THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Sunday, April 9, 1995                  TAG: 9504060439
SECTION: COMMENTARY               PAGE: J2   EDITION: FINAL 
TYPE: Book Review 
SOURCE: TOM ROBOTHAM
                                             LENGTH: Short :   35 lines

ALSO OF INTEREST

THE DEBATE ON THE CONSTITUTION, FEDERALIST AND ANTIFEDERALIST SPEECHES, ARTICLES, AND LETTERS DURING THE STRUGGLE OVER RATIFICATION

Edited by BERNARD BAILYN

The Library of America. 2 vols. 2,389 pp. $70.

Twentieth-century Americans tend to speak of the Constitution in almost sacred terms. But in the wake of the Constitutional Convention's secret proceedings in 1787, the document was regarded by many as a profound threat to liberty. For nearly a year afterward, supporters and opponents of the new government engaged in a fierce debate over its merits and flaws.

Now the Library of America - a nonprofit series dedicated to preserving our nation's literature in beautifully produced, authoritative volumes - has captured the spirit of that debate in a collection of speeches, newspaper articles, pamphlets and private letters written in the months prior to ratification.

The two-volume collection includes the Federalist essays and other previously published documents. But it places these works in their original context, alongside writings by Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and a host of less famous citizens. Thus, for example, we can read Franklin's speech in which he supported the Constitution ``with all its Faults,'' and a scathing rebuttal to that speech, published in a Boston newspaper, by an unidentified writer. by CNB