Those leaders constituted a remarkable body of men.

Having before them the example of Jefferson, of Madison, and of George Mason in Virginia, of Nathaniel Macon in North Carolina, and of the Pinckneys and Rutledges in South Carolina, they gave deep study to the science of government.

They were admirably trained as debaters, and they became highly skilled in the management of parliamentary bodies.
As a rule, they were liberally educated, many of them graduates of Northern colleges, a still larger number taking their degrees at Transylvania in Kentucky, at Chapel Hill in North Carolina, and at Mr.Jefferson's peculiar but admirable institution in Virginia.
Their secluded life on the plantation gave them leisure for reading and reflection.

They took pride in their libraries, pursued the law so far as it increased their equipment for a public career, and devoted themselves to political affairs with an absorbing ambition.

Their domestic relations imparted manners that were haughty and sometimes offensive; they were quick to take affront, and they not infrequently brought needless personal disputation into the discussion of public questions; but they were, almost without exception, men of high integrity, and they were especially and jealously careful of the public money.