to commit the most horrible ravages upon her people. Her slave population, bearing a very large proportion to the whites,' necessarily weakened her capacity to defend herself against such an enemy.

Virginia, then, must be defended. Could they rely on the militia? Their militia did not, at the utmost, exceed sixty thousand men. They had performed exploits of great gallantry during the late war, but no militia could be relied on as the sole protectors of any country. Besides, a part of them would be wanted for the purposes of agriculture, for manufactures, and for the mechanic arts necessary for the aid of the farmer and the planter. must have an army; and they must also have a navy. But how were these to be maintained without money? The enormous debt of Virginia, including her proportion of the Continental debts, was already beyond her ability to pay from any revenue that could be derived from her present commerce.

They

In this state of things, looking forward to the consequences of a dissolution of the Union, he could not but remind the people of Virginia of what took place in 1781, when the power of a dictator was given to the commander-in-chief, to save the country from destruction. At some period, not very remote, might not their future distress impel them to do what the Dutch had done, throw all power into the hands

of a Stadtholder?

How infinitely more wise and

eligible than this desperate alternative would be a

1 He stated the number of blacks to be 236,000, and that of the whites only 352,000.

union with their American brethren. "I have labored," said he, "for the continuance of the Union,the rock of our salvation. I believe, as surely as that there is a God, that our safety, our political happiness and existence, depend on the union of the States; and that, without this union, the people of this and the other States will undergo the unspeakable calamities which discord, faction, turbulence, war, and bloodshed have produced in other countries. The American spirit ought to be mixed with American pride, to see the Union magnificently triumphant. Let that glorious pride, which once defied the British thunder, reanimate you again. Let it not be recorded of Americans, that, after having performed the most gallant exploits, after having overcome the most astonishing difficulties, and after having gained the admiration of the world by their incomparable valor and policy, they lost their acquired reputation, their national consequence and happiness, by their own indiscretion. Let no future historian inform posterity that they wanted wisdom and virtue to concur in any regular, efficient government. Should any writer, doomed to so disagreeable a task, feel the indignation of an honest historian, he would reprehend our folly with equal severity and justice. Catch the present moment, - seize it with avidity, for it may be lost, never to be regained! If the Union be now lost, I fear it will remain so for ever. I believe gentlemen are sincere in their opposition, and actuated by pure motives; but when I maturely weigh the advantages of the

Union, and the dreadful consequences of its dissolution; when I see safety on my right, and destruction on my left; when I behold respectability and happiness acquired by one course, but annihilated by the other, I cannot hesitate in my decision." 1

NOTE.

The following account of the genealogy of Governor Randolph, for which I am indebted to one of his female descendants, was not received in season to be incorporated in the text.

Edmund Randolph was the son of John Randolph and grandson of Sir John Randolph, each of whom was Attorney-General of the Colony under the royal government. He was educated at William and Mary's College. Peyton Randolph, President of the First Continental Congress, was also a son of Sir John Randolph, and of course was uncle of Edmund Randolph, to whom he devised his estate. Sir John Randolph was one of five or six sons of William Randolph of Turkey Island in Virginia, from whom all the Randolphs in Virginia are descended. Of this William Randolph little is known, beyond the fact that he was a large landholder, and a nephew of Thomas Randolph, the poet, who flourished in the reigns of James I. and Charles I., 1605 - 1634.

1 Debates in the Virginia Convention, Elliot, III. 65-84, 85, 86.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONCLUSION OF THE PRESENT VOLUME.

THE limits of this volume do not admit of a farther description of the Framers of the Constitution. The nine persons of whom some account has been given were the most important members of the Convention, and those who exercised the largest influence upon its decisions. But the entire list embraced other men of great distinction and ability, celebrated, before and since the Convention, in that period of the political history of America which commenced with the Revolution and closed with the eighteenth century.

Such were Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, John Dickinson of Delaware, John Rutledge and Charles Pinckney of South Carolina, and George Mason of Virginia. Of the rest, all were men of note and influence in their respective States, possessing the full confidence of the people whom they represented.

The whole assembly consisted of only fifty-five members, representing twelve sovereign and distinct communities.1 That so small a body should have

For a full list of the Delegates, see the Appendix to this volume.

contained so large a number of statesmen of preeminent ability is a striking proof of the nature of the crisis which called it into existence. The age which had witnessed the Revolution, and the wants and failures that succeeded it, produced and trained these great men, made them capable of the highest magnanimity, and gave them the intellectual power necessary to surmount the difficulties that obstructed the progress of their country to prosperity and renown. These, with a few of their contemporaries at that moment engaged in other spheres of public duty, are the men who illustrate and adorn it, and the knowledge of their lives and actions is of unspeakable importance to the people of the United States.

To that people is committed a trust, which imposes upon them a greater responsibility than now rests upon any other people on the globe. They possess a written and exact constitution of government, framed with great wisdom by their own deputed agents, and deliberately adopted and enacted by themselves. That Constitution rules over a country of vast extent, inhabited by more than twenty millions of prosperous and intelligent freemen, who constitute one of the first nations of the world. Nowhere on the face of the globe has the experiment of self-government - that experiment so rarely tried, so rarely successful, and so important to the welfare of mankind — been conducted on a scale so grand and imposing. To prevent a failure so disastrous to the best interests of the human race as the failure of