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41–482 PDF 2008

S. HRG. 110–334

THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ PAPERS: ENSURING

PUBLIC ACCESS TO OUR NATIONAL TREASURES

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

FEBRUARY 7, 2008

Serial No. J–110–72

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman 

EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts 

JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., Delaware 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York 

RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois 

BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island 

ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa 

JON KYL, Arizona 

JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina 

JOHN CORNYN, Texas 

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas 

TOM COBURN, Oklahoma 

BRUCE A. COHEN, Chief Counsel and Staff Director 

STEPHANIE A. MIDDLETON, Republican Staff Director 

NICHOLAS A. ROSSI, Republican Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Page

Cardin, Hon. Benjamin L., a U.S. Senator from the State of Maryland ............. 21

Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of Massachusetts ... 2

Leahy, Hon. Patrick J., a U.S. Senator from the State of Vermont .................... 1

prepared statement .......................................................................................... 121

Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania, prepared 

statement .............................................................................................................. 142

WITNESSES

Katz, Stanley N., Chairman, Papers of the Founding Fathers, Professor, 

Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey ....... 12

Ketcham, Ralph, Professor of History Emeritus, Maxwell School of Syracuse 

University, Syracuse, New York ......................................................................... 14

Marcum, Deanna B., Associate Librarian of Library Services, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. ...................................................................................... 8

McCullough, David G., Presidential Historian and Author, Camden, Maine .... 4

Rimel, Rebecca W., President and Chief Executive Officer, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania .......................................................... 10

Weinstein, Allen, Archivist of the United States, Washington, D.C. .................. 6

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Responses of Stanley N. Katz to questions submitted by Senator Specter ........ 28

Responses of Deanna B. Marcum to questions submitted by Senator Specter .. 37

Responses of Allen Weinstein to questions submitted by Senator Specter ........ 41

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Doyle-Wilch, Barbara, Dean of Library and Information Services, Middlebury 

College, President, Vermont Library Association, Middlebury, Vermont, letter .......................................................................................................................... 43

Graffagnino, J. Kevin, Executive Director, Vermont Historical Society, Montpelier, Vermont, letter ......................................................................................... 44

Jordan, Daniel P., President, Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc., Charlottesville, Virginia, letter and statement ................................................................... 46

Katz, Stanley N., Chairman, Papers of the Founding Fathers, Professor, 

Woodrow Wilson School of Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey, 

statement .............................................................................................................. 49

Ketcham, Ralph, Professor of History Emeritus, Maxwell School of Syracuse 

University, Syracuse, New York, statement ...................................................... 116

Marcum, Deanna B., Associate Librarian of Library Services, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., statement ................................................................... 123

McCullough, David G., Presidential Historian and Author, Camden, Maine, 

statement .............................................................................................................. 125

Moe, Richard, President, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Washington, D.C., letter ............................................................................................... 128

Morgan, Edmund S., Sterling Professor of History emeritus, Yale University, 

letter ...................................................................................................................... 130

Philadelphia Inquirer, Edward Colimore, article .................................................. 132

Rimel, Rebecca W., President and Chief Executive Officer, The Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, statement ....................................... 136

Page

IV

Roll Call, February 6, 2008, article ........................................................................ 140

Washington Post, December 15, 2007, article ....................................................... 144

Weinstein, Allen, Archivist of the United States, Washington, D.C., statement ...................................................................................................................... 147

Wilentz, Sean, Sidney and Ruth Lapidus Professor in the American Revolutionary Era and Professor of History, Princeton University, Princeton, New 

Jersey, letter ......................................................................................................... 154

Wood, Gordon S., Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History, 

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, letter ......................................... 157

(1)

THE FOUNDING FATHERS’ PAPERS: ENSURING PUBLIC ACCESS TO OUR NATIONAL 

TREASURES 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2008

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC 

The Committee met, Pursuant to notice, at 10:09 a.m., in room 

SD–226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Patrick J. Leahy, 

Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senators Kennedy, Cardin, and Whitehouse. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. PATRICK J. LEAHY, A U.S. 

SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF VERMONT 

Chairman LEAHY. You know, every so often you get to—around 

here we have committee meetings on horrible crimes, we have committee meetings on wars, we have committee meetings on contentious issues. 

David, we have a place for you right there in the front. 

Then every so often, we actually have something that’s fascinating. 

Senator KENNEDY. And important. 

Chairman LEAHY. And important. It is an important hearing, as 

Senator Kennedy says, on improving public access to the papers of 

our Nation’s Founding Fathers. 

Last this month we will celebrate the 276th birthday of our first 

President, George Washington. Very few of us were here in the 

Senate at that time. 

[Laughter.] 

There is much to be learned from our Founders and our shared 

national history. We will work with the Reporter to clear up that 

little bit of the transcript. 

[Laughter.] 

But my father was a printer in Vermont, a self-taught historian. 

I was steeped from childhood in a deep appreciation in the First 

Amendment and the power of the written word, and the value and 

the vitality of our Nation’s rich history to us, and to each future 

generation of Americans. So, today it is especially good that we 

have this distinguished panel of historians, scholars, and government officials. 

The works of our Founding Fathers are a part of the identity and 

heritage of every single American. We should do everything possible to make these papers available, accessible, and affordable to 

2

the American people, especially at a time when many of us are concerned that not enough Americans know enough about the history 

of our country, all of it, the good, the bad, everything else. 

More than a half century ago, we undertook the important task 

of making the correspondence and diaries and other writings of the 

six Founding Fathers—George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander 

Hamilton—available to the American people. But a lot of this remains largely incomplete and inaccessible to most Americans 

today. They commonly referred to ‘‘letter press’’ projects operated 

at major universities and other institutions around the country. 

Although the first volumes of the papers were published in the 

1950’s, only the papers of Alexander Hamilton have been completed. According to the National Historic Publication and Records 

Commission NHPRC, the papers of Thomas Jefferson will not be 

completed until 2025, the Washington papers in 2023, the papers 

of Franklin and Madison in 2030, and the Adams papers in 2050. 

That is 100 years after the projects began. 

We spent nearly $30 million in taxpayer dollars in Federal taxpayer projects, and it is estimated another $60 million in combined 

public and private money going in here. One volume of the Hamilton papers costs $180. The price for the complete 26-volume set 

of the papers is around $2,600. So I think only a few libraries had 

one volume of the papers, and only 6 percent had more than one 

volume. 

So I’m trying to find out how best to get this out to everybody. 

I’m a long-time advocate for Internet use. I think the Web can help 

a great deal, but we’ve got to have better online access. I know a 

lot of Americans have gained insights and developed important 

connections to our national heritage by simply viewing the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and Bill of Rights on 

display at the National Archives. I remember, as a teenager, going 

there with my parents and how thrilled I was. 

So with these distinguished historians I am almost afraid to say 

this next line, so I will say this was written by my staff, who give 

me too much credit. But if Jefferson, Adams, Hamilton, and Franklin could get into this discussion, I almost imagine them saying, 

what are we waiting for? When he was asked recently about the 

troubling lack of access to the Founding Fathers’ papers, the Presidential historian and author David McCullough, who is here, said 

that ‘‘These volumes of the Founders are more of a monument than 

anything built in stone. I don’t want people to wait for another 50 

years.’’ Mr. McCullough, I agree with your sense of urgency. 

So we will hear from this distinguished panel and see where we 

might go. 

[The prepared statement of Senator Leahy appears as a submission for the record.] 

Senator Kennedy, did you want to—

STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS 

Senator KENNEDY. Well, just very briefly. I want to thank you. 

I thank Senator Leahy for holding this hearing and join him saying 

3

that it’s a matter of enormous importance and consequence, and in 

welcoming a very distinguished panel this morning. 

I think all of us understand that the preservation and publication of the papers of our Founders is a matter of enormous importance to historians and the general public alike. These documents 

offer unique witness to our history and a unique window through 

which to examine how our country came to be what it is today. As 

many have remarked, these documents are ‘‘American scripture.’’

I want to say that it is a privilege to have Dave McCullough with 

us today, one of the Nation’s most respected historians, whose 

works have been some of our most widely read books. He has 

brought to light many of the extraordinary leaders and historic 

events in our national heritage, and I thank him for sharing his 

talents with all of us. 

It is a privilege to welcome Stanley Katz, a distinguished leader 

in the academic community. He has been a source of wise counsel 

to many of us over the years. He is chairman of the Papers of the 

Founding Fathers, and has a major role in guiding and fostering 

the scholarship on this subject. 

