In Pinckney's draught is set forth (art. 3) "The House of Delegates shall exclusively possess the power of impeachment, and shall choose its own officers; and vacancies shall be supplied by the executive authority of the State in the representation from which they shall happen." And in the Committee's draught it is similarly set forth (art. IV, sec. 6, 7) "The House of Representatives shall have the sole power of impeachment. It shall choose its speaker and other officers. Vacancies in the House of Representatives shall be supplied by writs of election from the executive authority of the State in the representation from which they shall happen" (sec. 7). These incongruous things Pinckney threw together in a single sentence. The Committee placed two of them in one section and the third in another, and amplified and corrected as usual; but not one of these powers is enumerated in the twenty-three resolutions; and let it also be noted that the peculiar and awkward phraseology, "the executive authority of the State in the representation from which they shall happen" is in both. While the uses and misuses of the Pinckney draught conclusively establish the fact that the Committee of Detail did use it and frequently adhere to its text, a more comprehensive and just idea of the service which Pinckney rendered and the manner in which his draught was used in the formation of the Constitution will be obtained by placing ourselves in the place of the Committee and using it as they must have used it. At the convening of the Committee the draught which had been referred by the Convention was before them. It was the only draught of the proposed constitution which had been prepared by anyone--the only instrument or document, so far as our knowledge goes, which could be used by them as a pattern or basis for their work. Unquestionably the Committee sooner or later would take up this one instrument of its kind and ascertain how far it would serve their purpose. The preamble is the first and chief sentence in the Constitution; for it declares the source and supremacy of its authority. "We the people of the United States" "do ordain, declare and establish this Constitution." The preamble goes behind State governments, asking nothing from them, either of authority or consent, and invokes the power which established them, the people of the United States. This supreme power, if the Constitution should be adopted, would allow States and State governments to continue to exist, but to exist subordinate to a new power, the Constitution of the United States and as parts and not units. In the first letter which Madison (then in New York) wrote to Jefferson (then in Paris) after the adjournment of the Convention, he said: