CHAPTER XV CONCLUSIONS ON THE WHOLE CASE There are three reasons why the Pinckney Draught has been too readily discredited. The first is our respect for Madison, our belief that his knowledge far exceeded our own, and our deference to his repeatedly expressed opinion. The second is that the draught was never before the Convention and consequently never received the recognition of discussion. It was referred at the beginning to the Committee of the Whole; but it was not yet wanted, for the Committee debated only abstract propositions couched in formal resolutions. It was referred to the Committee of Detail; but that Committee reported only their own draught and the Convention had before them only the Committee's. The draught of Pinckney never came to a vote, was never discussed, and never received the slightest consideration in the Convention. The third reason for discrediting the draught is to be found in the exaggerated value which has been set upon it. It has seemed to be altogether too great an instrument to have been the work of one man. We have felt in a vague way that to concede that one man could have contributed so much to the great instrument would be to detract from the work and fame of the great men whom we call the framers of the Constitution, and from the Constitution itself. But the fact is that the draught of Pinckney is not so great as it seems. Coming from a man so well equipped for the work, so experienced in the existing affairs of our mixed governments and with such a clear comprehension of the conditions of the case, and having such a mass of material ready to his hand, the draught is not a marvelous production. That is to say the work considered as the work of so young a man is not so wonderful as at first it appears to be. It may come within the range of the improbable but not of the impossible. Madison has himself borne witness to the fact that the subject of a substitute for the tottering power of the Confederated States was in every man's mind; and that every intelligent man of that day was more or less fitted to draught a general outline of a new national government: