It is told by him that the democratic sentiments of gov. Henry, as well as his own, were a little tried by the custom of French officers to address the governor as his royal highness monsieur Patrick Henry. On one occasion having to exulain to a French officer why power was given to the presiding officer of the delegates to preserve order according to rules established for that purpose, the officer exclaimed, " Ah! I under stand you at last; he is a prince of the blood!" In 1779, Jefferson having succeeded. Henry as governor of Virginia, Madison was re-elected to the council, but on Dec. 14 the Virginia assembly chose him to represent the state in the congress of the confedera tion, where he took his seat 3lar. 20, 1780. It was the most gloomy period of the revo lution. The country was without means or credit to feed the army; the continental money was nearly valueless, and there was nothing yet to take its place; the military situation most discouraging. The arrival of Lafayette, with news of the French fleet and army on its way, momentarily vivified the hope of the nation. But new reverses and the treachery of Arnold almost extinguished them. Mr. Madison had the sagacity to perceive that a better system of money was the radical need. Washington had advised requisitions on the several states for provisions and stores for his army to be furnished direct, in order to stop continental emissions of paper money for their purchase; but the states proceeded to purchase the required articles with their own paper money, thus aggravating the evil which he was hoping to lessen. Madison proposed that congress should address a formal recommendation to the states to discontinue these emissions. His proposition met with a cool reception, not because the recommendation was not approved, but because congress could with ill grace urge the states to abandon a means which itself had continuously employed. About this time efforts were being made by France and the United States to induce Spain to join the alliance against England. Spain_ required the abandonment of the right of navigation of the Mississippi to the sea as a condition precedent. Madison was made chairman of a committee to draw up the argu ment on behalf of the United States to be used as the basis of negotiations by Mr. Jay, our minister at Madrid, and Mr. Franklin our minister to France. The argument was. unanimously- adopted by congress. It is a curious fact that two of the oldest and most sagacious of American statesmen should thus receive their instructions from the most youthful and modest member of the congress. Madison's argument is a masterpiece of ability and discretion, but congress receded from its position. Spain's alliance was. sought by the offer of the concession; but through the wisdom of Jay, fully seconding the views of Madison, no formal treaty to that effect was made.
After the capitulation of Yorktown in Oct., 1781, -Madison was still strenuous that the government should not relax its preparations for the vigorous prosecution of the war; and secured action by congress to that end. At the same time he urged an amendment to the articles of the confederation, which should expressly grant to congress authority to employ the force of the union against the states in such manner as to force them to, fulfill their engagements to it. In a letter to Jefferson, April 16, 1781, he thus alludes to. the subject: 'The necessity of armino- congress with coercive* powers arises from the. shameful deficiencies of some of the sates," etc. The letter entire is an admirable state ment of the evils of a confederacy that has not the unity of power of a nation. It was, not until the beginning of 1781 that the states were asked to vest in conffress the power to levy duties on imports. On May 14, 1782, 'Madison in a letter to Raldolph of Vir ginia gave intelligence of the arrival at New York of a bearer of peace-propositions from England. After reviewing the probable intent of the acts of the British parliament, he concludes: " Congress will, I am persuaded, give a proper verbal answer to any over tures with which he may insult them; but the best answer will come from the states, in such supplies of men and money as will expel our enemies from the United States." After the recognition of the independence of the United States in 1782, Madison took a, conspicuous part in every important lecrislation of congress; urged a system of national revenue; was principal author of the ;Ian adopted April 18, 1783; and author of the address to the states urging its adoption, which, " for lucid exposition, pregnant concise ness and precision: dignity, eloquence, and force, will ever stand among the model state papers of America." It was in the preparation of this act of congress, and of the address which followed, that the opposition of Alexander Hamilton developed that great antago nism of principles and policy which, a few years later, became the basis of the opposing political organizations of the United States. Madison was the principal promoter of the cession of the north-western territories by Virginia to the United States on March 1, 1784. Vermont was, in 1784, to be admitted as an independent state. No provision had been inade in the articles of confederation for the admission of new states. All lands outside the colonies, within the limits of the -United States, were supposed to belong to one or another of the colonies. But the cession of Virginia's vast claims to the nation, and the denial of the Vermonters that their territory belonged either to the New York or the New Hampshire grants, opened new questions. Madison opposed the admission at this time and postponed it until the new constitution of 1787 was established. During this session congress entered on the difficult task of paying debts and harmon izing- conflicting interests of states. The great state of Viroinia was not able to pay its representatives in cono-ress, and Madison was obliged to depend on his father in part for his support, and Co have recourse to meet even the shnple style of living that hi always maintained, to " the favor," as he himself expregses it, " of Haym Salomon, a Jew broker." He returned to his father's residence Dec., 1783; and being ineligible to a con.
