Book excerpt: Volumes 12 and 13 of this highly acclaimed documentary edition cover the first Congress's second session, from January to August 1790. Among other important issues in this critical period, Congress debated Hamilton's report on the public credit, federal assumption of state Revolutionary War debts, and antislavery petitions from Pennsylvania Quakers. The editors once more have assembled the most complete and reliable text of the debates by examining a variety of sources: stenographer Thomas Lloyd's shorthand notes, his Congressional Register, and contemporary newspaper accounts.