m, when provocation made it seasonable.

Mr. Wythe, while speaker in the two sessions of 1777, between his return
from Congress and his appointment to the Chancery, was an able and
constant associate in whatever was before a committee of the whole. His
pure integrity, judgment, and reasoning powers gave him great weight. Of
him, see more in some notes inclosed in my letter of August 31, 1821, to
Mr. John Saunderson. [See Appendix, note A.]

Mr. Madison came into the House in 1776, a new member, and young;
which circumstances, concurring with his extreme modesty, prevented his
venturing himself in debate before his removal to the Council of State,
in November, '77. From thence he went to Congress, then consisting of
few members. Trained in these successive schools, he acquired a habit of
self-possession, which placed at ready command the rich resources of his
luminous and discriminating mind, and of his extensive information, and
rendered him the first of every assembly afterwards, of which he became
a member. Never wandering from his subject into vain declamation, but
pursuing it closely, in language pure, classical, and copious, soothing
always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness of
expression, he rose to the eminent station which he held in the great
National Convention of 1787; and in that of Virginia, which followed,
he sustained the new constitution in all its parts, bearing off the palm
against the logic of George Mason, and the fervid declamation of Mr.
Henry. With these consummate powers, was united a pure and spotless
virtue, which no calumny has ever attempted to sully. Of the powers
and polish of his pen, and of the wisdom of his administration in the
highest office of the nation, I need say nothing. They have spoken, and
will for ever speak for themselves.

So far we were proceeding in the details of reformation only; selecting
points of legislation, prominent in character and principle, urgent, and
indicative of the strength of the general pulse of reformation. When I
left Congress in '76, it was in the persuasion, that our whole code must
be reviewed, adapted to our republican form of government, and, now that
we had no negatives of Councils, Governors, and Kings to restrain us
from doing right, that it should be corrected, in all its parts, with a
single eye to reason, and the good of those for whose government it was
framed. Early, therefore, in the session of '76, to which I retu