NHPRC News - August 2013

Rhode Island Says Yes (Finally)

On September 17, 1787, a majority of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention approved the documents over which they had labored since May. After a farewell banquet, delegates swiftly returned to their homes to organize support, most for but some against the proposed charter. Before the Constitution could become the law of the land, it would have to withstand public scrutiny and debate.

The document was "laid before the United States in Congress assembled" on September 20. After general debate, Congress directed the state legislatures to call ratification conventions in each state. Article VII stipulated that nine states had to ratify the Constitution for it to go into effect.

It took 10 months for the first nine states to approve the Constitution. The first state to ratify was Delaware, on December 7, 1787, by a unanimous vote, 30 - 0. Delaware's speediness thwarted Pennsylvania's attempt to be first to ratify in the hope of securing Philadelphia as the seat of the Federal Government.

The first real test for ratification occurred in Massachusetts, where the fully recorded debates reveal that the recommendation for a bill of rights proved to be a remedy for the logjam in the ratifying convention. New Hampshire became the ninth state to approve the Constitution in June, but the key States of Virginia and New York were locked in bitter debates. Their failure to ratify would reduce the new union by two large, populated, wealthy states, and would geographically splinter it. The Federalists prevailed, however, and Virginia and New York narrowly approved the Constitution. When a bill of rights was proposed in Congress in 1789, North Carolina ratified the Constitution. Finally, Rhode Island, which had rejected the Constitution in March 1788 by popular referendum, called a ratifying convention in 1790 as specified by the Constitutional Convention. Faced with threatened treatment as a foreign government, it ratified the Constitution by the narrowest margin (two votes) on May 29, 1790.

The story of the process has been the province of the Documentary History of the Ratification of the U.S. Constitution Project, headquartered at the Wisconsin Historical Society, has been supported by the NHPRC for nearly 40 years. To date, the project has completed 24 of a planned 30 volumes. This documentary series is a research tool of remarkable power, an unrivaled reference work for historical and legal scholars, librarians, and students of the Constitution. The volumes are encyclopedic, consisting of manuscript and printed documents compiled from hundreds of sources, copiously annotated, thoroughly indexed, and often accompanied by microfiche supplements.

The third volume of papers on the Rhode Island project has just been published, and it includes this remarkable letter from Daniel Owen, president of the Rhode Island convention, to George Washington.

 

Newport, Rhode Island

 

29 May 1790

 

I have the pleasing satisfaction of informing your Excellency, that the Constitution of the United States of America, was this day ratified and adopted by the Convention of the People of this State, agreeable to the recommendations of the General Convention assembled at Philadelphia, and the consequent resolution of Congress thereon.

With Rhode Island finally saying yes-by two votes-all 13 of the original colonies had ratified the Constitution.

Raising Arizona

The National Historical Publications and Records Commission partners with state historical records advisory boards to carry out statewide projects all across the country. One of the more successful parts of the program is re-grant funding, which provides smaller grants to local institutions for important projects that might otherwise not be competitive on a national level.

In the most recent round in Arizona, $20,000 in re-grants (half supported by the NHPRC and half matched by the Arizona State Library, Archives, and Public Records) has gone to the following organizations:

