The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 [Farrand's Records, Volume 3]
APPENDIX D THE PINCKNEY PLAN

On May 29, after Randolph had presented the Virginia Plan to the Convention, "Mr. Charles Pinckney ... laid before the House for their consideration, the draught of a foederal government to be agreed upon between the free and independent States of America." This plan was referred to the Committee of the Whole House, which was to take the Virginia Plan into consideration. Nothing more is recorded of it, except that on July 24 the Committee of the Whole was formally discharged from further consideration of it and it was referred to the Committee of Detail which was appointed to draft a constitution upon the basis of the proceedings of the Convention at that date.

When John Quincy Adams was preparing the Journal for publication, the Pinckney Plan was not to be found among the secretary's papers, and Pinckney himself was appealed to for a copy of the missing document.1 In response Pinckney stated:

[Note 1: 1 Appendix A, CCCXXVIII.]

"I have already informed you I have several rough draughts of the Constitution I proposed & that they are all substantially the same differing only in words & the arrangement of the Articles--at the distance of nearly thirty two Years it is impossible for me now to say which of the 4 or 5 draughts I have was the one but enclosed I send you the one I believe was it--I repeat however that they are substantially the same differing only in form & unessentials -- --".2

[Note 2: 2 Appendix A, CCCXXVI.]

Adams accepted this statement and printed the following document:--

We the People of the States of New Hampshire Massachusetts Rhode Island & Providence Plantations--Connecticut New York New Jersey Pennyslvania Delaware Maryland Virginia North Caroline South Carolina & Georgia do ordain, declare & establish the following Constitution for the Government of Ourselves & Posterity.

Only a few of the members of the Convention were still living when the Journal was published in 1819, but two of those, King and Madison, expressed privately their conviction that the document printed in the Journal was not the same as that originally presented by Pinckney in 1787.1 Madison also prepared a somewhat elaborate criticism to be appended to the document, which he evidently intended to include in his Debates.2

[Note 1: 1 Appendix A, CCCLXVII-CCCLXIX, CCCLXXXVII, CCCXCIII, CCCXCVI.]
[Note 2: 2 Appendix A, CCCLXXXI-CCCLXXXV.]

It does not seem necessary in this connection to do anything more than point out the lines of evidence followed in disproving the document in question. In the first place, the writing, the ink, and the paper of the document are the same as the letter accompanying it -- the paper bearing the watermark of 1797 -- so that it cannot be the original, but was probably copied or prepared in 1818. In the second place, its provisions, in several important particulars, are directly at variance with Pinckney's opinions as expressed in the Convention. In the next place, the document embodies several provisions that were only reached after weeks of bitter disputes -- compromises and details, that it was impossible for any human being to have forecast accurately. And finally, shortly after the Convention was over, Pinckney printed for private circulation a pamphlet entitled "Observations on the Plan of Government submitted to the Federal Convention, by Mr. Charles Pinckney", etc.,3 which seems to have been a speech prepared in advance to be delivered in presenting his plan to the Convention,4 but which never was delivered, owing probably to lack of time. This speech outlines the principal features of the plan which differ radically from the provisions of the document sent to John Quincy Adams.

[Note 3: 3 Appendix A, CXXIX.]
[Note 4: 4 A. C. McLaughlin, American Historical Review, July, 1904. IX, 735--741.]

The problem then presents itself to determine as accurately as possible what Pinckney's original plan was. In 1786, Pinckney was a delegate to the Continental Congress and obtained the appointment of a grand committee, of which he became a member, to recommend amendments to the Articles of Confederation. He was the chairman of a sub-committee of three that drew up a report, which was accepted by the grand committee, and which proposed seven important changes or new articles to the original Articles of Confederation. George Bancroft in his History of the Constitution, remarks that "these amended resolutions may well be taken as representing the intentions of Charles Pinckney at that time".5 Here, at least, is a starting-point, and as one proceeds in this investigation he becomes more and more convinced that Pinckney's working motive in his original proposals in the Federal Convention was a reform of

[Note 5: 5 Vol. I, p. 258--263.]

the Articles of Confederation.1 These amendments, therefore, which he endorsed in 1786 and probably originated, are not merely a starting-point, they show somewhat of the character of the Pinckney Plan.
[Note 1: 1 See Mr. McLaughlin's confirmation of this position, American Historical Review, loc. cit.]

