At the age of 22, there was no evidence that Madison, himself, made any effort to apprentice under any lawyer in Virginia. By 1783, he had acquired a good sense of legal publications. Madison saw himself as a law student but never as a lawyer – he never joined the bar or practiced. In his elder years, Madison was sensitive to the phrase 'demi-Lawyer', or 'half-Lawyer', a derisive term used to describe someone who read law books, but did not practice law. After the Philadelphia Convention ended in September 1787, Madison convinced his fellow Congressmen to remain neutral in the ratification debate and allow each state to vote upon the Constitution. Historian Clinton Rossiter called The Federalist Papers 'the most important work in political science that ever has been written, or is likely ever to be written, in the United States.' Federalist No.