The Mystery of the Pinckney Draught

by Charles C. Nott

These draughts of Randolph and Wilson disclose another fact of unusual interest. When the Randolph draught was found bearing the annotations of Rutledge, it suggested the idea that the two Southern members of the Committee of Detail had put their heads together to draught a constitution which would be accepted at the South, and that probably the three Northern members had prepared another which would be accepted at the North. But the final draught of Wilson dispels that illusion. We now know that Rutledge gave quite as much attention to the Wilson draught as to the Randolph draught, and that he wrote many more amendments upon its margin. Nothing has been discovered to show that Ellsworth and Gorham even attempted to draught a constitution; and after finding that the other members used and utilized and amended the Pinckney draught we know that there was nothing left for Ellsworth and Gorham to draught. They were not constructive men in the Convention, though being critically minded they may have rendered good service in the way of revision, but they contributed nothing to the draught of the Committee. Every provision in it is traceable to Pinckney, Wilson, Randolph and Rutledge, and they were its authors.

The second and third draughts of Wilson appear in neatness and completeness to be copies. There is nothing indicative in them of an author's perturbations. The writing is small and finished. If it were not known to be Wilson's hand one could easily believe it to be that of a secretary, giving good work for wages, undisturbed by the cross currents of thought and composition. But on the back of a sheet of the second draught is a paragraph which is unmistakably a rough draught, which is unquestionably author's work, warped and altered in the uncertainties of construction and composition; and this piece of work is a preamble.

As first written, before erasures and interlineations began, it stood as follows:

"We the people of the States of New Hampshire etc. do agree upon ordain and establish the following Frame of Government as the Constitution of the United States of America according to which we and our Posterity shall be governed under the Name and Stile of the United States of America."

Wilson then amplified the first part of this draught, and the amplifications well illustrate the bent of his mind toward details and particulars; and he next reduced it by omitting the clauses which relate to the government of ourselves and our posterity, and to the "Name and Stile" of the future nation so that it reads as follows:

"We the People of the States of New Hampshire etc. already confederated under and known by the Stile of the United States of America do ordain declare and establish the following Frame of Government as the Constitution of the said United States."

Neither of these versions is the preamble reported by the Committee. Each lacks the bold simplicity and comprehensiveness and directness of Pinckney's: "We the People of New Hampshire" etc. "do ordain declare and establish the following Constitution for the government of ourselves and posterity."

The preamble is in words and structure a small thing. Two persons having the tasks set them of preparing a preamble with that of Massachusetts before them as material out of which each should be made, could hardly avoid, one would think, evolving out of it two sentences which would be in terms almost identical. But even in this small thing the different traits and methods and style of the two men appear. Pinckney takes the Massachusetts preamble and reduces it until he gets what he wants without a superfluous word. Wilson cannot resist amplifying even while he is condensing. When we get through with what is unquestionably Wilson's work, the preamble for the Committee remained to be written—unless it was already written in the Pinckney draught.

In the investigation of the charges of Madison against Pinckney it was found that whenever the evidence was subjected to a rigorous examination the case broke down. These draughts of Wilson and Randolph though not intended as a charge against Pinckney may be treated as such—the charge of appropriating Wilson's work and representing it to be his own. Accordingly I have in like manner, examined the evidence and have again found that it does not sustain the charge. A few illustrations will make this plain.

The preamble in the Committee's draught is in Wilson's, word for word. When we find that this preamble is in the preliminary draught of Wilson (a member of the committee), and in the finished product (the draught of the committee), we easily infer that Wilson was the author, the originator of the preamble, and when we find that the same preamble is in the draught of Pinckney and know that he possessed a copy of the Committee's draught we are in danger of taking another step on the pathway of assumption and reaching the conclusion that Pinckney must have taken his preamble from the Committee's draught. This makes a case against Pinckney which is entitled to explanation or examination.