John P. Kaminski

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John P. Kaminski (born January 16, 1945) is an American historian, editor, author and constitutional scholar. He is the founder of the Center for the Study of the American Constitution (the "CSAC") at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is most well known in scholarly circles for his role as the long-time director and co-editor of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights (the "DHRC"). To date he has co-edited over 40 volumes of the DHRC and has written, edited or co-edited over 30 other books. Kaminski and the DHRC have been cited dozens of times in U.S. Supreme Court cases, including the controversial Heller decision, and in thousands of law review articles.

Early life and education

John Kaminski was raised in Chicago where he attended Lane Technical High School, an all-boys school with 6,500 students. Originally planning to be a high school teacher, he graduated from Illinois State University then received his M.A. from Illinois State and his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1972. Kaminski was attracted to the University of Wisconsin to study under Professor Merrill Jensen, the Director of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (known as the "DHRC," the "Ratification Project," or the "Ratification Series").

Career and Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution

Kaminski served as the associate editor until 1980 when he replaced Jensen as the Director of the DHRC, founding the CSAC in 1981. When Kaminski became the Director for the DHRC, he served alongside co-editors Gaspare J. Saladino and Richard Leffler.

In the 1930s the National Historical Publications Commission (NHPC) envisioned a project to collect primary sources documenting the history of the ratification of the Constitution. The idea was first raised in the 1890s before it gained traction in 1936, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the National Archives Act into law in 1932. The National Archives Act created the National Archives as an independent agency (48 Stat. 1122) and established the NHPC.

The mission of the NHPC was to "make plans, estimates, and recommendations for historical works and collections of sources it considers appropriate for preserving, publishing or otherwise recording at public expense" (44 U.S.C. 2504). Now called the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC), the work of publishing historical records of national significance is largely conducted by historical documentary editions, which are multivolume collections of annotated documents.

With its first federal grant, the NHPC funded 23 initial projects, including The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution. The stated goal of the decades-long project has been to document "as completely as possible what the people ratifying the Constitution understood it to mean, why they ratified it, and what forces and issues were involved in the struggle over it."

The Ratification Project under Kaminski quickly realized the "extraordinary dimensions" of the project, as the process of ratifying the Constitution is "on a different order of magnitude from most other documentary history projects."

Kaminski and his team of editors were aided by the work of colleagues who assembled The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790 and The Documentary History of the First Federal Congress.

As described by Kaminski:

I am part of a small group of historians that has been engaged in the monumental task of documenting the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. For the first ten years, I worked with Jensen and we published the first three volumes together. When he died in 1980, I became the Director of the Ratification Project and the next year founded the Center for the Study of the American Constitution, at the University of Wisconsin.

As the authoritative collection of primary sources documenting the ratification of the Constitution, the DHRC has transcribed and annotated over 70,000 documents ranging from records of town meetings, convention and legislative journals and debates, newspaper articles and clippings, poetry, personal and public letters and journal and diary entries.

The 40-plus volumes of the DHRC, which now include the documentary history of the Bill of Rights, are academic publications. As a result, they are generally held by universities, law schools, and research libraries. They are also available online and through Rotunda, the electronic arm of the University of Virginia Press, which describes the DHRC as a "landmark work in historical and legal scholarship".

The DHRC compiles primary sources created by the nearly 1,700 members of the thirteen state legislatures involved in calling for state ratifying conventions. In turn, the state ratification conventions involve an overlapping group of another 1,648 convention delegates. As described by Kaminski, the DHRC also captures records generated by "local and state officials, people of influence who held no public office, and private citizens of all descriptions who directly or indirectly became involved in the most important political debate of the time."

The decades long process of compiling and annotating these materials involved examination of manuscripts and other materials housed in "hundreds of libraries, archives, historical societies, private collections, auction-sale catalogs, and published primary sources to locate documents relating to the debate over the ratification of the Constitution." Additionally, the DHRC contains applicable materials from the 150 contemporaneous newspapers read by the founding generation, broadsides, pamphlets, magazines, and books published in the United States between 1787 and 1791, along with the official records of the state legislatures, executives, and ratifying conventions.

According to Kaminski:

It has been a real honor for me to work with all this original material, to be part of this documentation and to present it in a fashion that can be used. The writing and adoption of the Constitution were extraordinary historical events that continue to shape our daily lives, and this Ratification Series is for anyone who wants to better understand the Constitution in its historical context.

