Sparks did not acknowledge the receipt of the letter until the 17th of January, 1832, and then the acknowledgment was called out by a letter from Madison of January 7th. He yielded a reluctant assent, manifestly in deference to Madison, that "this letter seems to me conclusive, but" (he immediately adds), "I am still a good deal at a loss about the first draught of the Committee. The history of the composition of the draught would be a curious item in the proceedings of the Convention." Here Sparks again put his finger on one of the things that needed explanation, "the composition of the draught." His sagacious mind grasped the fact that the structure of the draught of the Constitution--of the Constitution itself, would indeed be a "curious item in the proceedings of the Convention." It was original work in style, order, details and arrangement; "a curious item" indeed! Whose was the hand that sketched it? When Sparks was so near the end of the matter and on the path which led to the end, it seems almost incredible that he did not take one step forward. If he had he would have solved the problem and dispelled the mystery. Madison's letter of November 25th seems to have been written for posterity as well as for the man to whom it was sent. Its untold object manifestly was to divert attention from the draught of the Committee and to direct comparison to the Constitution itself. Three years later in his letter to Judge Duer he reiterated what he had said to Sparks, and again he said nothing upon the point which Sparks had plainly placed before him. Finally when he prepared his Note to the Plan, he for a third time, was silent on the primary issue in the case, Did the Committee follow Pinckney's draught or did Pinckney surreptitiously use the Committee's? This silence of Madison's is a most curious instance of his sagacious and adroit management. It was not his business to direct attention to this troublesome final issue and he did not. The "Note of Mr. Madison to the Plan of Charles Pinckney" would be published; the letters of Sparks to himself might never see the light. Indeed I can give this tribute to his adroitness--that this book was written in the belief that Madison, never knew of Pinckney's letter to the Secretary of State, and that his weakened mind had overlooked the draught of the Committee of Detail; and it was not till the book was finished that I found the letters of Sparks above quoted and was compelled thereby to supply this chapter, and modify what I had elsewhere written. CHAPTER XI THE WILSON AND RANDOLPH DRAUGHTS Since Madison's time there have been uncovered four papers of which he knew nothing, and they bring us into an almost new field of inquiry. These papers are in the handwriting of James Wilson, Edmund Randolph and John Rutledge (all members of the Committee of Detail) and they are draughts (or sketches for draughts) of the Constitution.