I also welcome Allen Weinstein, who is doing such an impressive 

job at the National Archives in overseeing the release of Presidential papers, the administration of the Presidential library, and 

many other important tasks. 

I particularly appreciate all he has done to keep a copy of the 

Magna Carta on display at the Archives. When it came up for sale 

not long ago, David Rubenstein purchased it and made a donation 

of the only copy of this historic document here in the United 

States, and all of us are grateful to Dr. Weinstein and Mr. 

Rubenstein for ensuring that to future generations will be able to 

view the historic document. 

The Founding Fathers Project, established half a century ago, 

continues to be an important national mission. When completed, it 

will be an extraordinary resource for research for all of us who 

cherish our national history. As Mr. McCullough has said, the final 

product will be ‘‘a monument that will last longer than any of the 

monuments that we now have.’’

These documents are national treasures. Recently, my wife Vicki 

and I participated in an event sponsored by the Adams Papers. 

Governor Deval Patrick, his wife Diane, and former Governor 

Dukakis joined us in Faneuil Hall, one of the monuments of our 

early democracy, to read the letters of John and Abigail Adams. 

The event absolutely packed Faneuil Hall, the interest of the citizens in this small little item of American history was just overwhelming. 

It was a special night, and I’m grateful that the Adams Papers 

sponsored such an occasion to share the words, the affection, and 

the vision of this remarkable couple who made such a contribution 

to the creation of America. It’s an example of the type of outreach 

that the Founding Fathers Project can make possible in the years 

ahead. 

So, I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses to 

learn more about the project. By all accounts, the scholarship produced by the project has been extraordinary. Nonetheless, there are 

concerns about the pace of the publications and about making sure 

4

they reach the widest possible audience. We in Congress need to 

do all we can to help. We know future generations of Americans 

will be immensely grateful for our effort. So, thank you all for coming. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you, Senator Kennedy. 

I’m always nervous when I start one of these things, having Senator Kennedy, who was chairman of this committee long before I 

was and is far more experienced here. But I’m not going to do my 

usual thing. We usually swear witnesses in. This is not necessary, 

and by consent we’ll waive that for this panel, of course. 

Our first witness will be Dave McCullough, a well-respected 

Presidential historian and author, recipient of numerous awards, 

including twice winning the Pulitzer Price, twice winning the National Book Award, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

In 1989, Mr. McCullough, I remember very well when you were 

one of the few private citizens to address a joint meeting of Congress. You graduated from Yale University with honors in English 

literature. On a personal note, he was one of the people we all relied on, those of us who were here at the time of the Panama Canal 

debate. 

I was saying to several out back that in that debate, before we 

had TV in the Senate, virtually every desk had a copy of your book, 

those who were opposed to the treaty and those who were for it, 

because it was the one thing we could go to that everybody agreed 

on the facts that were there. We would then interpret those facts 

as we wanted, of course. 

So, Mr. McCullough, it’s all yours. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID G. MCCULLOUGH, PRESIDENTIAL 

HISTORIAN AND AUTHOR, CAMDEN, MAINE 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you very 

much for the chance, the privilege, to speak before this committee 

in support of the Founding Fathers Project. What has been 

achieved thus far with a publication of the papers of the Founders 

is all of an exceedingly high order. I want to attest to that emphatically as one of the many—the countless numbers—of historians, biographers, scholars, and students who have drawn again and again 

on the great wealth of material to be found in these incomparable 

volumes. 

Their value is unassailable, immeasurable. They are superbly 

edited. They are thorough. They are accurate. The footnotes alone 

are pure gold; many are masterpieces of close scholarship. 

Over the past 20 years and more, I have worked with, depended 

in particular, on the volumes of Washington, Adams and Jefferson 

papers. I could not have written my last two books, John Adams 

and 1776 without them. I know how essential the papers are to our 

understanding of those great Americans and of their time. 

Just this past week for my current project, I wanted to find out 

what all was contained in the 80-some crates that Thomas Jefferson shipped back home to Virginia in the course of his 5 years of 

diplomatic service in France, all the books, art, and artifacts, the 

scientific instruments and the like. The range and variety of inventory would, of course, reflect much about the mind of the man. 

5

So I turned to the Jefferson papers hoping there might be something, and sure enough, there it was, volume 18, the whole sum 

total in a footnote that runs nearly six pages in small type. I know 

what work had to have gone into that footnote, the care and the 

attention to detail. There have been times when I spent a whole 

day on one paragraph just trying to get it right, to be clear and accurate, so I know. 

The men and women who have devoted themselves to the publication of the papers are not skilled editors only, they are dedicated 

scholars. Their standards are the very highest. Their knowledge of 

their subject often surpasses that of anyone. I have worked with 

them. I know them. I count them as friends. Several in particular 

have guided and helped me in ways for which I am everlastingly 

grateful. 

They are the best in the business and the high quality of the 

work they do need not, must not, be jeopardized or vitiated in order 

to speed up the rate of production. There really should be no argument about that. As you know, publication of the papers began 

with volume one of the Jefferson papers in 1950 when Harry Truman was President. 

With this in mind, and given the opportunities we have, I would 

like to offer an analogy from that distant time of the cold war. The 

Russians had sealed off Berlin and the urgent question was what 

to do about it. A massive airlift was proposed, but it was calculated 

that given the number of planes available and the volume of cargo 

each plane could carry and the number of landings that could be 

made per day given the number of airfields available, supplying the 

daily needs of food and fuel for a city of 2.5 million people would 

be impossible, so somebody suggested building another airfield. 

We need to build another airfield. We need to double the investment in the project. Double each staff, and thereby pick up the 

pace with no change in quality. We know it will work and we know 

it will work effectively because it is already working with the postPresidential papers of Jefferson’s being edited at Montecello, and 

the Adams papers being edited at the Massachusetts Historical Society in Boston. 

And what worthy work it is. Imagine, of all Jefferson’s post-Presidential papers, thus far less than a third have ever appeared in 

print. Think of the discoveries, the insights still to come. The value 

of the Founding Fathers’ papers goes far beyond their scholarly importance, immense as that is. 

As Daniel Jordan of Montecello has said, ‘‘The papers are American scripture. They are our political faith. The free and open exchange of ideas, often brilliant expressions of some of the most fertile minds, the greatest statesmen and patriots in our entire history. No one body of private and public correspondence, official papers, and pronouncements tell us more about that founding time or 

more about who we are and what we hold dear. The papers of the 

Founding Fathers are an ultimate national treasure and their importance to the American people, especially in such times as these, 

could not be greater.’’

Mr. Chairman, you can tell a lot about a society by how it spends 

its money. Here is our chance, and it is long overdue, to show what 

6

we care about, what we value, and what we are willing and proud 

to pay for. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. McCullough appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. You may hear that last line quoted 

again when I am wearing my other hat as a member of the Appropriations Committee. I happen to agree very much with you. 

Dr. Allen Weinstein is confirmed as the ninth Archivist. For 

those with a little bit of history, the Archivist actually has to be 

confirmed like a Supreme Court Justice. Some would say sometimes the Archivist is every bit as important, if not more so. He 

was confirmed as the ninth Archivist of the United States in February of 2005. 

Prior to his time at the National Archives and Records Administration, he was a professor of history and held positions in Boston 

University, my alma mater, Georgetown University, and Smith 

College. He is the author of numerous essays and books. He is past 

winner of the prestigious United Nations Peace Medal for efforts to 

promote peace, dialogue, and free elections in critical parts of the 

world. 

Doctor, please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF ALLEN WEINSTEIN, ARCHIVIST OF THE 

UNITED STATES, WASHINGTON, D.C. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Senator Kennedy, members of the committee, I want to thank you for 

having invited me to testify on this important issue, one which has 

been of keen interest to me throughout my almost half century as 

an historian, and most intensely during the past 3 years as Archivist of the United States. 

I must interject also, it is an enormous privilege for me to sit in 

this panel with so many of my colleagues, people I have worked 

with in other ways, and especially with the extraordinary David 

McCullough. Thank you for all your work, David. 

Let me begin with a few facts. Unlike the practice of preserving 

and making available to the public the papers of each President of 

the United States beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, there was no 

policy in place in the 18th century to archive the papers of the 

Founders of the Nation. If collected at all, documents were either 

scattered in diverse repositories, public and private, or held within 

Federal institutions, often very informally. 

Responding to many of the same concerns that led to the creation 

of the National Archives in the 1930s, historians and scholars had 

long urged the creation of a Federal entity to collect historical materials related to the three branches of national government and to 

publish specifically the important papers of our Presidents in order 

to make them more widely available to all citizens. 

