David S. Ferriero

“ In another Washington depository packed with documents the most prominent object which meets the eye as one enters the room is the skull of a cat protruding from under a pile of valuable records. I think it is a fair question that if a cat with nine lives to risk in the cause of history could not survive the conditions of research in the depositories of government records, can we justly blame the poor scholar who has only one life to give for his country if he refuses to take the risk?". ”

“ The AHA had been focused on federal government records since its founding in 1884, and for decades, the association and in particular J. Franklin Jameson, who at the time was with Department of History and Political Science at Johns Hopkins, badgered and cajoled and argued for some system and order to be created to preserve federal records and make them accessible to the citizenry.
Jameson wasn’t the first advocate, though perhaps, he was the most ardent. The history of the idea of a national archives is as old as the nation itself. ”

“ When the Constitutional Convention of 1787 had completed its work, delegate Rufus King of Massachusetts suggested that the Journals of the Convention be either destroyed or deposited in the custody of the President. He thought "if suffered to be made public, a bad use would be made of them by those who wish to prevent the adoption of the Constitution." ”