In the debates of the Federal Convention itself, during the discussion of the Randolph Resolutions in the Committee of the Whole -- that is, during approximately the first two weeks of the Convention's work -- Pinckney's attitude upon the various questions may be taken as fairly representing his original ideas, especially when his position was opposed to that of the leaders or to the general sentiment of the Convention. His later attitude was undoubtedly modified by the development of proceedings and can only be used with caution, although some suggestions may be obtained therefrom.2

[Note 2: 2 Mr. Jameson has made a careful analysis of this material; see his Studies in the History of the Federal Convention of 1787, pp. 117--120.]

While the delegates were gathering in Philadelphia and were waiting for a sufficient number to commence proceedings, George Read, of Delaware, wrote to his colleague Dickinson that he was "in possession of a copied draft of a federal system intended to be proposed," and he outlined a few of the conspicuous features. These do not at all correspond to the features of the Virginia Plan, but they do tally exactly with certain characteristics of the Pinckney Plan that have been obtained from the study of the debates. There can be no doubt that it is the latter plan that is here described, especially as we have on other authority that Pinckney prepared his plan in advance of his going to Philadelphia.3 From this letter of Read's we get a few additional particulars, and the helpful suggestion that "some of its principal features are taken from the New York system of government."4

[Note 3: 3 "'W. S. E. of S. C.' (W. S. Elliot, grandson of Pinckney) in DeBow's Review XXXIV, 63, says: This draft was made in Charleston before the writer thereof had any opportunity of conference with his co-workers, and carried with him to the Convention.'" Jameson, Studies, p. 120, note.]
[Note 4: 4 Appendix A, XVII.]

The pamphlet entitled "Observations" must be used with some caution, as it was not printed until after the Convention was over, and Pinckney may have modified some of his statements or added somewhat to his speech as originally prepared.

And there is also the draft sent to John Quincy Adams in 1818. In the light of the documents already noticed, it is established beyond all doubt that this draft does not represent "Pinckney's original plan with some additions and modifications." It does not even have Pinckney's original plan as its basis. Not only does it radically differ from the original plan in several essential matters, it is constructed on an entirely different framework. Indeed, when one notes its striking resemblance to the draft reported by the Committee of Detail on August 6, it is difficult not to agree with Mr. Jameson's conclusion that if Pinckney had copied "the printed report of the Committee of Detail, paraphrasing to a small extent here and there, and interweaving as he went along some of the best remembered features of his own plan," the results would have been precisely like the document that was sent to John Quincy Adams.1 There is no proof, however, it is only a possible hypothesis, that in the points of difference from the draft of the Committee of Detail the document sent to Adams reproduces portions of the original plan. The most that can be said is, that when other evidence confirms the inclusion of such provisions, a possible reading of those clauses may here be found.

[Note 1: 1 Studies, p. 124.]

Following the same line of argument, although ignoring the amendments to the Articles of Confederation and treating the Observations with "considerable skepticism," Mr. Jameson was able to establish the main points of Pinckney's original plan. By a piece of brilliant criticism Mr. Jameson was thus enabled to identify a document among the Wilson drafts of the Committee of Detail as a series of extracts from the Pinckney Plan,2 and Mr. McLaughlin was able to identify another document among the same papers as an outline of the entire plan.3

[Note 2: 2 Studies, p. 117--132. See Records, July 27--August 4, Committee of Detail, VII.]
[Note 3: 3 American Historical Review, loc. cit. See Records, July 27-August 4, Committee of Detail, III.]

Combining all of these sources of information it is possible to obtain a fairly good idea of the Pinckney Plan in its original from. The following is the plan thus reconstructed. (Italics and quotation marks indicate respectively the outline and extracts used by Wilson in the Committee of Detail; statements based upon the "Observations" are placed in parentheses; numbers attached to the different articles have little significance).

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