Chapter IV (2)

These considerations and circumstances produced a sudden and extensive spirit of discontent which, as those States avowed, never would be appeased until its causes were removed, and with which Mr. Madison was well satisfied the new Government would not be able to contend unless some mode was devised to appease it. Although never a member of it, he had, in his long and persevering efforts to obtain the Constitution, "tasted the quality," so to speak, of the old Anti-Federal party, and understood the stuff of which it was composed. He knew very well that the call of Virginia upon her co-States to make the demand for amendments "a common cause" would not be _brutum fulmen_, but that the agitation for a new convention in such hands, and commenced under such favorable circumstances, with so many materials of discontent already made to their hands, would not cease until its object was gained, and what would follow no man could tell. He was not so much of a Bourbon as Hamilton; he had not pursued his thorny path through those trying scenes without learning something of the character and temper of the people, or without having his mind disabused of much that it had once entertained. No man in the country was more opposed to the call of a new convention, or more unwilling to make any amendments that would materially impair the original structure of the Constitution. The former he omitted to avow out of respect to the declared wishes of his State but the latter he repeatedly announced because it was only in harmony with his past course. But he knew that matters could not remain as they stood, and he thought a series of amendments could be made, some of which he deemed highly proper and all expedient, through which a large portion of the Anti-Federalists might be conciliated without prejudice to the system which had been adopted. This course, to be useful, must, he was satisfied, be pursued at the very commencement of the new government. He devoted himself, body and mind, to that object, and we have seen some of the difficulties with which he had to contend. Although Hamilton was not personally in Congress, he was well represented, and Madison found there, besides, many other Bourbons, in the sense in which I use that term. He prepared a plan according to the views I have described; and few exhibitions of that kind can have been more interesting than to see him stand between the Federal majority in the House and the few old Anti-Federalists who were there, and avail himself of the votes of each in turn to defeat the obnoxious efforts of the other; first to arrest by Federal aid every attempt on the part of the few Anti-Federalists to mar his project by seeking amendments which he was not himself prepared to adopt, and then to frustrate by Anti-Federal votes the efforts of a majority of the Federalists (though less than a majority of the House) to defeat his entire scheme.

That the only alternative was between a new convention and the adoption of amendments substantially like his, was the great fact which he labored to impress upon the minds of the Federal members. He introduced it in his public speeches with never-failing delicacy, but with sufficient clearness to be understood, and doubtless enforced it at private interviews as far as it was his habit to do such things. That important truth was the fulcrum on which he rested his lever, and he engineered his plan through the House and afterwards, as chairman of the Committee of Conference, through both Houses (the majorities in each alike unfriendly to it) with triumphant and under the circumstances most extraordinary success.

The dread of another Federal Convention has never failed, when the circumstances were sufficient to justify apprehension of its call, to deter the Federalists from the adoption of projects obnoxious to the democratic spirit of the country, however anxiously desired by themselves. Pending the election of President in the House, between Jefferson and Burr, the Republicans replied to the threat of putting the Government in the hands of an officer by act of Congress, by an open, united, and firm declaration that the day such an act passed, the Middle States would arm, and that they would "call a convention to reorganize and amend the Constitution;" upon the effect of which Mr. Jefferson remarks, "the very word convention gives them the horrors, as, in the present democratical spirit of America, they fear they should lose some of the favorite morsels of the Constitution."

Mr. Madison's ten amendments consisted of provisions in favor of the free exercise of religion, of speech, and of the press; of assembling peaceably to petition the Government for a redress of grievances; of the right to keep and bear arms; against quartering soldiers in any house without the consent of the owner, except under certain qualifications; against unreasonable searches and general warrants; against being held to answer for crimes unless on presentment by a grand jury, with certain exceptions; against being twice put in jeopardy for the same offense; against being compelled to be a witness against one's self, or being deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; against taking private property for public use without just compensation; in favor of a trial by an impartial jury of the district in certain cases at common law and in all criminal prosecutions, of the party charged being informed of the nature of the accusation, of being confronted with the witnesses against him, of having compulsory process for obtaining witnesses and the assistance of counsel in his defense; against excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel punishments; against the enumeration of certain rights being construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; and, finally, that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.

These provisions embraced the points upon which the public mind was most susceptible, and upon which the old Anti-Federal party in particular had been, with obvious reason, most excited.

That Mr. Madison's success in this great measure saved the Constitution from the ordeal of another Federal Convention is a conclusion as certain as any that rests upon a contingency which has not actually occurred, and that it converted the residue of the Anti-Federal party which had not supported the Constitution, whose members, as well as their political predecessors in every stage of our history, constituted a majority of the people, from opponents of that instrument into its warmest friends, and that they and their successors have from that time to the present period, either as Republicans or Democrats, occupied the position of its _bonâ fide_ defenders in the sense in which it was designed to be understood by those who constructed and by those who ratified it, against every attempt to undermine or subvert it, are undeniable facts.

