THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION.--WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE CONVENTION. The narrative to which the reader has thus far attended must now be interrupted for a while, that he may pause upon the threshold of an assembly which had been summoned to the grave task of remodelling the constitution of this country, and here consider the names and characters of the men to whom its responsible labors had been intrusted. The civil deeds of statesmen and lawgivers, in establishing and forming institutions, incorporating principles into the forms of public administration, and setting up the defences of public security and prosperity, are far less apt to attract and hold the attention of mankind, than the achievements of military life. The name, indeed, may be for ever associated with the work of the hand; but the mass of mankind do not study, admire, or repeat the deeds of the lawgiver, as they do those of the hero. Yet he who has framed a law, or fashioned an institution in which some great idea is made practical to the conditions of human existence, has exercised the highest attributes of human reason, and is to be counted among the benefactors of his race. The framers of the Constitution of the United States assembled for their work amidst difficulties and embarrassments of an extraordinary nature. No general concert of opinion had taken place as to what was best, or even as to what was possible to be done. Whether it were wise to hold a convention, whether it were even legal to hold it, and whether, if held, it would be likely to result in any thing useful to the country, were points upon which the most opposite opinions prevailed in every State of the Union. But it was among the really fortunate, although apparently unhappy, circumstances under which they were assembled, that the country had experienced much trial, suffering, distress, and failure. It has been a disagreeable duty to describe the disasters and errors of a period during which the national character was subjected to the discipline of adversity. We now come to the period of compensation which such discipline inevitably brings.