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PENNSYLVANIA, Constitutional Convention 1789-90.

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[Bound with:] Minutes of the Grand Committee of the Whole Convention of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Zachariah Poulson, 1789; 1790. Two volumes in one, 146; 101 pp., folio (320 x 195 mm). Blank leaves bound in the rear. Early half calf over marbled paper boards. Housed in a morocco backed clamshell box Condition: original stab holes in gutter margin, front free endpaper torn; rebacked retaining the original spine, restoration at tips. Provenance: Joseph H. Reneker (booklabel on front free endpaper, title and p. 23); Maine Historical Society (bookplate on front pastedown and inked stamp on title and p. 33, withdrawn stamp on bookplate). rare proceedings of the convention to draft the pennsylvania constitution of 1790. Following the adoption of the Federal Constitution and Bill of Rights, Pennsylvania decided to amend its own frame of government, first established with their radical Constitution of 1776. Instead of a unicameral legislature and an executive council with little power, a new document was drafted and approved that provided for two legislative bodies, a more powerful governor, a judicial system grouped into circuits and a separation of powers modelled on the Federal Constitution. Other notable features of the 1790 Constitution were the establishment of a free state education system and the elimination of the requirement of a Christian qualification oath. Among the delegates to the Convention of 1789-90 were Thomas McKean, James Wilson, Thomas Mifflin, Timothy Pickering, and Abraham Lincoln (of Berks County, an ancestor of the President!). Evans 22764 and 22766; Sabin 60258 and 60259.

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