upon another assembly; and that it should sanction a general revision of the Federal Constitution, with the express declaration of its present inadequacy, were all preliminaries essential to a successful reform. Feeble as it had become from the overgrown vitality of State power, and from the lack of numbers and talent upon its roll, it was still the government of the Union; the Congress of America; the lineal successors of that renowned assembly which had defied the power of England, and brought into existence the thirteen United States. If it stood but the poor shadow of a great name, it was still a name with which to do more than conjure; for it bore a constitutional relation to the States, still reverenced by the wise and thoughtful, and still necessary to be regarded by all who desired the security of constitutional liberty. The risk of immediate attempts to establish a monarchical form of government was not inconsiderable. The risk that civil confusion would follow a longer delay to provide for the pressing wants of the country was greater. Dejection and despondency had taken hold of many minds of the highest order; while the great body of the people were desiring a change which they could not define, and which they feared, while they invited its approach. In such a state of things, considerate men were naturally unwilling to turn entirely away from Congress, or to exclude its agency altogether from the processes of reform, and to embark upon the uncertain sea of political experiment, without chart or rule to guide their course; for no man could tell

what projects, what schemes, and what influences might arise to jeopard those great principles of republican liberty on which the political fabric had rested from the Declaration of Independence to the present hour of danger and distress.

For the wise precedent, thus established, of placing the formation of a new government under the direct sanction of the old one, the people of this country are indebted chiefly to Hamilton. Nothing can be more unfortunate, in any country, than the necessity or the rashness which sweeps away an established constitution, before a substitute has been devised. Whether the interval be occupied by provisional arrangements or left to a more open anarchy, it is an unfit season for the creation of new institutions. At such a time, the crude projects of theorists are boldly intruded among the deliberations of statesmen; despotism lies in wait for the hazards by which liberty is surrounded; the multitude are unrestrained by the curb of authority; and society is exposed to the necessity of accepting whatever is of fered, or of submitting to the first usurper who may seize the reins of government, because it has nothing on which to rest as an alternative. True liberty has gained nothing, in any age or country, from revolutions, which have excluded the possibility of seeking or obtaining the assent of existing power to the reforms which the progress of society demands.

In the days when the Confederation was tottering to its fall; when its revenues had been long exhausted; and when its Congress embraced, in actual

attendance, less than thirty delegates from only eleven of the States, it would have been the easy part of a demagogue to overthrow it by a sudden appeal to the passions and interests of the hour, as the first step to a radical change. But the great man, whose mature and energetic youth, trained in the school of Washington, had been devoted to the formation and establishment of the Union, knew too well, that, if its golden cord were once broken, no human agency could restore it to life. He knew the value of habit, the respect for an established, however enfeebled authority; and while he felt and insisted on the necessity for a new constitution, and did all in his power to make the country perceive the defects of the old one, he wisely and honestly admitted that the assent of Congress must be gained to any movement which proposed to remedy the evil.

But the reason for not moving the revision of the system of government by Congress itself was one that could not be publicly stated. It was, that the highest civil talent of the country was not there. The men

1 Governor Randolph of Virginia, writing to General Washington, on the 11th of March, 1787, and urging him to attend the Convention, said: "I must call upon your friendship to excuse me for again mentioning the Convention at Philadelphia. Your determination having been fixed on a thorough review of your situation, I feel like an intruder when I again hint a wish that yon would join the delegation. But every

day brings forth some new crisis, and the Confederation is, I fear, the last anchor of our hope. Congress have taken up the subject, and appointed the second Monday in May next as the day of meeting. Indeed, from my private correspondence, I doubt whether the existence of that body, even through this year, may not be questionable under our present circumstances." Sparks's Washington, IX. 243, note.

to whom the American people had been accustomed to look in great emergencies, the men who were called into the Convention, and whose power and wisdom were signally displayed in its deliberations, - were then engaged in other spheres of public life, or had retired to the repose which they had earned in the great struggle with England. Had the attempt been made by Congress itself to form a constitution for the acceptance of the States, the controlling influence and wisdom of Washington, Franklin's wide experience and deep sagacity, the unrivalled capacities of Hamilton, the brilliant powers of Gouverneur Morris, Pinckney's fertility, and Randolph's eloquence, with all the power of their eminent colleagues and all the strength of principle and of character which they brought to the Convention, would have been withheld from the effort. One great man, it is true, was still there. Madison was in Congress; and Madison's part in the framing of the Constitution was eminently conspicuous and useful. But without the concentration of talent which the Convention drew together, representing every interest and every part of the Union, nothing could have been presented to the States, by the Congress of 1787, which would have commanded their assent. The Constitution owed as much, for its acceptance, to the weight of character of its framers, as it did to their wisdom and ability, for the intrinsic merits which that weight of character enforced.

It was fortunate, also, that Congress did nothing more than to recommend the Convention, without

undertaking to define its powers. The doubts concerning its legality, which led many persons of great influence to hesitate in sanctioning it, were thus removed, and the States were left free to join in the movement, as an expedient to discover and remedy the defects of the federal government, without fettering their delegates with explicit instructions.1