The Mystery of the Pinckney Draught Part 1

The Mystery of the Pinckney Draught.

by Charles C. Nott.

CHAPTER I

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

When I began the studies which have resulted in this book someone asked me what I was doing, and I chanced to answer that I was looking into the mystery of Pinckney's draught of the Const.i.tution. Afterwards I received a letter from Professor J. Franklin Jameson in which he spoke of the uncertainties attending the draught as "mysteries"; and later I found that Jared Sparks, back in 1831, had been engaged in the same study and had used the same term. With two such scholars as Professor Jameson and Mr. Sparks recognizing the knowable but unknown element which we call mystery, I retain the term which I chanced to use.

"A true mystery, instead of ending discussion, calls for more." "What const.i.tutes a mystery is the unknown which is certainly connected with the known. A mystery therefore is unfinished knowledge."[1]

[Footnote 1: Dr. William Hanna Thomson, Brain and Personality, p. 278.]

At the opening of the Convention which framed the Const.i.tution, Charles Pinckney of South Carolina presented a draught of a const.i.tution that was referred to the Committee of the Whole. This draught was not a subject of notice or comment by any speaker or writer of the time. One might infer from the silence of all records and writers that it was the fanciful scheme of an individual which exercised no influence whatever on the Convention and did not contribute a single line or sentence to the Const.i.tution.

On the adjournment of the Convention its records and papers were placed under seal and the obligation of secrecy was set upon its members. When ultimately the seals were broken and the package was opened, more than thirty years afterwards, the draught of Pinckney was not found. John Quincy Adams then Secretary of State applied to Pinckney for a copy; and he on the 30th of December 1818, sent to the Secretary of State the duplicate or copy of the draught now in the Department of State. The doc.u.ment was published and remained unquestioned until in 1830, six years after the death of Pinckney, it came, or was brought, to the attention of Madison; and he at different times wrote to at least four persons concerning it and also prepared a statement which was subsequently published with it in Gilpin's edition of Madison's Journal, and in Elliot's Debates; and then the Pinckney draught slept unnoticed in const.i.tutional publications until a review in the columns of the Nation awakened an interest in Mr. Worthington C. Ford and he in 1895 published the letter which accompanied the draught when it was placed in the State Department. Nevertheless, if the copy in the Department is identical in terms, or substantially identical in terms, with the paper which Pinckney presented to the Convention, then Charles Pinckney contributed more of words and provisions to the Const.i.tution of the United States than any other man. And this draught so prepared by him was so largely adopted in a silent way that the law student who might chance to read it, not knowing of the comment of Madison and its rejection by all commentators, would be tempted to speak of the Const.i.tution of the United States as the const.i.tution of Pinckney.

The reason why the Pinckney draught has received so little attention, and he has received no credit at all for what apparently is an extraordinary piece of const.i.tutional work can be readily explained.

The statement of Madison is written in temperate and guarded terms; and it is manifest that he was careful to speak with courtesy of Pinckney and to furnish an explanation in the nature of a bridge over which the friends of Pinckney, then deceased, might retreat. But what he does say instantly brings the reader's mind to the conclusion that the paper in the State Department is not the paper--that it is not a substantial copy of the paper, which was before the Convention. Story had been appointed by Madison and it was not for Story to accept what Madison rejected; and Story was so great a man, so great a judge and commentator, that it was not for lesser men to reverse him. Madison's comment and Story's silence have united to condemn the draught so effectively that while printed and reprinted it has been as unnoted as if it had never been written. The final, judicial edict of George Bancroft expressed the general judgment when he wrote of the original draught which was actually before the Convention, "No part of it was used, and no copy of it has been preserved."

Moreover Madison is too great an authority to be lightly questioned, the highest authority that exists concerning the proceedings of the Convention; and he a.s.serts and undertakes to demonstrate that the one paper can not be a true copy of the other. He designates provisions which he says originated in the Convention and could not have been predetermined by Pinckney; and still more conclusively, as he thinks, he points to the fact that the paper in the Department contains provisions to which Pinckney was himself opposed, provisions against which he spoke and voted in the Convention. Here Madison builds his bridge. Mr.

Pinckney, he suggests, furnished this copy many years after the event (nearly 32 years), after he had become an old man and the record of events had faded in his memory; and probably as the work of the Convention went on he had used a copy of his draught as a memorandum and had interlined in it provisions which the Convention framed; and when he sent the copy to the Secretary of State he had forgotten this, or had gradually come to regard the interlined matter as his own. A writer like Story with the training of a lawyer and a judge on finding the authenticity of the copy impeached in part would be almost certain to exclude it wholly from the consideration of the jury. Historical a.n.a.lysis and research may, nevertheless, render that clear which is obscure and show us where the work of Pinckney begins and ends.

