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.