tinued scat in congress by Virginia's constitution he became an assiduous student of law, "My wish is" he wrote to a friend, " to provide a decent and independent subsistence without encountering the difficulties I foresee in that line. Another of my wishes is to depend as little as possible on the labor of slaves." In April, 1784, he was elected to the Virginia house of delegates. The leading idea of his service there he stated to be to harmonize the state legislation with the mecessary assumption of powers required by the federal congress for its efficiency as a government of the United States. He was made chairman of the committee on commerce, of the committee to revise the constitution, and the " committee of religion." In all these he had occasion to imprint on the laws his peculiarly advanced statesmanship. In August, 1784, he met in Baltimore Lafayette, who was then on a visit of congratulation to his American friends, and they joined company in a journey to Ft. Schuyler, where
.a treaty. with the Indians was to be made. Soon after the close of the second session of the Virginia assembly, Madison had another occasion to mark his influence in securing the disseverance of church and state, by exhaustive arguments in opposition to a press ure of petitions for an assessment for the support of reli,„oion," which opposition he .embodied in a remonstrance, and so aroused public opinion to its importance that when the bill was taken Up the succeeding session it was overwhelmingly- negatived. In 1785 Madison resumed his studies at home for a short time; made a visit to New York and die eastern states; to gen, Washington at Mt. Vernon; and returned to duty in the house of delegates in October, where he soon afterwards made a memorable speech to prove that the congress of the confederation should have sole jurisdiction over foreign and domestic commerce in the levying of import or export duties. At this session Madison bore the brunt of the laborious work of codifying the laws of Virginia. On returning to his home he added natural history to the list of studies which he entered upon with ardor, and at the same time pursued farther than before his studies in the Iffiilosophical speculations at that time the fashion among great minds, particularly in France. During 1786 he was an active participant in a politico-commercial convention .assembled at Annapolis; opposed the project of Mr. Jay to surrender the navigation of the Mississippi to Spain; and re-entered the Virginia legislature in October. Its first work, of which he was one of the authors, was the passage of an act recommending the assembling of a convention of all the states for the formation of a new constitution for the United States. In this convention his thorough preparations for statesmanship became conspicuous. He completed and published papers, long in preparation, on Ancient and Modern Confederacies,. Vices of the Poldical System of the United States, etc.; +designed to light the way of the convention. He was sent as one of the delegates to that convention, associated with George Washington, Patrick Henry, Edmund Ran dolph, John Blair, George Mason, and George Wythe. In a letter to gen. Washington, Apri116, 1787, he outlines his views at length of the future constitution: " Consider ing that RD individual independence of the states is totally irreconcilable with their aggregate sovereignty, and that a consolidation of the whole would be as inexpedient as it is unattainable, I have sought for some middle ground, which may at once support a .due supremacy of the national authority, and not exclude the local authorities wherever they may be subordinately useful. . . . An article should be inserted, expressly guaranteeing the tranquillity of the states against internal as well as external dangers. In like manner, the right of coercion should be expressly declared." It is doubtful if there ever convened an abler body of statesmen than met in the convention to frame the constitution of the -United States, which opened in Philadelphia, May 14, 1787. Mr. Madison, if not the most conspicuous, was, by the volume of his labors, and his success in fixing his own views of government in the constitution, certainly the leading mem ber, and it is in this sense that, young as lie was compared with most of his associates, he acquired the title of " father of the constitution." From the labors of the constitutional convention Madison repaired immediately to the federal confederate conoress then sitting in New York, where he found strenuous opposition to the new instrument CY Richard Henry Lee of Virginia and Nathan Dane of Massachu setts. Triumphing over these, his party in the congress secured a unanimous vote of that body to submit the constitution to the action of the several states. The various forms of opposition to it were met at the outset by a series of essays suggested by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, in which Madison was invited to join, published over the sig nature of " Publius," first in a New York paper, but afterward as a distinct issue under the title of The Federalist. It grew under the hands of these gentlemen into one of the ablest compendiums of political thought ever published; finally comprising 85 essays, of -which 51 were by Hamilton, 29 by 'Madison, and 5 by Jay; Judge Story in his treatise on the constitution styles it " an incomparable commentary. ' After eight states bad voted their approval of the new constitution it only remained for the ninth to affirm it to secure its adoption. Virginia became the battle ground. A large part of her most emi nent citizens took side against its adoption. Madison, at the urgent request of Wash ington, became a candidate for a seat in the Virginia convention called to take action upon it. The eloquence of Patrick Henry, and his tact in popular persuasion, was met in that convention by gov. Randolph in part, but more thoroughly and comprehensively by Madison; who, by his lurid reasoning, apt citations from his stores of historical knowledge, and masterly review of the errors of the opposition, turned the tide of opinion in the convention. In the language of Bushrod Washington, who had listened to the debate, to gen. Washington, "Mr. 3fadison followed, and with such force of rea soning, and a display of such irresistible truths, that opposition seemed to have quitted the field." Yet the forensic battle raged for many weeks; 3Iadison making in one day thirteen speeches in reply to Henry, Mason, Harrison, 3fonroe, and other brilliant lead ers of the opposition. Voices of wisdotn prevailed against voices of eloquence; and on June 24, 1788, Virginia ratified the constitution by the slender majority of 89 to 79. Chief justice 3Iarshall being once asked who of all the public speakers he had heard he considered the most eloquent—and he had heard all the illustrious of his time—replied: "Eloquence has been defined to be the art of persuasion. If it includes persuasion by convincing, Mr. 3Iadison was the most eloquent man I ever heard." New York had not yet given its consent to the lieW constitution, and under the leadership of gov. Clinton continued to refuse it except under impracticable conditions, one of which was the reservation of a right to withdraw from the -union if the amend ments proposed by her should not be adopted within a limited period. 3Iadison in a letter to Alexander Hamilton at this time writes his unqualified repugnance to all prop ,ositions of the kind, and regarded such a conditional ratification as worse than a rejection. At the request of gen. -Washington he became a candidate for the new national senate under the constitution; but Richard Henry Lee of the opposition was -supported by gov. Henry, and elected; after which Madison was elected from his own °district to the house of representatives in congress, in spite of the formation of a dis trict, by the legislature under the control of gov. Henry, for the express purpose of insuring his defeat.