Reviews of Books

Interested Parties: Merrill Jensen and the Documentary History of Ratification

Reviewed by Stephen E. Patterson, University of New Brunswick

With these four volumes documenting Massachusetts' role in the ratification of the federal Constitution, editors John P. Kaminski and Gaspare J. Saladino have reached yet another milestone in producing what is now widely recognized as the definitive collection of primary sources dealing with ratification by the states. The idea of creating such a documentary history originated with Merrill Jensen, Vilas Research Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin at the time of his retirement in 1976. From the outset, the project benefited from Jensen's scholarly commitment to primary documents, thoroughness in research, and attentiveness to detail. In its early years, a veritable army of graduate students and postdocs scoured archives across the United States and Europe and began the laborious process of sorting, filing, and planning how best to deliver a scholarly resource of the highest quality. Jensen died a short four years after his formal retirement, but the project remained true to his vision under the supervision of Kaminski and Saladino, two of his ablest students, who have emerged as accomplished scholars of the American Revolution and of the Constitution. To them belongs most of the credit for maintaining the exemplary standards of structural simplicity, informed editorial comment, and balanced selection that have won for the series its richly deserved rave reviews.

1

The four Massachusetts volumes are up to the mark in every respect. Longer than the treatment accorded any of the other states, they contain the official record of the Massachusetts convention, several other accounts prepared by delegates or spectators (some for newspaper publication), private letters of delegates, samples from the extensive newspaper debate that preceded and followed the convention, and minutes of the state legislature's handling of the matter both before and after the convention. Other special entries reveal the role of the Federalist caucus in recruiting the support of John Hancock, the involvement of clergy and Boston tradesmen, and the place of poems and squibs in the lively propaganda campaign. By any measure, the collection is a treasure trove never before assembled in one place, altogether befitting the importance of Massachusetts as a leader among the founding states. It was a state deeply divided, as we quickly discover in these pages. Through the early 1780s, legislators argued over paper money, taxes, tender laws, and commercial regulation. Proto-Federalists also began to worry about the state's place in the Confederation and in the general American economy. A few even toyed with the notion of secession, figuring that New England could manage better if freed from what they perceived as a selfish and uncooperative South. Torn internally over the issue of whether to support a Constitutional Convention to address shortcomings in the Articles of Confederation, Massachusetts legislators dragged their feet in appointing delegates to the Philadelphia meeting until the measured violence of Shays's Rebellion tipped the balance in favor of a strengthened national government.

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