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 S P E E C H 
 
 
 mr. Bobbins. 
 
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 I HON REPORTED BY THE LIBRARY OMMITTEE, 
 
 ro rvRcn.tsE thi: 
 
 COPYRIGHT OF MADISON'S MANUSCRIPT WORKS, 
 
 •!) ESCRIBED J N S A J D HESOL U T I O N" 
 
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 NATE OF THE UNITED STATE! FE8R1 IR1 18, 183' 
 
 
 \\ ASHI N G TON: 
 
 PRINTED BI GALES AND SEATON. 
 
 .1 337. 
 

SPEECH 
 
 I consider this work of Mr. Madison, now proposed 
 to be given to the world under the patronage of this 
 Government, as the most valuable one to mankind that 
 has appeared since the days when Bacon gave to the 
 world his Novum Organon. That produced that revo- 
 lution in analytics, which has produced the immense su- 
 periority of the moderns over the ancients in the knowl- 
 edge of Nature, and in the improvement of the condition 
 of human life — the fruit of that knowledge. With Ba- 
 con it was a mere theory; a theory, however, which he 
 fondly cherished, and confidently believed would be pro- 
 lific, as it has been, of the most magnificent results; but 
 in the hands of Newton, and of his other disciples and 
 followers, it became a practical guide to those aston- 
 ishing discoveries which, in their consequences, have, 
 among other things, converted those elements of Nature 
 before supposed to be, only to be controlled by the same 
 Almighty hand which formed them, into the ministers 
 and agents of man, obedient to his will, and subservient 
 to his use. It has enabled man to draw the veil from 
 the face of Nature; to inspect her mechanism; and to 
 avail himself of her principles for the augmentation of 
 his own power. It has given him power after power; 
 and is still going on to give him power upon power, as 
 his researches go on in exploring her boundless fields, 
 and in making discovery upon discovery; and to thij 
 growing increase of human power, no human being a 
 now assign the possible limits. True, it has not enabl< 
 man, as it was fabled of him by the poets of old, to stefl 
 the fire from the heavens; but it has enabled him to do 
 
4 
 
 more and better— it has enabled him to become an hum- 
 ble pupil in the schcol of the Divine Artist; and, by stu- 
 dying his models, to copy his agencies, though at the 
 immeasureable distance which separates a finite from 
 the Infinite Being. 
 
 As this Organon of Bacon has been the beacon-light 
 to mankind to guide him to the true philosophy, and to 
 the improvement of his physical condition, so will this 
 work of Madison, as I trust and predict, be his beacon- 
 light to guide him to the true science of free govern- 
 ment, and to the improvement of his political condition. 
 The science of free government; the most difficult of ajl 
 the sciences, by far the most difficult, while it is the most 
 important, to mankind; of all the slowest in growth, the 
 latest in maturity. Not the science which has pene- 
 trated the causes and explained to mankind the phenom- 
 ena of the heavens is so difficult; that has been found 
 of easier and more rapid attainment. Indeed, the diffi- 
 culties to be overcome in evolving this science are so 
 great, that we are to wonder less at its tardy advances, 
 than at its final success. In the first place, it requires 
 the deepest and most perfect insight into the nature of 
 man: of man not only in his general nature, but as mod- 
 ified by society; which every where has superinduced 
 and clothed him with a second nature denominated 
 habit; and that as diversified as the countries he inhabits. 
 Then it requires that faculty of comprehensive combina- 
 tion, which is the rarest of all the gifts of God to man, 
 and which, whenever and wherever it appears, seems 
 destined to produce an era in human affairs; a faculty of 
 combining into a whole, where the elements to be com- 
 bined are so various as to be almost infinite; a whole 
 perfect in relation to all its parts, and its parts perfect in 
 relation to the whole. Besides, the perfect model of 
 the free Government is not like the perfect model of any 
 other science. Of every other science, the perfect model 
 any where is the perfect model every where, and every 
 where alike perfect. The perfect watch at Washington, 
 for instance, is the perfect watch at Canton, and so all over 
 the globe; but not so the perfect model of the free Gov 
 
ernment: that, though the principles are the same every 
 where, the form varies as the circumstances vary, of the 
 people by whom it is established; to which circumstances 
 it must always be adjusted and made to conform. 
 
