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 draught of Randolph discloses three important pieces of information
which tend positively to sustain the Pinckney draught. The first is (in
the words of Mr. Meigs) "that it was drawn up after the Convention had
agreed upon the resolutions that were referred to the Committee of
Detail on July 26th; and in numerous instances its language is modeled
upon them with even verbal accuracy." (Growth of the Constitution, p.
318.) Manifestly this draught was not written--was not even begun, until
after Randolph had become a member of the Committee. The writing of it,
the revising of it, its numerous alterations and corrections, the
submission of it to Rutledge, his examination of it and his changes and
additions must have taken time. Almost every sentence in it is checked
as if it had been compared with some other paper. In a word it indicates
that some days must have passed after the 26th of July before Randolph
and Rutledge could have written it, and revised it, and left it in its
present form; and it witnesses the important fact that only five or six
days before the finished draught of the Committee of Detail was put in
the hands of the printer at least two members of the committee were no
nearer completion of the work than this disheveled draught.
The great improbability against the Pinckney draught is that one man
alone and unassisted should have prepared so much of the Constitution.
But it is a hundred times more improbable that this Committee unassisted
by Pinckney's draught should have prepared and completed their own with
all its well selected details, with language carefully taken from many
sources, and with provisions far in excess of their instructions, than
that Pinckney should have completed his in his own time (making as he
did, four or five versions of it), thoroughly versed, as he was, in the
needs and weaknesses of the existing general government and the
constitutions of the several States, and able to confer, as he did, with
the ablest statesmen in the country.
The second thing which the Randolph draught does for us is important and
most interesting. It enables us to ascertain the fact that the section
of the Committee's draught which declares the jurisdiction of the
Supreme Court (Art. XI, sec. 3), was the work of three persons; and the
very words which each contributed.
The 16th resolution of the Convention was as follows:
"16. Resolved, That the jurisdiction of the national judiciary shall
extend to cases arising under laws passed by the general legislature,
and to such other questions as involve the national peace and harmony."
Randolph followed the resolution but enlarged the jurisdiction; and
Rutledge added two provisions in marginal notes; and their proposed
section was as follows:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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