The volume containing the Journal of the Convention was in an incomplete state. The journal of Friday, September 14, and a commencement of that of Saturday, September 15, filled three fourths of the 153d page; then terminated abruptly, and were, with the exception of five lines crossed out with a pen. President Madison, to whom application for that purpose was made, has furnished, from his own minutes, the means of completing the Journal, as now published.
The yeas and nays were not inserted in the journals, but were entered partly in a separate volume, and partly on loose sheets of paper. They were taken, not individually, but by states. Instead of publishing them as they appear in the manuscript, they are now given immediately after each question upon which they were taken.
General Joseph Bloomfield, executor of David Brearly, one of the members of the Convention, transmitted to the department of state several additional papers, which are included in this publication.
The paper purporting to be Colonel Hamilton's Plan of a Constitution is not noticed in the journals. It was not offered by him for discussion, but was read by him, as part of a speech, observing that he did not mean it as a proposition, but only to give a more correct view of his ideas.
The return of the members in the several states appears to have been an estimate used for the purpose of apportioning the number of members to be admitted from each of the states to the House of Representatives.
In order to follow, with clear understanding, the course of proceedings of the Convention, particular attention is required to the following papers, which, except the third, successively formed the general text of their debates:—
1. May 29, 1787. The Fifteen Resolutions offered by Mr. Edmund Randolph to the Convention, and by them referred to a committee of the whole.
2. June 13. Nineteen Resolutions reported by this committee of the whole, on the 13th, and again on the 19th of June, to the Convention.
3. July 26. Twenty-three Resolutions, adopted and elaborated by the Convention, in debate upon the above nineteen, reported from the committee of the whole; and on the 23d and 26th of July, referred, together with the plan of Mr. C. Pinckney, and the propositions of Mr. Patterson to a committee of five, to report a draft of a Constitution.
4. August 6. The Draft of a Plan of a Constitution, reported by this committee to the Convention; and debated from that time till the 12th of September.
