Presented: September 28, 1787[2]
Ratified: June 21, 1788[3]
Date effective: March 4, 1789[4]
The bibliography of the United States Constitution is a comprehensive selection of books, journal articles and various primary sources about and primarily related to the Constitution of the United States that have been published since its ratification in 1788. Many of the delegates at the Constitutional Convention set out to improve on the inadequate Articles of Confederation,[5] but after much deliberation over state's rights a new Federal Constitution was approved.[6] To allow delegates to make compromises and changes without speculation from the public and newspapers it was decided that the debates and drafting during the Convention be conducted in secret,[7][8] which is why definitive accounts of the Convention did not appear until 1840,[9][10][11][a] while many books on the Constitution begin after the Convention of 1787.[12] On September 17, 1787, the new Constitution was signed by the delegates, and ratified the following year, which established the government of the United States in March 1789.[13][14] Since then, many historians and political scientists, some of them critical and controversial, have written about the Constitution, and the Founding Fathers who framed it.
- ^ Curtis, 1861, Vol II, p. 485
- ^ Curtis, 1861, Vol II, p. 501
- ^ Maier, 2010, p. 361
- ^ Maier, 2010, p. 438
- ^ Bowen, 1986, pp. 5, 37-38
- ^ Bowen, 1986, pp. chapter xxv
- ^ Lutz, 1988, p. 139
- ^ Kaminski, 2005 p. 15
- ^ a b Slez & Martin, 2007, p. 46
- ^ a b Bloom, 1986, p. 21
- ^ a b Farrand, 1904, p. 479
- ^ Bowen, 1986, p. xiii
- ^ Lansing & Yates, 1821, pp. 9-13
- ^ Maier, 2010, pp. 27-28, 35,
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).