Page:The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 Volume 3.djvu/449

 ⅭⅭⅭⅩⅩⅩⅦ. .

Montpr. June 13 1820

I have recd. & return my thanks for your polite favor accompanying the Copy of the printed Journal of the Federal Convention transmitted in pursuance of a late Resolution of Congress.

In turning over a few pages of the Journal, which is all I have done a casual glance caught a passage which erroneously prefixes my name, to ye proposition made on the 7th. day of Sepr. for making a Council of six members a part of the Executive branch of the Govt. The proposition was made by Col: George Mason one of the Virga. delegates, & seconded by Dr. Franklin. I cannot be mistaken in the fact: For besides my recollection which is sufficiently distinct on the subject, my notes contain the observations of each in support of the proposition.

As the original journal according to my extract from it, does not name the mover of ye propn the error, I presume must have had its source in some of the extrinsic communications to you; unless indeed it was found in some of the separate papers of the Secretary of the Convention: or is to be ascribed to a copying pen. The degree of symphony in the two names Madison & Mason may possibly have contributed to the substitution of the one for the other.

This explanation having a reference to others as well as myself, I have thought it wd. be neither improper nor unacceptable.

ⅭⅭⅭⅩⅩⅩⅧ..

February 13, 1821.

Mr. Speaker, there are many reasons which make it incumbent on me not to suffer this question, which I consider the final one on the acceptance or rejection of the constitution of Missouri, and her admission into the Union, to pass without presenting my views on the subject to the House. These reasons are, the importance of the question itself, the great interest the State I represent, in part, has in it, and, not among the least, the frequent calls made upon me in this House, and references in the other, as to the true meaning of the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution of the United States, which it appears, from the Journal of the General Convention that formed the Constitution, I first proposed in that body. …