In 1934, a Federal entity, the National Historical Publications 

Commission, NHPC, was created within the National Archives to 

address this mission. Although not initially funded as a grant-making agency, the Commission called for publication of comprehensive 

documentary editions of the papers of the key Founders, Thomas 

Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander 

7

Hamilton, John Adams, and James Madison, as well as a documentary history of the ratification of the Constitution. 

Encouraged by historians, work began on a comprehensive edition of the papers of Thomas Jefferson. Its first volume was completed in 1950 and presented to President Truman, who, impressed 

by the project’s scope, became a strong supporter of the NHPC’s 

work on the Founders. Subsequently, in 1964, the Commission 

began awarding grants for these projects. 

The documentary editions collect, transcribe, and annotate the 

materials written and received by these key American statesmen. 

In the early years, much time and effort was spent locating and assembling thousands of documents and deciphering 18th century 

handwriting. The National Historical Publications & Records Commission, NHPRC, a name change in 1974, has funded this process 

for the past 44 years. It has provided over $18 million in awards 

to six Founding Fathers documentary editing projects, resulting in 

the publication of 216 volumes to date. The volumes have been 

praised for their careful work, scholarship, and detailed annotation. 

At the same time, however, many Americans have been frustrated by the slow pace of production and would like to have earlier 

access to these papers in their entirety. For example, the Adams 

Papers project, begun in 1954, does not anticipate completion until 

2049. This important work must be completed at an accelerated 

pace and we must find ways to partner with others outside the 

Federal Government in new and creative ways to reach this goal 

and to achieve the most cost-effective solutions. 

With the advent of the Internet, online versions of the documentary editions are both possible and desirable, Mr. Chairman. Without sacrificing work on the scholarly editions, the National Archives’ NHPRC hopes to develop a plan to produce online editions 

of all major published and unpublished collections of the Founders’ 

papers at the earliest possible moment. 

Achievement of this goal will require cooperation among all of 

the scholars and university presses involved, as well as steady support from the Congress on a time table geared to early completion 

of the online editions. 

Some projects have already begun to work toward this goal. For 

example, the project to publish the papers of Benjamin Franklin 

has made available online the complete collection of its printed volumes, as well as unpublished transcripts of Franklin’s papers. The 

online materials are freely available to the public. 

To achieve the timely online editions of the papers of the Founders, NHPRC would need to negotiate an agreement with the project 

sponsors to release and post online unannotated transcripts of the 

raw materials for future printed volumes. The presses and projects 

have a longstanding financial interest in these collections, as well 

as a commitment to ensure thorough scholarship. At the same 

time, scholarly presses have at the core of their mission open access to knowledge. 

Critical and crucial to open access is that a clear and effective 

plan be created for speeding projects along. Our goal should be to 

achieve a balanced approach which ensures that the public has the 

earliest possible access to online editions of the collected papers of 

8

the Founders, and at the same time that scholars commit to complete their work in a timely fashion. 

I will be responding within the next month or so, Mr. Chairman, 

to the language in the recently passed appropriations bill directing 

me, ‘‘as chairman of the NHPRC to develop and submit a comprehensive plan for online electronic publication of the papers of 

the Founding Fathers within a reasonable timeframe.’’

Only the closest cooperation among the main actors in this process, the National Archives’ NHPRC, the documentary editors, and 

our congressional supporters, only that kind of cooperation will 

produce the desired outcome: timely and cost-effective online editions of the Founders’ writings and the finest scholarly editions 

possible in our lifetime. 

This hearing, Mr. Chairman, is an important step toward fulfilling these goals and we thank you for holding it. 

This concludes my brief prepared statement. I’m happy to try 

and answer any questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Weinstein appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much. 

When we talk about the need for cooperation—we’ll go back to 

this after—I don’t think any of us underestimate the importance of 

that. I’m well aware in some of these papers you’re dealing with 

second, third, or fourth copies. If you’re going to put these papers 

out there, you have the most accurate version possible. 

Dr. Deanna Marcum became the Associate Librarian for Library 

Services in August of 2003. Am I correct on that? 

Ms. MARCUM. Yes. 

Chairman LEAHY. She is responsible for integrating the emerging 

digital resources into the traditional library efforts, to build a digital library for the 21st century. From 1995 to 2003, Dr. Marcum 

served as the president of the Council on Library Resources, and 

obviously one who is concerned with what is happening here. 

Dr. Marcum, please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF DEANNA B. MARCUM, ASSOCIATE LIBRARIAN 

OF LIBRARY SERVICES, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, WASHINGTON, DC 

Ms. MARCUM. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, as the 

Associate Librarian of the Library of Congress, I serve as the Library’s representative on the National Historical Publications & 

Records Commission at the National Archives. 

I am very pleased to see that the Judiciary Committee has taken 

an interest in making the papers of the Founding Fathers more accessible to the American people. 

Libraries across the country, and the Library of Congress in particular, are devoted to making information resources available and 

useful to their fellow citizens. Federal tax dollars have been used 

for more than 50 years to fund the scholarly editions of the Founding Fathers’ papers. It seems appropriate that the results of the 

scholars’ work be made more accessible to the American people as 

soon as possible. The system now in place is slow, laborious, and 

expensive, and unfortunately the results have not been widely accessible. 

9

The Library of Congress has been a pioneer in providing digital 

access to historical resources. In the early 1990s, even before the 

Internet was in widespread use, the Library of Congress established the American Memory Project, making our unique primary 

documents illuminating American history much more widely available to people everywhere. 

We converted historical documents to digital form and produced 

CD-ROMs for distribution in schools. The Internet has allowed us 

to make these materials much more widely available, not just to 

America, but to the world. Our acclaimed Web site, originally intended to provide resources for the K–12 community, has proved to 

be enormously useful to the educational and academic communities 

and to the general public. 

In 2007, the Library’s Web site of more than 10 million digital 

items recorded over 5 billion individual transactions, a clear indication of our effectiveness and commitment to access. 

Chairman LEAHY. Let me make sure I have that right. Five billion? 

Ms. MARCUM. Billion. 

The Library of Congress serves as the custodial home of the 

Presidential papers, from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, 

with the notable exception of the Adams papers. Prior to the creation of the National Archives in 1934, the library was the historical repository for such materials. To make the documents of the 

Founding Fathers more widely available, the Library of Congress 

has digitized and made accessible on our Web site all of the Presidential papers of Washington, Jefferson, and Madison as part of 

our American Memory Project. 

In 2004, the Library of Congress and the National Endowment 

for the Humanities began a collaborative project to digitize and 

make accessible millions of historical newspaper pages. The NEH 

is making grants to States to support the selection and digitization 

of their newspapers of highest interest to the public. The Library 

of Congress has established the technical specifications for 

digitizing the papers and has developed a user interface that is 

both reliable and easy to use. 

The Library has provided staff expertise and content to the 

project, as well as the storage and delivery mechanisms that ensure access. NEH has covered partial administrative costs to support the library’s development of the system. 

With adequate funding, digital versions of the Founding Fathers’ 

papers might be treated in a similar way. Working with our colleague institutions, the Library of Congress could combine digital 

versions of the papers in a single Web site that would provide a 

convenient, easy-to-use, impartial, and free venue. Our track record 

in this area is unparalleled. 

The Library of Congress’s interest is in making America’s history 

available to Americans. Our mission is to make resources available 

and useful to the Congress and the American people. The raw materials of our history should be instantly and freely accessible for 

all. The Library of Congress would be honored to play a role, assuming a combination of appropriated and private funding in providing that access. 

10

Thank you for inviting me to testify. I shall be happy to answer 

questions. Thank you. 

Chairman LEAHY. Well, thank you very much, Doctor. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Marcum appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Our next witness would be Rebecca Rimel. She 

is president and chief executive officer of the Pew Charitable 

Trusts. She led Pew in promoting nonpartisan policy solutions for 

pressing and emerging problems affecting the American public, and 

there is hardly a Senator on either side of the aisle that has not 

referred to Pew at one time or another in debates. 

Prior to joining Pew, Ms. Rimel served as the Assistant Professor 

of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Virginia, 

making her the first nurse to hold a faculty position at the University of Virginia Hospital. Having been married to a registered 

nurse for 45 years, I’m always glad to see something like that. 

Ms. RIMEL. You’re fortunate. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman LEAHY. I am. 

Ms. Rimel received her bachelor’s degree from the University of 

Virginia in nursing, and a master’s degree from James Madison 

University. 

Please go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF REBECCA W. RIMEL, PRESIDENT AND CHIEF 

EXECUTIVE OFFICER, THE PEW CHARITABLE TRUSTS, 

PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA 

Ms. RIMEL. Thank you, sir. I am honored and appreciative for 

this opportunity. 

