land with the qualification that the States of Delaware and Pennsylvania should be invited to unite in the plan.

After the commercial propositions introduced by Mr. Madison had lain on the table for some time as a report from the Committee of the Whole, the report of the Alexandria commissioners was received and ratified by the legislature of Virginia. Although the friends of those propositions were gradually increasing, Mr. Madison had no expectation that a majority could be obtained in favor of a grant of commercial powers to Congress for a longer term than twenty-five years. The idea of a general convention of delegates from all the States, which had been for some time familiar to Mr. Madison's mind, then suggested itself to him, and he prepared and caused to be introduced the resolution which led to the meeting that afterwards took place at Annapolis, for the purpose of digesting and reporting the requisite augmentation of the powers of Congress over trade.1 His resolution, he says, being, on the last day of the session, "the alternative of adjourning without any effort for the crisis in the affairs of the Union, obtained a general vote; less, however, with some of its friends, from a confidence in the success of the experiment, than from a hope that it might

1 The resolve was introduced by Mr. Tyler, father of the Ex-President, a person of much influence in the legislature, and who had never been in Congress. Although prepared by Mr. Madison, it was not offered by him, for the reason that

a great jealousy was felt against those who had been in the federal councils, and because he was known to wish for an enlargement of the powers of Congress. See Madison's Introduction to the Debates in the Convention, Elliot. V. 113.

prove a step to a more comprehensive and adequate provision for the wants of the Confederacy."1

Mr. Madison was appointed one of the commissioners of Virginia to the meeting at Annapolis. There he met Hamilton, who came meditating noth ing less than the general revision of the whole system of the Federal Union, and the formation of a new government. Mr. Madison, although less confident than the great statesman of New York as to the measures that ought to be taken, had yet for several years been equally convinced that the perpetuity and efficacy of the existing system could not be confided in. He therefore concurred readily in the report recommending a general convention of all the States; and when that report was received in the legislature of Virginia, he became the author of the celebrated act which passed that body on the 4th of December, 1786, and under which the first appointment of delegates to the Convention was made. It was also chiefly through his exertions, combined with the influence of Governor Randolph, that General Washington's name was placed at the head of the delegation, and that he was induced to accept the appointment. Mr. Madison himself was the fourth member of the delegation.

In the Convention, his labors must have been far more arduous than those of any other member of the body. He took a leading part in the debates, speaking upon every important question; and in addition to

1 Ibid., p. 114.

all the usual duties devolving upon a person of so much ability and influence, he preserved a full and careful record of the discussions with his own hand. Impressed, as he says, with the magnitude of the trust confided to the Convention, and foreseeing the interest that must attach to an authentic exhibition of the objects, the opinions, and the reasonings from which the new system of government was to receive its peculiar structure and organization, he devoted the hours of the night succeeding the session of each day to the preparation of the record with which his name is imperishably associated. "Nor was I," he adds, "unaware of the value of such a contribution to the fund of materials for the history of a Constitution on which would be staked the happiness of a people, great even in its infancy, and possibly the cause of liberty throughout the world."1

As a statesman, he is to be ranked, by a long interval, after Hamilton; but he was a man of eminent talent, always free from local prejudices, and sincerely studious of the welfare of the whole country. His perception of the principles essential to the continuance of the Union and to the safety and prosperity of the States, was accurate and clear. His studies had made him familiar with the examples of ancient and modern liberty, and he had carefully reflected upon the nature of the government necessary to be established. He was one of the few persons who carried into the Convention a conviction

1 Introduction to the Debates, Elliot, V 121.

that an amendment of the Articles of Confederation would not answer the exigencies of the time. He regarded an individual independence of the States as irreconcilable with an aggregate sovereignty of the whole, but admitted that a consolidation of the States into a simple republic was both impracticable and inexpedient. He sought, therefore, for some middle ground, which would at once support a due supremacy of the national authority, and leave the local authorities in force for their subordinate objects.

For this purpose, he conceived that a system of representation which would operate without the intervention of the States was indispensable; that the national government should be armed with a positive and complete authority in all cases where a uniformity of measures was necessary, as in matters of trade, and that it should have a negative upon the legislative acts of the States, as the crown of England had before the Revolution. He thought, also, that the national supremacy should be extended to the judiciary, and foresaw the necessity for national tribunals, in cases in which foreigners and citizens of different States might be concerned, and also for the exercise of the admiralty jurisdiction. He considered two branches of the legislature, with distinct origins, as indispensable; recognized the necessity for a national executive, and favored a council of revision of the laws, in which should be included the great ministerial officers of the government. He saw also, that, to give the new system its proper energy, it would be necessary to have it ratified by the au

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.