Unit Title:
Resolutions proposing amendments to the United States Constitution (Bill of Rights and 11th Amendment), 1789-1793
Accumulation:
1789-1793
Created:
1789-1793
Creator:
United States Congress
Physical Description:
none
Language:
English
Biography or History:
unspecified
Custodial History:
The September 25, 1789, joint resolution (the Bill of Rights) was sent by President George Washington to Governor Charles Pinckney on October 2, 1789. Governor Pinckney then sent it along with Washington's letter and other enclosures to the General Assembly in a message of January 4, 1790. Both copies of that message (one for the South Carolina Senate and one for the South Carolina House of Representatives) are now filed as Governors' Message No. 511. The message includes one transcription of the twelve amendments, indicating that the engrossed parchment was probably sent to one or the other of the houses. No references to the South Carolina copy of the Bill of Rights have been found until Alexander Salley's report as Secretary of the Historical Commission for the fiscal year 1944-1945 to the 1946 General Assembly. Salley wrote, "Many valuable documents that no one knew were in existence have been found as the filing proceeded. The most notable of these perhaps is South Carolina's copy of the Bill of Rights."
Acquisition Information:
United States Congress
Scope and Content:
This series consists of two documents, the September 25, 1789, joint resolution of the United States Congress proposing twelve amendments to the United States Constitution (the last ten of which became the Bill of Rights) and the December 2, 1793, joint resolution proposing the eleventh amendment. Both documents are signed by John Adams, Vice President and President of the Senate, and Federick Augustus Muhlenberg, Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Appraisal Information:
unspecified
Accruals:
no
Arrangement:
none
Conditions Governing Access:
none
Conditions Governing Use:
none
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements:
none
Other Finding Aid:
none
Location of Originals:
SCDAH
Alternative Form Available:
Related Material:
Fourteen copies were made of the September 25, 1789, joint resolution. Two copies, the retained copy and the Delaware copy (which was returned to Congress with that state's ratification on its reverse), are in the National Archives. Georgia's copy is believed to have been burned in the Civil War and New York's in the 1911 State Library fire. A copy in the Emmet Collection at the New York Public Library is believed to be the Pennsylvania copy, many Pennsylvania state records having been taken to New York to be sold in the late nineteenth century. A copy at the Library of Congress is believed to be the Maryland copy, which was in Maryland in the early twentieth century before a renovation of its State House. North Carolina's copy, taken by a Union soldier in 1865, was returned in 2005 after litigation. Seven other states in addition to South Carolina have retained their original copies: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia
Bibliography:
none
Other Descriptive Data:
The parchment September 23, 1789, joint resolution when found among the state's records in the mid-1940s was badly mold and/or water damaged with some losses. In fiscal year 1953-1954, the losses were filled with modern parchment by or under the direction of the then archivist of Delaware, Leon deValinger, Jr. (1905-2000). In 1991 with a grant from the Philip Morris Company, the document was sent to the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Andover, Massachusetts, where the parchment fills and patches of adhesive residue were removed and the document backed with Japanese paper. 1793 boxed with Constitutional and Organic Papers, House of Representatives, Enrolled Subscriptions to the Test Oath, 1836.
Processing Information:
None
