THE CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 217 



ture of Washington by British troops and the flight 

 of the government from the national capital. What- 

 ever opinion may be held as to the character of the 

 war and its results, there is a general agreement that 

 its management, on the part of the United States, was 

 feeble. Mr. Madison was essentially a man of peace, 

 and as the manager of a great war he was conspicu- 

 ously out of his element. The history of that war 

 plays a great part in the biographies of the military 

 and naval heroes that figured in it; it is a cardinal 

 event in the career of Andrew Jackson or Isaac 

 Hull. In the biography of Madison it is an episode, 

 which may be passed over briefly. The greatest part 

 of his career was finished before he held the highest 

 offices ; his immortal renown will rest chiefly or en- 

 tirely upon what he did before the beginning of the 

 nineteenth century. 



After the close of his second term, in 1817, Mr. 

 Madison retired to his estate at Montpelier, where he 

 spent nearly twenty happy years with books and friends. 

 This sweet and tranquil old age he had well earned by 

 services to his fellow-creatures such as it is given to 

 but few men to render. Among intelligent students 

 of history, there is no one now who would dispute his 

 claim to be ranked beside Washington, Hamilton, Jef- 

 ferson, and Marshall in the founding of our nation. 

 But his part was peculiar. Of all these great men, 

 he was preeminently the modest scholar and the 

 profound thinker. There was just one moment at 

 which he was the greatest of all, and that was the mo- 

 ment when his grand path-breaking Hea was presented 

 to the federal convention in the shape of the Vir- 

 ginia plan. The idea of the twofold government, so 



