We, the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America….

The Committee of Style Draft of the United States Constitution

· Rufus King's copy of the second printed draft of the United States Constitution: the first to print the phrase: "We, the People of the United States…."

· A member of the Committee of Style at the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, King pens corrections and emendations to the text made during the debates of 12-14 September, all of which were incorporated into the final official edition printed on 17 September 1787.

· Printed by John Dunlap and David Claypoole, the same printers who issued the first broadside of the Declaration of Independence in 1776; the Committee of Detail Draft of the Constitution (8 August 1787) as well as the final version (17 September) and the first public printing (19 September).

· The standing type used by Dunlap and Claypoole on the present draft is the same used in the final, official version printed for distribution on 17 September 1787.

· One of only fifteen copies extant, and the first copy to come to auction in over four decades. All other known copies are in institutional holdings.

Rare. Evans 20816. One of only fifteen surviving copies of the Committee of Style Draft, all of which are part of institutional collections.

Census of surviving copies of the Committee of Style Draft of the United States Constitution
David Brearley, Jr. (1745-1790) – New Jersey – National Archives
Jacob Broom (1752-1810) – Delaware –Historical Society of Pennsylvania
Pierce Butler (1744-1822) – South Carolina –Gilder Lehrman Institute
Abraham Baldwin (1754-1807) –Georgia – Georgia Historical Society
John Dickinson (1732-1808) – Delaware –Library Company of Philadelphia
Elbridge Gerry (1744-1814) –Massachusetts – Massachusetts Historical Society
*William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819) – Connecticut – Library of Congress
*Rufus King (1755-1827) — Massachusetts, the present copy – The Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Hampshire (the present copy)
William Livingston (1723-1790) – New Jersey – New York Historical
George Mason (1725-1792) –Virginia – Williams College
*James Madison (1751-1836) – Virginia – Library of Congress
Unidentified Delegate – The Huntington
George Washington (1732-1799) – Virginia – Library of Congress
Hugh Williamson (1735-1819) – North Carolina – Library of Congress
_____________
*Member of the Committee of Style and Arrangement.
Our thanks to Seth Kaller for his assistance in developing the present census.

Full cataloguing for this lot is forthcoming.