Lawyer Finds Early Draft of Constitution

[Bartholomew Roberts]

http://www.abajournal.com/weekly/article/lawyer_makes_find_of_a_lifetime_early_draft_of_constitution

For a long time now, it was believed that James Wilson had written only two drafts of the Constitution. Now it appears that researcher Lorianne Updike Toler may have discovered a third draft that was previously unknown.

Naturally, given the roots of the Second Amendment and the great debate over its meaning, finding an early draft of the Constitution has the potential to add new information to that debate on that amendment, as well as other aspects of Constitutional Law by showing the thought process and changes made as the Constitution was drafted.

 

[Evan Thomas]

For a long time now, it was believed that James Wilson had written only two drafts of the Constitution. Now it appears that researcher Lorianne Updike Toler may have discovered a third draft that was previously unknown.

Well... not exactly. She seems to have relocated, in an archive, a draft whose existence was known but which had been mislaid for some number of years. Not that turning it up isn't valuable, but after looking at the discussion of this on her web site, I'd say that there's a certain amount of self-promotion in this story. (I'd bet the ABA Journal got its info from a press release she sent them... )

Of course, I may just be feeling peeved because her web site crashed my browser.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

Thanks for the link and clarfication!

 

[Mike Irwin]

It's truly sad how little most people know of the huge role that Wilson played in the founding and formation of the United States.

James Madison in large part drove the Constitutional process, but it was to Wilson that many of the delegates looked for direction when trying to reconcile the new concepts that were being laid out in the Constitution and for historic context as to how those concepts fit into (or contrasted from) governments that had come before, such as Athenian Democracy, the Roman Republic, and the English Monarchical system.