Page:Sketches of the life and character of Patrick Henry.djvu/323

 June, and the assembly met on the 20th of October following. This interval had been too short to permit the subsidence of that high excitement, which the can- vass of the constitution had provoked; and the assembly was consequently discriminated by feelings of party as strong and determined, as those which had character- ized the convention itself

The constitution having been adopted by a sufficient number of states to carry it into effect, it became neces- sary at this session, to provide for its organization, and^ among other measures, to choose tw o senators to repre- sent this state, in the congress of the United States. For this office, Mr. Madison was presented by those who were at that time distinguished by the appellation of federalists; by which nothing more was then meant, than that they were advocates for the adoption of the new federal constitution. The anti-federalists, on the contrary, who were alarmed by the vast powers which they considered as granted by the constitution, regarded it as a salutary check on the constructive extension of those powers, and as the best means of securing those amendments which they deemed essential to the liber- ties of the people, that the first congress should be composed of men of their own sentiments. In oppo- sition to Mr. Madison therefore, Mr. Henry took the unusual liberty of nominating two candidates, Mr. Richard H. Lee and Mr. Grayson; and, notwithstand- ing the great accession of character which Mr. Madison had acquired by the abihty with which he had espoused the ratification of the constitution, those gentlemen were elected by a considerable majority.

At the same session of the assembly, Mr. Henry, whose mind seems to have been filled with the most oppressive solicitude by the unconditional adoption of

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