Thomas Jefferson reminded us, ‘‘It is the duty of every good citizen to use all of the opportunities that occur to him for preserving 

documents relating to the history of this country.’’ That’s why I’m 

so honored to join this distinguished panel today, why I’m appreciative of the Committee’s interest in this critical work, and why 

I’m so grateful to the number of private donors, including my own 

board, that have invested over $7.5 million beginning in the early 

1970s, to complete the scholarly work required to share our Founders’ documents with the world. 

Others can talk more knowingly about the importance of the 

Founders’ words, but I would offer just two additional points that 

show their relevance and impact. The Congressional Record indicates that the words ‘‘Founding Fathers’’ have been used more than 

2,400 times on the floor of the House and the Senate during the 

last six Congresses. This is 240 years after the last of these great 

Americans passed away. 

Since 1984, more than 30 heads of state, including many from 

emerging democracies, have visited Montecello, Thomas Jefferson’s 

home, to learn more about this leading architect of democracy. During their visits, they shared the importance of the Founders’ ideas 

and ideals in their fight for freedom. 

Eight years ago, my board approved an additional $10 million 

challenge grant. When coupled with other private and public support, it would have greatly expedited the completion of the letter 

11

press editions of these papers and made them electronically accessible to all. 

The impetus for this was the slow progress after 50 years of significant public and private support. It also was because of the high 

costs, which you referred to in your opening remarks, to libraries 

and the cost per volume. 

The lack of a clear understanding of the use of the public and 

private dollars is because, to my knowledge, there has never been 

a full accounting of the Founding Fathers Project. There has been 

a lack of performance metrics. 

On a more positive note, my board and I share a strong commitment to share with every American what is rightfully theirs: the 

words of the Founding Fathers. We and our other private sector 

donor partners required centralized coordination, cooperation, oversight, and greater accountability, and transparency and productivity as the terms of our grant. I am disappointed to report that 

our goal was not realized. 

The failure to fully share our Founders’ papers, I believe, is truly 

a national embarrassment. If you come to share these sentiments, 

I respectfully recommend three objectives for a congressional oversight plan. First, Congress should draft a plan for completion of 

these papers and conduct regular oversight until it is finished. The 

Senate Appropriations Committee has directed the Archivist to 

submit a plan by the end of March to make these materials available online, and I trust that these recommendations will be carefully considered. 

Second, we should expeditiously complete the letter press editions. The original goal of Congress more than 50 years ago is still 

valid today. The scholarly work is important. Sufficient funding, 

coupled with more accountability and efficiency, will be necessary 

to complete these projects in a timely manner. 

Finally, the published volumes should be digitized, along with 

the original unannotated documents, and they should be placed on 

a single, easily accessible Web site such as that of the Library of 

Congress. Access should be free, available to anyone, anywhere 

who can access the Internet. 

Mr. Adams instructed us to never think of limitations on what 

we might do. Let’s not limit our aspirations in achieving such a 

noble goal, and let’s please ensure that it does not take us over 100 

years to make the words of our Founders accessible to all. 

I thank you for the courtesy of your time. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much. I wanted you here because I knew the amount of effort and money the foundation has 

put into this project, and I thank you for that. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Rimel appears as a submission 

for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Dr. Stanley Katz is currently Professor at the 

Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and serves as the 

Commissioner of the National Historical Publications & Records 

Commission. He is a member of the American Philosophical Society. He is author and editor of numerous books and articles. He 

served as president to the Organization of American Historians and 

the American Society for Legal History. He received his bachelor’s 

12

degree, master’s degree, and Ph.D. in English history and literature from Harvard University. 

Dr. Katz, please go ahead, sir. 

STATEMENT OF STANLEY N. KATZ, CHAIRMAN, PAPERS OF 

THE FOUNDING FATHERS, PROFESSOR, WOODROW WILSON 

SCHOOL OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, PRINCETON, NEW 

JERSEY 

Mr. KATZ. Thank you very much, Senator Leahy and the rest of 

the Committee. 

I want to make just a couple of very brief points in this opening 

statement. There’s an awful lot for us to talk to. I’m here as the 

chair of a tiny 501(c)(3) called Papers of the Founding Fathers, 

Inc., which was created in 1981 to assist the then-five projects in 

raising private funds to support the work that they were doing, 

mainly to relieve the editors of those projects of the burden of trying to raise funds while they were editing the papers. 

I want to make the point that that is all we do. We have no management responsibilities, we have no authority over the projects 

themselves. We do, however, try to keep in touch with all of them, 

and each one of the projects has a trustee on the board of FFP, Inc. 

The question that has been bruited in the press and by Rebecca 

Rimel and others is a very important one, and that is the rate of 

productivity of these projects. They have taken a very long time. 

They continue to take a very long time. We have addressed the 

schedule in the testimony we submitted and we can come back to 

that later. 

The basic point to be made here, I think, the one that David 

McCullough made very nicely, is that these are rather extraordinary works of scholarship. This is a craft skill, this is not an industrial skill. It can’t be scaled up in the way that industrial skills 

can. We can’t, to use David’s expression, build a second airport. 

That’s not going to work for these projects. 

We have been proceeding with all deliberate speed, and we will 

do our best to make it speedier, but still deliberate. I do want to 

point out that there have been increases, really important increases, in the rates of productivity over the last five to 7 years. 

I think we have now reached what I think is a sustainable rate of 

about a volume a year from the several projects, and I believe that 

ought to be our objective. 

Third, I want to point out that while the Federal Government 

has obviously been hugely important to us, and we can discuss this 

in detail later, the projects were originally started on private funding. Pew was among the first, and certainly the most generous, of 

the private funders. But in more recent years we’ve been supported 

first by NHPRC, and then since 1994, by NEH as well. So there 

is roughly an equal split, slightly more on the private side, between 

public and private funders. This is a partnership we would very 

much like to retain and to expand. 

Finally, we agree that digital access and online versions are absolutely essential. This is an objective that we have been working 

for for a very long time now. We contracted with the Packard Humanities Institute in 1988 to begin the digitization of the unpublished papers, and we continue to do that. The edition that David 

13

referred to of the Franklin papers that is now available freely online was done—not only funded, but done—by the Packard Humanities Institute. They continue to support us for this work and we 

want to continue it. 

Second, all of the published volumes, letter press editions, are 

being digitized by the University of Virginia press. Their electronic 

imprint is called Rotunda. Those will all be available very shortly. 

Third, we were approached by NEH in 2006. We have included 

the proposal we made to NEH to prepare an online version of the 

unpublished, unedited papers in our testimony. We think that is 

absolutely essential and we’d very much like to undertake it. But 

I want to point out that this is not like digitizing newspapers. You 

cannot run them through a machine to do them. We have to keyboard them. We have to have expert historians verify the text. It 

will take a bit of time, although not as long as the published editions. That is my suggestion for where we ought to be headed for 

fuller, freer public access. Thank you. 

Chairman LEAHY. Am I correct, Dr. Katz, that on the digitizing, 

I understand the comparison of newspapers, but also the ability to 

do that is improving all the time, is it not? 

Mr. KATZ. Well, we don’t scan. So in other words, it is improving, 

indeed. The rate of error is much less than it used to be. But all 

of our material, or almost all of our material, is holograph material, 

it’s handwritten material. It simply needs an expert eye to go over 

it. The machine can’t read it satisfactorily. So, we don’t believe it 

is possible to do that, and I don’t think any comparable project uses 

that kind of technology. 

I have, by the way, brought along the most recent volume, or volumes, from each project. If somebody wants to carry them up there, 

I think they are very important for anybody thinking about this to 

look at them. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Katz appears as a submission for 

the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. When we break, I want to come down and take 

a look at a couple of those. Thank you. 

Mr. KATZ. All right. 

Chairman LEAHY. And Dr. Ketcham is a Professor Emeritus of 

History at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, getting closer to my part of the country. Incidentally, I do not know when you 

came down, Dr. Ketcham, but you had a lot of snow there yesterday. 

Mr. KETCHAM. Not like Virginia. 

Chairman LEAHY. Dr. Ketcham currently serves on the Board of 

Directors of the Montpelier Foundation, which is down here in Virginia. He is working to preserve the lasting legacy of James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution and the architect of the Bill 

of Rights, and President of the United States. 

He worked as the editor of the papers of Benjamin Franklin at 

Yale in 1965, and is the associate editor of the papers of James 

Madison at the University of Chicago in 2006. He received his 

bachelor’s at Allegheny College, and master’s degree at Colgate 

University, a Ph.D. in American Studies from Syracuse. 

