Book reviews -- The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution: Ratification of the Constitution by the States: Virginia (Volume 10, part 3) edited by John P. Kaminski, Gaspare J. Saladino et al

The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. Volume 10: Ratification of the Constitution by the States: Virginia, Part 3. Edited by JOHN P. KAMINSKI, GASPARE J. SALADINO, RICHARD LEFFLER, CHARLES H. SCHOENLEBER, MARYBETH CARLSON, CHARLES D. HAGERMANN, and MARGARET C. LEEDS. Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1993. xxix, 736 pp. $50.00.

The State's determined Resolution

Was to discuss the Constitution

For this the Members come together

Meltine with Zeal and sultry weather

THUS began a poem entitled "Extempore at the Convention in Virginia" (pp. 1628-29), which Gouverneur Morris jotted on the back of a dinner invitation from John Marshall. Morris, the New York federalist statesman, was visiting Richmond during the convention that met to ratify the federal Constitution in June 1788. Morris's "Extempore" is one of more than two hundred documents relating to Virginia's ratification contest that await the reader of the third and final part of the Virginia volume of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. Organized in 1951 and moved to the University...