IN THE FIRST SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, IN 1789-90-91, BY WILLIAM MACLAY, A Senator from Pennsylvania. EDITED BY GEORGE W. HARRIS, Compiler of Harris' Reports of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. HARRISBURG: Checked! upon Maclay's Journal, 3 vols. THE Journal of WILLIAM MACLAY, a Senator in Congress from the State of Pennsylvania, covers a period of about two years, viz : From April 24, 1789, to March 3, 1791. Its chief value consists in the fact that it records with some fullness, the proceedings of the first Senate organized under the Constitution, and at a period when the sessions were held with closed doors. It is well known that no report of the debates in the Senate exists for the period embraced by the 1st to the 5th Congress inclusive. During the ten years from 1789 to 1799, only a bare outline of the business transacted is found in the Annals of Congress, or elsewhere, altho' the debates in the House of Representatives were reported with considerable fullness. The few notices of the business and debates in the Senate during this period, preserved in the published writings of JOHN ADAMS, JEFFERSON, MADISON, WALCOTT, and others, are of high interest and value. Yet in none of them is there any continuous journal purporting to give a record of the debates in the Senate. This vacuum is to a certain extent supplied by this MS. Journal of Senator MACLAY. Although not a formal report of debates, as to the language used, it gives the sentiments expressed by the leading speakers on both sides, on most of the important questions discussed at length. Among these were the questions of the official title for the President of the U. S., the power of removal from office, the doctrine of a protective tariff, the location of the permanent seat of Government, the jurisdiction of the Federal Courts, etc. Besides these, the Journal contains Mr. MACLAY'S account of the inauguration of President WASHINGTON at N. Y. in 1789, of various Presidential dinners and state ceremonies in the early days of the Government, and some criticisms of the President, Vice President ADAMS, and other public men of the time. As a whole, this MS. record, which has never been published, would add a contribution of considerable interest and value to the stores of information we possess regarding the early politics of the country. The period it embraces, covering as it does the very origin of the Government under the Constitution, is continually enhanced in interest with the growth of the historical spirit in the country. A. R. SPOFFORD. Presented to Committee on the Library, Washington, March, 1869. |