Dr. Ketcham, you have had a lifetime of editing these kinds of 

things. Please go ahead, sir. 

14

STATEMENT OF RALPH KETCHAM, PROFESSOR OF HISTORY 

EMERITUS, MAXWELL SCHOOL OF SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, 

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK 

Mr. KETCHAM. Thank you, Senator. I’m pleased to acknowledge 

your work on these projects, as well as Senator Kennedy’s, and the 

other members of this committee. 

The Founding Fathers Project has become the most lasting and 

significant effort to preserve the national heritage of the ideas and 

institutions upon which our political system rests. 

From the beginning with Franklin Roosevelt opening the Jefferson Memorial and Dr. Boyd finding at that time the energy to start 

the project on Jefferson, and going on ever since, the main thing 

about these projects is they have developed methods and benchmarks of fairness and accuracy for documentary publication that 

were so path-breaking, that all previous such publications were 

rendered inadequate and incomplete, and all subsequent publications have had to try to keep up with these standards. As the volumes have come out—over 200 by now—the projects themselves 

have become legendary and serve a scholarly and a public purpose. 

A review in the William & Mary Quarterly, recently referred to 

these publications as ‘‘immense and invaluable enterprises that 

have already transformed the means and soundness of writing the 

history of the American founding.’’ It’s this system which all agree, 

I think, must be sustained if the remarkable and unique mission 

of the projects is to be fulfilled, as every President since Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower had emphasized. 

The question of the long time the projects have taken is problematic. What I’d like to address about this question is the nature of 

the papers themselves, which raise important questions about how 

the whole business can be handled. 

Actually, there are so many papers in the files, partly because 

the Founders lived such a long time. It’s not surprising that Alexander Hamilton’s papers are the only ones that have been completed. The chief editor of the Hamilton papers, Cy Surrett, emphasized long ago that he thought he might dedicate his volumes to 

Aaron Burr, who made completion of this task possible. 

[Laughter.] 

But the rest of them all lived a long time and all kept scribbling. 

But the projects themselves own no original documents. All their 

documents are in existence somewhere else. All the documents, as 

Stanley has emphasized, were handwritten documents, archived or 

held elsewhere. Or there are various kinds of other later copies, 

transcripts from unauthenticated sources, auction catalogues, and 

so on. 

All of these miscellaneous beginnings have to be typed up and 

word processed, and really can only be fully understood by carefully 

trained historians. These transcripts need to be proofread, and are 

proofread over and over again. The notes from various sources that 

are put into the editorial apparatus from time to time need to be 

carefully looked over. 

So when one asks, what do the files consist of, they consist of 

very uneven materials. There are transcripts made sometimes by 

not very skilled typists or word processors, notes added to the files 

from time to time, alternate copies of different documents. It’s very 

15

undigested and the files fill shelves and shelves. So the question 

is, if we’re going to reproduce this, electronically, what do we reproduce and with what sense of authenticity can it be brought forth? 

So I would suggest that the main thing we need to avoid is the 

interruption of the work of the ongoing editorial projects because 

the essential need of all concerned is to have these volumes before 

the public—not just the documents, but the way they’re presented 

and the notes on them and so on are themselves a kind of historical 

record that David McCullough has mentioned. 

I think the way to speed up the whole process of getting these 

documents before the public is mainly, as David McCullough has 

also suggested, to increase the staff and funding of the projects. 

Also go ahead, as Stanley has suggested, on breaking the projects 

up so that different parts of them can be edited simultaneously, as 

the Jefferson project has recently done, as the Madison project has 

already been doing. I think this is most important for the ongoing 

work of the projects. So, I would urge the committee to mainly emphasize the continuation of that work, and then go ahead as much 

as possible with the digitalized electronic versions, too. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ketcham appears as a submission for the record.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you very much, Dr. Ketcham. 

Let me ask a couple of questions, and certainly colleagues can 

feel free to jump in here anywhere. Mr. McCullough, you and I discussed some of these things and where the records are. We’ve 

talked about these matters off and on for over 30 years. This is 200 

years after these papers are written, 50 years after the effort to 

publish them began. I realize nobody can speak and say exactly 

what the Founders might have thought, but from all of your studies, what do you think the Founders would have thought about the 

lack of access of these papers, or would they have wanted these papers to be generally accessible to people? 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. Well, one thing they all had in common, it 

seems to me, is a bedrock faith in education. Jefferson famously 

said, ‘‘Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free expects what 

never was and never can be.’’ John Adams was the author of the 

Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the oldest 

written constitution still in existence, still in use in the world 

today, in which there is a paragraph about the importance of education. 

Education depends on teachers. I feel very strongly that we are 

falling very far behind standards as to how we’re educating our 

young people in American history. We are raising youngsters today, 

and I see them on the best college and university campuses in the 

country who are, by and large, historically illiterate and it’s not 

their faults, it’s our fault. 

If the teachers, just the teachers, were to have access to this material, ready access to the material in either some form of printed 

reproduction, by Internet, or however it will be, online, that would 

be a giant step forward. 

There is no reason in the world, except money, cost—let’s say investment, because that is what it would be—that this can’t be 

16

done, if only for the purposes of educating our children and grandchildren. 

Chairman LEAHY. I was thinking the other day of when the 

President’s—and I don’t mean this as a partisan thing at all. But 

the President’s spokesperson was asked by somebody about the 

Cuban missile crisis. She said, I’m not sure what that is, but I assumed it involved missiles in Cuba. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. Well, Senator, that’s not an isolated situation. 

Chairman LEAHY. No. I was a law student at Georgetown at the 

time. I remember, we all sat here wondering whether the world 

was going to end. When you did your Pulitzer Price work on President John Adams, you were actually able to review the Adams papers which are in Senator Kennedy’s home State at the Massachusetts Historical Society. What was your experience like in seeking 

access to those papers? 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. Well, there was no problem about access. 

What was astonishing to me was the volume of material that was 

not in print in any form, the letters between John and Abigail 

Adams, for example, which number in excess of 1,000, just those 

two writing to each other, neither of whom was capable of writing 

a boring letter or a short one. 

[Laughter.] 

It was exciting to be holding those letters in one’s own hands. It’s 

a kind of tactile connection with that vanished time that can’t be 

duplicated. But at the same time, I wondered, why are two thirds—

at that point—of those letters never been in print in any form? 

Chairman LEAHY. Dr. Weinstein, were you trying to interject? I 

am thinking, when I read articles about those letters I almost feel 

like I’m sitting in the room with two remarkable people contemporaneously, talking about the greatest events of our history. 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. I just want to make one quick point, further 

point. All these people lived in the 18th century or the early 19th 

century. There was no photography, no motion pictures, no voice 

recordings. One would think it would be very difficult to reach 

them, to find them as human beings, and it would be except for 

what they wrote. 

That’s where we have them, on paper, in their own words, written by their own hands, in their own time. Very often those letters 

reveal not just the history of our country, but what kind of human 

beings they were and their character, and what they didn’t know, 

what they were fearful of, what they were angry about. It’s in that 

realm of the papers, I think, that one finds what is purely magic 

and they come to life. The only way we are going to reinstate a 

knowledge of history among our children and grandchildren is if 

that story comes to life. 

Chairman LEAHY. My time has expired, but Dr. Weinstein had 

something he wanted to add to that. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First, if 

I may, I’d like to welcome my old friend from the Archives, Senator 

Cardin, here. Everything that Mr. McCullough has said is absolutely correct about the appalling lack of knowledge of history. But 

there is another countervailing force that has to be taken into account. There is a huge hunger for an understanding of history out 

17

there in the American public. I think we see this in so many different ways. 

At the Archives, we have had a remarkable spike in our attendance. We had over a million visitors to the Archives building alone, 

to our new exhibits there. Where they used to come for 5 minutes 

to view the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, 

they now stay for an hour or more as families, as youngsters, as 

classes. We have an educational program going. The Library of 

Congress has had some of the same experiences, as does every 

other cultural institution in Washington. At a time when art museums were supposed to be fading and passing from the scene, we did 

a show once with six museum directors. There is so much new museum work going on. 

So, I’m not quite as pessimistic, David, I think, about this as you 

if we approach this effectively. I think the completion, the timely 

completion of an online edition to these papers of the Founders is 

a very important step in this direction now. I’m about a year or two 

into the frustrations of running the National Archives—and it’s 

been mostly excitement, not frustrations—I decided that I would 

like to request from the Congress that they consider changing the 

inscription on the front of the building that says ‘‘The past is prologue’’ to one that reads ‘‘Show me the money’’. 

