Mr. Madison, in his letter of characteristic modesty to _Messrs._ Gales and Seaton, speaks of their (then) intended work, as one which justly claimed _his_ favorable wishes. And well it might! for nowhere, in all the just and impressive eulogiums which have been pronounced upon him, does he appear to such advantage as in his own modest, temperate, luminous, and patriotic speeches during his service in Congress--putting that new Government into operation, of which he was one of the founders, and giving to all its machinery, a smooth, clean, and harmonious working. And so of innumerable others--illustrious men, and his compatriots--national reputations in their day, but contracting into local names under the progress of time, for want of a record of their patriotic labors, of national circulation, and popular accessibility. Of that character, it is the desire of the author to make this Abridgment. It is to him a labor of love and of pride--resuscitating the patriotic dead, putting them in scene again, passing them in long procession over an extended domain--no one skipped, and each in his place, with the best of his works in his hand. It is a work of justice to them, and may be of advantage to the present age, and to posterity, by reproducing for study and imitation, the words and conduct of the wise, just, modest, patriotic, intelligent, and disinterested men, who carried their country through a momentous revolution--moulded that country into one brotherly Union--and then put the Government they had formed into operation, in the same fraternal spirit of "_amity, mutual deference and concession_," in which they had made it. INTRODUCTION. The debates of Congress have been accruing for near seventy years, and fill more than an hundred volumes, and cannot be purchased for less than $500, nor advantageously used, on account of the quantity of superfluous matter which they contain. They are printed in full by Congress, and ought to be so, and a small distribution is made among the members; but this distribution cannot reach the community, and would be nearly useless if it did, from the quantity of obsolete, local and transient matter which overloads them. In the mean time, these debates contain the history of the working of our Government from its foundation--preserve and hand down to posterity the wisdom of ages--show what has been done, and how it was done--and shed light upon the study of all impending questions; for there is not a question of the day, and will not be while the Government continues, which will not be illustrated by something previously said in these debates.