The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787/Volume 3/Appendix A/CCCXLIII
ⅭⅭⅭⅩⅬⅢ. James Madison: “Genl. Remarks on the Convention.”[1]
For case of suffrage see Deb.: Aug. 7.
1.Its Members of the most select kind & possessing particularly the confidence of yr. Constituents
2.do- generally of mature age & much political experience.
3.Disinterestedness & candor demonstrated by mutual concessions, & frequent changes of opinion
4.Few who did not change in the progress of discussions the opinions on important points which they carried into the Convention
5.Few who, at the close of the Convention, were not ready to admit this change as the enlightening effect of the discusions—
6.And how few, whose opinions at the close of the Convention, have not undergone changes on some points, under the more enlightening influence of experience.
7.Yet how much fewer still who, if now living, with the recollection of the difficulties in the Convention, of overcoming or reconciling honest differences of opinion, political biasses, and local interests; and with due attention to the varieties & discords of opinion, the vicisitudes of parties, and the collisions real or imagined of local interests, witnessed on the face of the Nation, would not felicitate their Country on the happy result of the original Convention, and deprecate the experiment of another with general power to revise its work.
8.The restraining influence of the Constin on the aberrations of the States of great importance tho’ invisible. It stifles wishes & inclinations which wd otherwise ripen into overt & pernicious acts. The States themselves are unconscious of the effect. Were these Constitul. and insuperable obstacles out of the way — how many political ills might not have sprung up where not suspected. The propensities in some cases, as Mas: Kenty. &c have not been altogether contrould, and but for foreseen difficulties might have been followd. by greater