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MADISON.

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. Gentlemen, 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 liv. ing, to whom the country is so much indebted for the blessings of the Constitution. He was one of the Commissioners at Annapolis in 1786, at the meeting of which I have already spoken; a meeting which, to the great credit of Virginia, had its origin in a proceeding of that State. He was a member of the Convention of 1789, and of that of Virginia the following year. He was thus intimately acquainted with the whole progress of the for. mation 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 numbers of the Federalist; and it was in this city that he commenced his brilliant career, under the new constitution, having been elected into the House of Representives of the first congress. The recorded votes and debates of those times show his active

and efficient agency in every important measure of that congress. The necessary organization of the Govern. ment, the arrangement of the Departments, and especially the paramount subject of revenue, engaged his atten. tion, and shared his labors.

IMPORTANCE OF THE UNION.

But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its sponta. neous sentiments. I cannot even now persuade myself to relinquish it without expressing once more my deep conviction, that since it respects nothing less than the Union of the States, it is of most vital and essential importance to the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal Union. It is to that Union we owe

our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruined credit. Under its benign influences these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead, and sprang forth with newness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. I have not allowed myself,

sir, to look beyond the union, to see what might lie hid den in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether with my short sight I can fathom the depth of the abyss below; nor could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us, for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day at least that curtain may not rise. God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies beyond. When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced; its armies and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscur. ed-bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatoy as, What is all this worth? nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty first and Union afterwards; but everywhere spread all over, in characters of living light blazing on all its ample folds as they float over the sea

and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true Ame. rican heart, LIBERTY AND UNION NOW AND FOR EVER, ONE

AND INSEPERABLE.

THE END.

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