• Arizona Jewish Historical Society (Phoenix, Maricopa County): $1,000 for processing and conserving photo negatives from Markow Photography, Files of the Arizona Jewish Theatre Company, and Files of Beth El Congregation of Phoenix.
• Bisbee Mining and Historical Museum (Bisbee, Cochise County): $1,800 for archival quality storage and rehousing.
• Clerk of Superior Court in Yavapai County (Prescott, Yavapai County): $747 for the restoration of volumes of record of historical significance including Registers of Action and case Indexes.
• Mesa Historical Museum (Mesa, Maricopa County): $2,000 for an ongoing project to finish the cataloging process, and scanning photograph collections.
• Mohave County Recorder (Kingman, Mohave County): $1,047 to monitor and analyze the long-term environmental factors for their permanent historical records.
• Oracle Historical Society (Oracle, Pinal County) $1,000 to house, protect and preserve historical documents and photographs.
• Sedona Heritage Museum (Sedona, Coconino County): $1,200 for processing images of the E. Rigby Photo Collection.
• Sharlot Hall Museum Library and Archives Research Center (Prescott, Yavapai County): $2,868 to provide storage, re-housing and preservation supplies for the Prescott Daily Courier Newspaper Negative Collection.
• The Arizona Archives Alliance (statewide): $2,274 to facilitate a 1.5 day Native American symposium.
• Billie Jane Baguley Library and Archives The Heard Museum (Phoenix, Maricopa County): $990 to purchase an ELSEC 7560C UV & Light Monitor/Logger.
• Peoria Arizona Historical Society (Peoria, Maricopa County): $400 to preserve the original copy of the entire set of newspapers published by Ora Weed-"Old Paths&qout; Newspaper.
• Cave Creek Museum (Cave Creek, Maricopa County): $1,820 to purchase the PastPerfect 5.0 CD Training Series and coordinate training of staff and current and new-to-archives-management volunteers.
• The Douglas Historical Society (Douglas, Cochise County): $1,354 to inventory and accession archival documents and digitally copy photographs from their early 20th century collection.
• Powell Museum: $1,500 to acess, process and organize the Stan Jones Collection, including approximately 14,000 black and white and color photographic prints, negatives and slides, as well as 50 maps, two diaries and three scrapbooks relating his researching and documentation of the Page-Lake Powell region.

Cold War

At Princeton University's Mudd Library, archivists are building one of the most comprehensive online collections on America's involvement in the Cold War. A grant from the NHPRC is supporting Digitizing the Origins of the Cold War, a two-year project to digitize 416,000 pages representing portions of six manuscript collections concerning the Cold War. Specifically, the project will digitize correspondence, speeches, diaries, and other primary documents from the Council on Foreign Relations collection, and the papers of Adlai Stevenson, George F. Kennan, Allen W. Dulles, John Foster Dulles, and James V. Forrestal.

The material scheduled for digitization comprises full series and subseries from six manuscript collections from the Public Policy Papers Collection. The Public Policy Papers Collection contains manuscript collections from individuals and organizations working in the areas of 20th-century American foreign policy, jurisprudence, journalism, public policy formation, and international development. These six manuscript collections principally document U.S. foreign policy and the origins of the Cold War. The collections contain correspondence, diaries, speeches and statements. These six collections are among the top ten most requested by researchers between 2008-2011.

The study group records of the Council on Foreign Relations contain information about this NGO's international work to establish peace following World War II. The papers of Eisenhower cabinet members John Foster Dulles (Secretary of State) and his brother Allen Dulles (CIA director) reveal how the United States implemented the policy of containment in Iran, Guatemala, Vietnam, and Hungary. These two collections also document the Suez Canal Crisis, the origins of the Space Race, and the Cuban Revolution. The Allen Dulles Papers also include the papers from his service on the Warren Commission, which supplement the published text found online. The James F. Forrestal papers detail the anti-Soviet mindset of the first Secretary of Defense, who oversaw the integration of the War and Navy Departments in the nascent days of the Cold War. George Kennan, a mid-level diplomat, wrote the "Long Telegram" and became the architect of the U.S. containment policy. He later was the first director of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and advised Secretary of State George Marshall on military alliances and the Marshall Plan. Also included are the papers of Adlai Stevenson, United Nations Ambassador under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Among his more well known activities, Stevenson traded barbs with the Soviet ambassador during the Cuban Missile Crisis at the UN Security Council.

On October 25, 1962, Adlai Stevenson confronted Soviet Ambassador Valerian Zorin, challenging him to admit the existence of the missiles. Ambassador Zorin refused to answer.

 

"Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the U.S.S.R. has placed and is placing medium- and intermediate-range missiles and sites in Cuba? Don't wait for the translation! Yes or no?"

 

"I am not in an American courtroom, sir," Zorin responded, "and therefore I do not wish to answer a question put to me in the manner in which a prosecutor does-"

 

"You are in the courtroom of world opinion right now," Stevenson interrupted, "and you can answer yes or no. You have denied that they exist, and I want to know whether I have understood you correctly."

 

"You will have your answer in due course," Zorin replied.

 

"I am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over, if that's your decision," countered Stevenson. "And I am also prepared to present the evidence in this room."

You can read all about the digitization project in its six-month progress report at http://blogs.princeton.edu/mudd/category/nhprc-digitization-project/