Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America, March 4, 1789-March 3, 1791, Vol. 15: Correspondence: First Session, March-May 1789, and: Vol. 16: Correspondence: First Session, June-August 1789, and: Vol. 17: Correspondence: First Session, September-November 1789 (review)

Since publication of the first volume of the Documentary History of the First Federal Congress in 1972, the editors of the project have produced seventeen volumes consisting of Senate and House journals, legislative and petitions histories, an edition of the diary of William Maclay with other notes on Senate debates, and debates in the House of Representatives. These three most recent volumes begin publication of the correspondence of members of the First Federal Congress.

That so much correspondence survives is something of a marvel. Few writers of the day kept copies of outgoing correspondence, and the compilers searched out many of the letters for this edition in collections of the recipients. Then, besides the normal effects of time and climate on paper, fire took a heavy toll: South Carolina Representative Aedanus Burke ordered his executor to burn his papers, Massachusetts Senator Tristram Dalton's papers burned up with the ship that was carrying his possessions, Senator Benjamin Hawkins' papers were destroyed when Indians burned his home, and the papers of Virginia Representative William Branch Giles and South Carolina Senator Pierce Butler were burned during the Civil War.

In compiling the present volumes, the editors collected over 13,000 documents. The most relevant letters have been published in full; some items with significant content have been excerpted with asterisks to indicate where words have been omitted; others with small relevant portions have been calendared; and items that are repetitive of earlier statements by the same writer are explained in the endnotes of the published letter.

The letters in these volumes and the excellent explanatory essays by the editors are a storehouse of information for historians of the early republic and reveal much about political life in the fledgling nation. For example, in connection with the length of time it took for a quorum to assemble in New York, the editors provide an essay pointing out that the trip from Boston to New York could take four days traveling from 4 AM to 10 PM with as many as twelve passengers in a stage (20 in vol. 15). Traveling from Philadelphia to New York required numerous coach changes and five ferry crossings. And travel by coastal packets placed wayfarers at the mercy of ocean storms as well as departures "postponed at whim by captains more interested in maximizing cargo than meeting a schedule" (21 in vol. 15).

With March 4, 1789, set for the first day of the first session, the House did not reach a quorum until April 1 and the Senate not until April 5. Travel difficulties only partly explain the delay in opening the session. Other more mundane matters also hindered things. A "Letter from New York" published in the Boston Independent Chronicle reported that "we hear of one being engaged in his mill, another in his Spring work, a third in fixing out his fishing vessels, a fourth pleading in the Courts, and a fifth doubting whether 'twill be for his interest, to give up some State office" (67 in vol. 15). William Maclay wrote Benjamin Rush "I never felt greater Mortification in my life, to be so long here with the Eyes of all the World on Us & to do nothing, is terrible" (78 in vol. 15).

The correspondence reveals a good deal about the activities and views of congressmen. Letters between congressmen and their constituents were two-way conduits of political information between the people and their government and they reveal...