Having now seen what Pinckney said in 1818 and what he did and where he stood, let us turn to the other party in the controversy, Madison, and examine the testimony which he gave and the evidence on which he relied.

His journal (as edited by Gilpin) after setting forth the speech of Randolph on the 29th of May, and the reference of the 15 resolutions of the Virginia delegates, to the Committee of the Whole, contains this record:

But Yates's Minutes give us one thing more: "Mr. Pinckney, a member from South Carolina, then added that he had reduced his ideas of a new government to a system, which he then read."

Madison's report of Pinckney's speech on the 25th of June stops with the subject of State governments and the propriety of having but one general system. But Yates gives in a condensed form the conclusion of Pinckney's speech and contains the following sentences:

"I am led to form the second branch (of the legislature) differently from the report. I have considered the subject with great attention and I propose this plan (reads it) and if no better plan is proposed I will then move its adoption."

Once while reflecting upon the extraordinary, the seemingly inexplicable course which Madison pursued in relation to the Pinckney draught—positive and yet evasive; alleging but never testifying—my eye happened to fall on this minute of Yates and it suggested the fact of these repeated omissions of Madison's to state the contents of the Pinckney draught, and I asked myself the question, is it possible that Madison never knew what the draught contained? In an examination of the facts relating to this question I found that the entry in the journal, above quoted, "Mr. Charles Pinckney laid before the house a draught" etc. had been taken word for word from the entry of the Secretary of the Convention in the official Journal. I found also that at four different times in the course of the debates Madison designated the draught by four different terms; as Mr. Pinckney's "plan" as Mr. Pinckney's "resolutions" as Mr. Pinckney's "motion" as Mr. Pinckney's "propositions," not one of which expressed the idea of a formulated Constitution. It is therefore evident that Madison did not hear Pinckney read his draught as Yates did, and did not hear him say as Yates did, "that he had reduced his ideas of a new government to a system." My inference then was and still is, that Madison was temporarily absent from the hall when Pinckney produced and read his draught and that on hearing of it he went to the Secretary's desk and copied the entry in the official journal—an entry which is also silent as to Pinckney having read the draught and which describes it in language entirely different from Yates's and entirely different from Pinckney's, for Pinckney's draught does not profess to be an agreement "between the free and independent States of America," but is avowedly an act of the people of the United States. It therefore appears both positively and negatively that Madison was not present when Pinckney presented his draught; that he could not have heard Pinckney's designation of it as a "system" and could not have heard Pinckney read it to the Convention. He regrets in another place that he did not take a copy of it because of its length and it may be inferred from what may be termed his unfailing ignorance of its contents that he did not read it because of its length.

Madison had a poor opinion of Pinckney, a very poor opinion; and he held fast to it all through his life. During the sitting of the Convention the draught was referred to repeatedly in discussions and motions and references. Madison recorded what was said, and the more important of the motions and references, but his opinion of Pinckney was so poor that he did not put himself to the trouble of stepping to the Secretary's desk and reading the draught, much less of taking a copy of it. In October 1787, after the dissolution of the Convention, he wrote from New York to Washington and Jefferson, the following letters:

James Madison to General Washington.

New York, Octr. 14, 1787.

"I add to it a pamphlet which Mr. Pinckney has submitted to the public, or rather as he professes, to the perusal of his friends, and a printed sheet containing his ideas on a very delicate subject, too delicate in my opinion to have been properly confided to the press. He conceives that his precautions against any further circulation of the piece than he himself authorizes, are so effectual as to justify the step. I wish he may not be disappointed. In communicating a copy to you, I fulfill his wishes only."

(Gaillard Hunt's Writings of Madison, Vol. V., p. 9.)

Madison to Jefferson.

New York, Octr. 24, 1787.

"To these papers I add a speech of Mr. C. P. on the Mississippi business. It is printed under precautions of secrecy, but surely could not have been properly exposed to so much risk of publication."

(Id., p. 39.)

Madison to General Washington.

New York, Oct. 28, 1787.

"Mr. Charles Pinckney's character is, as you observe well marked by the publications which I enclosed. His printing the secret paper at this time could have no motive but the appetite for expected praise; for the subject to which it relates has been dormant a considerable time, and seems likely to remain so."

(Id., p. 43.)

