Beschreibung:

UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION]. The Pennsylvania Packet, and Daily Advertiser . No. 2960. We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America . [Philadelphia:] Dunlap & Claypoole, Wednesday, 19 September 1787. Folio, 468 x 294mm (18.3/8 x 116 in). 4 pages. Disbound, small sewing holes in central blank portion where once bound, lightly browned as usual, a few minor marginal chips without loss, two clean 3/4 in. tears to first leaf mended from verso without loss of text, otherwise A FINE, VERY LARGE COPY, in fresher condition and with much larger margins than the last two copies offered for sale (in 1987 and 1988). THE FIRST PUBLIC PRINTING OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION, BY THE OFFICIAL PRINTERS TO THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION A momentous issue of Dunlap & Calypoole's Pennsylvania Packet , in which the full text of the new Constitution--today the oldest continuing charter of government in the world--was first presented to the public. This printing is preceded only by Dunlap & Claypoole's two draft printings (for the Committee of Detail and the Committee of Style) intended solely for the use of delegates during the Convention, and by their "official" edition of the final text, which was printed for submission to Congress (Evans 20818). The draft and "official" printings, therefore, all served official purposes and were not intended to be read by the American citizenry. It is therefore regarded as the first publication of this fundamental American document. In the afternoon of September 17, after Washington (President and delagate) and the Convention's 38 delegates had signed the engrossed Constitution, drafted a letter forwarding it to Congress and unanimously agreed the accompanying resolution submitting it to the state legislatures for ratification, they thankfully adjourned. When their pledge of secrecy to the Convention expired (with the public reading of the Constitution in the Pennsylvania General Assembly at about 11 a.m., September 18), Dunlap and Claypoole, official printers to the Convention and proprietors of the Pennsylvania Packet , immediately prepared "a special issue, dated 19 September 1787, of the Packet containing the full text of all three documents. This issue is the first newspaper printing of the Constitution. Newspapers throughout the United States soon printed the Constitution and its accompanying documents in special issues, handbills and pamphlets. Within the month, the Constitution even crossed the ocean, appearing in the London Morning Chronicle and in the Annual Register ..." (Richard B. Bernstein, Are We to Be A Nation? , 1987, p.186). The dissemination of the Constitution in newspapers is of considerable interest and importance as it was in this form that most Americans became familiar with the new form of government proposed by the Convention. One careful researcher, Leonard Rapport of the National Archives, has identified four Philadelphia newspapers which also carried the text of the Constitution on the same day (this was, after all, news of the highest importance), and one, the Philadelphia Evening Chronicle , which may hypothetically have carried the text in an issue dated 18 September ("Printing the Constitution: The Convention and Newspaper Imprints, August--November 1787," in Prologue: Journal of the National Archive , vol.2, no.2. pp.69-90). But, to date, no copy of the Evening Chronicle of that date is known to be extant (see Rapport's other article, "Newspaper Printings of the Constitution," in Manuscripts , vol.39, no.4, pp.327-336). In a recent communication, Dr. Rapport confirmed that in the 28 intervening years no copy of that, or any other new 1787 printing has been located. Even if a copy of that issue is