[Laughter.] 

Chairman LEAHY. Some of us serve on both this committee and 

the Appropriations Committee. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. A final point, if I may, very briefly. With all due 

respect to my colleagues, we have 10 billion documents thus far. 

I’ve counted them all, and they’re all there. But they’re all scattered around. 

Chairman LEAHY. You don’t count them every day. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Yes, indeed. But they’re among the 40 or so facilities of the National Archives. I don’t think there’s an argument 

at this table. I see consensus at this table. Different people are 

functioning on different aspects of this. All right. Perhaps one can’t 

build another terminal or another airport, but one can build another terminal onto the existing airport. There are various metaphors that can be applied here. But it seems to me that it was Bill 

Buckley who once said he’d rather be governed by the first 100 

names in the Boston telephone directory than by the faculty of 

Harvard College. 

Well, I’m not going to take a position on that issue because we 

just hosted at the Archives the new president of Harvard, and she’s 

wonderful. But I will say, I would venture if I took the six people 

at this table and the three Senators here and we sat in a room for 

a day or two, we could resolve all of this and then proceed on our 

way and get the job done and get it done in a timely way. Thank 

you. 

Chairman LEAHY. Let us hope we do. 

Senator Kennedy? 

Senator KENNEDY. Well, thank you. Thank you all very much. 

Thank you for your recommendations. Hopefully the panelists will 

give us, in addition to your testimony, your best judgment about 

how we might proceed. Let me ask, Dr. Weinstein. Do we have all 

18

of the documents now? Do we know where they are? Are there still 

some that are missing? What can you tell us? 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. The usual caution of an historian: there’s always 

something missing. There’s always something turning up. Just 

when you think—for example, one example. At the Archives, one 

of our young archivists was flipping through an old book of Civil 

War records, very well-known. All of a sudden, what turns up on 

the text between two pages of the book but a letter by Abraham 

Lincoln, which had been known before but no one had ever seen 

the actual letter, in which he urges swift action after Gettysburg 

to move on Lee’s army and cut it down and end the war there. A 

very important letter for the history of the period. No one knew 

where it was, and suddenly it’s there. There will always be something coming up, but I think we have enough to work on. I don’t 

know whether my colleagues—

Senator KENNEDY. Dr. Katz? 

Mr. KATZ. One of the problems that we have, is that none of the 

projects, with the exception of the Adams papers, (owned by the 

Massachusetts Historical Society) owns any of the original documents, so from the start it’s been a project of traveling around and 

collecting them. Many of them are in the National Archives, but 

many are not. The Jefferson papers come from 100 different depositories around the world, for instance. We know that for some of the 

projects there are systematic portions of the National Archives and 

other places that still need to be combed for letters, so there is still 

some collecting to be done. 

Senator KENNEDY. David? 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. The papers that are the Massachusetts Historical Society, largely Adams papers, as large as that collection is, 

does not constitute everything because many letters are still held 

in private hands, private collections, and they come on the market 

every now and then. There’s always the question, is this one that 

should be bought or does a copy of it suffice? So I think it’s safe 

to say that the others are more knowledgeable about this than I 

am, but there is a copy of every known paper in the Massachusetts 

Historical Society collection. But it’s astonishing how many papers 

do come to light year after year. Sometimes they’re very important 

papers. 

Senator KENNEDY. Well, I imagine, and I think from your books, 

David, there’s a good deal that are missing, as from ships that 

were sunk. 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. Oh, absolutely. 

Senator KENNEDY. Other letters that are missing. 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. Yes. 

Senator KENNEDY. As well as important documents that are 

abroad. I think one of the stories you mentioned is Adams going 

to Liden, where he stayed for a period of time. Evidently, during 

the Revolutionary War there were French officers who drew pictures that described the battle at Yorktown that went to the 

French archives. Then at the time of the American Revolution, they 

moved those out and they had them up in Holland. There are archives up there that are directly related to some of the things that 

were going on. 

19

I don’t know whether we ought to take a look at some of these 

documents that are in other parts of the world. But I am interested 

in that. I saw these drawings and pictures that were absolutely extraordinary when I was over there. 

But second, in the project, do you look at the letters of family 

members? Obviously the Adams’s, yes. But, I mean, other members 

of their family, their close friends, their close advisors. Are all of 

those considered when you’re looking at these Founding Fathers? 

How extensively? How far out do you go? Do you just say, well, 

look, for Adams, these individuals were the closest advisors to him, 

or for Washington when he was up at Longfellow House during the 

course of the American Revolution, these people were the closest to 

him and therefore we’ve got to get their papers too. What can you 

tell me about the outreach? 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Very important. I think that David, Stanley, and 

Professor Ketcham might, as practitioners working on these, have 

papers, collections themselves, more up-to-date information. I 

would say that when you get away from the collections of the 

Founders and you deal with all of the other collections that are 

being addressed by NHPRC with small grants, but very important 

grants, you find much keener interest—particularly as you approach the present, the 19th, 20th century, a much keener interest 

in collateral collections. 

For example, they’ve just published the first volume of the Eleanor Roosevelt papers, and they’re absolutely fascinating. They have 

a great many of her friends and closest associates that are covered 

in them. But on the papers of the Founders, I think I’d rather defer 

to my colleagues. 

Mr. KATZ. Thank you. Let me just comment very quickly on that. 

It’s a key question, Senator Kennedy. When the modern editing 

began with Julian Boyd at Princeton, that was his great innovation, was to see that we had to use more than the immediate body 

of material created by the President himself, so he began collecting 

cognate documents. 

One of the most difficult and skilled tasks of the editors is to figure out by those standards what is relevant, so that obviously not 

all of the material from family members is relevant, so principles 

have been established. But it requires an incredible amount of time 

to make those kinds of judgments, but that is the principle of the 

modern editions. 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. I’d like to just, if I may, I’m a user, I’m a customer. I go to these volumes as someone who needs them, and I 

can’t speak necessarily for how they are done or what the ground 

rules are. But an enormous part of the value of the papers is that 

they do include someone who is writing to that President or that 

person before or after they were President that you may never 

have heard of, but it’s an interesting letter and an important letter, 

and the response may be very interesting or important. 

They identify who that person is, because very often it’s someone 

who’ve never heard of or seems to be obscure. You can’t look him 

or her up in any way. That’s their huge value. 

Now, with the Adams’s papers, the personal papers are being 

published at the same time in a separate set of volumes, so that 

20

there are two projects going forth, as well as the John Quincy 

Adams papers, which is something else. 

To give you an idea of how great is the volume of that collection, 

they are on microfilm. This is for the whole family down through 

Charles Francis Adams, Henry Adams, and so forth. If that microfilm were stretched out, it would be more than five miles long. 

That’s how much material there is. That quantity has to always be 

taken into consideration when appraising the size, scope, timetable 

of the project. 

Senator KENNEDY. Just very quickly, a question, then a very 

quick comment. 

Can you tell us, Dr. Katz, are there some interesting things that 

have developed in this project that perhaps we might not have 

been aware of previously? What can you tell us? Maybe Dave 

McCullough as well as the other historian? I mean, what can you 

tell us about whether there are some hidden treasures in these documents? 

Mr. KETCHAM. May I answer, Senator? 

Senator KENNEDY. Yes. 

Mr. KETCHAM. I think this emphasizes the very miscellaneous 

nature of the documents in these projects and the different degree 

to which, already, they are available either on microfilm or electronically. I was just using, recently, the Library of Congress American Memory reproduction of the papers of James Madison, and it 

is a wonderful resource. Also, the University of Virginia internet 

publication of the printed volumes is helpful and important. 

There’s a lot there, but it’s very miscellaneous. It has always 

been seen that way, ever since Dr. Boyd established the very broad 

notion of what Jefferson’s papers were, letters to him, even some 

letters about him, responses. All of these get put in miscellaneously 

over the years as editors come across them, as other scholars let 

the editors know about papers and so on. 

So the stuff that’s in the files is very miscellaneous. I think there 

are some, often, wonderful nuggets. Ellen Cohen is here, the editor 

of the Franklin papers. I guess you recently found on the back of 

some document information about when Franklin first arrived in 

Philadelphia, or something like that, which wouldn’t have been understood unless a very skilled editor was looking at the document, 

looked at the back of it. 

I think actually it’s these nuggets and these insights which come 

from a deep understanding of the documents which are really most 

important. I think we ought not to hold up the publication like 

these volumes. I think if that could be sustained, and maybe even 

speeded up along with electronic publication. It would not distract 

the work and the money going into these volumes in order to do 

an online version. They have to go on together. 

