THE MYSTERY OF THE PINCKNEY DRAUGHT BY CHARLES C. NOTT FORMERLY Chief Justice of the United States Court of Claims NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1908 Copyright, 1908, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, November, 1908._ TO CEPHAS BRAINERD OF THE NEW YORK BAR A SOUND LAWYER AND A LONG-TRIED FRIEND CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE 3 II. THE DRAUGHT IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT 16 III. OF THE ISSUE OF FRAUD 23 IV. MADISON AS A WITNESS 29 V. MADISON AS AN ADVOCATE 40 VI. THE POSITION TAKEN BY MADISON 58 VII. THE PLAGIARISMS 65 VIII. THE IMPROBABILITIES 85 IX. THE OBSERVATIONS 105 X. THE SILENCE OF MADISON 143 XI. THE WILSON AND RANDOLPH DRAUGHTS 158 XII. THE COMMITTEE'S USE OF THE DRAUGHT 206 XIII. WHAT BECAME OF THE DRAUGHT 225 XIV. WHAT PINCKNEY DID FOR THE CONSTITUTION 243 XV. CONCLUSIONS ON THE WHOLE CASE 257 XVI. OF PINCKNEY PERSONALLY 278 APPENDIX MR. CHARLES PINCKNEY'S DRAUGHT OF A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT 295 DRAUGHT OF THE COMMITTEE OF DETAIL 306 INDEX 325 THE MYSTERY OF THE PINCKNEY DRAUGHT CHAPTER I STATEMENT OF THE CASE When I began the studies which have resulted in this book someone asked me what I was doing, and I chanced to answer that I was looking into the mystery of Pinckney's draught of the Constitution. Afterwards I received a letter from Professor J. Franklin Jameson in which he spoke of the uncertainties attending the draught as "mysteries"; and later I found that Jared Sparks, back in 1831, had been engaged in the same study and had used the same term. With two such scholars as Professor Jameson and Mr. Sparks recognizing the knowable but unknown element which we call mystery, I retain the term which I chanced to use. "A true mystery, instead of ending discussion, calls for more." "What constitutes a mystery is the unknown which is certainly connected with the known. A mystery therefore is unfinished knowledge."[1] [Footnote 1: Dr. William Hanna Thomson, Brain and Personality, p. 278.]