h of New York or south of
Virginia was represented; and in their helplessness those assembled
could only recommend a constitutional convention, to meet in
Philadelphia in May, 1787, to provide for the exigencies of the
situation.

And still thick clouds and darkness rested on the land, and there
lowered upon its hopes a night as black as that upon the freezing
Delaware; but through the gloom the dauntless leader was still marching
on to the consummation of his colossal work, with a hope that never
died; with a courage that never faltered; with a wisdom that never
yielded that "all is vanity."

It was not permitted the Roman to despair of the republic, nor did
he--our chieftain. "It will all come right at last," he said. It did.
And now let the historian, Bancroft, speak: "From this state of despair
the country was lifted by Madison and Virginia." Again he says: "We come
now to a week more glorious for Virginia beyond any in her annals, or in
the history of any republic that had ever before existed."

It was that week in which Madison, "giving effect to his own
long-cherished wishes, and still earlier wishes of Washington,"
addressing, as it were, the whole country, and marshaling all the
states, warned them "that the crisis had arrived at which the people of
America are to decide the solemn question, whether they would, by wise
and magnanimous efforts reap the fruits of independence and of union, or
whether by giving way to unmanly jealousies and prejudices, or to
impartial and transitory interests, they would renounce the blessings
prepared for them by the Revolution," and conjuring them "to concur in
such further concessions and provisions as may be necessary to secure
the objects for which that government was instituted, and make the
United States as happy in peace as they had been glorious in war."

In such manner, my countrymen, Virginia, adopting the words of Madison,
and moved by the constant spirit of Washington, joined in convoking that
Constitutional Convention, in which he headed her delegation, and over
which he presided, and whose deliberations resulted in the formation and
adoption of that instrument which the premier of Great Britain
pronounces "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by
the brain and purpose of man."

In such manner the state which gave birth to the Father of his Country,
following his guiding genius to the Union, as it had followed his sword
through the battles of