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 words "the people" appear directly and necessarily in article 3 of
the draught: "The Members of the House of Delegates shall be chosen
every ---- year by the people of the several States; and the
qualifications of the electors shall be the same as those of the
electors in the several States for their Legislatures." They reappear
casually and needlessly in article 5: "Each State shall prescribe the
time and manner of holding elections _by the people_ for the House of
Delegates." The draught therefore in these provisions is consistent with
itself.
In the draught of the Committee of Detail the words of Pinckney's
article 3 again appear with some amplification, but in the same order
with the same context and with the same intent. Such agreements come not
by chance.
And if such agreements come not by chance, could Pinckney while he was
copying the committee's draught for his own article 3 have written
these two troublesome words "the people" without taking heed of their
significance, without realizing what he was doing, without remembering
that his own draught had said "the _legislatures_ of the several
States." He could not! For there is another provision in the draught in
the State Department which was not taken from the committee's
draught--which did not exist in the committee's draught--which must have
been deliberately framed by Pinckney--the provision before quoted from
article 5, "Each State shall prescribe the time and manner of holding
elections _by the people_ for the House of Delegates." That is to say if
Pinckney unintentionally abstracted his article 3 from the committee's
draught in 1818, he, nevertheless, must have fabricated designedly his
article 5 at the same time; for there is nothing in the committee's
draught to suggest it.
Then the question immediately arises, What motive could Pinckney have
had for falsifying his draught and making this change from the election
of delegates by State legislatures to their election by the people of
the several States. The answer of the superficial of course will be,
"So that the world should believe that he had always been in favor of
the election of representatives by the people." No other reason can well
be assigned; yet there could not have been such a motive. Pinckney knew
that his draught was to be soon published and that with it would be
published the official Journal of the Convention and that the
publication would disclose to the world this record:
"Wednesday, June 6, 1787
"Mr. Gorham in the Chair.
"It was moved by Mr. Pinckney, seconded by Mr. Rutledge to
strike the word 'people' out of the 4th resolution
submitted by Mr. Randolph, and to insert in its place the
word
'Legislatures' so as to read 'resolved that the Members of
the first branch of the national legislature ought to be
elected by the Legislatures of the several States'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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