It is widely acknowledged that Kaminski's DHRC is a "monumental," "comprehensive," "editorial masterpiece" which documents "the tortuous path of ratification" of the Constitution. As described by Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Michael Kammen, the DHRC "will be of enduring value centuries hence" and is "one of the most interesting documentary publications we have ever had." For Kammen, "[t]he intermingling of public and private documents" in the DHRC works "marvelously well":

We can compare the rhetoric designed to persuade with ruminations reflecting doubt or apprehension. We can compare assertions and predictions with what actually came to pass.

Kaminski likewise agrees that "the placing of events and arguments in context—assisted by extensive cross references—should enable readers to see the relationships, sometimes the interplay, between the documents and the participants in the developing debate over the ratification of the Constitution. The record of this debate forms the greatest body of political writing in American history." Today, DHRC is routinely cited by historians, lawyers, judges and Supreme Court Justices.

Such documents take the story well beyond the conventions alone. They give us a glimpse of America in 1787–88, of its people in their homes, taverns, and streets, their convictions, rituals, and customs. The DHRC captures that moment in all its complexity and powerfully demonstrates how the great documentary editions being published today can, by extending our command of the historical record, transform our knowledge and understanding of the past. It might well be, as the historian Leonard Levy once said, the most important documentary record being published today. Certainly it is the only one dedicated to uncovering the democratic component of the American founding. It is also a monumental scholarly achievement and a gift to all Americans, now and in the future, who want to know how our nation came into being.”

Apart from his prolific career as an editor and author, Kaminski also served as a sounding board and resource for other scholars. Harvard Professor Michael J. Klarman summarizes the assistance provided by Kaminski and Leffler in the preface to his book, The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution:

My two largest debts are to Rich Leffler and John Kaminski. Both of them have, for decades, served as the editors of the Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (an absolutely extraordinary resources, without which this book would have been inconceivable)....Bringing their extraordinary knowledge of the era to bear, they caught countless errors, spotted logical contradictions, directed me to additional sources (primary and secondary), and improved both my prose and my method of citation....To my mind, they represent what is best about the scholarly enterprise.

According to historian Gordon Wood, Kaminski and his editors have put together "one of the greatest collections of debates over the basic issues of politics and constitutionalism that the Western world possesses." "Rarely will we find a more profound or more comprehensive discussion of the problems of power, liberty, representation, federalism, rights, and all the other aspects of politics than we have in these volumes. This record is not only a national treasure, it is a world treasure.”

After founding the CSAC in 1981, Kaminski expanded the Ratification Project to include outreach activities beyond academia. For generations, the CSAC sponsored lectures, conferences, videos and training programs. Kaminski thus insured that the Constitution and its ratification process were accurately addressed in classroom curricula and professional development programs for teachers and judges.

Books

• Co-editor, The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, 36 volumes.
• Co-editor, The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution: Bill of Rights, 4 volumes.
• Co-editor, Metaphorically Speaking: Metaphors and Similes Describing the U.S. Constitution, 1787–1791 (Madison, WI, 2021).
• Editor, John Jay: Forgotten Founder (Madison, Wis., 2019).
• Editor, James Madison: Liberty’s Advocate (Madison, Wis., 2018).
• Editor, George Washington: A Man of Action (Madison, Wis., 2017).
• Editor, Alexander Hamilton: From Obscurity to Greatness (Madison, Wis., 2016).
• The Great Virginia Triumvirate: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison in the Eyes of Their Contemporaries (Charlottesville, Va., 2010).
• Editor, A Necessary Evil? Slavery and the Debate over the Constitution (Madison, Wis., 1995).
• Governor George Clinton: Yeoman Politician of the New Republic (Madison, Wis., 1993).

Awards

• Association for Documentary Editing (ADE) Distinguished Service Award (1990);
• ADE Lifetime Service Award (2007);
• American Library Association Book Award (2009);
• Elected Fellow of the Massachusetts Historical Society (2009);
• ADE Julian P. Boyd Award for lifetime contribution to American History and Culture (2010);

Personal life

While studying at Illinois State University, Kaminski met Janice Kaminski (Westaby), his wife of 55 years and mother of Steven and Laura.

External links

• https://search.library.wisc.edu/digital/AConstitution
• https://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/founders/RNCN.html

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