Early Draft of Constitution Found

Lorianne Updike Toler, lawyer and head of the Constitutional Sources Project in Pennsylvania, has found a rare early draft of the United States Constitution in the hand of James Wilson. It is a major historical and legal find at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

It appears the draft was written by Wilson in the summer of 1787. The handwriting appeared incomplete until the rest of the document was found among Wilson’s other papers. The document was entitled “The Continuation of the Scheme.”

This only the third such draft in Wilson’s hand. Wilson served with John Rutledge, Edmund Randolph, Nathaniel Gorham, and Oliver Ellsworth as a member of the important Committee of Detail, which refined the words of the Constitution.

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