editors of this tome should have realized that a footnote system would have made this far more readable. This fault is what makes it 4 star rather than 5.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You will ache for this level of public debate about our government today., July 19, 2010

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Debate on the Constitution : Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification, Part Two: January to August 1788 (Library of America) (Hardcover)

Of all the wonderful volumes the Library of America has provided to us, I value the volumes on our founding, our founders and their writings, and the documents from the period to help us understand our history with a richer context. These two volumes provide more than 2,000 pages of letters, newspaper articles, pamphlets, and journals from dozens of writers who made important comments, pro and con, for the ratification of our Constitution. You can get volume 1 here: The Debate on the Constitution : Federalist and Antifederalist Speeches, Articles, and Letters During the Struggle over Ratification : Part One, September 1787-February 1788 (Library of America)

The Constitutional Convention was originally assigned to correct a few problems with the Articles of Confederation (which are included along with the Declaration of Independence, the Letter from the Constitutional Convention to the President of Congress, Resolutions of the Convention Concerning the Ratification and Implementation of the Constitution, and The Constitution itself), but the Convention set about creating a new and stronger General Government. What the nature of this should be was debated. According to Madison, some wanted to abolish the states altogether while others wanted a severely constrained General Government. Some wanted the states to have a Constitution check on the actions of the Federal Government.

I was not aware how profoundly much of the population hated the idea of a central government and their reasoning for what might come of it. You know, given where we are today, we can see that their fears were well founded. This debate, for and against the Constitution, provides us with a great deal of context for what our founders meant by our Constitution. Much of the telling of the founding in our public schools, classes, on television, and used as justification by our politicians has almost no basis in fact. They just ignore the realities of what was said, written, and promised to do whatever it is they want to do.

These volumes also provide snapshot biographies of each of the writers whose works are cited in this volume, an article examining the state Constitutions at the time our Constitution was written, and a chronology from the beginning of our Revolutionary War through 1803. We are also given notes on the texts and a most helpful index.

I urge you to get both volumes and study them a bit each day. While it will take you a long time to get through this large volume of material, you will probably, like me, be surprised by what was said, written, and promised. You will have a much bigger foundation you can use to rest your ideas of what our government was supposed to be about and why we need to make big changes in what we have today.

Don't fall for the smear of the Founders that they were old White Men in wigs and knickers who owned slaves. These were all remarkable men, and some were clearly men of genius. And most were surprisingly young at the time of the Revolution and the Constitutional Convention. Some owned slaves and the rest did not. Not all those who owned slaves were for the institution and not all who did not own slaves were against it. Reality tends to be complicated.

Dig in! Learn! Enjoy!

You might also like LOA's collection of contemporary writings on "The American Revolution": The American Revolution: Writings from the War of Independence (Library of America)

Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Saline, MI