We have seen Hamilton's early studies of the theoretical workings of government. His practical experience, in the army of Washington, of the imperfections of Congress and the defects of the old confederation, was not likely to let him forget the subject. Authority in government, rules in legislation, financial measures, taxes, loans, and a bank, were topics constantly before his mind. The Convention of 1787 gave him, at length, the wished-for opportunity to enter upon a full discussion of his plans in a cause and before an audience worthy of his powers. Washington was the presiding officer, Franklin was in attendance; it was a congregation of notables--Rufus King, Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, William Livingston, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson, Luther Martin, James Madison, George Wythe, John Rutledge, and others as worthy. Much has been said of Hamilton's course in this Convention, and of his advocacy of monarchical views. It is true that a plan of government which he supported in a speech of length and eloquence, provided several features, as the life tenure of the President and senators, and the appointment of State officers by the General Government, which, in the interpretation of some minds, as Patrick Henry used to express it, "was an awful squinting toward monarchy;" but, on the other hand, it should be remembered that the Convention was a meeting for consultation, with closed doors, in a committee of the whole, in which perfect freedom in the interchange of views was desirable; that, in the view of our own day, other members displayed heresies quite as obnoxious, and that in the final resolves of the Constitution, Hamilton, with the others, yielded his prejudices, and became the firm defender of the instrument as it was adopted, and substantially now stands. Remember the age of Hamilton at this time--twenty-nine; a greater prodigy in the Convention at Philadelphia than the youth in the army of Washington. To no one probably are we more indebted for the Constitution than to Hamilton. The Convention which laid the instrument before the country for its adoption had scarcely adjourned, when, in company with Madison and Jay, he took up the pen in its explanation and defence, in the celebrated series of papers, "The Federalist," originally published in the New York _Daily Advertiser_. Hamilton began and closed the work. Of its eighty-five papers much the greater portion, it is believed, were written by him. The discussion of the financial and military powers, the executive and the judiciary, fell to his pen. In the New York Convention he was again the efficient advocate of the adoption of the Constitution. In a separate series of papers, signed Philo Publius, published in another journal, Hamilton, assisted by his friends, met various objections, the discussion of which would have marred the unity of "The Federalist," which was thus left a classical commentary upon the Constitution.