FORM OF RATIFICATION AND AMENDMENTS, 29 MAY 1790

paper money for John Grelea for "drafting and engrossing" the official form of ratifi-
cation sent to President George Washington. The National Archives has a second copy
of the form of ratification in RG 360, Miscellaneous Papers of the Continental Congress,
1774-1789, "Ratifications of the Constitution," 1786-1791 (Bankson's Journal). This copy
omits the Constitution.
The official manuscript retained copy, which includes the Constitution and the Con-
stitutional Convention's resolutions of 17 September 1787, is in the Rhode Island State
Archives. On 12 June 1790 the legislature approved payment of £48 paper money to
William Engs for this copy. An incomplete smooth copy, lacking most of the fourth amend-
ment and all of the remaining amendments, is in the volume labeled Papers Relating to
the Adoption of the Constitution at the Rhode Island State Archives. Finally, what appears
to be the working copy of the committee that drafted the form of ratification is also in
the same collection. This version includes the first three of the four new amendments
(Nos. 18-21) that were added by the committee and approved by the Convention.
Three broadside versions of the form of ratification were printed. John Carter of the
Providence Gazette struck an abbreviated one-page version dated "Monday, May 31, 1790"
and entitled "RHODE-ISLAND and PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS united to the Great
AMERICAN FAMILY" (Evans 22847). Carter included three original introductory para-
graphs and a final original paragraph, which appear in Part IX under 31 May (RCS:R.I.,
1017). Between these original items, Carter printed the paragraphs that prefaced the
Convention's bill of rights and proposed amendments. Within square brackets at the
correct location, Carter indicated that he had omitted the Convention's bill of rights and
proposed amendments that he had printed in the Providence Gazette on 13 March. The
broadside then included the four new amendments approved on 27 and 28 May and the
three resolutions adopted by the Convention: (1) recommending that the state legislature
approve eleven of Congress' twelve amendments to the Constitution, (2) thanking Pres-
ident Daniel Owen, and (3) thanking the officiating clergy.
The Boston Independent Chronicle, 3 June, reprinted the text of the form of ratification
from John Carter's broadside immediately after the Chronicle's poem "THE AMERICAN
UNION COMPLETED" that is accompanied by an illustration of thirteen pillars (RCS:R.I.,
1031-32n). The Carter version of the form of ratification was reprinted at least fifteen
additional times by out-of-state newspapers by 23 June: Vt. (1), Mass. (3), Conn. (3), N.Y
(1), Pa. (5), Del. (1), Md. (1). Nine reprintings omitted all or most of the four original
paragraphs that preceded or followed the form of ratification. See RCS:R.I., 1017, for the
reprintings of these original paragraphs.
The Convention's order that 300 copies of the form of ratification be printed for
distribution was filled by Peter Edes of the Newport Herald. Edes probably first struck a
broadside that contained only twenty of the twenty-one amendments adopted by the
Convention (Evans 22848). He then published a four-page broadside that contained the
U.S. Constitution on pages 1 and 2 and the form of ratification on page 3. Page 4 was
blank (Evans 28849). This broadside contained all twenty-one of the amendments. Edes
submitted a bill of £7.10.0 specie for printing the broadside, and, at its September 1790
session, the General Assembly authorized payment to Edes of £112.10.0 in Rhode Island
paper money.
Two versions of the form of ratification (without the Constitution and the 17 Septem-
ber 1787 resolutions of the Constitutional Convention) were reprinted in the newspapers.
The Newport Herald, 31 May 1790; New York Daily Advertiser, 8 June; Pennsylvania Packet,
10 June; Annapolis Maryland Gazette, 17 June; and Carlisle Gazette, 23 June, reprinted the
form without the twenty-first amendment. All twenty-one amendments appear in the forms
reprinted by the Newport Herald, 3 June; United States Chronicle, 3 June; and Providence

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