of its features, the dark eyes blazing and flashing with a fire that never had been seen in the eyes of a mere mortal before, the graceful rapid gestures, and the passionate eloquence which never in its most apparently abandoned moments failed to be sincere and logical, made him for the hour the glory of friend and enemy alike, although the reaction was correspondingly bitter.  Upon this occasion he spoke for six hours without the interruption of a scraping heel; and what the Convention did not know about the science of government before he finished with them, they never would learn elsewhere.  Although he made but this one speech, he talked constantly to the groups surrounding him wherever he moved.  To his original scheme he had too much tact to make further allusion; but his general opinions, ardently propounded, his emphatic reiteration of the demoralized country’s need for a national government, and of the tyrannies inherent in unbridled democracies, wedged in many a chink.  Nevertheless, he was disgusted and disheartened when he left for New York, at the end of May.  The Convention was chaos, but he could accomplish nothing more than what he hoped he might have done; the matter was now best in the hands of Madison and Gouverneur Morris, and his practice could no longer be neglected.

But although he returned to a mass of work,—­for he handled most of the great cases of the time,—­he managed to mingle daily with the crowd at Fraunces’ and the coffee-houses, in order to gauge the public sentiment regarding the proposed change of government, and to see the leading men constantly.  On the whole, he wrote to Washington, he found that both in the Jerseys and in New York there was “an astonishing revolution for the better in the minds of the people.”

Washington replied from the depths of his disgust:—­

    ...  In a word I almost despair of seeing a favourable issue to the
     proceedings of the Convention, and do, therefore, repent having any
     agency in the business.  The men who oppose a strong and energetic
     government are, in my opinion, narrow-minded politicians, or are
     under the influence of local views.  The apprehension expressed by
     them that the people will not accede to the form proposed, is the
     ostensible, not the real cause of the opposition; but admitting
     that present sentiment is as they prognosticate, the question
     ought nevertheless to be, is it, or is it not, the best form?  If
     the former, recommend it, and it will assuredly obtain, maugre
     opposition.  I am sorry you went away; I wish you were back.

To Washington, who presided over that difficult assemblage with a superhuman dignity, to Hamilton who breathed his strong soul into it, to Madison who manipulated it, to Gouverneur Morris, whose sarcastic eloquent tongue brought it to reason again and again, and whose accomplished pen gave the Constitution its literary form, belong the highest honours of the Convention; although the services rendered by Roger Sherman, Rufus King, James Wilson, R.R.  Livingston, and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney entitle them to far more than polite mention.