"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.