the vehement and passionate Rousseau, and the writers of his school. The former, drawing all his views from history and experience, undertook to show, from the antecedents of each state, the charac ter of its constitution, to explain and develop its peculiar properties, and thence to determine the principles on which its legislation should proceed. The latter, starting from an entirely opposite point, and designing to write a treatise on Politics in the widest sense of the term, became a mere theorist, and produced only certain brilliant speculations upon the social compact, of a purely democratic character, as fragments of a work which he never finished. The crowd of writers, too, who preceded, and in part created the French Revolution, which was just commencing its destructive activity as our Constitution was formed, really contributed nothing of practical value to the solution of such great questions as the mode of forming, vesting, and distributing the various branches of sovereign power.

Thus there was little for American statesmen of that day to look to, in the way of theories which had been practically proved to be sound and useful. The constitution of England, it is true, presented to them certain great maxims, the application of which was not unsuited to the circumstances and habits of a people whose laws and institutions had been derived from their English ancestors and their English blood. But the constitution of England, embracing the three estates of King, Lords, and Commons, had become what it was, only by the extortion

from the crown of the rights and privileges of the two orders of the people. The American Revolution, on the other hand, had settled, as the fundamental principle of American society, that all sovereignty resides originally in the people; that they derive no rights by way of grant from any other source; and consequently, that no powers or privileges can exist in any portion of the people as distinct from the whole. The English constitution could, therefore, furnish only occasional analogies for particular details in the structure of departments, which might after all really require to be founded on different fundamental principles. But the great problem to be solved-for which English experience was of no value-was, so to parcel out those portions of original sovereignty, which the people of the States might be willing to withdraw from their State institutions, as to constitute an efficient federal republic, which yet would not control and absorb the powers that might be reserved. But to comprehend the results that were accomplished, and to understand the true nature of the system bequeathed to us, it is indispensable to examine in detail the means and processes by which it was formed. Before we turn, however, to this great subject, the characters of the principal framers of the Constitution demand our attention.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF

THE CONVENTION.

THE narrative to which the reader has thus far attended must now be interrupted for a while, that he may pause upon the threshold of an assembly which had been summoned to the grave task of remodelling the constitution of this country, and here consider the names and characters of the men to whom its responsible labors had been intrusted. The civil deeds of statesmen and lawgivers, in establishing and forming institutions, incorporating principles into the forms of public administration, and setting up the defences of public security and prosperity, are far less apt to attract and hold the attention of mankind, than the achievements of military life. The name, indeed, may be for ever associated with the work of the hand; but the mass of mankind do not study, admire, or repeat the deeds of the lawgiver, as they do those of the hero. Yet he who has framed a law, or fashioned an institution in which some great idea is made practical to the conditions of human existence, has exercised the highest attributes of human reason, and is to be counted among the benefactors of his race.

The framers of the Constitution of the United States assembled for their work amidst difficulties and embarrassments of an extraordinary nature. No general concert of opinion had taken place as to what was best, or even as to what was possible to be done. Whether it were wise to hold a convention, whether it were even legal to hold it, and whether, if held, it would be likely to result in any thing useful to the country, were points upon which the most opposite opinions prevailed in every State of the Union. But it was among the really fortunate, although apparently unhappy, circumstances under which they were assembled, that the country had experienced much trial, suffering, distress, and failure. It has been a disagreeable duty to describe the disasters and errors of a period during which the national character was subjected to the discipline of adversity. We now come to the period of compensation which such discipline inevitably brings.

There is a law of the moral government of the universe, which ordains that all that is great and valuable and permanent in character must be the result, not of theoretical teaching, or natural aspiration, of spontaneous resolve, or uninterrupted success, but of trial, of suffering, of the fiery furnace of temptation, of the dark hours of disappointment and defeat. The character of the man is distinguishable from the character of the child that he once was, chiefly by the effects of this universal law. There are the same natural impulses, the same mental, moral, and physical constitution, with which he was

born into the world. What is it that has given him the strength, the fortitude, the unchanging principle, and the moral and intellectual power, which he exhibits in after years? It has not been constant pleasure and success, nor unmingled joy. It has been the hard discipline of pain and sorrow, the stern teachings of experience, the struggle against the consequences of his own errors, and the chastisement inflicted by his own faults.

This law pertains to all human things. It is as clearly traceable in its application to the character of a people, as to that of an individual; and as the institutions of a people, when voluntarily formed by them out of the circumstances of their condition, are necessarily the result of the previous discipline and the past teachings of their career, we can trace this law also in the creation and growth of what is most valuable in their institutions. When we have so traced it, the unalterable relations of the moral universe entitle us to look for the elements of greatness and strength in whatever has been the product of such teachings, such discipline, and such trials.

The Constitution of the United States was eminently the creature of circumstances; - not of circumstances blindly leading the blind to an unconscious submission to an accident, but of circumstances which offered an intelligent choice of the means of happiness, and opened, from the experience of the past, the plain path of duty and success, stretching onward to the future. All that has been said in the previous chapters tends to illustrate this