“As a guide in expounding and applying the provisions of the Constitution, the debates and incidental decisions of the Convention can have no authoritative character. However desirable it be that they should be preserved as a gratification to the laudable curiosity felt by every people to trace the origin and progress of their political Institutions, & as a source perhaps of some lights on the Science of Govt. the legitimate meaning of the Instrument must be derived from the text itself; or if a key is to be sought elsewhere, it must be not in the opinions or intentions of the Body which planned & proposed the Constitution, but in the sense attached to it by the people in their respective State Conventions where it recd. all the authority which it possesses.”
James Madison to Thomas Ritchie, 15 Sept. 1821
Clark's Island was the first landing spot of the Pilgrims in Plymouth Bay. It remains…
Cromwell at the Battle of Nasby The unthinkable had happened! Englishmen were at war –…
Outer dunes of Cape Cod The Pilgrims hiked through landscape like this in their first…
During the summer we made the last big research trip for William Bradford research, and…
I recently came across some pretty salacious claims about William Bradford and the Pilgrims. As…
The Scrooby Manor farmhouse Two years ago, you may remember, we saw that William Bradford's…