lectively and individually, they were animated by the most pure and exclusive devotion to the object for which they were called together. It was this high patriotism, this deep and never-ceasing consciousness that the great experiment of republican liberty turned on the result of their labors, as on the hazard of a die, that brought at last all conflicts of interest, all diversities of opinion and feeling, into a focus of conciliation and unanimity. More than once the reader will find them on the point of separating without having accomplished any thing; and more than once he will see them recalled to their mighty task by the eloquence of some master-spirit, who knew how to touch the key-note of that patriotic feeling, which was never wholly lost in the jarring discords of debate and intellectual strife. For four months the laborious effort went on. The serene and unchanging presence of Washington presided over all. The chivalrous sincerity and disinterestedness of Hamilton pervaded the assembly with all the power of his fascinating manners. The flashing eloquence of Gouverneur Morris recalled the dangers of anarchy, which must be accepted as the alternative of an abortive experiment. The calm, clear, statesmanlike views of Madison, the searching and profound expositions of King, the prudent influence of Franklin, at length ruled the hour.

In examining their work, and in reading all that is left to us of their discussions, we are to consider the materials out of which they had to frame a system of republican liberty, and the point of view, in

reference to the whole subject, at which they stood. We are to remember how little the world had then seen of real liberty united with personal safety and public security; and how entirely novel the undertaking was, to form a complete system of government, wholly independent on tradition, exactly defined in a written constitution, to be created at once, and at once set in motion, for the accomplishment of the great objects of human liberty and social progress. The examples of Greece and Rome, the modern republics of Italy, the federal relations of the Swiss Cantons, and the distant approach to republicanism that had been seen in Holland, might be resorted to for occasional and meagre illustrations of a few general principles. But, unquestionably, the country which, up to that moment, had exhibited, by the working of its government, the greatest amount of liberty combined with the greatest public security, was England. England, however, was a monarchy; and monarchy was the system which they both desired, and were obliged, to avoid. If it was within the range of human possibility to establish a system of republican government, which would fulfil its appropriate duties, over this vast and rapidly extending country, that they felt, one and all, to be their great task. On the other hand, they knew that, if to that form they could not succeed in giving due stability and wisdom, it would be, in the words of Hamilton, "disgraced and lost among ourselves, disgraced and lost to mankind for ever."1

1 Madison's Debates in the Federal Convention. Elliot, V. 244.

Here was their trial, the difficulty of all their difficulties; and it was here that they exhibited a wisdom, a courage, and a capacity, which have been surpassed by no other body of lawgivers ever assembled in the world.

Their country had, a few years before, passed through a long and distressing war with its parent state. The yoke of her domination had been thrown off, and its removal was naturally followed by a loosening of the bands of all authority, and an indisposition to all new restraints. The American Colonies had become independent States; and as the spirit of liberty which pervaded them made individuals impatient of control in their political relations, so the States reflected the same spirit in their corporate conduct, and looked with jealousy and distrust upon all powers which were not to be exercised by themselves. Yet it was clear that there were powers and functions of government, which, for the absolute safety of the country, must be withdrawn from the States, and vested in some national head, which should hold and exercise them in the name of the whole, for the good of the whole. The great question was, what that national head was to be; and the great service performed by the framers of the Constitution consisted in devising a system by which a national sovereignty might be endowed with energy, dignity, and power, and the forms and substance of popular liberty still be preserved; a system by which a supreme authority in all the matters which it touched might be created, resting directly

on the popular will, and to be exercised, in all coming time, through forms and institutions under which that will should have a direct and perpetual and perpetually renewed expression. This they accomplished. They accomplished it, too, without abolishing the State governments, and without impairing a single personal right which existed before they began their work. They accomplished it without violence; without the disruption of a single fibre in that whole delicate tissue of which society is made up. No drop of blood was shed to establish this government, the work of their hands; and no moment of interruption occurred to the calm, even tenor of the pursuits of men, the daily on-goings of society, in which the stream of human life and happiness and progress flows on in beneficence and peace.

First upon the list of those who had been called together for this great purpose, we are to mention him, without whose presence and countenance all men felt that no attempt to meliorate the political condition of the country could succeed.

I have already given an account of the proceedings which led directly to the calling of the Convention; and have mentioned the interesting fact, that the impulse to those proceedings was given at Mount Vernon. Thither General Washington had retired, at the close of the war, with no thought of ever engaging again in public affairs. He supposed that for him the scene was closed. "The noontide of

life," said he, in a letter to the Marchioness de La

fayette, "is now past, with Mrs. Washington and myself; and all we have to do is to glide gently down a stream which no human effort can ascend."1

But wise and far-seeing as he was, he did not foresee how soon he was to be called from that grave and sweet tranquillity. He was busy with the concerns of his farm; he was tasting the happiness of home, from which he had been absent nine long years; he was "cultivating the affections of good men, and practising the domestic virtues." But it was not in his nature to be inattentive to the concerns of that country for whose welfare he had labored and suffered so much. He maintained an active correspondence with several of the most eminent and virtuous of his compatriots in different parts of the Union; and in that correspondence, running through the years 1784, 1785, and 1786, there exists the most ample evidence of the downward tendency of things, and of the fears it excited.

It had become evident to him that we never should establish a national character, nor be justly considered and respected by the nations of Europe, without enlarging the powers of the federal government for the regulation of commerce. The objection which had been hitherto urged, that some States might be more benefited than others by a commercial regulation, seemed to him to apply to every mat

1 Washington's Writings, IX. 166.