Beschreibung:

U.S. CONSTITUTION, BILL OF RIGHTS]. The Bill of Rights and Amendments to the Constitution of the United States: as agreed to by the Convention of the State of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, at South Kingston, in the county of Washington, on the first day of March, A.D. 1790. [Providence: John Carter 1790.
U.S. CONSTITUTION, BILL OF RIGHTS]. The Bill of Rights and Amendments to the Constitution of the United States: as agreed to by the Convention of the State of Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations, at South Kingston, in the county of Washington, on the first day of March, A.D. 1790. [Providence: John Carter 1790.] Broadside folio (16¾ x 14in.), three columns text, full margins, old fold lines neatly reinforced, holes in central horizontal affecting some text. A VERY RARE BROADSIDE EDITION OF RHODE ISLAND'S PROPOSED ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS TO THE ALREADY RATIFIED CONSTITUTION AND BILL OF RIGHTS. When the Constitution was submitted to the states for ratification, many perceived that the new compact lacked guarantees of fundamental rights; in certain states ratification was made contingent upon the addition of corrective amendments. Massachusetts, Virginia, South Carolina, New Hampshire, New York and here, Rhode Island, all submitted drafts of protections to be incorporated in the Constitution. These competing texts were, in many cases, radically different from each other, and it was the thorny task of a Committee of the House to reconcile them into the familiar 12 amendments constituting the Bill of Rights. Not quite three months later, a nearly identical set of these recommendations was attached to Rhode Island's tardy ratification to the Constitution, with the request that they somehow be incorporated. Of particular interest are the amendments, many of which, in final form, parallel the Bill of Rights. In late May, finally, Rhode Island ratified the Constitution, the last of the original 13 states to do so, by a close vote of 32 to 30. Some of the more significant among the articles proposed here, are: 1. "That there are certain natural rights...among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty...[and]...obtaining happiness and safety...."; 2. "...all power is vested in...and... derived from, the people..."; 4. Affirms an "unalienable right to the free exercise of religion," while "no particular religious sect or society ought to be favored or established..."; 5. "That the legislative, executive and judiciary powers...should be separate and distinct..."; 6. On voting rights, guaranteeing that no "aid, charge, tax or fee can be rated or levied..."; 8. Affirms the "right to "a fair and speedy trial by an impartial jury in his vicinage" and guarantees a citizen cannot "be compelled to give evidence against himself..."; 13. Excessive bail and "cruel and unusual punishments" prohibited. 14. Protections against "all unreasonable searches and seizures"; 15. Guarantees citizens "the right peaceably to assemble," and guarantees right to petition the legislature..."; 16. Affirms the peoples' "right to freedom of speech, and of writing...," states that the "freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and ought not to be violated."; 18. Guarantees that "the people have a right to keep and bear arms," and can form a "well-regulated militia," as standing armies are "dangerous to liberty." Among the amendments offered by Rhode Island's citizens, number 17 is particularly striking: "As a traffic tending to establish or continue the slavery of any part of the human species, disgraceful to the cause of liberty and humanity--that Congress shall...establish such laws and regulations as may especially prevent the importation of slaves of every description into the United States." The successive stages in the evolution of this critical texts may be traced in Documentary History of the First Federal Congress 1789-1791 , ed. C. Bickford and H.E. Veit, Baltimore, 1986, vol 4, pp.1-48; for the version submitted with Rhode Islands' ratification, see vol.1, pp.356-362. Alden 1202; Evans 22845.