Senator KENNEDY. Just a final comment on what Dave 

McCullough talked about, about the teachers, about learning, and 

about history. We are trying to do our best to get the Princeton 

standardized test to put history back on, civics back on. If we can 

do that, then the schools will once again start teaching about this. 

It’s something that I know you’re all very passionate about. For 

someone who serves on the Education Committee, I can see that 

we really have fallen so far behind. What Allen has said about the 

21

thirst of the American people for all of this information is true, and 

the link is somewhere here in getting the legislation and funding 

on it. We will certainly do what we can. 

Thank you again. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

Senator Cardin is here and has taken a strong interest in this 

subject, both as a member of the other body and now here. 

Thank you for joining us. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, A U.S. SENATOR 

FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND 

Senator CARDIN. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I 

really want to thank you for holding this hearing. It’s a real pleasure to listen to these experts. I’m somewhat humbled when I try 

to figure out what question to ask, but let me, first, thank you for 

all of your work and give you a couple of personal stories. 

The day before I was sworn in to the Senate, I decided to do 

something that Senator Kennedy has done with his family. Senator 

Kennedy takes his family to historically important sites on a regular basis, so I decided to copy that idea and took my family to the 

National Archives the day before I got sworn in. We spent a very 

enjoyable time there, and Dr. Weinstein was very generous with 

making it available. 

But the story is, I have two 12-year-old nephews who were there, 

and to this day they talk about that experience. They do not talk 

about what happened the following day when I got sworn in, but 

they do talk about that experience with the National Archives. 

[Laughter.] 

And they challenge themselves on history and have gotten very 

interested in the history of our Nation, which I think underscores 

the importance that if information is more available, if our educators are more informed, that there is a desire out there to learn 

more about the history of our Nation, understanding its importance 

for our future. 

The second story is that this past weekend, Friday, the Democratic members of the Senate met in Mt. Vernon and it was a very 

important, I think, meeting for us. We had experts who shared 

their views on many subjects. But to me, the highlight was really 

lunch, where we had an expert talk about Washington. I learned 

a lot more. It helped me to understand that the Hamilton-Jefferson 

debates are relevant to us today on the issue that’s on the floor 

today, the FISA legislation and the power of the President. So we 

learn a lot and it is very important to us, and I thank you for trying to make this more available. 

The third story I want to tell, which leads to my question, is that 

when I was in the State legislature I was Speaker of our House, 

and I decided to take on a project, which was the publication of the 

Carroll papers. The Carroll papers are very important to the history of Maryland, thousands of letters that were written that were 

not available. I supported that project for, I guess, around a decade 

in order to get it done. It took a long time. Once I left the legislature and became a Congressman, the interest was no longer there 

and the funding. I tried to keep it going. I did for a while. But it 

was difficult, without being there, to keep it going. 

22

So I guess my question to you is, this project which I believe is 

so important to our country but does not have the continuing interest often by the government itself, when so many other areas are 

garnering attention. We don’t have as many hearings. We don’t 

have hearings on this subject as we do on national security, homeland security, and all the other issues that we have to deal with. 

What can we do as a Congress to try to provide the staying 

power so that our Nation continues this project? Because it’s going 

to take a long time. We’ll never complete it, but it’s going to take 

a long time. What can we do to try to institutionalize the work that 

you are doing so that it is available to our country and to future 

generations? 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. The four most dangerous words in the English 

language in this town, Senator: I will be brief. Let me try to be 

brief. You are asking the question, the medium is the message. You 

are here. You’re not at some other hearing. You’re spending this 

time, as Senator Kennedy is, concerning yourself with how one can 

project this issue in an effective way. 

You mentioned the tour you took with your family. I wish I could 

have 20 members every day and spend a couple of hours and talk 

about the issues of running an archive, running the National Archives, because that’s where you get engaged and they get engaged 

in this process. Some people have had the blessings of family interest, like Senator Kennedy. Some have had the blessings of a lifetime’s worth of interest, like the Chairman, and many who are not 

here. 

But, for example, Senator Carper, one of your colleagues, took all 

the new members of the Senate on an evening in which they just 

toured, had some dinner, we talked about some of the issues, what 

was there, what wasn’t there. And not just the Archives. Go to the 

Library of Congress. Go to Mt. Vernon. Go to anyplace where one 

can engage, and not just in the 17th and 18th centuries. We are 

seriously considering putting some things in that will clarify or get 

to many of the 19th or 20th century issues. These are the kinds 

of things, the constant attention. And it doesn’t have to be anything dramatic. It can be an hour in the morning, a reception, a 

dinner. 

It also, frankly, has this kind of engagement in the history of our 

community and this institution, the institution of the Congress, 

that has enormous side effects, side benefits in terms of restoring 

the dialog between Senators, members of the House, the other 

body, and the American public. It is amazing how many people, 

how many parents come up to me in the Archives and want to talk 

about their appreciation for the ability to go into this. So it’s not 

a mystery, it’s not brain surgery. It’s just constant attention. 

Mr. KATZ. Senator Cardin, can I be pointed in my response? 

There are two agencies that support the historical editing effort. 

They’ve been wonderful, both of them. The first, was NHPRC, 

which is part of NARA, the National Archives, and the other is the 

National Endowment for the Humanities, and they’ve both been 

supporting this effort for a long time, NHPRC since its beginning 

and NEH since 1993. But those of us in the community are constantly struggling to support Allen and Bruce Cole, and it’s not 

easy. 

23

This year, again, the White House has zeroed NHPRC out of the 

budget, so we’ll be back to those of you on the Appropriations Committee to suggest that you reinsert it in the budget. NEH also always needs more for this portion of its budget. But, of course, the 

Founding Fathers competes with other interests that both agencies 

have, and we do understand that, but the steady flow of money for 

this has been a struggle. 

Let me say, for the community on the whole, we’ve been very 

pleased with what we’ve gotten. The Congress has been actually 

quite good to us. 

Senator CARDIN. Let me just make a comment. I get a lot of requests in my office for people to visit the White House, and I can 

understand the importance of visiting the White House. We cannot 

accommodate all those requests, so I freely suggest to visit the National Archives and Library of Congress, and many of my constituents have taken me up on that and none have ever regretted those 

visits. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. May I just answer your question? I would 

suggest that you and some of your colleagues make a trip to Charlottesville and go and see what is being done with the Jefferson 

post-Presidential papers at Montecello, and how they have increased the volume-per-year production without any jeopardizing of 

the quality of the project, and how that system may be the solution 

to the problem. I would urge you to talk to Dan Jordan and others 

who are working there. It’s been done. It’s been proven to work. It’s 

a superb, hopeful sign that we ought to know more about. 

And may I also suggest that you, if not in any formal, official 

way, but in your own response to this subject and to the solution 

to the problem of time, get to know more about what Rebecca 

Rimel has done, what the Pew Foundation has done, not just with 

the millions of dollars they’ve contributed, but with the ideas, the 

commitment, and the faith. Those of us who care about this care 

about this because I think we care about our country. That’s certainly true of Rebecca and those that she works with at the Pew 

Foundation. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

I introduced some of you to Colleen Mason, who has been doing 

archival work in my office. The more I listen to this, the more I 

think of things we could do. Going down to see the Jefferson papers, that is something that is relatively easy for us to get a group 

together and go down. 

Dr. Marcum, I tell Vermonters, I do similar things to what Senator Cardin does. Of course, he lives right next door. That means, 

what is the population of Maryland? 

Senator CARDIN. Over 5 million. Maybe 6 million. 

Chairman LEAHY. They’re available to drive down here at any 

time and expect to see them, and except to do these things. 

Vermont has only 660,000 people. What I enjoy, is when we have 

a President Inaugural, somebody in my office told me they’d been 

receiving these requests from all those who graduated from high 

school with me for tickets, and we were up to about 250. I said, 

there were 29 people in my high school class. 

[Laughter.] 

24

But I’m delighted by their interest. I suggest they go over to the 

Library of Congress and see the plaque where Justin Morrill is memorialized from Vermont, and gave the money to help build the 

building. He was the third-longest serving Senator in Vermont’s 

history. So, I do that. But there are so many of these places you 

don’t think of. 

This is my last question. I’m going to be writing to each of you. 

