COMMENTARIES, 22 DECEMBER 1787-24JANUARY 1788

approbation. Toward the end of the debate on 27 September, Lee pro-
posed amendments to the Constitution including a bill of rights, but
Congress did not consider them or place them on the journal. The
next day Congress, as a compromise, voted unanimously to send the
Constitution to the states without approbation or disapproval, but with
the recommendation that the state legislatures call ratifying conven-
tions. (See "The Confederation Congress and the Constitution," 26-
28 September, above.)
Between 29 September and 5 October Lee sent copies of his amend-
ments to George Mason and to Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, who
also had refused to sign the Constitution. (Gerry was in New York City
at this time.) Lee also forwarded copies to William Shippen, Jr., his
brother-in-law living in Philadelphia, and to Samuel Adams, Lee's old
revolutionary compatriot from Massachusetts (RCS:Va., 25, 28-30, 32-
33, 36-39). While still in New York City on 16 October, Lee wrote to
Governor Randolph expressing his opinion on the Constitution and
enclosing a copy of his amendments (RCS:Va., 59-67). Lee probably
distributed copies among some of the city's Antifederalists, although
there is no record that the amendments circulated there in manuscript
as they did in Virginia. Lee had no intention of keeping his opposition
to the Constitution a secret and he encouraged both Shippen and Ran-
dolph to make the amendments public.
On 16 November Lee's amendments appeared in the Winchester
Virginia Gazette, but this printing went largely unnoticed. Lee's 16 Oc-
tober letter and the accompanying amendments were printed in the
Petersburg Virginia Gazette on 6 December and then reprinted through-
out America. In New York, the letter and amendments were reprinted
in the New York Journal on 22 and 24 December and in the Albany Gazette
on 10 and 24 January 1788.
Throughout the United States, especially in Virginia, the responses
to Lee's letter and amendments were voluminous. He was criticized in
about a dozen major essays, although none of these was original to any
New York newspaper. In fact, Lee's letter and amendments appear to
have been mostly ignored in New York's newspapers and in the private
letters of New Yorkers. One of the major responses to Lee was Phila-
delphia merchant Tench Coxe's "An American," which appeared in the
Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer on 28 December (CC:392-A). On the
same day Coxe wrote Virginia congressman James Madison in New York
City, requesting that Madison get the essay reprinted in, among other
places, "some of the country News Papers of New York and New En-
gland" (CC:392-B). On 3 January 1788 Madison replied to Coxe, in-
forming him that he had shown the essay to Alexander Hamilton who

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