t I observe
here (at Richmond), that, unless the project of Congress can be
reversed, the hopes of carrying this State into a proper federal system
will be demolished." He had already said, in the same letter, that the
resolutions on the Mississippi question had been "agreed to unanimously
in the House of Delegates," and three days before the letter was written
the delegates to Philadelphia had been appointed.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 9: _A History of the People of the United States._ Vol. i. By
John Bach McMaster.]

CHAPTER VII

THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

Mr. Madison is called "the Father of the Constitution." A paper written
by him was laid before his colleagues of Virginia, before the meeting of
the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, and was made the basis of
the "Virginia plan," as it was called, out of which the Constitution was
evolved. In another way his name is so identified with it that one
cannot be forgotten so long as the other is remembered. From that full
and faithful report of the proceedings of the convention, in which his
own part was so active and conspicuous, we know most that we do or ever
can know of the perplexities and trials, the concessions and triumphs,
the acts of wisdom and the acts of weakness, of that body of men whose
coming together time has shown to have been one of the important events
in the history of mankind.

Then it is also true that no man had worked harder, perhaps none had
worked so hard, to bring the public mind to a serious consideration of
affairs and a recognition of the necessity of reorganizing the
government, if the States were to be held together. Never, it seemed,
had men better reason to be satisfied with the result of their labors
when, a few months later, the new Constitution was accepted by all the
States. Yet the time was not far distant when even Madison would be in
doubt as to the character of this new bond of union, and as to what sort
of government had been secured by it. Nor till he had been dead near
thirty years was it to be determined what union under the Constitution
really meant; nor till three quarters of a century after the adoption of
that instrument was the more perfect union formed, justice established,
domestic tranquillity insured, the general welfare promoted, and the
blessings of liberty secured to all the people, which by that great
charter it was intended, in 1787, to ordain and establish. All the
difficulties, which th