Footnote has 15 Rev War titles, at present. They compose these 12 categories:

• George Washington Letters to Secretaries of State
• Continental Congress (both “Papers” and “Miscellaneous Papers”)
• Constitutional Convention
• Congressional Correspondence
• State Department Domestic Correspondence
• Constitutional Amendments
• Indian Treaties
• Prize Cases
• Muster Rolls
• Service Records
• Pensions

There’s a story about how Footnote got the Papers of the Continental Congress. Some of my favorite days at work are the ones where NARA staff participate in a workshop. These people know the records as well as anyone. Each takes a turn telling us why Footnote should publish a particular title.

In one such meeting, the “Number Section” in my mind realized that they were championing titles that included records going back to 1790. Over and over, 1790, 1790, 1790. Okay, I know that the current government began in 1790 with the ratification of the constitution. But I suddenly had my Number Section and my Inner-Ten-Year-Old Section thinking, “What do they have from the 1500’s?” I was thinking about Christopher Columbus or the Ark of the Covenant.

My Inner Ten-Year-Old is not allowed to speak at meeting with NARA. So I asked, “Do you have anything from before 1790?” and they got really excited. But they weren’t thinking of the 1500’s. They said, “We have the PCC.” I didn’t know what the PCC was. These are patient people, and they like to teach. They explained that they were the Papers of the Continental Congress.

Well, that was almost two years ago, and I know a lot more about the Papers of the Continental Congress now. And I understand a little about why they’re important, and why we might care about them today.

There isn’t just one America. There is a different America for every american. We don’t all agree about everything. Sometimes, it seems like we don’t agree about anything. We forget the past, and think that this kind of disagreement is some new challenge. But in truth, this country was founded on disagreement.

The Continental Congress was the organization that issued the Declaration of Independence. They issued currency, as in the phrase, “not worth a continental.” The Thirteen Colonies sent representatives to the Congress, and they worked under the Articles of Confederation. There weren’t three branches of government, like we learned in school. There was one – the Congress. It functioned as the executive, and the judiciary and the legislature.

And despite the victory in the field of battle, that government failed. If you think that the US is polarized today, into Red states and Blue ones, it is nothing like the problems that faced this country in 1787. The interests of the Big States and the Little States were so divergent that there was a possibility that they could not survive together. The Papers of the Continental Congress contain the story of that first attempt to manage winning and holding on to their independence from England, and the problems that grew after the war.

And what did the Framers do to address this rift? Did they tell everyone to get along? Did they tell them that all states are created equal? No. They said, “You have to be civil, but you don’t have to agree.” The Framers believed that Nature had an Appetite for Excess, not a tendency to seek Balance in All Things. They determined that an experiment in dynamic opposition might work. It was a radical idea. The use of two houses in the legislature, and the use of three independent branches in the government had not been tried before. Compared to an absolute monarchy, it looked very inefficient. Who would be the final authority in the event of a disagreement between ministers? The answer they chose has a mythic character: “We the People.” It’s the people that settle a disagreement between branches of government. The people are the final arbiters of the direction that the country takes. It’s not a king, it’s not a prime minister. Neither a president, nor a Supreme Court justice, can overrule the people in the structure proposed by the founders.

I’m not suggesting that it works perfectly. I like to criticize the government as much as the next guy, and some days more so. But I do admire the structure, because it incorporates a dynamic nature, as the branches balance each other, and as the houses work together, more or less.

How could reasonable, successful, educated men come up with this idea, and put it into practice? The Papers of the Constitutional Convention show that. Let’s take a quick look at each title in this collection. I’ll provide a link to Footnote’s web page that describes the title, and tell you how many pages are in it. Footnote users sometimes call attention to interesting records, called “spotlighting.” I’ll list some interesting spotlights, as well as what I think is cool, and what I think can be improved.