of England, who was engaged as private tutor in his father's family.

The climate of Williamsburgh being deemed uncongenial with persons from the mountain region, Mr. Madison, instead of being put at the college of William and Mary, was sent to that of Princeton, N. J., of which Dr. Wotherspoon was then president; where he completed his college education, and received the degree of bachelor of arts in the autumn of 1771. Mr. Madison always retained a lively recollection of Dr. Wotherspoon's learning, and often indulged the inclination, which throughout life characterized him, of sprightly narrative and imitation, by playfully repeating the doctor's curious remarks in a broad Scotch accent. While at college, his health was impaired by over-ardent study: it continued feeble in consequence, during some years after his return home. He had laid the deep foundations of those attainments, habits, and principles, which gradually, but without fail, raised him to after eminence; and when he got home, with ruined health, far from neglecting literary pursuits, he persevered in extensive and systematic reading, somewhat miscellaneous, but not without reference to the profession of the law, although he formed no absolute determination to enter upon the practice; which Burke says, while it sharpens the wits, does not always enlarge the mind. Mr. Madison studied probably just law enough, but his breeding was altogether that of a statesman; an American statesman, for he never was out of his own country; and though it has often, truly, been said, that he would have made a great chief justice of the United States, yet his studies and acquirements were free from all technical or professional restraint, and his seldom if ever equalled power

of reasoning was always exercised on a large scale, and philosophical comprehension of the subject matter. From nature, from habit, it may be even from the imperfect state of health to which he was reduced at the outset of his career, his was the most passionless course of education and elevation. He never addressed a passion or required a prejudice: but relying on reason alone for every conviction, he effected his purpose without any appeal to prejudices. His political principles do not differ so much from his great predecessor's, Mr. Jefferson, as his manner of imbibing and imparting them. Taking nothing for granted, by intuition, or sympathy, he worked out every result like a problem to be proved. No one was more inflexibly attached to the principles of his adoption; but then he always adopted them on earnest consideration and sufficient authority, before he gave them his affections. They were not his natural offspring.

Having received very early and strong impressions in favor of liberty, both civil and religious, he embarked with the prevalent zeal in the American cause at the beginning of the dispute with Great Britain. but his devotion to study, and his impaired health probably prevented his performing any military ser vice. Devoted to freedom of conscience, he was particularly active in opposing the persecution of the Baptists, then a new sect in Virginia, who were con signed in some instances to jail for violating the law prohibiting preaching by dissenters from the estabblished church. Throughout life he was remarkable for strict adherence to the American doctrine of absolute separation between civil and religious authority; and one of his vetoes, while president, attested, that in advanced station and age, the principles early

taken upon this subject were as dear to him as at first, when he was but a young and gratuitous reformer.

In the spring of 1776, when twenty-five years of age, he was initiated into the public service, from which he rarely afterwards was absent for forty years of constantly rising eminence, till, it was all. crowned by that spontaneous retirement from the highest station which is itself the crown of American republicanism. His first election was to the legislature of Virginia, which, in May of that year, anticipated the declaration of independence by unanimously instructing the deputies of that state to propose it.

It is a signal proof of Mr. Madison's merits that in this assembly, being surrounded by experienced and distinguished members, he nodestly refrained from any active part in its proceedings; and never tried that talent for public debate which afterwards he displayed so eminently. Beyond committee duty and private suggestions, he was unknown to the assem bly. At the succeeding county election he was superseded by another competitor. His failure was partly owing to his declining to treat the electors; but in no small degree to the diffidence which restrained him from giving fair play to his faculty of speech, and active participation in public affairs. His refusal to treat, because he held it inconsistent with the purity of elections, may be a lesson to the ambitious, and not unworthy of the notice of the temperate. In one of the first steps of his public life, he sacrificed success to that purity, sobriety, and it may be said chastity, of conduct, from which he never swerved. Because, as was imputed, he would not treat, and could not speak, James Madison lost his election!

But the legislature, in the course of the ensuing session,repaired this popular defection by appointing him a member of the council of state, which place he held till 1779, when he was elected a delegate to the con gress of the revolution. During the first part of his service in the council, Patrick Henry was governor of the state; and during the latter part of it, Mr. Jefferson. Both these personages experienced and appreciated the importance of Mr. Madison's assistance, knowledge, and judgment, in a station which did not put his natural modesty to the severe trial of public display. His information, patriotism, perfeet probity, and unpretending worth, gained for him the first fruits of his maturing character. He proved himself a safe and serviceable man; recommendations, without which brilliancy is often troublesome, and always useless.

Mr. Jefferson used to say, that Mr. Madison rendered himself very acceptable to the members of the legislature by his amiable deportment, and by the services he performed in drafting reports, bills, &c. for them. It was this that recommended him for election the next winter as a member of the executive council, where his talents for writing and for business generally, particularly his acquaintance with the French language, of which Governor Henry was ignorant, and which was necessary to the executive of Virginia, in their then constant intercourse with French officers, soon made Mr. Madison the most efficient member of the council. He wrote so much for Governor Henry, that Mr. Jefferson said he was called the governor's secretary. This council was, moreover, the best adapted stage for his first essays as a public speaker: not consisting of more than ten persons, their debates were less trying to a modest

man. So extreme was Mr. Madison's diffidence, that it was Mr. Jefferson's opinion, that if his first public appearanee had taken place in such an assembly as the house of representatives of the United States, Mr. Madison would never have been able to overcome his aversion to display. But by practice, first in the executive council of Virginia, and afterwards in the old congress, which was likewise a small body, he was gradually habituated to speech-making in public, in which he became so powerful.

Elected to congress, he took his seat in that body in March, 1780; and was continued there by re-elections till the expiration of the allowed term, computed from the ratification of the articles of confederation in 1781. From the spring of 1780 to the fall of 1783, the journals show, what is known to all, that he became an active and leading member of congress, taking prominent parts in many of the most important transactions. The letter of instructions to Mr. Jay, American minister in Spain, in October 1780, maintaining the right of the United States to the Mississippi river, and the address to the states at the close of the war, urging the adoption of the plan providing for the debts due to the army, and the other public creditors, were composed by him, and are some of the earliest of his contributions to those American state papers which, during the infancy of the United States, were among their most powerful means of conservation and advancement.

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In the years 1784, 5, and '6, he was elected a delegate by his county to the state legislature and it is worthy of remark, that one reason why Virginia was always fruitful of statesmen of the first rank, is, that they constantly, all of them, sought seats in the state assembly, where such men both acquired and con