he was but ten years of age. When the first blood was shed, here in the streets of Boston, he was a student in the process of his education at Princeton College, where the next year, 1771, he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He was even then so highly distinguished by the power of application and the rapidity of his progress, that he performed all the exercises of the two senior Collegiate years in one-while at the same time his deportment was so examplary, that Dr. Witherspoon, then at the head of that College, and afterwards himself one of the most eminent Patriots and Sages of our revolution, always delighted in bearing testimony to the excellency of his character at that early stage of his career; and said to Thomas Jefferson long afterwards, when they were all colleagues in the revolutionary Congress, that in the whole career of Mr. MADISON at Princeton, he had never known him to say or do an indiscreet thing.

Discretion in its influence upon the conduct of men is the parent of moderate and concilitary counsels, and these were peculiarly indispensable to the perpetuation of the American Union, and to the prosperous advancement and termination of the revolution, precisely at the period when Mr. Madison was first introduced into public life.

In 1775, among the earliest movements of the revolutionary contest, he was a member of the Committee of Public Safety of the County of Orange, and in 1776, of the Convention substituted for the ordinary Legislature of the Colony. By one of those transient ca

prices of popular favour, which sometimes influence elections, he was not returned to the House of Delegates in 1777, but was immediately after elected by that body to the Executive Council, of which he continued a leading member till the close of the year 1779, and was then transferred by the Legislature to the representation of the Commonwealth in the Continental Congress. His first entrance into public life was signalized by the resolution of the Convention of the State, instructing their Delegates to vote for the Independence of the Colonies; by the adoption of a declaration of rights, and by their organization of a State government, which continued for more than half a century the Constitution of the Commonwealth before it underwent the revision of the people; an event in which he was destined again to take a conspicuous part. On the 20th of March, 1780, he took his seat as a delegate in the Congress of the Confederation. It was then in the midst of the revolution, and under the influence of its most trying scenes, that his political character was formed; and then it was that the virtue of discretion, the spirit of moderation, the conciliatory temper of compromise found room for exercise in its most comprehensive extent.

One of the provisions in the articles of Confederation most strongly marked with that same spirit of Liberty, the vital breath of the contest in which our fathers were engaged; the true and undying conservative spirit by which we their children enjoy that Freedom which they achieved; but which like all

other pure and virtuous principles sometimes leads to error by its excess, was that no member of this omnipotent Congress should hold that office more than three years in six. This provision, however, was construed not to have commenced its operation until the final ratification of the articles by all the States on the first of March, 1781. Mr. Madison remained in Congress nearly four years, from the 20th of March, 1780, till the first Monday in November, 1783. He was thus a member of that body during the last stages of the revolutionary war and for one year after the conclusion of the Peace. He had, during that period, unceasing opportunities to observe the mortifying inefficiency of the merely federative principle upon which the Union of the States had been organized, and had taken an active part in all the remedial measures proposed by Congress for amending the Articles of Confederation.

A Confederation is not a country. There is no magnet of attraction in any league of Sovereign and Independent States which causes the heart-strings of the individual man to vibrate in unison with those of his neighbor. Confederates are not Countrymen, as the tie of affinity by convention can never be so close as the tie of kindred by blood. The Confederation of the North American States was an experiment of inestimable value, even by its failure. It taught our fathers the lesson, that they had more, infinitely more to do than merely to achieve their Independence by That they must form their social compact upon

war.

principles never before attempted upon earth. That the Achean league of ancient days, the Hanseatic league of the middle ages, the leagues of Switzerland or of the Netherlands of later times, furnished no precedent upon which they could safely build their labouring plan of State. The Confederation was perhaps as closely knit together as it was possible that such a form of polity could be grappled; but it was matured by the State Legislatures without consultation with the People, and the jealousy of sectional collisions, and the distrust of all delegation of power, stamped every feature of the work with inefficiency.

The deficiency of powers in the Confederation was immediately manifested in their inability to regulate the commerce of the country, and to raise revenue, indispensable for the discharge of the debt accumulated in the progress of the Revolution. Repeated efforts were made to supply this deficiency; but always without success.

On the 3d of February, 1781, it was recommended to the several States as indispensably necessary that they should vest a power in Congress to levy for the use of the United States a duty of five per cent. ad valorem upon foreign importations, and all prize goods condemned in a Court of Admiralty; the money arising from those duties to be appropriated to the discharge of the debts contracted for the support of the war.

On the 18th of April, 1783, a new recommendation was adopted by Resolutions of nine States, as indis

pensably necessary to the restoration of public credit, and to the punctual and honorable discharge of the public debt, to invest the Congress with a power to lay certain specific duties upon spirituous liquors, tea, sugar, coffee and cocoa, and five per cent. ad valorem upon all other imported articles of merchandise, to be exclusively appropriated to the payment of the principal or interest of the public debt.`

And that as a further provision for the payment of the interest of the debt, the States themselves should levy a revenue to furnish their respective quotas of an aggregate annual sum of one million five hundred thousand dollars.

And that to provide a further guard for the payment of the same debts, to hasten their extinguishment, and to establish the harmony of the United States, the several States should make liberal cessions. to the Union of their territorial claims.

With this act a Committee, consisting of Mr. MADISON, Mr. Ellsworth and Mr. Hamilton, was appointed to prepare an address to the States, which on the 26th of the same month was adopted, and transmitted together with eight documentary papers, demonstrating the necessity that the measures recommended by teh act should be adopted by the States.

This address, one of those incomparable State pa

pers which more than all the deeds of arms immortalized the rise, progress and termination of the North American revolution, was the composition of JAMES MADISON. After compressing into a brief and lumin