In 2020, Marquette Law Review published Rob Natelson’s article listing numerous incidences in which the American Founders, official and unofficial Founding-era documents, 19th century documents, and 20th century documents authoritatively described a Convention for Proposing Amendments as a “convention of states” or “convention of the states.”
You can read the article here.
As additional Founding-Era examples pile up, we have included them in a series of posts. But rather than add post after post, we have decided to establish this permanent location—which supersedes the earlier ones. Additional examples will be added here as they are discovered.
In the list below, the source “DH” refers to the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution of the United States. “39 DH 100”, for example, means “Volume 39 of The Documentary History, page 100.” You can find all volumes of the Documentary History here.
The next time someone tells you the nature of an amendments convention is unknown, provide him with the link to the Marquette article and this list.
→ On October 30, 1788, the Virginia House of Delegates, in the committee of the whole, resolved:
“Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, That for quieting the minds of the good citizens of this Commonwealth, and securing their dearest rights and liberties, and preventing those disorders, which must arise under a government not founded in the confidence of the people, application be made to the Congress of the United States, so soon as they shall assemble under the said Constitution, to call a Convention for proposing amendments to the same, according to the mode therein directed.
“Resolved, That it is the opinion of this committee, That a committee ought to be appointed to draw up and report to this House a proper instrument of writing, expressing the sense of the General Assembly, and pointing out the reasons which induce them to urge their application thus early for the calling the aforesaid Convention of the States.” (37 DH, p. 163).
→ The resolution also decided that a circular letter be prepared “expressive of the wish of the General Assembly of this Commonwealth, that they may join in an application to the New Congress, to appoint a Convention of the States.” (37 DH, p. 164).
→ On November 11, 1788, a committee reported on the proposal of “an application to the Congress of the United States to call a Convention of the States.” (37 DH, p. 167).
→ On November 14, “The House, according to the order of the day, resolved itself into a committee of the whole House on an application to Congress to call a Convention of the States, to take into consideration the defects of the constitution, and report the necessary amendments.” (37 DH, p. 168).
→ Approval of the actual resolution for a “convention of the states” then followed (37 DH, p. 169).
→The Virginia legislature began to prepare a letter to Governor Clinton of New York urging the calling of a “convention of the states.” (37 DH, pp. 170 & 177).
→On Nov. 20, 1788, the House of Delegates considered certain “amendments of the Senate to the resolutions, containing an application to Congress to call a Convention of the States, to take into consideration the amendments proposed to the constitution of government of the United States.” (p. 174). The formal application was approved the same day (37 DH, p. 175-76).
→The Pennsylvania legislature responded by declining Virginia’s invitation, referring to the proposed gathering as a “Convention of the states for amending the federal constitution.” (37 DH, p. 189 & 191).
→ New York Governor Clinton approved Virginia’s idea, again referring to an amendments convention as “a General Convention of the States.” (37 DH, p.202).
→In the ensuing New York legislative proceedings, the proposed assembly was described the same way (37 DH, p. 209).
→And in ensuing South Carolina legislative proceedings, the proposed assembly also was described as a “convention of the states” (37 DH, p. 569).
→A March 1, 1788 petition from the Inhabitants of Cumberland County, PA, stating “That the proposd Foederal [sic] Constitution cannot be verry [sic] dangerous while the Legislature[s] of the different States possess the power of calling a convention, appointing the delegates & instructing them in the articles they wish altered or abolished.” (This clarifies not only the nature of the convention, but the ability of state legislatures to control it). (38 DH, p. 357).
→A letter dated June 14, 1788 from Edmund Pendleton (Virginia’s leading judge and president of his state’s ratifying convention) to Richard Henry Lee (39 DH, p. 62).
→An item from the Massachusetts Centinel newspaper dated Sept. 27, 1788 (two references on 39 DH, p. 196).
→An op-ed signed “Camillus” in the Baltimore Gazette, dated Sept. 30, 1788 (39 DH, p. 238).
→A letter from Francis Corbin (a Federalist leader in the Virginia ratifying convention) to James Madison, dated Oct. 21, 1788. 39 DH, p. 263.
→An op-ed by “A Federal Republican” appearing in the New York Journal, Dec. 11, 1788 (39 DH, p. 410).
→An unsigned “Address Supporting the Election to James Monroe to the U.S. House of Representatives,” composed near the end of 1788 (39 DH, p. 456).
→A letter dated Aug. 15, 1788 from North Carolina Governor Samuel Johnston to his states’ delegates in the Confederation Congress:
“Inclosed you will receive a Resolve of the Convention of this State offering Amendments to the Constitution proposed for the Government of the United States, by which you will perceive that they did not think it expedient to adopt it before the proposed Amendments were considered by a Convention of the States, and such of them as were approved of ingrafted into the Constitution.”
21 N.C. State Reports, p. 491.
→North Carolina Senate Journal of Nov. 15, 1788, resolution calling for a second state ratifying convention–
“for the purpose of deliberating and determining on the proposed Federal Constitution for the future Government of the United States, and on such amendments, if any, as shall or may be made to the said Constitution by a Convention of the States previous to the meeting of the said Convention of this State.”
20 N.C. State Records, p. 515.
→North Carolina House of Commons Journal of Nov. 21, 1788:
“Received from the Senate a resolution of this House for appointing five persons by ballot to represent this State in a Convention of the States, should one be called . . .:
21 N.C. State Records, p. 82