y a fleeting public opinion, the price we pay for such
government by, for and of the Press, is too often the inability of
representatives to do what they deem wise and just.

At the close of the convention its records were committed into the
keeping of Washington, with instructions to "retain the journal and
other papers, subject to order of Congress, if ever formed under the
Constitution."

Even the journal consisted of little more than daily memoranda, from
which the minutes ought to have been, but never were, made; and these
fragmentary records of the proceedings of a convention which had been in
continuous session for nearly four months were never published until the
year 1819, or thirty-two years after the close of the convention. Thus,
the American people knew nothing of their greatest convention until a
generation later, and then only a few bones of the mastodon were
exhibited to their curious gaze.

The members of the convention kept its secrets inviolate for many years.
With few exceptions, the great secrets of the convention died with them.
Only one, James Madison, left a comprehensive statement of the more
formal proceedings. With this notable exception, only a few anecdotes,
handed down by tradition, escaped oblivion. The first of the number to
break the pledge of secrecy was Robert Yates, Chief Justice of New York,
who, in 1821, published his recollections; but, as he had left the
convention a few months after it began, his notes ceased with the 5th of
July.

The world would thus have been for ever ignorant of the details of one
of the most remarkable conventions in the annals of mankind had it not
been that one of the ablest of their number, James Madison, regularly
attended the sessions and kept notes from day to day of the debates.
While he was not a stenographer, he had a gift for condensing a speech
and fairly representing its substance. He jealously guarded his Journal
of the Convention until his death. Its very existence was known to few.
He died in 1836, and four years later the government purchased the
manuscript from his widow. Then, for the first time, the curtain was
measurably raised upon the proceedings of a convention which had
created, as we now know, one of the greatest nations in history.
Fifty-three years after the close of the convention, and when nearly
every one of its participants were dead, Madison's Journal was first
published.

When was a great secret better kept? Grateful as