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not feel myself an unconcerned spectator. Yet, having happily assisted in bringing the-ship into port, and having been fairly discharged, it is not my business to embark again on the sea of troubles." Meantime the insurrection in Massachusetts, com- monly known as "Shays's rebellion," added greatly to his anxiety and even anguish of mind. In a letter to Madison of 6 Nov., 1786, he exclaimed : " No morn ever dawned more favorably than ours did, and no day was ever more clouded than the present. . . . We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion." Soon afterward he poured out the bitterness of his soul to his old aide-de-camp, Gen. Humphreys, in still stronger terms : " What, gra- cious God! is man, that there should be such in- consistency and perfidiousness in his conduct? It was but the other day that we were shedding our blood to obtain the constitutions under which we now live — constitutions of our own choice and making — and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them." He was thus in full sympathy with the efforts of his friends to confer new and greater powers on the Federal government, and he yielded to their earnest solicitations in consenting to be named at the head of the Virginia delegates to the convention in Philadelphia on 14 May, 1787. Of that ever-memorable convention he was unanimously elected president, and on the following 17th of Sep- tember he had the supreme satisfaction of address- ing a letter to congress announcing the adoption of the constitution of the United States, which had been signed on that day. "In all our delibera- tions on this subject," he said in that letter, " we kept steadily in our view that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true Ameri- can — the consolidation of our Union — in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, and perhaps our national existence." This constitu- tion having passed the ordeal of congress and been ratified and adopted by the people, through the conventions of the states, nothing remained but to organize the government in conformity with its provisions. As early as 2 July, 1788, congress had been notified that the necessary approval of nine states had been obtained, but not until 13 Sept. was a day appointed for the choice of electors of president. That day was the first Wednesday of the following January, while the beginning of proceedings under the new constitution was postponed until the first Wednesday of March, which chanced in that year to be the 4th of March. Not. however, until 1 April was there a quorum for business in the house of representatives, and not until 6 April was the senate organized. On that day, in the presence of the two houses, the votes for president and vice-president were opened and counted, when Washington, having received every vote from the ten states that took part in the election, was declared president of the United States. On 14 April he received at Mount Vernon the official announcement of his election, and on the morning of the 16th he set out for New York. " Reluctant," as he said, " in the evening of life to exchange a peaceful abode for an ocean of difficul- ties," he bravely added : " Be the voyage long or short, although I may be deserted by all men, integrity and firmness shall never forsake me." Well does Bancroft exclaim, after recounting these details in his " History of the Constitution " : " But for him the country could not have achieved its independence; but for him it could not have formed its Union ; and now but for him it could not set the government in successful motion." Reaching New York on the 23d, after a continu- ous triumphal journey through Alexandria, Balti- more, Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Trenton, he was welcomed by the two houses of congress, by the governor of the state, the magistrates of the city, and by great masses of the people. The city was illuminated in his honor. But he proceeded on foot from the barge that had brought him across the bay to the house of the president of the late confederation, which had been appointed for his residence. John Adams had been installed in the chair of the senate, as vice-president of the United States, on 21 April, but congress could not get ready for the inauguration of the president until the 30th. On that day the oath of office was administered to Washington by Robert R. Living- ston, chancellor of the state of New York, in the presence of the two houses of congress, on a bal- cony in front of the hall in which congress held its sittings, where a statue has recently been placed! Washington then retired to the senate-chamber and delivered his inaugural address. " It would be peculiarly improper to omit," said he, " in this first official act. my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose provi- dential aids can supply every human defect — that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a gov- ernment instituted by themselves. . . . No people can be bound to acknowledge the invisible hand which conducts the affairs of man more than the people of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an inde- pendent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. . . . These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in thinking that there are none under the influence of which the proceedings of a new and free gov- ernment can more auspiciously commence." In accordance with those sentiments, at the close of the ceremony, Washington and both branches of congress were escorted to St. Paul's chapel, at the corner of Broadway and Fulton street, where the chaplain of the senate read prayers suited to the occasion, after which they all attended the presi- dent to his mansion near Franklin square. Thus began the administration of Washington, as first president of the United States, on 30 April, 1789. This is a date never to be for- gotten in American history, and it would be most happy if the 30th of April could be substituted for the 4th of March as the in- auguration-day of the second century of our constitutional exist- ence. It would add two months to the too short second session of congress, give a probability of propi- tious weather for the ceremony, and be a perpetual commemo- ration of the day on which Washington en-

tered upon his great

office, and our national government was practically organized. An amendment to the constitution making this change has twice been formally proposed and has passed the