There are some extrinsic facts which hitherto unknown should be noted.

In the first place this letter of Pinckney antic.i.p.ates one of Madison's criticisms and explains away his strongest point.

"It may be necessary to remark," he says, "that very soon after the Convention met I changed and avowed candidly the change of my opinion on giving the power to Congress to revise the State laws in certain cases, and in giving the exclusive power to the Senate to declare war, thinking it safest to refuse the first altogether and to vest the latter in Congress." Hunt's Madison, III, p. 22.

As to one of these things concerning which Pinckney says he changed his mind after the Convention met, the power of Congress to revise the laws of the States, the a.s.sertion is not sustained by Madison's record of the proceedings. He undoubtedly did change his mind but not until after the adjournment of the Convention. There was however another provision in his draught to which his a.s.sertion would apply. Concerning it he did change his mind and "avowed candidly the change of his opinion" and did so "very soon after the Convention met." This is the provision which declares that members of the lower house shall be chosen by the _people_ of the several States. Article 3. As early as the 6th of June he proposed that they should be chosen by the _legislatures_ of the several States. Writing 32 years after the event and when the record had faded in his memory, the two things, to use Madison's words, "were not separated by his recollection."

The letter is a contemporaneous declaration, given at the moment when he produced the doc.u.ment and placed it on file in the Department of State, that the copy, like the original, contained provisions which he opposed in the Convention. With this contemporaneous notice to the Secretary of State one of Madison's objections which at first seemed insuperable, if it does not fall to the ground, at least becomes susceptible of explanation; and the retention in the copy of the draught of these apparently inconsistent things, accompanied at the time, as they were, by Pinckney's declaration, not only removes the objection of Madison but tells strongly in favor of the draught being what Pinckney represented it to be.

In the second place Pinckney speaks of having "several rough draughts of the Const.i.tution" ("4 or 5 draughts" he says) and he adds "that they are all substantially the same, differing only in words and the arrangement of the articles." Pinckney had preserved them certainly until the end of the year 1818, and "numerous notes and papers which he had retained relating to the Federal Convention." He also says that "with the aid of the journal of the Convention and the numerous notes and memorandums I have preserved, it would now be in my power to give a view of the almost insuperable difficulties the Convention had to encounter, and of the conflicting opinions of the members; and I believe I should have attempted it had I not always understood Mr. Madison intended it. He alone possessed and retained more numerous and particular notes of their proceedings than myself." These "numerous notes and memorandums, more numerous and particular" than those preserved by any other person, Madison "alone" excepted, and with them the "several rough draughts,"

which he found with the other papers on his return to Charleston in 1818, existed when Pinckney wrote his letter and placed his copy of the draught in the State Department. They existed both to refresh his memory and to refute him if he was not acting in good faith. He acknowledged Madison to be his superior in "notes and memorandums" and a particular knowledge of the proceedings of the Convention; and Madison was still living, and Pinckney by placing his copy of the draught in the State Department invited Madison and all the world to examine it. That was the time when Madison should have spoken. It is most unfortunate that he waited fourteen years, and until after Pinckney's death and the death of every other member of the Convention, before he spoke.

Like many another young lawyer I came upon Pinckney's draught in Elliot's Debates and was astounded by finding so large a part of the Const.i.tution apparently written by the hand of a man whom I had never heard extolled as a framer of the Const.i.tution; and like many another young lawyer, I accepted the reasons of Madison and the silence of Story as conclusive. But the discovery and publication of Pinckney's letter in 1895 threw new light upon the subject and made it plain that Madison's objections should not be taken as final and that his premises needed corroboration. I therefore prepared the following inquiries in the hope that I could persuade some historical scholar to take up this work of Const.i.tutional investigation.

1. Does the draught in the State Department upon its face appear to be an author's draught--a, "rough draught," as Pinckney called it--with his corrections, erasures, interlineations and alterations or does it appear to be a duplicate or a fair copy of an original or "rough"

draught? It is in the handwriting of Pinckney; does it appear to be his original piece of work, or an engrossed copy made by him of another paper?

2. If upon the face of the instrument it appears to be an engrossed copy, though in Pinckney's handwriting, that is a copy of the rough draught with its alterations and corrections engrossed therein, then the historical critic must proceed to try the issue of Pinckney's truthfulness. He tells the Secretary of State at the time when he produces the paper that "it is impossible for me now to say which of the 4 or 5 draughts I have is the one. But enclosed I send you the one I believe was it. I repeat, however, that they are substantially the same, differing only in form and unessentials." If this language be taken literally it means that he is about to place in the archives of the Department of State one of those "original" "4 or 5 draughts" and as he believes the very one of which he prepared an engrossed copy for the use of the Convention. If the language be not taken literally, it at least means that he sends a true copy of one of the original rough draughts. Is there anything in the draught to refute either representation? Does it contain words, phrases, clauses, provisions which certainly did originate in the Convention; which were ground out there, and which could not possibly have been antic.i.p.ated by Pinckney as he sat in his study early in 1787 making draught after draught for the consideration of the coming Convention?

