was impossible that he should make the statement, and refer to the only source where it could be confuted, if he meant to deceive.…
In the Convention Dr. Franklin seldom spoke. As he was too feeble to stand long at a time, his speeches were generally written. He would arise and ask the favor of one of his colleagues to read what he had written. Occasionally, however, he would make short extemporaneous speeches with great pertinency and effect.…
It was Mr. Madison’s custom, after he entered Congress, to take memoranda of the debates, rough sketches and copies of all the principal papers. The debates and proceedings of the Convention for adopting the Constitution he took much pains to record at the time, and has preserved the whole. Yate’s book he speaks of as extremely imperfect, the author having been absent a good deal of the time, and both he and Lansing strenuously opposed to the Constitution.…
May 4th, Tuesday.—I mentioned to Mr. Adams (J.Q.) what Mr. Madison had said to me respecting Charles Pinckney’s draft of a Constitution. Mr. Adams said that he prepared the manuscript of the history of the convention published by order of Congress, that the materials in the Department of State were very defective; that Pinckney’s draft was not there; that he wrote to him for a copy, and received from him the one that is printed, together with a letter, in which he claimed to himself great merit for the part he took in framing the Constitution. Mr. Adams said he spoke once to Mr. Rufus King on the subject of the draft, who replied that Mr. Pinckney presented a draft, or a sketch of some sort, at the beginning of the convention, which went with other papers to a committee, and was never afterwards heard of. This accords with what Mr. Madison told me.
ⅭⅭⅭⅬⅩⅧ. John Quincy Adams: Memoirs.[1]
[1830, May] 4th. Mr. Sparks called … Sparks said he had been spending a week at Mr. Madison’s, who spoke to him much of the proceedings and published Journal of the Convention of 1787. He said he knew not what to make of the plan of Constitution in that volume purporting to have been presented by Charles Pinckney, of South Carolina. He said there was a paper presented by that person to the Convention, but it was nothing like the paper now in the book. It was referred to the committee who drafted the plan of the Constitution, and was never afterwards in any manner referred to or noticed. In the book it has the appearance as if it was the orig-
- ↑ Vol. Ⅷ, 224–225.