 Here, with us, the difficulties to be overcome in this 
 achievement, from the nature of the elements to be com- 
 bined, were stupendously great. In looking back to 
 those difficulties, that they were overcome at all, appears 
 to me now little less than a prodigy; and it still fills me 
 with astonishment. For here a combination was re- 
 quired that would produce a structure, perfectly anoma- 
 lous in the history of human Governments; and such a 
 structure was produced, and as perfect as it was novel. 
 Here were a people, spread and spreading over a vast 
 territory — that stretching and to stretch almost from the 
 rising to the setting sun — this scattered and countless 
 multitude were to be ruled in freedom as one people, 
 and by the popular will — that will to be uncontrolled in 
 itself, and controlling every thing. Such an achieve- 
 ment, the most enlightened friends of freedom and hu- 
 man rights, in all countries, and in all ages, had deemed 
 to be morally and physically impossible. Besides, here 
 were thirteen States, and all the other States to be 
 formed out of that vast territory, without being destroyed 
 as States, to be so combined as to form, in the general 
 aspect, but one simple Government; with all the unity 
 and energy of one simple Government; powerful alike 
 to assert and maintain all their rights as a nation, against 
 all other nations; and the rights of eveiy individual, all 
 over this boundless domain, against every aggressor; 
 that is, a Government equally fitted and efficient for all 
 the purposes of peace and war. Such an achievement, 
 often before, and under much more .favorable circum- 
 stances, because upon a much more limited scale, had 
 been attempted, but never before accomplished; as is 
 but too well attested by the histories and the destinies of/ 
 all the confederacies that before had ever existed on the 
 earth. 
 
 Those confederacies had all proved signal failures as 
 effective Governments, both in war and peace; and en 
 
6 
 
 tirely for the want of that form of structure and princi- 
 ple of combination that would reconcile absolute sov- 
 ereignty in the nation with sovereignty in the States, as 
 parts of one nation — as consistent and harmonious parts 
 of one supreme sovereignty. This principle, unexplored 
 and unknown before, was developed and displayed, most 
 happily so, in the structure of our confederate and na- 
 tional Republic. 
 
 This work now proposed to be published will unfold 
 to us all the steps of that diversified analysis and dis- 
 covery which lead to this ha^py and splendid result. 
 
 Those who think (if any think) that the result itself— 
 namely, the Constitution— of itself and by itself, will be 
 enough for the instruction of mankind on this subject, are 
 much mistaken. For there is a vast difference between 
 the knowledge which is acquired analytically, and that 
 which is acquired synthetically; the latter is out isolated 
 knowledge; the former is knowledge that is the conse- 
 quence of other knowledge. Synthesis gives to us a 
 general truth, but acquired in a mode that is barren of 
 other fruit; analysis not only gives to us the same gen- 
 eral truth, but puts us on the track of invention and dis- 
 covery, and is always fertile of other, and often of better 
 fruit: synthesis carries us to a fountain head, but never 
 beyond; but analysis carries us beyond, and to the foun- 
 tain of that fountain; it places us upon an eminence that 
 overtops and overlooks the general truth in the wide sur- 
 vey it commands and gives to us; and as to that general 
 truth, it enables us not only to comprehend it more per- 
 fectly, but to apply it more successfully. This is at once 
 a branch and the great instrument of that primal philoso- 
 phy of which Bacon speaks, and whose cultivation he so 
 highly recommends — the philosophy of philosophy; the 
 common mother of all the sciences, and by which alone 
 their boundaries can be extended. He compares it to 
 the Berecynthia, whom the poets of old fabled to be the 
 mother of all the gods: 
 
 " Omnes Ccelicolas, omnes supera alta 
 Tenentcs." 
 
 Of such is the nature, and such will be the fruits to 
 
mankind, of the work now proposed lo be given to the 
 world. 
 
 Further to awaken Our sensibility on this subject, 1 
 need not remind the Senate how much we owe to a name 
 that is to render the name of this country respectable in 
 every other on this globe; the darumct vcncrabilc nomen. 
 Nations have lived upon the earth who have become ex- 
 tinct, and been lost to the memory of mankind; but never 
 when the da rum ct vcncrabilc nomen had illustrated their 
 annals. The clarum ct vcncrabilc nomen is the true 
 elixir of national immortality. What has this country! 
 what can she ever have, that would be an equivalent to her 
 in exchange for the name of her Washington! that star 
 of stars in the diadems that sparkle on the brow of na- 
 tions? Not the diadem that sparkles on the brow of 
 Greece; not the diadem that sparkles on the brow of 
 Rome, has one of equal brilliancy. No: it stands peerless 
 on the earth, and alone in glory. Though it can never 
 be a contest whose name is to do the most honor to our 
 country, and, more than all others, to carry her name as- 
 sociated with his, and emblazoned by his, down through 
 all the endless generations of mankind to follow, for all 
 the endless ages of time to come, yet among the names to 
 cluster around his, and to form the constellation (may it 
 multiply to a galaxy) of American worthies, not one will 
 ever shine with a purer, with a brighter, or more inex- 
 tinguishable lustre than that of Madison. 
 
 If, then, this appropriation was merely to express a 
 nation's gratitude to a nation's benefactor, it would be the 
 least it would become her to make. But, besides that, 
 we are to consider that it is to purchase for this country, 
 and for mankind, a treasure of instruction, whose value 
 no money can measure, no figures can express. 
 
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