[Footnote 17: Critical Period of American History, p. 226.]
[Footnote 18: S.F. Miller, Lectures on the Constitution of the United States, pp. 84-85.]
[Footnote 19: McMaster, With the Fathers, pp. 112-113.]
[Footnote 20: "They [the framers of the Constitution] represented the conservative intelligence of the country very exactly; from this class there is hardly a name, except that of Jay, which could be suggested to complete the list." Article by Alexander Johnston on the Convention of 1787 in Lalor's Cyclopaedia of Pol. Science, Pol. Econ. and U.S. Hist.]
[Footnote 21: Elliot's Debates, Vol. V, p. 557.]
[Footnote 23: "By another [rule] the doors were to be shut, and the whole proceedings were to be kept secret; and so far did this rule extend, that we were thereby prevented from corresponding with gentlemen in the different states upon the subjects under our discussion.... So _extremely solicitous_ were they that their proceedings should not transpire, that the members were prohibited even from taking copies of resolutions, on which the Convention were deliberating, or extracts of any kind from the Journals without formally moving for and obtaining permission, by a vote of the Convention for that purpose." Luther Martin's Address to the Maryland House of Delegates. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 345.
"The doors were locked, and an injunction of strict secrecy was put upon everyone. The results of their work were known in the following September, when the draft of the Federal Constitution was published. But just what was said and done in this secret conclave was not revealed until fifty years had passed, and the aged James Madison, the last survivor of those who sat there, had been gathered to his fathers." Fiske, The Critical Period of American History, p. 229. McMaster, With the Fathers, p. 112.]
[Footnote 24: Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, pp. 119-127.]
[Footnote 25: Elliot's Debates, Vol. II, p. 470.]
[Footnote 26: Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p. 422.]
[Footnote 29: Elliot's Debates, Vol. V, p. 160.]
[Footnote 31: Elliot's Debates, Vol. I, p. 450.]
[Footnote 35: In Massachusetts and New Hampshire the constitutions framed during the Revolutionary period were submitted to popular vote. The Virginia Constitution of 1776 contained the declaration "that, when any government shall have been found inadequate or contrary to these purposes [the purposes enumerated in the Bill of Rights], a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal." The Revolutionary constitution of Pennsylvania contained a similar declaration. Poore, Charters and Constitutions.]