University of Virginia Library

TO JARED SPARKS.[141]

Dear Sir,—I have received your favor of the
14th instant. The simple question is, whether
the draught sent by Mr. Pinckney to Mr. Adams,
and printed in the Journal of the Convention, could
be the same with that presented by him to the
Convention on the 29th day of May, 1787; and I
regret to say that the evidence that that was not the
case is irresistible. Take, as a sufficient example,
the important article constituting the House of Representatives,
which, in the draught sent to Mr. Adams,
besides being too minute in its details to be a possible
anticipation of the result of the discussion, &c.,
of the Convention on that subject, makes the House
of Representatives the choice of the people. Now,
the known opinion of Mr. Pinckney was, that that
branch of Congress ought to be chosen by the State
Legislatures, and not immediately by the people.
Accordingly, on the 6th day of June, not many days
after presenting his draught, Mr. Pinckney, agreeably
to previous notice, moved that, as an amendment
to the Resolution of Mr. Randolph, the term "people"
should be struck out and the word "Legislatures"
inserted; so as to read, "Resolved, That the members
of the first branch of the National Legislature ought

to be elected by the Legislatures of the several States."
But what decides the point is the following extract
from him to me, dated March 28, 1789:

"Are you not, to use a full expression, abundantly
convinced that the theoretic nonsense of an election
of the members of Congress by the people, in the first
instance, is clearly and practically wrong; that it will,
in the end, be the means of bringing our Councils into
contempt, and that the Legislatures are the only
proper judges of who ought to be elected?"[142]

Other proofs against the identity of the two
draughts may be found in Article VIII of the Draught,
which, whilst it specifies the functions of the President,
contains no provision for the election of any
such officer, nor, indeed, for the appointment of any
Executive Magistracy, notwithstanding the evident
purpose of the author to provide an entire plan of a
Federal Government.

Again, in several instances where the Draught
corresponds with the Constitution, it is at variance
with the ideas of Mr. Pinckney, as decidedly expressed
in his votes on the Journal of the Convention.
Thus, in Article VIII of the Draught, provision is
made for removing the President by impeachment,
when it appears that in the Convention, July 20,
he was opposed to any impeachability of the Executive
Magistrate. In Article III, it is required that
all money-bills shall originate in the first branch of
the Legislature; and yet he voted, on the 8th August,
for striking out that provision in the Draught reported

by the Committee on the 6th. In Article V, members
of each House are made ineligible, as well as
incapable, of holding any office under the Union, &c.,
as was the case at one stage of the Constitution; a
disqualification disapproved and opposed by him
August 14th.

Further discrepancies might be found in the observations
of Mr. Pinckney, printed in a pamphlet
by Francis Childs, in New York, shortly after the close
of the Convention. I have a copy, too mutilated
for use, but it may probably be preserved in some
of your historical respositories.

It is probable that in some instances, where the
Committee which reported the Draught of Augt 6th
might be supposed to have borrowed from Mr. Pinckney's
Draught, they followed details previously settled
by the Convention, and ascertainable, perhaps,
by the Journal. Still there may have been room
for a passing respect for Mr. Pinckney's plan by
adopting, in some cases, his arrangement; in others,
his language. A certain analogy of outlines may
be well accounted for. All who regard the objects of
the Convention to be a real and regular Government,
as contradistinguished from the old Federal system,
looked to a division of it into Legislative, Executive,
and Judiciary branches, and of course would accommodate
their plans to their organization. This was
the view of the subject generallytaken and familiar
in conversation, when Mr. Pinckney was preparing
his plan. I lodged in the same house with him, and
he was fond of conversing on the subject. As you

will have less occasion than you expected to speak
of the Convention of 1787, may it not be best to say
nothing of this delicate topic relating to Mr. Pinckney,
on which you cannot use all the lights that exist
and that may be added?

My letter of April 8th was meant merely for your
own information and to have its effect on your own
view of things. I see nothing in it, however, unfit for
the press, unless it be thought that the friends of
Mr. Morris will not consider the credit given him a
balance for the merit withdrawn, and ascribe the
latter to some prejudice on my part.