U.S. Constitution: Foundation & Evolution (Including the Biographies of the Founding Fathers). Madison James

      "On my return to this City as I promised I examined carefully all the numerous notes & papers which I had retained relating to the federal Convention — among them I found several rough draughts of the Constitution I proposed to the Convention — although they differed in some measure from each other in the wording & arrangement of the articles — yet they were all substantially the same — they all proceeded upon the idea of throwing out of view the attempt to amend the existing Confederation (then a very favorite idea of a number) & proceeding de novo — of a Division of the Powers of Government into legislative executive & judicial & of making the Government to operate directly upon the People & not upon the States. My Plan was substantially adopted in the sequel except as to the Senate & giving more power to the Executive than I intended — the force of vote which the small & middling states had in the Convention prevented our obtaining a proportional representation in more than one branch & the great powers given to the President were never intended to have been given to him while the Convention continued in that patient & coolly deliberative situation in which they had been for nearly the whole of the preceding five months of their session nor was it until within the last week or ten days that almost the whole of the Executive Department was altered — I can assure you as a fact that for more than Four months & a half out of five the power of exclusively making treaties, appointing for the Ministers & judges of the Supreme Court was given to the Senate after numerous debates & consideration of the subject both in Committee of the whole & in the house — this I not only aver but can prove by printed Documents in my possession to have been the case — & should I ever have the pleasure to see you & converse on the subject will state to you some things relative to this business that may be new & perhaps surprising to you — the veil of secrecy from the Proceedings of the Convention being removed by Congress & but very few of the members alive would make disclosures now of the secrets there acted less improper than before — With the aid of the journal & the numerous notes & memorandums I have preserved should now be in my power to give a View of the almost insuperable difficulties the Convention had to encounter & of the conflicting opinions of the members I believe should have attempted it had I not always understood Mr. Madison intended it — he alone I believe possessed & retained more numerous & particular notes of their proceedings than myself. I will thank you sir to do me the honour to send me or to get the President to direct a copy of the Journal of the Convention to be sent me as also of the Secret Journals of Congress should it be considered not improper in me to make the request.

      "I have already informed you I have several rough draughts of the Constitution I proposed & that they are all substantially the same differing only in words & the arrangement of the Articles — at the distance of nearly thirty two years it is impossible for me now to say which of the 4 or 5 draughts I have was the one but enclosed I send you the one I believe was it — I repeat however that they are substantially the same differing only in form & unessentials — It may be necessary to remark that very soon after the Convention met I changed & avowed candidly the change of my opinion on giving the power to Congress to revise the State Laws in certain cases & in giving the exclusive Power to the Senate to declare War thinking it safer to refuse the first altogether & to vest the latter in Congress — I will thank you to acknowledge by a line the receipt of the Draught & this.

      "With very great respect & esteem

       "I have the honour to be your most

       "Obedient servant

       "CHARLES PINCKNEY.

       "December 30 1818

       "In Charleston." — Const. MSS.

      The plan is written upon paper of the same size as the letter, and with the same ink. It is undoubtedly contemporaneous with the letter.

      Madison wrote the following note to accompany his journal:

      "The length of the Document laid before the Convention, and other circumstances having prevented the taking of a copy at the time, that which is here inserted was taken from the paper furnished to the Secretary of State, and contained in the Journal of the Convention published in 1819. On comparing the paper with the Constitution in its final form, or in some of its Stages; and with the propositions, and speeches of Mr. Pinckney in the Convention, it would seem that considerable errour must have crept into the paper; occasioned possibly by the loss of the Document laid before the convention (neither that nor the Resolutions offered by Mr. Patterson being among the preserved papers) and by a consequent resort for a copy to the rough draught, in which erasures and interlineations following what passed in the convention, might be confounded with the original text, and after a lapse of more than thirty years, confounded also in the memory of the author.

      "There is in the paper a similarity in some cases, and an identity in others, with details, expressions, and definitions, the results of critical discussions and modifications that can not be ascribed to accident or anticipation.

      "Examples may be noticed in Article VIII of the paper; which is remarkable also for the circumstance, that whilst it specifies the functions of the President, no provision is contained in the paper for the election of such an officer, nor indeed for the appointment of any executive magistracy; notwithstanding the evident purpose of the author to provide an entire plan of a Federal Government.

      "Again, in several instances where the paper corresponds with the Constitution, it is at variance with the ideas of Mr. Pinckney, as decidedly expressed in his propositions, and in his arguments, the former in the Journal of the Convention, the latter in the report of its debates: Thus in Art: VIII of the paper, provision is made for removing the President by impeachment; when it appears that in the convention, July 20. he was opposed to any impeachability of the Executive magistrate: In Art: III, it is required that all money-bills shall originate in the first Branch of the Legislature; which he strenuously opposed Aug: 8 and again Aug: 11: In Art: V members of each House are made ineligible to, as well as incapable of holding, any office under the union &c. as was the case at one Stage of the Constitution; a disqualification highly disapproved and opposed by him Aug: 14.

      "A still more conclusive evidence of errour in the paper is seen in Art: III, which provides, as the Constitution does, that the first Branch of the Legislature shall be chosen by the people of the several States; whilst it appears that on the 6th of June, a few days only after the Draft was laid before the convention, its author opposed that mode of choice, urging & proposing in place of it, an election by the Legislatures of the several States.

      "The remarks here made tho' not material in themselves, were due to the authenticity and accuracy aimed at, in this Record of the proceedings of a Publick Body, so much an object, sometimes, of curious research, as at all times, of profound interest." — Mad. MSS.

      This note, as given in Gilpin's Madison Papers (1840), is freely edited. The Pinckney plan is given here as Pinckney sent it to Adams. Chief-Justice Charles C. Nott, of the U. S. Court of Claims, informs the editor that correspondence with Pinckney's descendants reveals the fact that none of the notes to which he alludes in his letters are extant.

      The letter of December 30, 1818, and plan, are printed in The Documentary History of the Constitution, i., 309 et seq.

7

      "… What will be the result of their meeting I cannot with any certainty determine, but I hardly think much good can come of it; the people of America don't appear to me to be ripe for any great innovations & it seems they are ultimately to ratify or reject: the weight of General Washington as you justly observe is very great in America, but I hardly think it is sufficient to induce the people to pay money or part with power.

      "The delegates from the Eastwood are for a very strong government, & wish to prostrate all the State legislatures, & form a general system out of the whole; but I don't learn that the people are with them, on the contrary in Massachusetts they think that government too strong, & are about rebelling again, for the purpose of making it more democratical: In Connecticut they have rejected the requisition for the present year decidedly, & no Man there would be elected to the office of