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Historic book: Debates, Resolutions and Other Proceedings of the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Convened at Boston, on the 9th of January, 1788, and continued until the 7th of February following, for the purpose of assenting to and ratifying the Constitution recommended by the Grand Federal Convention. First edition. Boston: Printed and sold by Adams and Nourse, in Court-Street; and Benjamin Russell, and Edmund Franklin, in State-Street, 1788. Hardcover bound in 19th-century quarter-calf with marbled boards, spine in five compartments with gilt-lettered title, 5 x 7.25, 219 pages. Book condition: VG-/None, with blotchy staining to title page and some of the textblock, rubbing to leather, and the bookplate of Thomas Waterman (dated "Boston, 12 March 1855") affixed to the front pastedown.
This first edition records one of the decisive episodes in the ratification of the U.S. Constitution: the Massachusetts convention of January–February 1788. Massachusetts was the sixth state to ratify, but only after a bitter contest resolved by the 'Massachusetts Compromise,' under which delegates approved the Constitution while recommending amendments—a strategy that helped pave the way for the Bill of Rights. Presided over by John Hancock and shaped by figures such as Samuel Adams, the convention endorsed ratification on February 6, 1788, by the narrow vote of 187 to 168, making this volume an important contemporary record of a moment when the survival of the new federal system remained uncertain.
