The Hartford Convention

The Hartford Convention was really a regional, if not national, event, and it forms a part of history that lies beyond the scope of this bibliography. Indeed, the last, best study of the Convention, James M. Banner's To the Hartford Convention: The Federalists and the Origins of Party Politics in Massachusetts, 1789-1815 (New York: Alfred Knopf; 1970) hardly touches Connecticut affairs at all, although his “A Note on the Sources” is invaluable. Theodore Dwight of Hartford served as the Convention’s secretary and published an early account of it, along with the official transcript of the secret debates, in History of the Hartford Convention With a Review of the Policy of the United States Government which led to the War of 1812 (Boston, 1833; reprinted by Books for Libraries, 1970), which is discussed in L. Douglas Good, “Theodore Dwight: Federalist Propagandist," in the CHS Bulletin 39 (July 1974) 3:87-96. Dwight's account should be treated as a Primary source, as should that of Chauncey G. Goodrich, in his Recollections of a Lifetime (New York, 1856) vol. II. Another primary source is the correspondence of Goodrich, Calvin Goddard, and Roger M. Sherman, edited by W.E. Buckley, "Letters of Connecticut Federalists, 1814-1815,” in New England Quarterly 3 (1930) 2:316-31. Buckley is also the author or Tercentenary pamphlet no. XXIV (1934), The Hartford Convention. The Principal Connecticut-focused account is that of Simeon E. Baldwin, “The Hartford Convention," in Papers of the NHCHS 9 (1918) :1-28. Baldwin emphasizes the point that secession (or “recession”, as he says it was called) was never considered, but nevertheless he sees the Convention as an ill-conceived venture. In "New England's Defense Problem and the Genesis of the Hartford Convention," New England Quarterly 50 (December, 1977) 4:587-604, Donald R. Hickey points to the difficulty of providing adequate defenses along the coast as a major reason for Connecticut's objection to national policy and the one most emphasized by Connecticut members of the convention.