I have other questions. But suppose you’re in a small rural State 

like mine. I mean, there is an advantage for Senator Cardin’s constituents. They can just drive down. But suppose you’re in a small 

rural State like mine. Suppose you’re a high school teacher in a 

class of 29. I don’t know if we have any high school classes that 

size. But you want to gain access to the Washington papers to prepare a history lesson. The executive director of the Vermont Historical Society told me the full sets of the volumes are available at 

most of the larger academic libraries, but not all Americans can 

easily travel to use the books. I will put that letter in the record. 

But what do you do in a case like this? And to add to it, a number of our smaller schools in a rural area like that are doing more, 

using telecommunications, a teacher in one classroom and probably 

three schools. How do they do this and bring it alive? Nobody is 

going to learn history if you just simply say, memorize these 28 

dates. Who is going to do that? But if you could bring it alive and 

say, look, this is what they wrote, how do you do it? 

Mr. KATZ. Can I respond? And I think Ralph wants to respond, 

too. 

Chairman LEAHY. Sure. 

Mr. KATZ. This is key. In the work that I do in training of history 

teachers and working with history teachers—Ralph does the same 

sort of thing, the great emphasis over the last 30 years has been 

teaching American history from documents. That is what we are 

training school teachers to do now. It’s been, I think, extremely effective to be able to train teachers properly and continue that 

teaching. NEH has been very good at assisting us in that. 

Getting access to the documents normally, frankly, comes 

through printed books of documents because that turns out to be 

cheaper and easier to use. You can put it in the kids’ hands. Because not all schools have the kind of online access, particularly for 

teaching in class, or have computer projectors that a teacher would 

need in order to display an online document. 

So while I dream of a time when the schools will be doing that 

and where the teachers will be sophisticated enough to use those 

documents in a proper way, for the moment we are preparing both 

online, but I think more importantly in print form, those kinds of 

materials, and increasingly that’s what’s being done in Vermont 

and elsewhere. 

Mr. KETCHAM. I’d answer that in a couple of ways. One, I think 

the sort of documents that a teacher could use right away, the important ones, those are already out there. I don’t think there’s 

much hidden or unavailable in that way. 

I think, also, the other way that teachers need to come to a 

sound understanding of the founding that they can pass on to their 

students is through works like David McCullough’s. What does 

David need to write his books? Well, he needs the kind of access 

25

that he’s found in the printed volumes already and the kind of subtle understandings and insights that come from a carefully edited 

document. He’s mentioned ways in which that works. So I think it 

would really be a shame to slow up the production of the works 

that are needed by people like David McCullough, whose books are 

going to be read by the teachers who teach the young. It’s that 

process which I think needs to be very carefully guarded. 

Chairman LEAHY. Dr. Marcum? 

Ms. MARCUM. I did some searching on World Cat—it’s kind of a 

union catalogue of what libraries hold—on the Alexander Hamilton 

papers since they’ve been published. Looking at Vermont, there are 

three institutions that have the papers of Alexander Hamilton in 

Vermont: the University of Vermont, Norwich University, and 

Middlebury College. There are probably other libraries that have 

these volumes that haven’t contributed their bibliographic records 

to World Cat, but in general the academic libraries have these volumes, public libraries don’t. They’re too expensive for public libraries. 

I think it’s important to work with teachers, as Stan has described. Electronic resources are particularly important because 

that’s where school children go to find information. They look, first, 

on Google, frankly. I think we have to be concerned about making 

those materials available where school children search for information. Thank you. 

Chairman LEAHY. I think I have hit a point here. Go ahead, Ms. 

Rimel. 

Ms. RIMEL. Mine maybe is slightly different, but a response to 

a couple of your other questions. If there’s interest in retaining the 

private sector’s support for these projects, it is going to require 

greater oversight, greater transparency and accountability, and 

greater productivity, because representing the private donors here, 

we have a fiduciary responsibility in the investment of these. 

Chairman LEAHY. But who does that? Who does that kind of 

oversight and transparency? What’s the best way to do that? 

Ms. RIMEL. I think what we’re asking for is more for these papers as investors in the project. 

Chairman LEAHY. No. But, I mean, who’s going to make sure—

maybe I misunderstood what you said. You said it needs more oversight, more transparency. Is there an ultimate oversight person or 

function? Who does that? 

Ms. RIMEL. I think that’s what we’re asking Congress to do. 

Chairman LEAHY. OK. 

Ms. RIMEL. After 50 years, we feel that that’s needed, and I think 

that kind of assurance is going to be needed by the private sector 

to continue our investment in these projects going forward. 

Chairman LEAHY. Good point. 

Doctor? 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Senator, we have many different kinds of students who need to be educated, ranging from those in the primary 

grades, secondary grades, high schools, colleges and universities. At 

the National Archives, we try to address this problem. It’s now part 

of our commitment, it’s part of our strategic plan—it wasn’t 3 years 

ago but it is now—and we do it in a variety of ways, which involve 

extensive use of educational resources, whatever is available, in the 

26

four Washington, DC facilities, the 14 Regional Archives, the 13 

Presidential Libraries, the 17 Federal Record Centers, and you can 

get an awful lot done when you are in 20 States, and if you’re not 

in the State, you have access to it next door. 

If you take your section of the country, as far as I know there’s 

no archival facility in Vermont. They may not have told me about 

it yet. But in any event, we are in Massachusetts at the Kennedy 

Library, we are in the Berkshires, western Massachusetts, very 

convenient to where you are as a Regional Archive. We are at the 

Roosevelt Library just across in New York City. 

There are ways of doing this without straining one’s self if one 

wants to do it. It’s just a question of getting in there, rolling up 

one’s sleeves, and using the resources of the colleges, universities, 

and the rest that exist everywhere. We are a country which is absorbed with education and I’m not sure we use it effectively in 

terms of history and the civic mission. But that’s the challenge, and 

what we’re talking about today is one part of that. 

Chairman LEAHY. When you mentioned Norwich University, that 

is the oldest private military university in the country. I was born 

in Montpelier. It’s about 12 miles away, the other Montpelier. But 

12 miles away from there. It’s been a very interesting place. They 

have given honorary degrees to Thomas Edison. I was there once 

with Ambassador Vernon Walters, Dick Walters, when he received 

an honorary degree. He’s a man who spoke about 13 languages fluently. He was our Ambassador to the United Nations. He’s been 

deputy head of the CIA. He’s a three-star general. Never got a college degree. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. That’s right. 

Chairman LEAHY. He got a lot of honorary degrees. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. I knew Dick Walters. 

Chairman LEAHY. And a great raconteur. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Indeed. Those of us who taught at Smith College 

for 16 years know Vermont very well, and enjoyed it. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. 

I think Mr. McCullough told me once of beginning research 

there, beginning to work on one of his books in Vermont, if I’m correct. 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. I did. I used the collection that’s at 

Middlebury College down in the basement, which is provided for attorneys in every State. They had all the original reports of the various expeditions set out to determine which would be the best route 

for a Panama Canal. 

Chairman LEAHY. Panama Canal. And I’ve told that story many, 

many a time. 

Mr. MCCULLOUGH. And it’s like going into a coal mine, because 

everything was very dirty so I wore my working clothes. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to just make something clear that, 

from what Professor Katz said, may not be clear. When I suggest 

building another airport, what I mean is that we double the number of able, trained, good scholars and editors who are working on 

the project, and that there is no need to slow up any production 

in order to do these other things if you have the people necessary 

to just do more. 

27

There are too few people, the funding is too little, and it’s not 

necessary to wait as long as it has taken if you increase the number of people involved. That does not mean you increase the number of people with less than adequate people. You increase the 

number of people with the best there is. We can do it. It’s just a 

question of, are we willing to spend the money, make the investment, make the commitment? And we know from the example of 

what’s going on at Montecello and at the Massachusetts Historical 

Society that it can be done. It works. 

Chairman LEAHY. Thank you. I will leave the record open for 

anybody who wants to add to it. You’ll get copies of the transcript. 

I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed this. I’ve sat through thousands of hearings on every subject imaginable, some fascinating, 

some where I’m sending quiet signals to my staff to keep sending 

more coffee because I don’t want to doze off up here. This one was 

fascinating. Thank you all very much. 

Mr. WEINSTEIN. Senator, I think I speak for all of my colleagues 

at this table to thank you and your two colleagues, your two Senator colleagues, for having taken this time. I don’t know of many 

hearings that I’ve attended and which I have testified at, at which 

the members of the Senate stayed from start to finish. So, I we are 

very grateful. Thank you. 

Chairman LEAHY. And our caucus where the Senate historian 

comes in, everybody says that is the most enjoyable part of our caucus. We fight after that, but everybody shuts up and listens to that 

part. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 11:41 a.m. the Committee was adjourned.] 

[Questions and answers and submissions for the record follow.]

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