As the work of the Convention drew toward its close, it was determined that the obligation of secrecy should be continued into the indefinite future. The records were to be placed under seal and the custodian was to be Washington himself. Washington asked what should be done with the records; and the Convention answered that "he retain the Journal and other papers subject to the orders of Congress, if ever formed under the Constitution." For thirty years and more the seals remained unbroken; and for thirty years and more no member of the Convention spoke. Let the reader imagine, if he can, what would be the public feeling now, if a convention should be sitting from the 29th of May to the 17th of September to frame a new constitution for the United States which should sit with closed doors, and whose members should disclose no act, speak no word, drop no hint from the beginning to the end; and who, when the end was reached, should say absolutely nothing of what had been said and done in the secret proceedings of the Convention. We owe much to the framers of the Constitution; they were not common men. The first and highest instance of this sense of obligation is where we should expect to find it, in the personal journal of Washington. "Friday, 1st June. "Attending in Convention--_and nothing being suffered to transpire no minute of the proceedings has been, or will be inserted in this diary_." And for this reason, no member of the Committee wrote. The unfortunate Observations of Pinckney were the only publication that gave a glimmer of what had been done, or might have been done in the Convention--of what had been said or might have been said. The Journal of Madison was not published until after Congress had released the secrets of the Convention. The members had taken no solemn oath, nor clasped hands nor pledged their honor to each other, but they kept silence. A single incident fortunately preserved by William Pierce of Georgia will show how the obligation was regarded during the sitting of the Convention. It grandly displays the personal majesty of Washington, and the value which he set upon the secrecy of the Convention's deliberations. To a better appreciation of what took place it must be remembered that the Convention as a mark of respect for their great presiding officer established this rule: "_When the House shall adjourn, every member shall stand in his place until the President pass him._" Mr. Pierce says: