As I have not been able to persuade any competent scholar to take up this inquiry which seems to me to be an inquiry due to the truthfulness of our Constitutional history and to the memory of a framer of the Constitution whose work was not questioned until after his death, I have felt that the work has become a duty and that the duty has been imposed on me.
The Pinckney draught in the Department of State is written on unruled paper larger than common foolscap, hand made, and with untrimmed edges. The interlineations are few and trivial and clerical, the insertion of an omitted word and the like. There are two exceptions to this. In article 3 the draught says, "The House of Delegates shall consist of ---- to be chosen from the different States in the following proportions: For New Hampshire ---- for Massachusetts ----" etc., etc. But the names of the States are not set forth in the body of the instrument as they stand in all editions, being written on the margin and the place where they should have been inserted being noted by a mark.
The second exception is in the last line of article 5. The subject of the paragraph is the veto power; and the clause "all bills sent to the President and not returned by him within ---- days shall be Laws, unless the legislature, by their adjournment, prevent their return" was originally written, "unless the legislature by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be the law." The words "its" and "it" are erased with the pen and the words "their" and "they" written over them and the article "a" and a final "s" are stricken out so that the clause as corrected reads as printed.
In at least two particulars the draught is erroneously printed in almost all editions. Pinckney did not write "Art. I," "Art. II," etc. Above the first article of the draught in the middle of the line, is written "Article 1." Over all the other articles, and likewise in the middle of the line, are simply the arabic figures "2," "3," "4," etc., without the word "article." The second particular, in which many printed copies are erroneous, is in article 3. The printer has there run together two parts of distinct sentences. The true reading is that each member of the House of Delegates shall be "a resident in the State he is chosen for," the sentence closing with the word "for." A new sentence then begins: "Until a census of the people shall be taken in the manner hereinafter mentioned, the House of Delegates shall consist of ---- to be chosen from the different States in the following proportions," etc. But in some we find that a delegate shall be "a resident of the State he is chosen for until a census of the people shall be taken in the manner hereinafter mentioned," which makes the intended provision senseless.