Reviews of Books

WHO DRAFTED THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION? The M ystery of the Pinckney Draught. B Charles C. Nott. formerly Chief Justice of the U. . Court of Claims. Century Company, New York. Pp. 292+appendix 30 and index 10. ($2.00 mt.)

HARLES PINCKNEY of South Carolina presented a draught of a Constitution to the Constitutional Convention when it opened in 1787. This draught was referred to the Committee of the Whole and later to

the Committee on Detail.

No copy was found

with the records of the Convention.

In 1818

John Quincy Adams, then Secretary of State,

requested Pinckney to supply a copy. Pinck ney then furnished one, which he stated to be the one of several rough draughts in his pos session, which he believed was the right one, all of them being substantially similar. After Pinckney’s death Madison declared that the evidence against its authenticity was “irresist ible," basing his position largely on the differ ence between it and the policies advocated by Pinckney before the convention. Story, in his Commentaries, did not regard it as worth notice. Bancroft asserted that “no part of it was used and no copy of it has been preserved."

evidence.

had not claimed so much"; and that Judge Nott has gone much too far in claiming for Pinckney the distinction of having been the chief draughtsman of the Constitution.

Rufus King, a member of the

Convention, emphatically declared that the document was not genuine. The exhaustive research of historical students, particularly Professor J. F. Jameson (Report of American Historical Association, 1902, pages 111 to 132) have confirmed this conclusion. Judge Nott, however, attempts to prove the genuineness of the Pinckney draught. He examines a great deal of testimony, which is presented in the dramatic form of a trial conducted in accordance with the usual rules of

We are somewhat sceptical, however, as to whether a strong case in Pinckney's favor has been made out with success. It is difiicult to believe that there is not weighty evidence to be found somewhere which would have thrown more light on the problem. The treatment might have been broader and might have shown more vividly the actual genesis of the Constitution regarded substan tively as well as . textually. A judicial estimate of the relative chares of Wilson, Randolph, Madison, Rutledge, and their asso ciates, in the framing of the Constitution would have helped to define the actual service of Pinckney, whatever it way have been. The question will long remain an open one for historical investigation, having failed to receive in Judge Nott's book a conclusive answer. The probability is that Professor Jameson was right in declaring that “Charles Pinckney deserves to stand higher than he has stood of late years, and that he would have a better chance of doing so if in his old age he

Madison

is

discredited,

the

supposition of fraud is overthrown, and the conclusions are reached that we owe the style of the Constitution to Pinckney, that but for

his work a very different instrument would have been given to the world, and that no framer of the Constitution is more entitled to perpetual veneration. Judge Nott has given a great deal of minute research to the preparation of his inquiry; textual matters particularly receive most painstaking and complete analysis. The author attempts to treat the whole problem judicially.

HUBBELL'S LEGAL DIRECTORY l" Hubbell's Le al Directory for La wyers and Busi ness Men. 40t gear, 1910. Hubbell Publishin Co., New York. p. 472+408. ($5.35 delivered.

THE new volume of this standard direc tory has been thoroughly revised and brought up to date. being larger by fifty or sixty pages than a year ago. A synopsis of the laws of Hawaii has been added. On account of numerous changes in the state laws, the synopses allotted to the several states have undergone considerable revision. The work is as valuable as ever, because of

its extensive information with regard to or ganization and calendars of federal and state courts for 1910, instructions for taldng depo sitions, the execution and

acknowledgment

of deeds, synopses of the patent laws and the laws concerning the jusisdiction and practice

in the federal courts, its list of leading attor neys in our four thousand cities and towns, its list of prominent banks and bankers throughout the United States, its list of

United States Consuls, and other features.

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