thority of the people, and not merely by that of the legislatures.1 Such was the outline of the project which he had formed before the assembling of the Convention. How far his views were modified by the discussions in which he took part will be seen hereafter. As a speaker in a deliberative assembly, the successive schools in which he had been trained had given him a habit of self-possession which placed all his resources at his command. "Never wandering from his subject," says Mr. Jefferson, "into vain declamation, but pursuing it closely, in language pure, classical, and copious, soothing always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness of expression, he rose to the eminent station which he held in the great national Convention of 1787; and in that of Virginia which followed, he sustained the new Constitution in all its parts, bearing off the palm against the logic of George Mason and the fervid declamation of Mr. Henry. With these consummate powers were united a pure and spotless virtue, which no calumny has ever attempted to sully.' "2 Mr. Madison's greatest service in the national Convention consisted in the answers which he made to the objections of a want of power in that assembly to frame and propose a new constitution, and his paper on this subject in the Federalist is one of the ablest in the series. As this work is confined to the period which ter 1 Letter to Edmund Randolph, dated New York, April 8th, 1787. 2 Jefferson's Autobiography. Works, I. 41, edition of 1853. par At minated with the adoption of the Constitution, it is not necessary to examine those points on which the two principal writers of the Federalist became separated from each other, when the administration of the government led to the formation of the first ties known in our political history. These topics it may become my duty to discuss hereafter, should I pursue the constitutional history of the country through the administration of Washington. present, it may be recorded of both, that, upon almost all the great questions that arose before the Constitution was finally adopted, the single purpose of establishing a system as efficient as the theory of a purely republican government would admit, was the object of their efforts; and that, although they may have differed with regard to the details and methods through which this object was to be reached, the purpose at which they both aimed places them in the same rank at the head of those founders of our government, towards whom the gratitude of the succeeding generations of America must be for ever directed.1 1 The following extract from an autograph letter of Mr. Madison, hitherto unpublished, which lies before me, written after the adoption of the Constitution, shows very clearly that he concurred with Hamilton in the opinion that the strongest government consistent with the republican form was necessary in the situation of this country. The letter is dated at Philadelphia, December 10th, 1788, and is addressed to Philip Mazzei, at Paris. "Your book, as I prophesied, sells nowhere but in Virginia; a very few copies only have been called for, either in New York or in this city. The language in which it is written will account for it. In order to attract notice, I translated the panegyric in the French Mercure, and had it made part of the advertisement. I did not translate the comment on the Federal Constitution, as you wished, because I could not spare the time, as well as because I did not approve the tendency of it. Some of your remarks prove that Horace's 'Cœlum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt' does not hold without exception. In Europe, the abuses of power continually before your eyes have given a bias to your political reflections, which you did not feel in equal degree when you left America, and which you would feel less of, if you had remained in America. Philosophers on the old continent, in their zeal against tyranny would rush into anarchy; as the horrors of superstition drive them into atheism. Here, perhaps, the inconveniences of relaxed government have reconciled too many to the opposite extreme. If your plan of a single legislature, as in Pennsylvania, &c., were adopted, I sincerely believe that it would prove the most deadly blow ever given to republicanism. Were I an enemy to that form, I would preach the very doctrines which are preached by the enemies to the government proposed for the United States. Many of our best citizens are disgusted with the injustice, instability, and folly which characterize the American administrations. The number has for some time been rapidly increasing. Were the evils to be much longer protracted, the disgust would seize citizens of every description. "It is of infinite importance to the cause of liberty to ascertain the degree of it which will consist with the purposes of society. An error on one side may be as fatal as on the other. Hitherto, the error in the United States has lain in the excess. son, "All the States, except North Carolina and Rhode Island, have ratified the proposed Constitution. Seven of them have appointed their Senators, of whom those of Virginia, R. H. Lee and Colonel Grayalone are among the opponents of the system. The appointments of Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia will pretty certainly be of the same stamp with the majority. The House of Representatives is yet to be chosen, everywhere except in Pennsylvania. From the partial returns received, the election will wear a federal aspect unless the event in one or two particular counties should contradict every calculation. If the eight members from this State be on the side of the Constitution, it will in a manner secure the majority in that branch of the Congress also. The object of the anti-Federalists is, to bring about another general convention, which would either agree on nothing, as would be agreeable to some, and throw every thing into confusion, or expunge from the Constitution parts which are held by its friends to be essential to it. The latter party are willing to gratify their opponents with every supplemental provision for general rights, but insist that this can be better done in the mode provided for amendments. "I remain, with great sincerity, your friend and servant, "JAS. MADISON, JR." CHAPTER X. FRANKLIN. THE Convention was graced and honored by the venerable presence of Dr. Franklin, then President of the State of Pennsylvania, and in his eighty-second year. He had returned from Europe only two years before, followed by the admiration and homage of the social, literary, and scientific circles of France; laden with honors, which he wore with a plain and shrewd simplicity; and in the full possession of that predominating common-sense, which had given him, through a long life, a widely extended reputation of a peculiar character. The oldest of the public men of America, his political life had embraced a period of more than half a century, extending back to a time when independence had not entered into the dreams of the boldest among the inhabitants of the English Colonies. For more than twenty years before the Revolution commenced, he had held a high and responsible office under the crown, the administration of which affected the intercourse and connection of all the Colonies;1 and more than twenty years 1 In 1753, he was appointed Dep- ish Colonies, from which place he uty Postmaster-General for the Brit- was dismissed in 1774, while in before the first Continental Congress was assembled, he had projected a plan of union for the thirteen Provinces which then embraced the whole of the British dominions in North America.1 Nearly as long, also, before the Declaration of Independence, he had become the resident agent in England of several of the Colonies, in which post he continued, with a short interval, through all the controversies that preceded the Revolution, and until reconciliation with the mother country had become impossible.2 Returning in 1775, he was immediately appointed by the people of Pennsylvania one of their delegates in the second Continental Congress. In the following year, he was sent as commissioner to France, where he remained until he was recalled, and was succeeded by Mr. Jefferson, in 1785. With the fame of his two residences abroad-the one before and the other after the country had severed its connection with England - the whole land was filled. The first of them, commencing with an employment for settling the miserable disputes between the people and the Proprietaries of Pennsyl England, on account of the part he had taken in American affairs. 1 In 1754. See an account of this plan, ante, p. 8. 2 He first went to England in 1757, as agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly to settle their difficulties with the Proprietaries, where he remained until 1762. In 1764, he was reappointed provincial agent in England for Pennsylvania; in 1768, he received a similar appointment from Georgia; in 1769, he was chosen agent for New Jersey: and in 1770, he became agent for Massachusetts. His whole residence in England, from 1757 to 1775, embraced a period of sixteen years, two years having been passed at home. He resided in France about nine years, from 1776 to 1785. |