THE AMERICAN MUSEUM, OR REPOSITORY OF ANCIENT AND MODERN FUGITIVE PIECES, &C. PROSE AND POETICAL. VOLUME III de [Carey, Matthew] - 1788

Philadelphia: Printed by Mathew Carey, 1788. Volume III, Numbers I-VI [January 1788 - June 1788]. Complete as issued. Scattered light to moderate spotting. Good+, in modern half calf and marbled boards.

This Volume prints illuminating accounts of the debates and discussions in States, Towns, and Societies which resulted in the Constitution's ratification. The first Conventions concerning ratification occurred in December 1787; thus these reports, in Numbers beginning January 1788, are among the earliest so printed. The Virginian Edmund Randolph, who would become the Nation's first Attorney General, explains at length in the January issue his reasons for now favoring ratification, although he had originally objected to doing so at the Philadelphia Convention. Essays supporting ratification and rebutting opponents' objections are printed, along with dissenting Letters, Resolves, and Essays. Activities in State Conventions are reported in detail from Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Georgia, South Carolina, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, New Hampshire.
Volume III contains other interesting and significant material: orations on American independence; petitions of Quakers; Pennsylvania's funding system; legal cases, several involving Negroes; the climate and resources of South Carolina; material on the Shays' Rebellion and other political matters; Jeremy Belknap on the aurora borealis; David Rittenhouse on comets; James Bowdoin on the phenomena of light; the White Mountains; chimneys; George Washington's laudatory letter to Mathew Carey at the end of the May issue.