The master menu for the Elliot collection is at the url below.

We started with New York because its debates are especially interesting for the light they shed on constitutional construction. Ratification was, at that point, a foregone conclusion. New Hampshire had just ratified, making the ninth state necessary for the Constitution to go into effect, and New York did not want to be left out of the Union. However, the delegates had strong reservations, and their debate focused mainly on how the provisions of the Constitution were to be constructed, and on amendments that would help insure such a doctrine of construction. Some of these proposals were adopted as the Bill of Rights. Others were not, but still stand as evidence of the understanding of the Founders of what the clauses of the Constitution meant at the time.

Included in the debate records are speeches by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, two the authors of the Federalist Papers, and Melancton Smith, a prominent critic of the Constitution.

Essential reading for any student of constitutional history and law.