preme laws.

Paterson's plan and Randolph's modified resolutions were referred to a
new committee, and the whole question concerning a national government
was again considered. Again debates ran high. In the course of these,
Hamilton, who had come into the convention with more courage and fixed
plan than any other member, avowed his dissent from both the schemes
before the committee. He was listened to with the most profound respect;
and gray-haired men, as they looked upon his delicate form and youthful
features, were filled with wonder at the display of his great genius for
political construction, his extensive knowledge of the means by which
true conservative liberty might be secured, and his thorough
comprehension of the wants and resources of his country. He had come
into the convention fully prepared to propound a solution of the great
questions which he knew would perplex the members; and at the close of
an elaborate and in many respects most extraordinary speech, he offered
a written sketch of a system, not, he said, for discussion in the
committee, nor with the idea that the public mind was yet prepared for
it, but as explanatory of his own views and introductory to some
amendments he intended to propose. He then departed for New York,
leaving his two colleagues, who took the state-rights view of the
matter, to represent his state in the convention. They too soon left,
and never returned.

Day after day and week after week the debates continued, sometimes with
great courtesy, and sometimes with considerable acrimony, until the
tenth of September, when all plans and amendments which had been adopted
by the convention were placed in the hands of a committee for revision
and arrangement. Hamilton, who had returned to the convention at the
middle of August, was placed upon that committee, having for his
associates Messrs. Madison, King, Johnson, and Gouverneur Morris. To the
latter was intrusted the task of giving the finish to the style and
arrangement of the instrument. It was then reported to the convention,
taken up clause by clause, discussed, somewhat amended, and ordered to
be engrossed. On the fifteenth it was agreed to as amended, by all the
states present, and on the seventeenth a fair copy was brought in to
receive the signatures of the members.

Many times, during that long session of almost four months, there were
serious apprehensions of failure, the views of members differed so
essentially upon im