the Convention; here
were minds, disciplined and schooled in all the various fortunes of the
country, acting now in several relations, but all co-operating to the
same great end, the successful administration of the new and untried
Constitution. And he,--how shall I speak of him?--he was at the head,
who was already first in war, who was already first in the hearts of his
countrymen, and who was now shown also, by the unanimous suffrage of the
country, to be first in peace.

Gentlemen, how gloriously have the hopes then indulged been fulfilled!
Whose expectation was then so sanguine, I may almost ask, whose
imagination then so extravagant, as to run forward, and contemplate as
probable, the one half of what has been accomplished in forty years? Who
among you can go back to 1789, and see what this city, and this country,
too, then were; and, beholding what they now are, can be ready to
consent that the Constitution of the United States shall be
weakened,--dishonored,--_nullified_?

Gentlemen, before I leave these pleasant recollections, I feel it an
irresistible impulse of duty to pay a tribute of respect to another
distinguished person, not, indeed, a fellow-citizen of your own, but
associated with those I have already mentioned in important labors, and
an early and indefatigable friend and advocate in the great cause of the
Constitution. I refer to MR. MADISON. I am aware, Gentlemen, that a
tribute of regard from me to him is of little importance; but if it
shall receive your approbation and sanction, it will become of value.
Mr. Madison, thanks to a kind Providence, is yet among the living, and
there is certainly no other individual living, to whom the country is so
much indebted for the blessings of the Constitution. He was one of the
commissioners who met at Annapolis, in 1786, to which meeting I have
already referred, and which, to the great credit of Virginia, had its
origin in a proceeding of that State. He was a member of the Convention
of 1787, and of that of Virginia in the following year. He was thus
intimately acquainted with the whole progress of the formation of the
Constitution, from its very first step to its final adoption. If ever
man had the means of understanding a written instrument, Mr. Madison has
the means of understanding the Constitution. If it be possible to know
what was designed by it, he can tell us. It was in this city, that, in
conjunction with Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Jay, he wrote the num