3. Finally, it will be apparent on reflection that even if all of the foregoing issues should be decided against Pinckney; that is to say, if it should be found that the paper in the State Department is not an original draught--is not one of the four or five draughts to which Pinckney alludes, or that it contains interlineations of which Pinckney could not have been the author, even then after deciding all doubtful points against him a great deal will remain which must have been his; and historical criticism and careful a.n.a.lysis will be able to measure this residuum and give us a fair estimate of its value, so that we can know with tolerable certainty how much of the Const.i.tution was the work of Pinckney.

As I have not been able to persuade any competent scholar to take up this inquiry which seems to me to be an inquiry due to the truthfulness of our Const.i.tutional history and to the memory of a framer of the Const.i.tution whose work was not questioned until after his death, I have felt that the work has become a duty and that the duty has been imposed on me.

CHAPTER II

THE DRAUGHT IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT

The Pinckney draught in the Department of State is written on unruled paper larger than common foolscap, hand made, and with untrimmed edges.

The interlineations are few and trivial and clerical, the insertion of an omitted word and the like. There are two exceptions to this. In article 3 the draught says, "The House of Delegates shall consist of ---- to be chosen from the different States in the following proportions: For New Hampshire ---- for Ma.s.sachusetts ----" etc., etc.

But the names of the States are not set forth in the body of the instrument as they stand in all editions, being written on the margin and the place where they should have been inserted being noted by a mark.

The second exception is in the last line of article 5. The subject of the paragraph is the veto power; and the clause "all bills sent to the President and not returned by him within ---- days shall be Laws, unless the legislature, by their adjournment, prevent their return" was originally written, "unless the legislature by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be the law." The words "its" and "it" are erased with the pen and the words "their" and "they" written over them and the article "a" and a final "s" are stricken out so that the clause as corrected reads as printed.

In at least two particulars the draught is erroneously printed in almost all editions. Pinckney did not write "Art. I," "Art. II," etc. Above the first article of the draught in the middle of the line, is written "Article 1." Over all the other articles, and likewise in the middle of the line, are simply the arabic figures "2," "3," "4," etc., without the word "article." The second particular, in which many printed copies are erroneous, is in article 3. The printer has there run together two parts of distinct sentences. The true reading is that each member of the House of Delegates shall be "a resident in the State he is chosen for," the sentence closing with the word "for." A new sentence then begins: "Until a census of the people shall be taken in the manner hereinafter mentioned, the House of Delegates shall consist of ---- to be chosen from the different States in the following proportions," etc. But in some we find that a delegate shall be "a resident of the State he is chosen for until a census of the people shall be taken in the manner hereinafter mentioned," which makes the intended provision senseless.

The first of the foregoing inquiries (p. 12 ante), Does the draught in the State Department upon its face appear to be an author's draught, a rough draught with his corrections, erasures, interlineations and alterations, or does it appear to be an engrossed copy made by him of another paper, has been answered decisively by Mr. Gaillard Hunt in his edition of the Writings of Madison:

"The penmanship of all three papers (the draught and the letter to the Secretary of State and a previous letter to the Secretary December 8, 1818) is contemporaneous, and the letter of December 30 and the draught were written with the same pen and ink. This may possibly admit of a difference of opinion because the draught is in a somewhat larger chirography than the letter, having been, as befitted its importance, written more carefully. But the letter and the draught are written upon the same paper, and this paper was not made when the Convention sat in 1787. There are several sheets of the draught and one of the letter, and all bear the same watermark, 'Russell and Co. 1798.'" Vol. III, p. 16.

The draught, as before shown, contains a few verbal corrections, one or two trivial erasures, two or three obviously necessary interlineations but no alteration. That is to say it contains no alteration of substance--nothing which indicates on the part of the writer an intent to change or add to the substance of what he has written--there is no additional provision interlined, no obscure expression amplified, no omitted thought supplied--the corrections are one and all clerical. The doc.u.ment, therefore upon its face does not appear to be a "rough draught."

When the Secretary of State had written to Pinckney "I now take the liberty of addressing you, to inquire _if you have a copy of the Draught_ proposed by you, and if you can without inconvenience furnish me at an early day, _with a copy of it_" and Pinckney replied that among his notes and papers he had "found several rough draughts of the Const.i.tution" and that "I send you the one I believe was it," and with the letter sent a doc.u.ment which obviously was not a rough draught, the fair and reasonable interpretation of his language (apart from an intent to defraud) is that he was sending what the Secretary of State had asked for, viz., "a copy" of the "copy of the draught proposed by you" to the Convention; and that what he meant to say was, "I send you 'a fair copy made by myself of the one I believe was it.'"

