Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 2.djvu/143

 RECORDS OF THE FEDERAL CONVENTION 137' COMMITTEE OF DETAIL, IV z$ The, said States of N.H. &c guarantee mutually each other and their Rights against all other Powers and against all Rebellions &c. IV 6 In the draught of a fundamental constitution, two things deserve attention: I. To insert essential principles only, lest the operations o� government should be clogged by rendering those provisions permanent and unalterable, which ought to be accomodatcd to times and events. and z. To use simple and precise language, and general propositions, according to the example of the (several) constitutions o� the several states. (For the construction of a constitution of necessarrily differs from that of law) L A preamble seems proper not for the purpose of desig- nating the ends of government and human pollties--This (business, if not fitter for the schools, is at least sufficiently cxausted) display of theory, howsoever proper in the first forma- tion of state governments, (seems) is unfit here; since we are not working on the natural rights of men not yet gathered into society, but upon those rights, modified by socletL and (sup- porting) interwoven with what we call (states) the rights of states--Nor yet is it proper for the purpose of mutually pledging the faith of the parties for the observance of the articles -- This may be done more solemnly at the dose of the S Thls document was found among the Mason Papers in the possession of the late Mrs. St. George Tucker Campbell of Philadelphia, a great-granddaughter o:[ George Mason. It was reproduced in photographic facsimile by William M. Meigs, in the Growk of the ConsHtution (Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company. Copyright by William M. Meigs, I899). It is reprinted here by the courtesy of Mr. Meigs and the Lippincott Company. The document is in the handwriting of Edmund Randolph with emendations by John Rutledge. In the text here given those portions in parentheses were crossed out in the original, italics represent changes made in Randolph's handwriting, and the emendations in Rutledge's handwriting are enclosed in angle brackets. Each item in this document (except the final notes on "n address") i either checked off or crossed out, showing that it was used in the preparation of subsequent drafts.

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