Apart from the inferential and conjectural statements of the preceding paragraph, the stricter principles of law lead to or toward the same conclusion. The draught was placed in the committee's hands to be used but not to be destroyed. Nevertheless the right to use, like the right of eminent domain, was commensurate with the necessities of the situation, and the committee might use it by destroying it.
The law allows within certain limitations, the presumption of fact that where an administrative officer had a certain, specific official duty to perform, he performed it. The Secretary of the Convention and the members of the Committee of Detail were not public officers but were charged with duties which, if not official, were still public, and the obligations and presumptions belonging to administrative officers may properly be applied to them. The Secretary's entry in the Journal of the Convention says, "The report was then delivered in at the Secretary's table, and being read once throughout, and copies thereof given to the members, it was moved and seconded to adjourn." All that there was to be "delivered in," was placed upon the Secretary's table, and it became his duty to preserve whatever the Committee had placed there subject to the future commands of the Convention. The "copies thereof" were the printed copies of the draught; and "the report" which was "then delivered in at the Secretary's table" was one of the printed copies accompanied by the oral explanation of the chairman.
What the Secretary did with the papers in his charge is told in the following note and extract:
"Major Jackson presents his most respectful compliments to General Washington....
"Major Jackson, after burning all the loose scraps of paper which belong to the Convention, will this evening wait upon the General with the Journals and other papers which their vote directs to be delivered to His Excellency."
"From MAJ'R WM. JACKSON, 17th Sept., 1787."
"Met in Convention when the Constitution received the unanimous assent of 11 States and Col'n Hamilton's, from New York (the only delegate from thence in Convention) and was subscribed to by every Member present except Gov'r Randolph and Col'n Mason from Virginia--& Mr. Gerry from Massachusetts. The business being thus closed, the Members adjourned to the City Tavern, dined together and took a cordial leave of each other.--after which I returned to my lodgings--did some business with, and received the papers from the secretary of the Convention, and retired to meditate upon the momentous wk which had been executed, after not less than five, for a large part of the time six, and sometimes 7 hours sitting every day, sundays & the ten days' adjournment to give a Com'ee opportunity & time to arrange the business, for more than four months." WASHINGTON'S DIARY.