His commanding figure, tall and straight and in no wise impaired by eight years' campaigns and hardships, was almost the first to attract the attention of any one who looked upon that assembly.

He was fifty-five years old.
Next in reputation was the patriarch, Benjamin Franklin, twenty-seven years his senior, shrewd, wise, poised, tart, good-natured; whose prestige was thought to be sufficient to make him a worthy presiding officer when Washington was not present.

James Madison of Virginia was among the young men of the Convention, being only thirty-six years old, and yet almost at the top of them all in constitutional learning.
More precocious still was Alexander Hamilton of New York, who was only thirty, one of the most remarkable examples of a statesman who developed very early and whom Death cut off before he showed any signs of a decline.

One figure we miss--that of Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, tall and wiry and red-curled, who was absent in Paris as Minister to France.
Massachusetts sent four representatives, important but not preeminent--Elbridge Gerry, Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King, and Caleb Strong.

New York had only two besides Hamilton; Robert Yates and John Lansing.