192 REPORTS ON INVESTIGATIONS AND PROJECTS. 



Textual Publication of Documents. 



As has been intimated in a previous paragraph, the work of the department 

 in its earlier years may well consist mainly of the locating of materials and 

 the publication of information respecting them. But it is not needful that 

 the second natural division of its publications, the series of texts, should be 

 wholly postponed till the first has been completed. On the contrary, several 

 collections of documentary texts urgently demand publication, and can be 

 prepared concurrently with our series of guides. For a survey of the gen- 

 eral subject of desiderata of this class, I may refer to an article entitled 

 "Gaps in the published records of United States History," which I printed in 

 the American Historical Review for July, 1905. The part which this Depart- 

 ment may play in supplying these deficiencies must always be defined in 

 consideration of, and sometimes in consultation with, other agencies, such as 

 historical societies and governmental bodies. Thus while such series as 

 pertain to individual States should be left to be cared for by the States them- 

 selves, there are many series which, while they belong to many States, are 

 no natural concern of the national government, series of which the materials 

 are to be obtained from Europe, or lie so scattered in the archives of many 

 States that until they are brought together their significance and serial quality 

 are not appreciated. Examples of the former class would be the acts of the 

 Privy Council of Great Britain, proclamations of the English or orders of the 

 French and Spanish kings relating to these colonies, the journals of the 

 Board of Trade and Plantations, or the American debates of the House of 

 Commons. Another example, and one which has been claiming the attention 

 of the department during the past year, is a collection of all those treaties 

 and parts of treaties between European powers which have a bearing on the 

 history of the United States. A typical instance of the second class men- 

 tioned, collections whose materials must be assembled from many States, but 

 which none the less have a high degree of unity and value when assembled, 

 is that of the letters which delegates to the Continental Congress and the 

 Congress of the Confederation wrote to their respective States describing its 

 proceedings, a collection which was undertaken by my predecessor, and the 

 value of which was emphasized in his last report. Again, the State Trials 

 of the United States deserve to be collected. The papers of many eminent 

 statesmen call for collective editions, or better editions than have appeared, 

 e. g., the correspondence of John Adams, of Richard Henry Lee, of James A. 

 Bayard, of John Quincy Adams, of James H. Hammond, of Jefferson Davis, 

 or of Alexander H. Stephens, not to mention those whose papers are in the 

 Library of Congress or are otherwise likely to be cared for by existing 

 agencies. 



