When the paper which Rutledge held in his hand, as he rose to address the Convention on the 6th of August, was placed on the table before Washington, the moment witnessed the birth of the Constitution. Provisions which it contained were to be stricken out, and some of the great compromises were yet to be forged and inscribed upon the scroll, but the written Constitution was now in being. And yet this is but figurative language. The great state paper which passed from the hand of Rutledge to the hand of Washington was not engrossed on parchment, like a second Magna Charta; it was not attested by signature or date; it was not even in writing; a few pages of printer's paper, plain and unpretentious; a mere copy, one of a number of printed copies, as we gather from the record. But it was to receive the severest scrutiny of some of the great men of the world, of Washington, Franklin, Madison, Ellsworth, Wilson, Rutledge, Hamilton. The printed document found in the box which holds the few records of the Convention is not unworthy of a great state paper. It is on stately, heavy, hand-made paper, 10 by 15-1/2 inches in size. The printed matter is 5-1/4 inches by 12-1/2. There are seven pages carrying from 27 to 53 lines on each. The workmanship is faultless; the type clear, the impression uniform, the ink unfaded, the punctuation careful, the spacing perfect. There are but two typographical errors, one of which is a misnumbering of the articles. In Pinckney's draught the first article has inscribed over it "Article 1" and the following articles have only their numbers 2, 3, etc. The printer followed the same form, the only difference being that Pinckney, writing the draught with his own hand, used arabic figures, for which the printer substituted Roman numerals. When he reached the seventh article he repeated VI. and when he reached the eighth he entitled it VII. and continued the error through the remaining articles. Notwithstanding this blemish I have never seen so faultless a public document. The copy bears this endorsement: "Printed Draught of the Constitution, received from the President of the United States, March 19th, 1796 by "TIMOTHY PICKERING "Sec'y of State" The name of the printer who did his confidential work so well, I regret to say, is not upon the paper. It has been supposed and said that this copy of the draught was Jackson's, the inefficient Secretary of the Convention, and that he used it to save himself the trouble of writing out the proceedings in the journal by noting amendments on the margin. This like much other imaginary history is erroneous.