Jefferson was absent from the country during a large portion of the government of the Confederation, and through the entire period of the formation and adoption of the new Constitution. He sympathized throughout with the feelings and concurred in the opinions of the Anti-Federal party, with the exceptions that he was not opposed to conferring on the Federal Government the powers to regulate commerce and to raise its own revenues; was in favor of a convention for the construction of a new constitution, and of the formation by that body of a substantive and effective federal government, composed of legislative, executive, and judicial departments; approved of the Constitution as made, with modifications which were principally provided for by amendments proposed and adopted, and was sincerely anxious for its ratification. These things have, I know, been controverted and are still disbelieved by many, but will be found fully established by references to the following documents, viz.: Jefferson's "Correspondence," Vol. I. p. 441; Vol. II. pp. 64, 162, 221, 236, 273, 303; Letter to Washington expressing his anxiety for the adoption of the Constitution; p. 310, some strong remarks in favor of it; p. 342, to Madison, congratulating him on its adoption, and p. 348, to John Jay, to the same effect. Of Madison's character and general course I have already spoken. His position at the period now under consideration differed from that of all his contemporaries in the public service. He had supported all the commercial and financial measures advocated by the Federal party during the government of the Confederation, and had been as active, and I think as efficient, as Hamilton in his efforts to promote the call of the Federal Convention; had opposed, with ability and firmness, the Anti-Federal plan of a Constitution; had, as far as we have knowledge of Washington's opinions, acted in concert with him in the Convention, and was first selected by him at a later period to prepare his Farewell Address; had combined his labors with those of Hamilton and Jay to promote the ratification of the Constitution by the well-known papers of the "Federalist," and, upon the whole, had done more than any other man to secure that great object. Yet there had been no time, as before observed, when he could with propriety have been regarded as a member of the Federal party, in the sense in which Hamilton, Adams, and Jay were so regarded, or when he did not possess the confidence of the Anti-Federal party, in respect to all public questions other than those to which I have referred, and, what is still more remarkable, there was not, during the whole of this period, a single occasion on which his perfect probity and disinterestedness were not very generally felt and acknowledged.