xisting in a state of bondage, and for this necessary
compromise the nation seventy-five years later was to pay dearly by one
of the most destructive civil wars in the annals of mankind.

August was now drawing to a close. The convention had been in session
for more than three months. Of its work the public knew nothing, and
this notwithstanding the acute interest which the American people, not
merely facing the peril of anarchy, but actually suffering from it, must
have taken in the convention. Its vital importance was not
under-estimated. While its builders, like all master builders, did
"build better than they knew," yet it cannot be said that they
under-estimated the importance of their labours. As one of their number,
Gouveneur Morris said: "The whole human race will be affected by the
proceedings of this convention." After it adjourned one of its greatest
participants, James Wilson, of Pennsylvania, said:

"After the lapse of six thousand years since the creation of the
world, America now presents the first instance of a people assembled
to say deliberately and calmly and to decide leisurely and peaceably
on the form of government by which they will bind themselves and
their posterity."

In the absence of any authentic information, the rumour spread through
the colonies that the convention was about to reconstitute a monarchy by
inviting the second son of George III, the Bishop of Osnaburg, to be
King of the United States; and these rumours became so persistent as to
evoke from the silent convention a semi-official denial. There is some
reason to believe that a minority of the convention did see in the
restoration of a constitutional monarchy the only solution of the
problem.

On September 8 the committee had finally considered and, after
modifications, approved the draft of the Committee on Detail, and a new
committee was thereupon appointed "to revise the style of and arrange
the articles that had been agreed to by the House." This committee was
one of exceptional strength. There were Dr. William Samuel Johnson, a
graduate of Oxford and a friend of his great namesake, Samuel Johnson;
Alexander Hamilton, Gouveneur Morris, a brilliant mind with an unusual
gift for lucid expression; James Madison, a true scholar in politics,
and Rufus King, an orator who, in the inflated language of the day, "was
ranked among the luminaries of the present age."

The convention then adjourned to await the fi