Pinckney was the youngest member of the delegation--much the youngest. He was not yet 30; and, with the exception of Dayton and Mercer was the youngest member of the Convention. It would have been natural for him as a Southerner "to go with his State"--and as a young man to defer to his seniors. And after hearing the debate on the 31st of May and the reasons of his fellow delegates from South Carolina, it was proper for him to change his mind and advocate election by the State legislatures as a better mode. It would have been a matter of wonder if he had not! But there is a letter of George Read which should be considered, for it suggests the question whether this change of Pinckney did not take place before the 29th of May; that is to say before he presented his draught to the Convention. On the 20th of May 1787 Mr. Read wrote from Philadelphia to John Dickinson: "I am in possession of a copied draught of a federal system intended to be proposed if something nearly similar shall not precede it. Some of its principal features are taken from the New York system of government. A house of delegates and senate for a general legislature, as to the great business of the Union. The first of them to be chosen by the legislature of each State, in proportion to its number of white inhabitants, and three-fifths of all others, fixing a number for sending each representative. The second, to-wit the senate, to be elected by the delegates so returned, either from themselves or the people at large, in four great districts, into which the United States are to be divided for the purpose of forming this senate from which, when so formed, is to be divided into four classes for the purpose of an annual rotation of a fourth of the members. A president having only executive powers for seven years." (Read's Life of George Read of Delaware p. 443.) This letter is very far from being conclusive. In the first place it does not appear that Mr. Read had seen the original of this "copied draught" or that Pinckney had given him the copy or had told him what his plan was or that any person who had seen the original draught had told him what it contained. In the second place the existence of an unauthenticated copy on the 20th of May does not conclusively prove that a different version of the same draught was not presented to the Convention on the 29th of May. Still this letter undoubtedly refers to Pinckney's draught and compels a more searching examination of the question raised than would otherwise be necessary.