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
Where then is this article 11 which would restrict the powers of the
States and render their laws, if repugnant to the Constitution, void?
It cannot be article XI of the Articles of Confederation; for it
provides only for the admission of Canada as one of the States of this
Union. It cannot be article XI of the draught of the Committee of Detail
for it relates only to "The judicial power of the United States"; to the
judges, to jurisdiction; to the trial of criminal offences; and there is
not a line which limits the power of a State or declares a statute void.
Moreover the restrictions upon the States in the Committee's draught are
divided and placed in two articles which are numbered XII, XIII. It
cannot be Article XI of Wilson's draught for it relates to the powers of
the Senate, the power to make treaties, to appoint ambassadors and
judges, to adjudicate controversies between two or more States, and
controversies concerning lands claimed under conflicting grants from
different States, it being article IX of the Committee's draught. There
is, however, an article 11 which places restrictions upon the States,
and meets the requirements of Randolph as exactly as if it had been
framed to effect his purpose, and it is article 11 of the Pinckney
draught. We know too that it is Pinckney's own, for it is described in
the Observations.
With the 11th article in Wilson's draught and the 11th article in the
Committee's failing to respond to the requirements of the reference, and
with Pinckney's article 11 responding fully and exactly to it, there is
but one conclusion left which is that Randolph when he wrote "Insert the
11 article" intended article 11 of the Pinckney draught.
When the fact is established that the Committee of Detail had before
them the Pinckney draught and took from it a single excerpt, though of
not more than four lines, the burden cannot rest on Pinckney to account
for identities and resemblances. The onus probandi will then be upon the
other side; and the issue being whether the Committee used the Pinckney
draught or Pinckney copied from the Committee's, the presumption must
be, until the contrary be shown, that all identical provisions in the
two draughts originated in Pinckney's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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