Wilson probably inserted the word "our," in his preamble for a rhetorical reason; for he was one of the signers of an instrument which rang with its own concluding words "OUR LIVES, OUR FORTUNES AND OUR SACRED HONOR." The insertion of one word (our) in one of these preambles is a slender strand of circumstantial evidence. But circumstantial evidence is made up generally of slender strands; and circumstantial evidence is least suspicious when the strands are severally insignificant. With the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation and eleven of the State constitutions containing preambles, it is inconceivable that Pinckney would have framed his draught without a preamble; and if Pinckney framed the preamble, as he must have done, it is inconceivable that he would have thrown it aside in 1818 and substituted another man's, for he was never ashamed of his own work. And it must be taken as a fixed fact that Pinckney had a preamble, for the structure of the draught required it; the first article would be meaningless without one, "The stile of _this government_"--the government announced in the preamble. Therefore having the necessity of a preamble, and the production of one in 1818, and the strict adherence in words and intent to the constitution of Massachusetts and Pinckney's familiarity with that constitution, the severally slender strands become a cord of circumstantial evidence which must satisfy an unprejudiced mind that Pinckney was the author of the preamble in his draught. There are too many clews here to be disregarded, and they all lead one way. The unquestionable sketches of a preamble in Wilson's and Randolph's handwriting show only three attempts and three failures. Let us now consider a second illustrative case: As we have seen in a previous chapter (Chap. XI) the 3d of the 23 resolutions declared that the members of the House of Representatives "ought" to receive an adequate compensation for their services; and the 4th resolution, that the members of the Senate "ought" "to receive a compensation for the devotion of their time to the public service." The term "adequate" implied and required the exercise of some discretionary power, which must necessarily be national. For if Senators and Representatives were to be paid by the States which sent them to Congress, the members of Congress could not well turn around and dictate to the States what they should be paid. This was understood at the time. For on the 22d and 26th of June when the Convention refused to retain the words "to be paid out of the National Treasury" in the 3d resolution, "Massachusetts concurred" as Madison says, "not because they thought the State Treasury ought to be substituted; but because they thought nothing should be said on the subject, in which case it wd. silently devolve on the Nat. Treasury to support the National Legislature."