Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 | The rare second printing of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776

Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776

The Constitution of the Common-Wealth of Pennsylvania, as established by the General Convention elected for that purpose, and held at Philadelphia, July 15th, 1776, and continued by Adjournments to September 28, 1776. Philadelphia: Printed by John Dunlap, in Market-Street, M,DCC,LXXVII (1777)

8vo (168 x 100 mm). Second printing, retaining the terminal blank leaf; Some staining, mostly to the first three leaves, with a pale circular stain on the title-page, and a dark (printer's ink?) stain on the following leaf, a few expert restorations, including a strip of Japanese tissue reattaching the title-page, a repaired corner, and closed edge tears. Bound in modern drab paper boards, printed spine label.

The rare second printing of the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, published by John Dunlap.

The Pennsylvania Convention was held between 15 July and 28 September 1776, with the proceedings beginning just eleven days after the Declaration of Independence was passed. It was drafted by a group of ninety-six delegates, with eight each from the eleven counties and eight from Philadelphia, and was led by Benjamin Franklin. After the constitution was ratified, Dunlap printed it first in 1776 and again in 1777, just weeks before British forces occupied the city.

"The attempt to form a new constitution in Pennsylvania was apparently a part of the general movement to throw off the yoke of Great Britain. But in reality it was far more than that! It was the outgrowth of years of patient suffering and smouldering antagonism; the culmination of class rivalry and sectional strife; the development of the spirit of democracy. The struggle over the first constitution framed in 1776 was caused not merely by political questions—theories of sovereignty, checks and balances, the doctrine of the separation of powers—but also by the clash of economic, ethnic, religious, social, and sectional interests" (Selsam, p. 1).

As a result of this revolutionary milieu, Pennsylvania drafted what is often deemed the most liberal of all early state constitutions. It consisted of three parts—a preamble, a declaration of rights, and a frame of government. The first two were directly influenced by the Declaration of Independence, setting forth the state's objections to the crown and the basic rights of its citizens. The third part was ultimately a rejection of most past forms of republican government—a radical experiment in democracy, but ultimately a failed attempt at state-building.

First and foremost, it included broad suffrage for all taxpaying men over the age of twenty-one, unlike many other states that restricted voting to landowners. As such, it was "an exceedingly democratic constitution" that enfranchised common people all throughout the state (Selsam, p. 3). The government consisted of a unicameral legislature and a twelve-member Supreme Executive Council, who would together annually elect the President, a weak executive without veto power. Other notable features included a Council of Censors that met to review whether the legislature had acted in accordance with the constitution, an unprecedented level of government transparency with all legislative meetings held in public, a prohibition against debtors prisons, and a public school system. This constitution, which gave too much power to the legislature, proved unsuccessful and, in 1790, a new constitution was ratified.

For the minutes of the Pennsylvania Convention of 1776, see preceding lot, and for a political cartoon satirizing the debate surrounding the constitution, see lot 139.

Both Dunlap printings are rare: just three copies of the 1776 edition, and no copies of this 1777 edition, appear in Rare Book Hub for the past fifty years.

REFERENCES

ESTC W10041; Evans 15512; Sabin 60014; Hildeburn 3535; J. Paul Selsam, The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776 (Philadelphia, 1936)