1691. CONSTITUTION (The Federal), Model for France.—
Ours [Constitution] has
been professedly their model, in which such
changes are made as a difference of circumstances
rendered necessary, and some others
neither necessary nor advantageous, but into
which men will ever run, when versed in
theory and new in the practice of the government,
when acquainted with man only as
they see him in their books, and not in the
world.—
To James Madison. Washington ed. iii, 98.
Ford ed., v, 109.
(P.
Aug. 1789)
