HIS CORRESPONDENCE AND REPORTS OF DEBATES DURING AND HIS REPORTS OF DEBATES IN THE FEDERAL CONVENTION; NOW PUBLISHED FROM THE ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPTS, DEPOS - OF HENRY D. GILPIN. VOLUME I. NEW YORK: J. & H. G. LANGLEY, 57 CHATHAM STREET. 1841. NOTICE. JAMES MADISON died, in the eighty-fifth year of his age, at his residence, Montpelier, in Orange county, Virginia, on the 28th of June, 1836. On the 30th of the same month, the President of the United States transmitted, by Mr. Donelson his Secretary, the following message to the Senate and House of Representatives : "WASHINGTON, June 30, 1836. "To the Senate and House of Representatives: "It becomes my painful duty to announce to you the melancholy intelligence of the death of JAMES MADISON, Ex-President of the United States. He departed this life, at half past six o'clock on the morning of the twenty-eighth instant, full of years and full of honours. "I hasten this communication, in order that Congress may adopt such measures as may be proper, to testify their sense of the respect which is due to the memory of one whose life has contributed so essentially to the happiness and glory of his country, and to the good of mankind. "ANDREW JACKSON." In the Senate, after the message from the President had been read, Mr. RIVES of Virginia made the following remarks: "Mr. PRESIDENT: I feel that it would be an act of sacrilegious temerity, were I to attempt to add to the intrinsic pathos of the melancholy intelligence just announced to us by the President of the United States, by any thing in the way of eulogy of the character of the great man whose decease he has communicated to us. The eulogy of Mr. MADISON is written in every page of the history of his country, to whose service his whole life was devoted; and with every great event in whose annals, his name stands conspicuously and enduringly identified. Filled, however, as his life was, from its dawn to its close, with labours of patriotism and superior wisdom, there is one great work of his which must ever recur prominently to the grateful memory of his country. He was, in an especial manner, the founder and author of that glorious Constitution which is the bond of our union and the charter of our liberties; and it was graciously vouchsafed to him, in the order of Providence, to witness for a longer period than any of his illustrious colleagues, the rich blessings which have resulted from its establishment. He was the last surviving signer of that sacred instrument. Amid the general grief which pervades the nation, may we not indulge one consolation at least, in the hope that his death, whilst adding the last seal to his own fame and glory, will in some sort canonize the work of his hands, and surround, with a new veneration, that precious relic of the wisdom of our departed patriots and sages. "But, sir, I will not speak of the public life of Mr. MADISON; it is known to us all; it is appreciated by us all. It was my privilege to see and know him in the scenes of that classic retirement in which he passed the evening of his days. It was there that the mild lustre of his private virtues, which formed the crowning grace of his character, and is the indispensable complement of a true public glory, was seen and felt. But |