Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789

Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789. Volumes 17-26: March 1, 1781-July 25, 1789, With Supplement, 1774-87. Edited by Paul H. Smith, Ronald M. Gephart, and others. (Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 1990-2000. Pagination varies, $39.00-$62.00, ISBN 0-8444-0177-3.) These volumes of the Letters of Delegates to Congress, 1774-1789, bring to an end the series begun in 1970 by the Library of Congress as a project to commemorate the Bicentennial of the American Revolution. The Letters series has become an essential companion of the Library's monumental Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 (34 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1904-1937). Editors Paul H. Smith, Ronald Gephart, and their associates have provided an excellent source for documents relating to the Confederation government. Included are more than 23,000 letters written by the 344 delegates to the Congress and also letters by Charles Thomson, the ubiquitous "perpetual" secretary to the Congress. This series greatly improved upon Edmund C. Burnett's Letters of Members of the Continental Congress (8 vols.; Washington, D.C., 1921-1936) not only in the number of letters included but also in the comprehensive identification and annotation of individuals, events, and places referred to in the documents. The Letters of Delegates has become the standard by which scholarly editions of early American letters and documents are measured. Volumes one through twenty-five each begin with comments on "Editorial Method and Apparatus." Editorial conventions used to clarify the text are identified. Symbols denote the type and location of the source for each printed document. An "Abbreviations and Short Titles" section identifies references cited in annotations to the letters. The "Acknowledgements" recognize many of the publications, institutions, and individuals that have contributed to the project. A "Chronology of Congress" is especially valuable to students and professional researchers, in that it provides dates for key events, debates, and reports for the period covered by each volume. A "List of Delegates to Congress" provides the dates on which delegates were elected and the inclusive dates of their attendance within the period covered by each volume. A thorough index for each volume provides further access to the letters, and through them the thoughts and actions of individuals and of Congress as a body. Students of American history have largely overlooked this first fifteen years of our national government, but Congress in this era did much to prepare the ground for the national government shaped by the Constitution. New interpretations for the period should emerge from these readily available and fully annotated letters. The historical detective work of the editors has made much new information accessible. Volume seventeen begins by noting that in the Confederation Congress on March 1, 1781, the state of New York ceded its western land claims. At that point delegates from Maryland signed the Articles of Confederation, which officially established the Confederation Congress as the new national government. …