ment printed in the Journal was not the same as that originally presented by Pinckney in 1787.[1] Madison also prepared a somewhat elaborate criticism to be appended to the document, which he evidently intended to include in his Debates.[2]
It does not seem necessary in this connection to do anything more than point out the lines of evidence followed in disproving the document in question. In the first place, the writing, the ink, and the paper of the document are the same as the letter accompanying it—the paper bearing the watermark of 1797—so that it cannot be the original, but was probably copied or prepared in 1818. In the second place, its provisions, in several important particulars, are directly at variance with Pinckney’s opinions as expressed in the Convention. In the next place, the document embodies several provisions that were only reached after weeks of bitter disputes—compromises and details, that it was impossible for any human being to have forecast accurately. And finally, shortly after the Convention was over, Pinckney printed for private circulation a pamphlet entitled “Observations on the Plan of Government submitted to the Federal Convention, by Mr. Charles Pinckney”, etc.,[3] which seems to have been a speech prepared in advance to be delivered in presenting his plan to the Convention,[4] but which never was delivered, owing probably to lack of time. This speech outlines the principal features of the plan which differ radically from the provisions of the document sent to John Quincy Adams.
The problem then presents itself to determine as accurately as possible what Pinckney’s original plan was. In 1786, Pinckney was a delegate to the Continental Congress and obtained the appointment of a grand committee, of which he became a member, to recommend amendments to the Articles of Confederation. He was the chairman of a sub-committee of three that drew up a report, which was accepted by the grand committee, and which proposed seven important changes or new articles to the original Articles of Confederation. George Bancroft in his History of the Constitution, remarks that “these amended resolutions may well be taken as representing the intentions of Charles Pinckney at that time”.[5] Here, at least, is a starting-point, and as one proceeds in this investigation he becomes more and more convinced that Pinckney’s working motive in his original proposals in the Federal Convention was a reform of
