The Mystery of the Pinckney Draught

by Charles C. Nott

"The 5th article, declaring that individual States shall not exercise certain powers, is also founded on the same principle as the 6th of the confederation.

"The next is an important alteration of the Federal system, and is intended to give the United States in Congress, not only a revision of the legislative acts of each State, but a negative upon all such as shall appear to them improper.

"I apprehend the true intention of the States in uniting is, to have a firm, national government, capable of effectually executing its acts, and dispensing its benefits and protection. In it alone can be vested those powers and prerogatives which more particularly distinguish a sovereign State. The members which compose the superintending government are to be considered merely as parts of a great whole, and only suffered to retain the powers necessary to the administration of their State systems. The idea which has been so long and falsely entertained of each being a sovereign State, must be given up; for it is absurd to suppose there can be more than one sovereignty within a government. The States should retain nothing more than that mere local legislation, which, as districts of a general government, they can exercise more to the benefit of their particular inhabitants, than if it was vested in a Supreme Council; but in every foreign concern as well as in those internal regulations, which respecting the whole ought to be uniform and national, the States must not be suffered to interfere. No act of the Federal Government in pursuance of its constitutional powers ought by any means to be within the control of the State Legislatures; if it is, experience warrants me in asserting they will assuredly interfere and defeat its operation.

"The next article proposes to invest a number of exclusive rights, delegated by the present confederation, with this alteration: that it is intended to give the unqualified power of raising troops, either in time of peace or war, in any manner the Union may direct. It does not confine them to raise troops by quotas on particular States, or to give them the right of appointing regimental officers, but enables Congress to raise troops as they shall think proper, and to appoint all the officers. It also contains a provision for empowering Congress to levy taxes upon the States, agreeable to the rule now in use, an enumeration of the white inhabitants, and three-fifths of other descriptions.

"The 7th article invests the United States with the complete power of regulating the trade of the Union, and levying such imposts and duties upon the same, for the use of the United States, as shall in the opinion of Congress, be necessary and expedient.

"The 8th article only varies so far from the present, as in the article of the Post Office, to give the Federal Government a power not only to exact as much postage as will bear the expense of the office, but also for the purpose of raising a revenue. Congress had this in contemplation some time since, and there can be no objection, as it is presumed, in the course of a few years the Post Office will be capable of yielding a considerable sum to the public treasury.

"The 9th article, respecting the appointment of Federal courts for deciding territorial controversies between different States, is the same with that in the confederation; but this may with propriety be left to the supreme judiciary.

"The 10th article gives Congress a right to institute all such offices as are necessary for managing the concerns of the Union; of erecting a federal judicial court for the purposes therein specified; and of appointing courts of Admiralty for the trial of maritime causes in the States respectively.

"The exclusive right of coining money—regulating its alloy, and determining in what species of money the common treasury shall be supplied—is essential to assuring the federal funds.

"In all those important questions, where the present confederation has made the assent of nine States necessary, I have made the assent of two-thirds of both Houses, when assembled in Congress, and added to the number the regulation of trade, and acts for levying an impost and raising a revenue.