The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which Framed the Constitution of the United States, May-September 1787. Volume 1Madison, James
History
The Journal of the Debates in the Convention which Framed the Constitution of the United States, May-September 1787. Volume 1
Madison, James
Constitutional law -- United States; Constitutions -- United States; United States. Constitution
The notes of Yates, King, and Pierce are the only unofficial record of
the convention extant, besides Madison's, and their chief value is in
connection with the Madison record, which in the main they support, and
which occasionally they elucidate.
December 30, 1818, Charles Pinckney wrote to John Quincy Adams that he
had made more notes of the convention than any other member except
Madison, but they were never published and have been lost or
destroyed.[5]
[5] See p. 22, n.
In 1819 (Boston) was published the _Journal, Acts and Proceedings of the
Convention_, etc., under the supervision of John Quincy Adams, Secretary
of State, by authority of a joint resolution of Congress of March 27,
1818. This was the official journal of the convention, which the
Secretary, William Jackson, had turned over to the President, George
Washington, when the convention adjourned, Jackson having previously
burned all other papers of the convention in his possession. March 16,
1796, Washington deposited the papers Jackson had given him with the
Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering. They consisted of three
volumes,--the journal of the convention, the journal of the proceedings
of the Committee of the Whole of the convention, and a list of yeas and
nays, beside a printed draft of the Constitution as reported August 6th,
showing erasures and amendments afterwards adopted, and the Virginia
plan in different stages of development.
In preparing the matter for publication Secretary Adams found that for
Friday, September 14, and Saturday, September 15, the journal was a mere
fragment, and Madison was applied to and completed it from his minutes.
From General B. Bloomfield, executor of the estate of David Brearley, a
delegate in the convention from New Jersey, Adams obtained a few
additional papers, and from Charles Pinckney a copy of what purported to
be the plan of a constitution submitted by him to the convention. All of
these papers, with some others, appeared in the edition of 1819, which
was a singularly accurate publication, as comparison by the present
editor of the printed page with the original papers has shown.
The Pinckney plan, as it appeared in this edition of the journal, was
incorporated by Madison into his record, as he had not secured a copy of
it when the convention was sitting. But the draft furnished to Secretary
Adams in 1818, and the plan presented by Pinckney to the convention in
1787 were not identical, as Madison conclusively proved in his note to
his journal, in his letter to Jared Sparks of November 25, 1831, and in
several other letters, in all of which he showed that the draft did not
agree in several important respects with Pinckney's own votes and
motions in the convention, and that there were important discrepancies
between it and Pinckney's _Observations on the Plan of Government_, a
pamphlet printed shortly after the convention adjourned.[6]
[6] See P. L. Ford's _Pamphlets on the Constitution_, 419.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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