Excerpt from The Real Authorship of the Constitution of the United States Explained The internal evidence is all in Madison's favor; the style is manifestly his. It is the deliberate and finished product of a careful hand that has spared no pains. There is no evidence Whatever of any such preliminary labor upon the part of Ran dolph. There is positive evidence to the contrary in Madison's letter to Randolph of April 8, I 787, in which he says: M y despair of your finding the necessary leisure as signified in one of your let ters, as to the probability that some leading propositions at le would be expected from Virginia had engaged me in a closer atten tion to the subject than I would otherwise have given. Ran dolph really disclaimed authorship of the resolutions when, in the Opening words of his. Speech, He expressed his regret that it should fall to him, rather than those who were of longer standing in hfeand political experience, to Open the great subject of their mission. But as the convention had originated from Virginia, and his colleagues supposed that some proposition was expected from them, they had imposed that task on him. There is no intimation that the task of drafting the resolutions had in any way been imposed on him; as governor of Virginia he was simply made the spokes man oi the delegation. And here the very important fact should be noted that Randolph's speech is inserted entirely in Randolph's hand, while the Virginia plan is spread upon the journal in M adi son's hand. There can be no doubt that Madison was the drafts man of the Virginia plan. It was undoubtedly his production both as to form and substance, and has always been so considered. And yet without the slightest evidence to support his attribution to Randolph, Mr. Hunt has made a fiippant attempt to deprive Madison of the honor, just as he has attempted to deprive Pela tiah Webster of Madison's testimony by the intimation that when he gave it he was a dotard. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.