gislature of Virginia,
he expressed his earnest wish, that Mr. Madison might be prevailed on
to take a seat in that assembly, and then added,

"It would certainly be unpleasant to you, and obnoxious to all who
feel for your just fame, to see you at the head of a trembling system.
It is a sacrifice on your part unjustifiable in any point of view. But
on the other hand no alternative seems to be presented.

"Without you, the government can have but little chance of success;
and the people, of that happiness which its prosperity must yield."

{1789}

[Sidenote: Letters from Gen. Washington respecting the chief
magistracy of the new government.]

In reply to this letter General Washington said, "Your observations on
the solemnity of the crisis, and its application to myself, bring
before me subjects of the most momentous and interesting nature. In
our endeavours to establish a new general government, the contest,
nationally considered, seems not to have been so much for glory, as
existence. It was for a long time doubtful whether we were to survive
as an independent republic, or decline from our federal dignity into
insignificant and wretched fragments of empire. The adoption of the
constitution so extensively, and with so liberal an acquiescence on
the part of the minorities in general, promised the former; but
lately, the circular letter of New York has manifested, in my
apprehension, an unfavourable, if not an insidious tendency to a
contrary policy. I still hope for the best; but before you mentioned
it, I could not help fearing it would serve as a standard to which the
disaffected might resort. It is now evidently the part of all honest
men, who are friends to the new constitution, to endeavour to give it
a chance to disclose its merits and defects, by carrying it fairly
into effect, in the first instance.

"The principal topic of your letter, is to me a point of great
delicacy indeed;--insomuch that I can scarcely, without some
impropriety, touch upon it. In the first place, the event to which you
allude may never happen, among other reasons, because, if the
partiality of my fellow citizens conceive it to be a mean by which the
sinews of the new government would be strengthened, it will of
consequence be obnoxious to those who are in opposition to it, many of
whom, unquestionably, will be placed among the electors.

"This consideration alone would supersede the expediency of announcing
any definitive and irre