Maryland State Archives

this is not the comma footnote I was referring to however. The comma footnote is in an opinion of the Attorney General's office that opines that Judges can receive compensation for teaching because of the intent of the Constitutional Convention of 1851 despite, as I remember it, the lack of a comma in the printed version of the constitution. At some point we should try to track down the opinion. I think it was written by Avery Eisenstark, the current head of Baltimore's Legislative Reference.

Ed

At 08:34 AM 2/27/2006, you wrote:

Ed,

Your speech is located at:

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/Union/3405/ecp-6-494/comma.html

Emily

Dear Horst:

I am glad to hear all is going so well. I have been so absorbed here in raising money for the Archives that I have not had much time to spend on our mutual interest in constitutions and the process by which they have evolved. A good friend, Dan Friedman, has just published his commentary on our present constitution which I think you would enjoy:

http://www.greenwood.com/books/printFlyer.aspx?sku=GR2044

The original manuscripts of the Declaration of Rights and Constitution of 1776 as well as the that of the Constitution of 1851 still exist. With regard to the latter, I am a very popular footnote to an opinion that judges can receive compensation for teaching, based upon my analysis of the intended placement of a comma in the Constitution of 1851. I will try to dig it out and send it on to you.

By this I am asking our research division to place orders for the scanning of the originals. We will place them on our site in the Museum on Line linked to our Archives of Maryland web site.

All the best to all of you in Kassel

Ed

PS to Jen and Emily:

Please create an msaref workorder for this and follow through accordingly. Because of the number of drafts of the Declaration of Rights, etc. in the State Papers, carefully compare the mss copy you upload with the authoritative version on line in aomol.net.

Thanks

Ed

At 08:17 AM 2/15/2006, you wrote:

Dear Ed:

For a long time, we have not heard from each other, and I hope you are around and well.

We definitely moved on since our conference in October 2002. Our website at www.modern-constitutions.de is growing and will appear under a new design and be more comfortable in a few days. Our first two volumes have been published last year, and by the turn of the month our first volume (of seven) of German constitutions will apear as well as "Constitutional Documents of the United States of America, 1776-1860, Pt. I: National and State Constitutions (Alabama - Frankland)". Just a few weeks later our volume on Chile is scheduled to be published.

Presently, I still hope to finish the manuscript of the second U.S. volume (Georgia - Kansas)in about two weeks, and to start working on the third volume (of seven), containing the constitutions of Kentucky through Maryland, in March. For Maryland we definitely will make use of your website, and we shall add all the failed constitutions, some thirty. What we still need, however, are copies of the original manuscripts - hopefully they exist - of the Declaration of Rights and Constitution of 1776 and of the Constitution of 1851. Copies of any original official editions other than the one you used for digitizing (normally separate print/prints, convention journal).

Most certainly, any help and advice will be highly appreciated.

Best regards - from all of us in Kassel -,

Horst

---------------------------- Prof. Dr. Horst Dippel
Professor of British and North American History
Research Group "Modern Constitutionalism"
Fachbereich 05 Gesellschaftswissenschaften --
Department of Social Sciences
University of Kassel
D-34109 Kassel
Germany
Phone: +49 ([0]561) 804-3350/3347
Fax: +49 ([0]561) 804-7016
E-Mail: hdippel@uni-kassel.de
www.modern-constitutions.de