Details
[UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION]. The Constitution of the United States of America. Agreed to in Convention, at Philadelphia, September 17, 1787. Trenton: Printed and Sold by Isaac Collins, 1787.
8o (205 x 127 mm). 18 pages. (Title partly detached, small puncture affecting title and following three leaves, lower outer corners slightly chewed, some stains). Disbound.
THE FIRST NEW JERSEY EDITION OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION, issued by Collins, a Quaker printer who was the second printer established in New Jersey. Setting up his press first at Burlington, he published the first New Jersey newspaper, the New Jersey Gazette in 1777, but re-located to Trenton, the state capital, in 1778. From 1770 Collins served as public printer for New Jersey.
The text of the completed Constitution was formally submitted to the states for ratification on 28 September. New Jersey became the third state to ratify the Constitution, by unanimous vote, on 17 December. Collins's edition therefore is likely to have been issued during that brief period; it is conceiveable that it was printed for the use of the delegates to the ratification convention (one extant copy, the Streeter-Rutgers copy is signed by John Beatty, delegate from Middlesex County). The names of the signers of the Constitution from each state are given on pp.13-14; at the end are appended the two official letters signed in type by Washington, dated 17 September, recommending ratification. VERY RARE: copies are held at Rutgers (the Streeter copy), Princeton, the New Jersey Historical Society, Pennsylvania Historical Society and LOC. Evans 20798; Howes C-713; Streeter sale 2:1046.
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THE FIRST NEW JERSEY EDITION OF THE NEW CONSTITUTION, issued by Collins, a Quaker printer who was the second printer established in New Jersey. Setting up his press first at Burlington, he published the first New Jersey newspaper, the New Jersey Gazette in 1777, but re-located to Trenton, the state capital, in 1778. From 1770 Collins served as public printer for New Jersey.
The text of the completed Constitution was formally submitted to the states for ratification on 28 September. New Jersey became the third state to ratify the Constitution, by unanimous vote, on 17 December. Collins's edition therefore is likely to have been issued during that brief period; it is conceiveable that it was printed for the use of the delegates to the ratification convention (one extant copy, the Streeter-Rutgers copy is signed by John Beatty, delegate from Middlesex County). The names of the signers of the Constitution from each state are given on pp.13-14; at the end are appended the two official letters signed in type by Washington, dated 17 September, recommending ratification. VERY RARE: copies are held at Rutgers (the Streeter copy), Princeton, the New Jersey Historical Society, Pennsylvania Historical Society and LOC. Evans 20798; Howes C-713; Streeter sale 2:1046.