is driven home in compact and telling sentences at the
close.
Having done what he could to advocate the Constitution in New York, Madison, in March, 1788, went to Virginia to prepare for the Virginia convention. For this purpose he drew up " an additional memorandum " on the defects of mere confederacies. In the mean time he had added to his previous material notes on the Hanseatic League, the Union of Calmar, and the Union of Scotland and England. This memorandum also took up the traces of representative institutions among the ancients, especially in Sparta, Rome, and Carthage, and the utility of a moderating senate. In the Virginia conven- tion Madison was as prominent as in the Philadelphia con- vention, and his efforts not less important. He met the specious eloquence of Patrick Henry by repeated appeals to solid facts, to those of recent experience, and to those of an earlier age. This Madison was prepared to do by his expe- rience in the old Congress and by his historical studies.
From the reports of the Virginia convention one may see how effectually Madison performed this task. The report is, of course, condensed : —
" If we recur to history and review the annals of mankind, I undertake to say that no instance can be produced by the most learned man of any confederate government that will justify a continuation of this present system or that will not demonstrate the necessity of the change, and of substituting for the present pernicious and fatal plan the system now under consideration, or one equally energetic.
" The powers of the Amphictyonic Council were exercised on the component states which retained their sovereignty. To this capital defect it owed its disorders and final destruc- tion. The Germanic system is neither adequate to the exter- nal defense nor internal felicity of this people. The doctrine of quotas and requisitions flourishes here; without energy, without stability, the Empire is a nerveless body ; the most furious conflicts and the most implacable animosities between its members strikingly distinguish its history. Concert and
