Providing evidence of the difficulty that we all face in getting things right, Shallus managed to make a mistake in one of his corrective notations. After making his correction of the population per representative, Shallus explained it in his note of corrections: "The Word Thirty being partly written on an Erazure." Erasing ink isn't easy, and Shallus's effort to scrape away "forty" is easily detectable. On the last sheet, Shallus inscribed a record of the insertions so no one could think these might be illegitimate additions to the adopted text.
Writing with a quill pen was a challenge. Government, RG 11)Īnother correction was the result not of a mistake, but of a last-minute change of mind by the Convention during the Monday session, when it increased the maximum allowable number of representatives from one per 40,000 persons to one per 30,000.Īlso on page one are a number of ink splotches large and small, which occurred in the effort to complete this large document. On the last sheet of the engrossed Constitution, Shallus added a record of the corrections he made on the document. But he also used a penknife to scrape away an entire line of text near the bottom of page one, leaving behind a roughed-up band that now appears gray from grime. Many of the mistakes were omissions, and he tried to take care of each by inserting a word or two between the lines. He did a fine job given the short time he had, spreading the more than 4,000 words across four large sheets of parchment.Īfter he finished, Shallus had to deal with several mistakes that he had made during that rushed weekend of exacting labor. The scribe was Jacob Shallus, assistant clerk of the Pennsylvania legislature. Production of the engrossed copy must have occupied much of the weekend remaining after the Convention's adjournment late on Saturday, September 15. The earliest of the Constitution's errors were made by the scribe who produced the engrossed (written in a fine round hand) parchment and the printers who produced versions of the newly completed document in September 1787. The examination and re-encasement of the Constitution at the National Archives.
The Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
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