Why isn't the official record enough?

The goal of the Quill platform is to bring together all the records of a particular negotiation and to display them in an easily digestible format. Sometimes we are asked why we don’t just encourage people to read the official record of the negotiation. In her second blog post for us, Mary Hill explains that while one could read the record and have an understanding of what occurred, the Quill Project takes the official record a step further. Quill editors study the gaps in the official journal to ensure nothing is missing from the final product, using secondary sources to supplement the record where necessary, and they then apply a detailed understanding of parliamentary procedure to analyze and visualize the text, making it easier for the end user to understand.

Supplementing the official record

Dr Nicholas Cole, founder and creator of the Quill Project, knew that the official journal of the Federal Constitutional Convention would not be sufficient to create an accurate digital model. It was well known that Madison had kept a better record than William Jackson, the official secretary, and in the early twentieth century Max Farrand’s edition of the records had already combined these two sources side by side. Cole set out to go one step further than Farrand by collating all the records available for the Federal Convention and displaying them in a strictly chronological format. This approach was to prove vital in later projects, such as those studying state constitutional conventions where the official records were sometimes even sparser than those for 1787.

When we are thinking about the gaps in the official journal, it is important to understand that it was never intended to be a complete retelling of the events as they transpired. Part of the reason for this is that the journal was usually written as an aide-memoire for those participating in the negotiations at the time, rather than for those trying to reconstruct what happened retrospectively. Critically, the text of the document under discussion is rarely included, making it a laborious task for later readers to understand the impact of a particular clause on the final text. Even in more modern conventions where the majority of the discussions are recorded, the document text is not necessarily included. Take the Edmunds Tucker Act for example. The Act is not printed in the record until the United States Congress has moved to the final stages of the negotiation. The text of the document as originally proposed by Senator Edmunds of Vermont appears nowhere in the official record, even though it forms the basis of the whole debate. Similarly, the text of the Utah Constitution that was produced by the Committee on Compilation and Arrangement, the final committee to review the Constitution before it was referred back to the Convention, was not printed in the official record. Editors have either added these documents from secondary sources or laboriously recreated them from the record.

Extract from list of sources for the Quill edition of the Federal Constitutional Convention 1787

Users of the 2020 Quill edition of the Federal Constitutional Convention will notice that twenty-eight sources are listed. These include the official journal written by William Jackson, but the additional sources provide further details that are necessary for a full understanding of the discussions that took place. When pieced together within the platform, this combination of source material provides users with the most historically accurate retelling events that transpired.

Not all projects will require such a long list of secondary sources if the official record is more detailed. Take, for example, some of the Amendments to the United States Constitution that have been modelled in the platform. Most of the events will be reconstructed from the Congressional Globe, the official record of Congress at that time. But each Amendment still needs additional resources, usually drawn from the Journal of the House of Representatives or the United States Senate. While the Congressional Globe has most of information required, the Journal fills in little details: bill numbers, voting records, and document proposers, among other things. In order to create as accurate a model as possible, we must cross check and supplement the official journal of proceedings.

Analysing and visualizing the text

As well as filling gaps in the official record, Quill’s other important contribution is to use visualizations of parliamentary procedure to analyse and display the negotiations, making them easier for the end user to follow and understand. By parliamentary procedure, we mean the set of rules and norms that are followed during the course of the negotiation. The platform utilizes a series of event types to display the parliamentary procedure that is being used: procedural motions, and events related to people, documents, and decisions. Procedural motions move the work of the whole along without directly impacting the text. Examples could be a call to order at the start of the session, a motion to adjourn, the moment a question is called, or when one delegate breaks the rules of parliamentary procedure and another calls them on it, etc. Document events refer not only to the main text being modelled in the platform, but are also used when messages are passed between committees or houses, when letters are read aloud, when an amendment to a previous document is made, and so on. Decision events follow a document or a procedural motion, while events related to people include role calls, elections, and delegates as entering and exiting the negotiation.

Editors undergo several training sessions to ensure that they understand parliamentary procedure and how to analyse the text from the records. They work with each other and refer to Robert’s Rules of Order, the most widely used manual regarding parliamentary procedure, to be sure that they have understood the text correctly. There are always at least two checks on the final model to make sure nothing was missed and that the procedure was accurately portrayed. This rigorous quality control process ensures a comprehensive final product for the end user.

Because Quill editors are trained to identify where one event ends and another begins, the final model is a useful tool for understanding the impact of procedure and process on the outcome of the negotiation. By combining detailed procedural knowledge and analysis with a wide range of primary and secondary source materials for each negotiation, the Quill platform provides a comprehensive final edition.

So, reading the official journal of the proceedings would work, but looking to Quill for an understanding of a negotiated text works better. It is the attention to detail behind the scenes that makes the work of Quill so important to understanding historical texts. Much of the research has already been done for the end user and the text has been broken down so that they need only refer to the Quill model for a well-rounded understanding of the historical events that transpired to produce a particular negotiated text.

QuillerFebruary 24, 2021