What a rough draught is may be seen by referring to the literal reprint of the Journal of Madison in the Doc.u.mentary History of the Const.i.tution by the Department of State. It is something which requires an editor to put the author's changes and amendments in their proper places. A constructive piece of work as long as the Pinckney draught, must have been cut, transposed, changed, added to over and over again. To be intelligible it would require editing, and the Secretary had informed Pinckney that he wanted the "copy" for publication, and that he wanted it "at an early day": and no man would have parted with such an important paper and confided the editing of it to some unknown clerk in an executive department. In a word Pinckney did what any man similarly circ.u.mstanced would have done, he kept the original paper in his possession, and sent to the Secretary of State what he had asked for, "a copy of it."

If we turn now to the printed copy of the draught and note the extent of article 6, containing the enumeration of the powers of Congress, and the extent of the second paragraph of article 8, setting forth the powers and duties of the President, and if we remember that all this matter is to be found in the Const.i.tution, it becomes instantly apparent that absorption of all these provisions by interlineation as suggested by Madison was absolutely impossible. In a word the bridge which Madison built breaks down. Therefore we must face the inexorable alternative: either Pinckney gave to the Convention a draught substantially like that in the State Department or he fraudulently fabricated that draught after the Secretary of State had called upon him for a copy.

CHAPTER III

OF THE ISSUE OF FRAUD

On this issue of fraud we must first look at the circ.u.mstances as they existed in December, 1818.

Pinckney had been a Senator of the United States, Governor of South Carolina, Minister to Spain and had just been elected to the important Congress which was to grapple with the National questions involved in the Missouri Compromise. He may have been a vain man as Madison thought him--(most men of great ability and prominence are egotistical; it is egotism ordinarily which impels them to the front) but no one has intimated that Pinckney could have been guilty of an act which from moral and historical points of view was little better than a crime. Some one contributed the many provisions which are to be found in the Const.i.tution, and it would have been infamous to filch the honor from the real author. The most felicitous sentence in the Const.i.tution, "The citizens of each State shall be ent.i.tled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States," if it was Pinckney's, pa.s.sed through the Committee of Detail, the Committee of Style and the Convention without the change of a single word. It was one of those rare sentences of which everybody approved; and it is not lightly to be a.s.sumed that in 1818 Pinckney would steal such a conspicuous sentence from the Const.i.tution and place it at the head of one of his own articles.

Moreover if the draught was a tissue of fraud detection was always possible; and detection would have blasted the life of Pinckney nowhere with greater severity than in his own State. In 1818 sixteen other members of the Convention were still living, and three of them had been members of the Committee of Style, and two of them (Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and Pierce Butler), had been delegates from South Carolina.

Letters too from members might disclose the fatal truth. A son of some member might come forward with his father's draught of some of these provisions. Autobiographies, diaries and personal reminiscences of members might exist. Detection was possible, and in the ordinary course of human events, certain. Conversely it is proper here to note the fact that in all these years not a line of writing has been found to thrown a shade of discredit upon the Pinckney draught.

The temptation, too, was relatively small. The Const.i.tution was not then in the estimation of the American people what it is now. No one then had proclaimed it to be "the greatest work ever thrown off by the brain and purpose of man." In 1818 the first work on the Const.i.tution (Rawle's) had not yet been written. Monroe was President, and the country was just emerging from the poverty which followed the war of 1812-15.

Pennsylvania and Georgia had defied the federal power and the latter had pa.s.sed a statute making it a crime punishable with death to enforce the process of the Supreme Court of the United States. State feeling was always stronger in the South than in the North and out of State feeling had grown the doctrine of State rights. The South at that time could cherish no warm regard for the man who had first written "all acts made by the legislature of the United States, pursuant to this Const.i.tution, and all treaties made under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land."

It must also be noted that Pinckney was not a volunteer in this matter--that he did not thrust his draught upon the Secretary of State--that he never came before the public claiming to have contributed this or anything to the Const.i.tution. The subject was introduced by Mr.

Adams and not by Pinckney; and the draught was produced in response to Mr. Adams' inquiries concerning it. Pinckney showed no great solicitude about it then. His letter is slovenly and careless and manifestly not written for posterity, and it contains no indication of his regarding it as any thing more than a personal explanation. It was due to Mr. Adams to tell him that this draught which he inclosed was not a literal duplicate of the one which he had placed before the Convention; and it was due to himself to say that it contained provisions of which he had subsequently disapproved and which he had opposed in the Convention.

Pinckney certainly did not suppose that he was writing history or biography when he wrote that letter.