The choosing of the President by means of electoral colleges in which each State should have a proportionate power equal to its total representation in the two houses of Congress was one of the notable compromises between the large and small States; and what Madison says must excite the curiosity of the Constitutional student to know in what manner Pinckney provided in his draught for the choosing of the President and whether he attempted a compromise. The original draught is lost; but here Madison appears with the Observations which he fortunately saw in 1787 and which he fortunately remembered in 1831 and which, remembering, he brought to light and made an authority; and these Observations, according to Madison, presumptively set forth what the original draught contained so fully and accurately that upon the faith of them we can and must reject the copy of the draught which Pinckney produced and placed in the State Department. Therefore we may turn to the Observations with unusual interest to ascertain whether Pinckney provided, and in what manner he provided, for the choosing of the President. We find that the Observations are as silent as the draught in the State Department. They are not more silent however. If the Observations said nothing and were absolutely silent on the subject of the President, it might be a casual oversight of the writer. But the Observations agree with article VIII; both recognize the Executive as vested in one person; both limit his term of office, the one to seven, the other to ---- years; both expressly declare that he shall be re-eligible; both are silent as to the means by which he shall be chosen. The Observations here are little more than a paraphrase of article VIII. Madison regarded the omission to provide for so vitally important a thing as the choosing of the President as "remarkable"; but the more remarkable the omission, the more significant the coincidence. The explanation of Pinckney's conduct and of the contradictions between his statements in the Observations and the facts appearing on the records of the Convention, including in the term the Madison Journal and the Yates Minutes is, I think, the following: