to Virginia, there to proclaim his doctrine. He accordingly set out, and reached the county of Orange, where soon great crowds flocked to hear him. In that county, also, there was. a Baptist minister, known as Par son Leland, whose eloquence and untiring efforts in behalf of his creed had won for him great notoriety and a wide influence. He was for a time imprisoned at Culpcpper, and, it is said, attributed his incarceration to Madison himself, who was shortly aftenvards a candi date from his district to the Virginia Conven tion, which, it will be remembered, met at Richmond, in 1788, to decide upon the re jection or adoption of the Constitution of the United States, recently framed in Philadel phia. Now, if it be borne in mind what a tre mendous struggle awaited Madison as leader of the party in favor of the ratification of the Federal Constitution, when arrayed against him were men as great as himself and as ar dently patriotic, — such men, indeed, as Patrick Henry, George Mason and James Monroe, — one need not wonder at the vio lence of the opposition that spared no effort to defeat him in the election to the Conven tion of Virginia. And if it be further remem bered that to indorse the Constitution seemed to the minds of many but a return to a mo narchical form of government, and but the substitution of the church of America for the church of England — a distinction without a difference — one may readily appreciate the consternation of the Non-conformists, * and their frenzied resistance to an instrument which, as it seemed to them, threatened the overthrow of their rights, civil and religious. These facts recall an incident at this stage of Madison's career, of undoubted authentic ity, and familiar to many of the older resi dents of Orange County, who have gathered, as is their privilege, from that period which is their own past and was Madison's future, many a bit of his personal history so far unchronicled. The writer gives the incident as related to her by her father, himself an
octogenarian, — and by his friend and con temporary, a native and life-long resident of Orange County. There still stands at Gum Spring, near Unionville, Orange County, Vir ginia, an old oak tree, which may not inap propriately be styled the " Charter Oak of Virginia," since beneath its spreading branches was enacted a scene which virtually, if not officially, made Virginia the arbiter of her own fortunes and of those of her sisterstates. For, on this spot, upon a summer's day, it chanced that Madison, — while as yet his election to the Convention was at the mercy of circumstance,— met, as good luck would have it, the man whose hydra-headed influence he had combated at every turn, and whose ill-will he had gained and had reason to fear, and whom he knew he would do well to propitiate, — no other than Parson Leland himself. At once the two fell into argu ment,— by one consent withdrawing into the cool shadows of the friendly oak — Madison, the man of destiny, and the Baptist preacher, Parson Leland, whose influence in the AntiConvention party was very great, and whose fervid eloquence had won to his cause many an adherent, and to which Madison himself now listened, no longer wondering at its power over the minds brought under its sway. Earnestly and effectually, Madison (who, like Washington, was not an orator, yet of comprehension so clear and conviction so strong that all who heard him must feel the force of his terse sentences), met and over came the arguments of his opponent. In vincible reasoning and eloquent appeal were well met in these two, who, throughout the long and impassioned debate, were scarcely conscious of the fact that many listeners had gathered around them as the hours slipped by unheeded. It is avouched that so clearly were Madison's views set forth on this occa sion; so palpably honest and sincere his ad vocacy of the cause he had at heart, and which he believed to be the haven of safety to his beloved but divided country; and so conspicuous the absence of personal ends in
