(Bill of Rights) Peter Muhlenberg | "the Amendments, brought before the House by Mr. Maddison"

(Bill of Rights) — Peter Muhlenberg

Autograph letter signed ("PMuhlenberg") as a U.S. Representative from Pennsylvania, to Benjamin Rush, conveying the still-confidential proposed amendments to the Constitution that would become the Bill of Rights

One page (255 x 197 mm) on a bifolium (unwatermarked), New York, 10 June 1789, integral autograph address leaf directed to "Doctor Benjamin Rush Philadelphia," with franking signature ("PMuhlenberg"), postal stamp ("FREE"), and reception docket; lightly browned, dampstain at left vertical quadrent, short fold separations, seal tear.

Peter Muhlenberg—a member of one of Pennsylvania's most prominent families, who served variously as a Lutheran minister, Continental officer, vice president of Pennsylvania, and United States senator—here writes as a member of the first congress to friend and political ally Benjamin Rush (and indirectly to Benjamin Franklin), enclosing "the Amendments, brought before the House by Mr. Maddison on Monday last."

"I do myself the Honor to enclose you the Amendments, brought before the House by Mr. Maddison on Monday last. as they are not to be made public at present, I will thank you to keep them for your own perusal, and to let me know your sentiments, relative to the propriety & necessity of them. They were well received by the House, as it was alleged, that unless some amendment took place, some States, who were at present otherwise inclined, might be induced to Join in demanding a Convention. Mr. Gerry spoke warmly on this subject—reprobated the idea of a Convention & concluded with saying, that if the present Government would not do, he despaired of any other; & dreaded that a Military one would follow its rejection &c.

"The mail is just closing—can therefore add no more at present. I wrote you on the 4th instant."

As James Hrdlicka writes in Colonists, Citizens, Constitutions, "When the first Congress, along with President George Washington, gathered in New York City in 1789, Americans did not assume that the process of constitution-making was now—or ever would be—complete. Many expected the document to be amended almost immediately. Several state conventions had ratified the Constitution with the expectation that their suggestions for its improvement would be taken up and adopted. Most of the proposed amendments grew out of one of the main critiques that Antifederalists such as the Pennsylvania addressers had leveled against the Constitution: that it lacked a bill of rights resembling those attached to most state constitutions" (pp. 81–82).

There was no shortage of suggestions as to what a bill of rights should contain. In addition to the provisions of the various state declarations of rights, the ratifying conventions put forth a substantial number of proposals, ranging from South Carolina's four to New York's fifty-seven. The most influential of the proposed amendments originated in Virginia's Ratifying Convention, which inspired James Madison's 4 May 1789 proposal that debate begin in the House of Representatives on a series of amendments to the Constitution to serve as a bill of rights.

The debate began on 8 June, just two days before Muhlenberg wrote the present letter. It is not certain that Rush would have welcomed the amendments; at Pennsylvania's ratifying convention, where he strongly supported the adoption of the new constiution, he also stated that he "considered it an honor to the late convention that this system has not been disgraced with a bill of rights. Would it not be absurd to frame a formal declaration that our natural rights are acquired from ourselves?"

In a significant postscript, Muhlenberg asks Rush to share the proposed amendments with their mutual friend Benjamin Franklin: "This matter will not be brought forward again until the Revenue System is complete. I will thank you to communicate them to Doctor Franklin."

After going through House debate and Senate reconciliation, twelve proposed amendments to the Constitution were sent to the states for ratification by President Washington on 2 October 1789.Tthe necessary threshold of adoption by three-quarters of the states was achieved with the late 1791 ratifications by Vermont and Virginia. While the first two proposed amendments failed to gain the support of three-quarters of the states, the proposed third through twelfth amendments were adopted and became the first ten amendments to the Constitution—the Bill of Rights.

PROVENANCE:

The Alexander Biddle Papers (Parke-Bernet, 24 May, 1943, lot 166; sold with a second Muhlenberg letter to Rush, 2 July 1789)