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upon the minds of men, a sense of insecurity, consciousness that American society was not fulfilling the ends of its being by the development of its resources and the discharge of its obligations, — which constituted altogether a discipline and chastisement of the whole nation, and which we are not at liberty to regard as the mere accidents of a world ungoverned by an overruling Power.

It was from the midst of that discipline that the American people came to the high undertaking of forming for themselves a constitution, by which to work out the destiny of social life in this Western World. Had they essayed their task after years of prosperity, and after old institutions and old forms of government had, upon the whole, yielded a fair amount of success and happiness, they would have wanted that power which comes only from failure and disappointment, the power to adapt the best remedy to the deepest social defects, and to lay hold on the future with the strength given by the hard teachings of the past.

Civil liberty, -American liberty, that liberty

which resides in law, which is protected by great institutions and upheld by the machinery of a popular government, is not simply the product of a desire, or a determination, to be free. Such liberty comes, if it comes at all, only after serious mistakes, after frightful deficiencies have taught men that power must be lodged somewhere. It comes when a people have learned, by adversity and disappointment, that a total negation of all authority, and a jealousy of all

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restraint, can end only in leaving society without the defences and securities which nothing but law can raise for it. It comes when the passions are exhausted, and the rivalries of opposing interests have worn themselves out, in the vain endeavor to reach what reason and justice and self-sacrifice alone can procure. Then, and then only, is the intellect of a nation sure to operate with the fidelity and energy of its native power. Then only does it grasp the principles of freedom with the ability to incorporate them into the practical forms of a public administration whose strength and energy shall give them vitality, and prevent their diffusion into the vagueness of mere abstractions, which return to society the cold and mocking gift of a stone for its craving demand of bread.

The Convention was a body of great and disinterested men, competent, both morally and intellectually to the work assigned them. High qualities of character are requisite to the formation of a system of government for a wide country with different interests. Mere talent will not do it. Intellectual power and ingenuity alone cannot compass it.

There must be a moral completeness in the characters of those who are to achieve such a work; for it does not consist solely in devising schemes, or creating offices, or parcelling out jurisdictions and powers. There must be adaptation, adjustment of conflicting interests, reconciliation of conflicting claims. There must be the recognition and admission of great expe

dients, and the sacrifice, often, of darling objects of ambition, or of local policy, to the vast central purpose of the greatest happiness of the greatest number. Hence it is, that, wherever this mighty work is to be successfully accomplished, there must be a high sense of justice; a power of concession; the qualities of magnanimity and patriotism; and that broad moral sanity of the intellect, which is farthest removed from fanaticism, intolerance, or selfish adhesion either to interest or to opinion.

These qualities were preeminently displayed by many of the framers of the Constitution. There was certainly a remarkable amount of talent and intellectual power in that body. There were men in that assembly, whom, for genius in statesmanship, and for profound speculation in all that relates to the science of government, the world has never seen overmatched. But the same men, who were most conspicuous for these brilliant gifts and acquirements, for their profound theories and their acute perception of principles, were happily the most marked, in that assembly, for their comprehensive patriotism, their justice, their unselfishness and magnanimity. Take, for instance, Hamilton. Where, among all the speculative philosophers in political science whom the world has seen, shall we find a man of greater acuteness of intellect, or more capable of devising a scheme of government which should appear theoretically perfect? Yet Hamilton's unquestionable genius for political disquisition and construction was directed and restrained by a noble generosity, and an unerr

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ing perception of the practicable and the expedient, which enabled him to serve mankind without attempting to force them to his own plans, and without compelling them into his own views. Take Washington, whose peculiar greatness was a moral elevation, which secured the wisest and best use of all his powers in either civil or military life. Madison, who certainly lacked neither ability nor inclination for speculative inquiries, and who had a mind capable of enforcing the application of whatever principles he espoused. Yet his calm good sense, and the tact with which he could adapt theory to practice, were no less among his prominent characteristics. Take Franklin, who sometimes held extreme opinions, and occasionally pushed his peculiar fancies, springing from an excess of worldly wisdom, to the utmost verge of truth, but whose intellect was tempered, and whose whole character was softened, by the wide and varied experience of a life that had been commenced in obscurity, and was now closing with the honors of a reputation that filled the Eastern as well as the Western hemisphere. Take Gouverneur Morris, who was ardent, impulsive, and not disinclined to tenacity of opinion; but he rose above all local and narrow objects, and embraced, in the scope of his clear and penetrating vision, the happiness and welfare of this whole continent.

It was a most fortunate thing for America, that the Revolutionary age, with its hardships, its trials, and its mistakes, had formed a body of statesmen capable of framing for it a durable constitution. The

leading persons in the Convention which formed. the Constitution had been actors, either in civil or military life, in the scenes of the Revolution.. In those scenes their characters as American statesmen had been formed. When the condition of the country had fully revealed the incapacity of its government to provide for its wants, these men were naturally looked to, to construct a system which should save it from anarchy. And their great capacities, their high, disinterested purposes, their freedom from all fanaticism and illiberality, and their earnest, unconquerable faith in the destiny of their country, enabled them to found that government, which now upholds and protects the whole fabric of liberty in the States of this Union.

Of course no such assembly, in that or in any other age, in this or in any other country, could be called together for such a purpose, without exhibiting a great diversity of opinions, wishes, and views. The very object for which they were assembled was of a nature to develop, to the fullest extent, the most conflicting opinions and the most opposite theories. That object was to devise a system which should best secure the permanent liberty and happiness of a vast country. What subject, in the whole range of human thought and human endeavor, could be more complex than this? What occasion, among all the diversities of human affairs, could present a wider field for honest differences of opinion, and for severe conflicts of mind with mind? Yet it should never be forgotten, as the merit of this assembly, that, col

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