colonies, which enabled us to win the war. At the very close of the Constitutional Convention, when the draft of the Constitution had been agreed upon and was about to be signed, he made a brief speech. On the back of the chair of the presiding officer where Washington sat as President was carved a representation of the sun and its rays. He said that often during their deliberations he had noted this carving and wondered whether it portrayed the rising or the setting sun; that now at the conclusion of their labors he was sure that it was the rising sun of a great country-prophetic words. When some of the members hesitated to sign because the document did not in every particular meet their views, he told of a French lady whom he had known in Paris who once said to her sister, 'It is very strange that I always find every one wrong but myself,' and said he had learned in his long life that he frequently found himself mistaken in things about which he was the most sure, that he had come to believe that after all the will of the majority was nearly always right. His speech brought assent from many who had before refused to sign; and throughout the deliberations of the Convention his unfailing good humor, that could always tranquilize any tumult with a witty remark, his unfailing wisdom, his common sense always exercised at the right moment, made the Constitution possible."

"Of course the commanding figure was General Washington, of whom no satisfactory life history

has ever been written. The years that have passed since his death have changed his image and likeness into a sort of steel engraving without anything human about it. Starting with the ridiculous fable of the cherry tree, fabricated by a fiddling, harddrinking Virginia parson, myths have clustered about his memory until it is hard to find the real Washington. He, too, like nine out of ten of the members of the Convention, was self-made. The death of his father when he was twelve years old compelled him to leave school at the age of sixteen and go to work as a surveyor and after that his learning was in the rough school of active life. He excelled in all athletic sports, was the champion broad jumper of Virginia in his youth, and an unexcelled horseman who knew woodcraft better than he knew books. He inherited from his brother the estate of Mount Vernon which he increased till he owned about five thousand acres. He was the most progressive farmer in Virginia. He noted how the growing of tobacco was exhausting the fertile lands of Virginia and inaugurated what is known as the five-field system, a rotation of crops with clover to rest and fertilize the soil, raising tobacco only once in five years on each field. He was the first Virginian to send a shipload of wheat to France. He was the first man in America to recognize the value of the mule and to use them on his estate."

"During all his cares as General in Chief of the American Army and later as President, he exercised the closest watchfulness over his estate, directing

his overseer what should be grown on each field, how many barrels of herring should be put up and how many hogs killed for winter use on his farm. When he was elected President, he declined to receive any salary as he had declined any salary as General in Chief, accepting only his actual expenses. For that purpose during his first year as President he kept an accurate account of his living expenses, including the salary of two secretaries whom he employed. There are copies of this account showing every penny expended for living expenses, such as food and drink, wages, rent-all carried out to the last penny. At the end of the year his expenses had been about five thousand pounds English money or about twenty-five thousand dollars in our currency, and it was from this that the salary of our President was fixed at twenty-five thousand dollars. By his care and thrift he accumulated what at the time of his death was the largest fortune in America, valued at $700,000, a sum equal at this time to three or four millions. So far from being the cold, chilly character that we are accustomed to regard, he was intensely human, warm-blooded with a violent temper which he learned to control, but whose infrequent outburst brought abject terror to the objects of his anger. Those who knew him best felt a kind of idolatry for him that never in the least affected his natural simplicity of character. He was the only commander of an army that could lose every battle and yet win a campaign. Leading armies never paid, half clothed, half fed, in the long run he out

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generaled and defeated the best soldiers and generals that Great Britain could bring to the field. No other man but Washington could have held an equal balance between the rival factions and with the unlimited confidence of all classes carry the infant Republic through its first years and set it upon that course which it has followed with such success. With such capable leaders the convention was well equipped for its labors.” 1 With the exception of Connecticut, all the states represented had recently had experience in making new constitutions. Of the fifty-five delegates who sat in the convention eighteen were then members of the Continental Congress, while twenty-five others had previously served in that body; eight were signers of the Declaration of Independence; and one had been a member of the Albany Convention. All were men of character and ability, while many of them had rendered such distinguished public service as to make their names conspicuous in the annals of colonial history. Probably no abler group of men ever assembled for so important a duty.

When the convention met, all were well aware of the defects of the Articles of Confederation, but differed widely as to the extent of revising them. All agreed, however, that the national government ought to consist of three departments-a legislature (law making), an executive (law enforcing), and a

1 From "The Story of the Constitution," by F. Dumont Smith. Courtesy of the Committee on American Citizenship of the American Bar Association.