THE POSITION TAKEN BY MADISON
The position taken by Madison in private letters to individuals, he had
a right to modify, abandon or withdraw; and it would not be treating him
fairly to hold him to words hastily written and perhaps inspired by an
impulse of the moment. But the "Note of Mr. Madison to the Plan of
Charles Pinckney" (Elliot Vol. 5, 578) deliberately prepared by him for
future publication, and intended by him to accompany the draught of the
State Department in future publications so that it should destroy the
supposed verity of the copy, must be taken as the final expression of
his judgment.
"Note of Mr. Madison to the Plan of Charles Pinckney, May
29, 1787."
"The length of the Document laid before the Convention, and
other circumstances, having prevented the taking of a copy
at the time, that which is ["here inserted" stricken out]
inserted in the Debates was taken from the paper furnished
to the Secretary of State, and contained in the Journal of
the Convention, published in 1819 which it being taken for
granted was a true copy was not then examined. The
coincidence in several instances between that and the
Constitution as adopted, having attracted the notice of
others was at length suggested to mine. On comparing the
paper with the Constitution in its final form, or in some
of its Stages; and with the propositions, and speeches of
Mr. Pinckney in the Convention, it was apparent that
considerable errour had crept into the paper; occasioned
["probably" stricken out] possibly by the loss of the
Document laid before the Convention, (neither that nor the
Resolutions offered by Mr. Patterson, being among the
preserved papers), and by a consequent resort for a copy to
the rough draught, in which erasures and interlineations
following what passed in the Convention, might be
confounded in part at least with the original text, and
after a lapse of more than thirty years, confounded also in
the memory of the Author.
"There is in the paper a similarity in some cases, and an
identity in others, with details, expressions, and
definitions, the results of critical discussions and
modifications in the Convention, that ["cannot be ascribed
to accident or anticipation" omitted] could not have been
anticipated.
"Examples may be noticed in Article VIII. of the paper;
which is remarkable also for the circumstance, that whilst
it specifies the functions of the President, no provision
is contained in the paper for the election of such an
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 paper corresponds
with the Constitution, it is at variance with the ideas of
Mr. Pinckney, as decidedly expressed in his propositions,
and in his arguments, the former in the Journal of the
Convention, the latter in the report of its debates: Thus
in Art: VIII. of the paper, 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 Art: III., it is required
that all money-bills shall originate in the first Branch of
the Legislature; which he strenuously opposed Aug: 8, and
again, Aug: 11. In Art: V., members of each House are made
ineligible to, as well as incapable of holding, any office
under the Union, etc., as was the case at one Stage of the
Constitution; a disqualification highly disapproved and
opposed by him Aug: 14.
"A still more conclusive evidence of errour in the paper is
seen in Art: III., which provides, as the Constitution
does, that the first Branch of the Legislature shall be
chosen by the people of the several States; whilst it
appears, that on the 6th of June, according to previous
notice, too, a few days only, after the Draft was laid
before the Convention, its Author opposed that mode of
choice, urging & proposing, in place of it, an election by
the Legislatures of the several States.
"The remarks here made, tho' not material in themselves,
were due to the authenticity and accuracy aimed at, in this
Record of the proceedings of a Publick Body, so much an
object, sometimes, of curious research, as at all times, of
profound interest."
* * * * *
"As an Editorial note to the paper in the hand writing of
Mr. M. beginning 'The length, &c.'"
"*Striking discrepancies will be found on a comparison of
his plan, as furnished to Mr. Adams, and the view given of
that which was laid before the Convention, in a pamphlet
published by Francis Childs at New York shortly after the
close of the Convention. The title of the pamphlet is
'Observations on the plan of Government submitted to the
Federal Convention on the 28th of May, 1787, by Charles
Pinckney, &c.'
"But what conclusively proves that the choice of the H. of
Reps. _by the people_ could not have been the choice in the
lost paper is a letter from Mr. Pinckney to J. M. of _March
28, 1789_, now on his files, in which he emphatically
adheres to a choice by the _State Legrs._ The following is
an extract--'Are you not, to use a full expression,
abundantly convinced that the theoretical 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 (of the States) are the
only proper judges of who ought to be elected?'"
It is plain that Madison intended that the last two paragraphs of the
foregoing, beginning with an asterisk, should take the form of an
editorial note, and he so prepared the paper even to the placing of the
asterisk at the beginning. As long before this as 1821 he had determined
in his own mind that the publication of the Journal should be as he
termed it, "a posthumous one" (letter to Thomas Ritchie September 15,
1821), and he carried out the intention by so providing in his will made
in 1835. The expected editor was Mrs. Madison; and she, he knew, would
scrupulously and intelligently carry into effect his slightest wish. She
was not able to perform the editorial task.
When these charges of Madison are analyzed they may be reduced to three.
The first and most serious charge is that there are coincidences "in
several instances" between the draught and the Constitution--"a
similarity in some cases and an identity in others with details,
expressions and definitions" which were "the results of critical
discussion and modification in the Convention." The second is that there
are provisions in the draught inconsistent with Pinckney's known views,
with the propositions which he presented and the speeches which he made
in the Convention and that these provisions are so inconsistent with his
views and speeches that they are "conclusive evidence of error" in the
draught. The third, is that Pinckney immediately after the sittings of
the Convention printed and published a paper entitled "Observations"
which described the contents of the draught which he had presented to
the Convention and that the two are utterly irreconcilable.