The Mystery of the Pinckney DraughtNott, Charles C.
History
The Mystery of the Pinckney Draught
Nott, Charles C.
Constitutional history -- United States; Pinckney, Charles, 1757-1824
"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" stricken out]
inserted in the Debates was taken from the paper furnished
to the Secretary of State, and contained in the Journal of
the Convention, published in 1819 which it being taken for
granted was a true copy was not then examined. The
coincidence in several instances between that and the
Constitution as adopted, having attracted the notice of
others was at length suggested to mine. 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 was apparent that
considerable errour had crept into the paper; occasioned
["probably" stricken out] 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 in part at least 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 in the Convention, that ["cannot be ascribed
to accident or anticipation" omitted] could not have been
anticipated.
"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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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