In the memorandum "For Mr. Paulding" written shortly before April 6, 1831, reappears Madison's poor opinion of Pinckney. "It has occurred to me that a copy (of the Observations) may be attainable at the printing office, if still kept up, or in some of the libraries or historical collections in the city. When you can snatch a moment, in your walks with other views, for a call at such places, you will promote an object of some little interest as well as delicacy by ascertaining whether the article in question can be met with."

On the 25th of November, 1831, he wrote to Jared Sparks, "I lodged in the same house with him, and he was fond of conversing on the subject. As you will have less occasion than you expected to speak of the Convention of 1787, may it not be best to say nothing of this delicate topic relating to Mr. Pinckney, on which you cannot use all the lights that exist and that may be added?"

On the 6th of January, 1834, he wrote to Thomas S. Grimke:

"There are a number of other points in the published draught, some conforming most literally to the adopted Constitution, which, it is ascertainable, could not have been the same in the draught laid before the Convention. The conformity, and even identity of the draught in the Journal, with the adopted Constitution, on points and details the results of conflicts and compromises of opinion apparent in the Journal, have excited an embarrassing curiosity often expressed to myself or in my presence. The subject is in several respects a delicate one; and it is my wish that what is now said of it may be understood as yielded to your earnest request, and as entirely confined to yourself. I knew Mr. Pinckney well, and was always on a footing of friendship with him. But this consideration ought not to weigh against justice to others, as well as against truth on a subject like that of the Constitution of the United States."

And on the 5th of June, 1835, he wrote to William A. Duer:

"I have marked this letter 'confidential,' and wish it to be considered for yourself only. In my present condition enfeebled by age and crippled by disease, I may well be excused for wishing not to be in any way brought to public view on subjects involving considerations of a delicate nature."

Madison wrote with characteristic caution and courtesy but there is something very suggestive in the way he uses the word "delicate." Neither Mr. Paulding nor Mr. Sparks nor Mr. Grimke nor Judge Duer could have doubted that there was something wrong in the draught—something so wrong that Madison did not wish to speak of it.

It is manifest that when Madison first read the draught in the State Department, he was surprised. He does not say so, and is very guarded in what he does say; yet it is perfectly plain that the magnitude of this contribution to the Constitution was something absolutely new to him. He better than any other man was supposed to know, the work and workings of the Convention, and lo, here was a document of more importance than any given in his journal, or found among the records of the Convention, and of its contents he had been ignorant until the document was laid before the world by the State Department!

Between 1818 and 1836, the magnitude of this and its importance as an historical document was forced upon Madison's attention from time to time by younger men who took a warmer interest in the Constitution and its history and its framers than their fathers had taken; and it is apparent that he was astounded at the historical importance of the document. Marshall was then drawing near to the end of his majestic judicial reign, and though assailed and thwarted by the cavilings and dissents of lesser men, had placed his imperishable impress upon the Constitution and revealed to his countrymen its greatness and consistency and power of nationality. The growing interest in the great instrument would not be quieted. Madison would fain have kept silent, as he advised his two most trusted correspondents to do. But he could not! He was the greatest of authorities, living or dead, in all that pertained to the making of the Constitution; the last living member of the Convention; the sole chronicler of its secret history. It is as plain now as it was then that he must speak. What could he say?

Madison was not able to say, "I read the Pinckney draught when it was before the Convention, I studied it, I knew the contents well; the paper in the State Department is not a substantial duplicate of that paper." There remained then but this alternative; he must confess that he knew no more about the Pinckney draught than did the men who were interrogating him or he must do precisely what he did do, he must attack it on documentary evidence as an advocate, and must remain silent as a witness. If he had testified as a witness; if he had said of his own knowledge that the paper which Pinckney placed in the State Department was not a copy of the paper which he had laid before the Convention and was not a substantial duplicate worthy of consideration, that would have been the end of the matter. Certainly I should never have felt called upon to make the present investigation. But Madison did not so testify. Under the pressure of steadily increasing interest in the Constitution, inquirer after inquirer came to him to explain how a man whom they did not regard as a wise statesman could have contributed so much to the Constitution, which they had regarded as the composite work of a number of great men. They did not come to him for reasons or advice or references to documentary evidence, but because he was the one survivor of the men who could have testified, the only chronicler of what had happened in the Convention from first to last, and they sought his personal knowledge. They asked him to tell them what he knew concerning the Pinckney draught, the original draught, the one which was before the Convention; and he answered not a word! We must reject Madison as a witness because he rejected himself.