It was by adding this great service to those he had rendered in obtaining the Convention, and in framing the Constitution in that body, that he deservedly won the noble title of "Father of the Constitution." He was neither as great a man nor as thorough a Republican, certainly not as thorough a Democrat, as Mr. Jefferson; he had less genius than Hamilton; yet it is doing him no more than justice to say that, as a civilian, he succeeded in making himself more practically useful to his country than any other man she has produced. No one would have been more ready than Mr. Jefferson to award to Mr. Madison this high distinction. He either told me at Monticello, or I heard it from him at second-hand, (I am uncertain which was the case,) that whilst he was in France, some one whom he named asked him to say whom he thought the greatest man in America, and that he replied, if the gentleman would ask him to name the greatest man in the world he would comply with the request, which addition being made, he answered "James Madison!"

This brings us to the consideration of the contrast between the conduct of Hamilton and Madison in respect to their treatment of a Constitution which they had both taken such unwearied pains to bring into existence. The course they respectively pursued upon the subjects of finance and revenue, and the measures they respectively preferred, without regard to questions of constitutional power, only indicated differences of opinion upon subjects in which such differences are apt to arise, and did not necessarily involve the political integrity of either. But we have now arrived at a point of departure in the relative course of these great men involving graver considerations, and to which it is to be regretted that the last reservation cannot be truly applied. There was no warrant in the Constitution for the establishment of a national bank, or for the assumption of the State debts, or for the unlimited claim of power by the Federal Government over the collection and disbursement of national revenue, and for its patronage of by far the largest proportion of the pursuits and interests of the country, all of which were effected by Hamilton or recommended in his Report on Manufactures, and he understood perfectly well that the Constitution conferred no such powers when he advocated successfully the first two of those measures, and asserted the power and recommended its exercise in respect to the latter.

It is not agreeable to be obliged to assume that a gentleman of General Hamilton's elevated character in private life, upon whose integrity and fidelity in his personal dealings and in the discharge of every private trust that was reposed in him no shadow rested, who was indifferent to the accumulation of wealth, who as a public man was so free from intrigues for personal advancement, and whose thoughts and acts in that character were so constantly directed to great questions and great interests, could yet prove faithless to one of the most sacred public trusts that can be placed in man--the execution of the fundamental law of the land. If Hamilton had been asked, as a private man, whether he believed it was the intention of the framers of the Constitution to confer upon Congress the power to establish a national bank, and whether he believed that the people when they ratified it supposed that it contained such a power, he would, if he answered at all, have answered "No!" He was incapable of willful deception on the subject. This discrepancy between his conduct as a statesman in the management of public affairs and his integrity and truthfulness in private life was the result of a vicious opinion as to the obligations of a public man, and in no degree attributable to any inferior sense of personal honor, nor was it ever otherwise regarded.

His position upon this point is understood to have been founded on the following opinions: That the people as a body were not capable of managing their public affairs with safety to their happiness and welfare; that it was, therefore, a proper exercise of power to give the management of them into the hands of those who were capable, and to place the latter in positions, as far as practicable under the circumstances, beyond popular control; that it was the sacred duty of those who were so intrusted to exercise their power truly and sincerely for the best interests of those for whom they acted; that if those interests could be well administered without transcending the power with which the public functionary was invested, or without the practice of deception or corruption, such would be the preferable and proper course; but if violations of the popular will, deception, or corruptions--not those of the grosser kind, like direct bribery, but such as belonged to the class he spoke of to Mr. Adams as constituting the life-giving principle of the English system--were necessary, in the best judgment of men in power, to the security or advancement of the public welfare, the employment of such means was justifiable.

Without stopping to cite authorities, I assume--on the strength of the opinion of the age in which he lived, of his writings, of his declarations, which were, beyond almost all other public men, without reserve, and of his acts--that such were his views, and content myself with the declaration that the existence of such views is the best, if not the only, excuse that can be made for his official course.

At the close of the Convention, and just before signing the Constitution, he declared that the latter might serve as a temporary bond of union, but could never suffice to secure good government. After he had succeeded in his first two interpolations, he spoke exultingly of the success of the Constitution, and hopefully of the future; this was because he knew that he had prospered in his attempt to give it a construction not dreamed of at the former period by himself, or others to his knowledge; and his hopes of the future were founded on his success also in his plan set forth in his Report on Manufactures, widening very greatly the breach he had already effected in the Constitution. In February, 1802, after his latitudinarian scheme had been arrested and was in danger of being permanently overthrown, he described the Constitution to Gouverneur Morris as a "frail and worthless fabric," the "fate" of which he had "anticipated from the very beginning." He never reproached his friends with an unwillingness to go as far as the Constitution would justify, but always attributed their failure to defects in the system, thus admitting that the measures in which he exulted and from which he hoped so much, had been established by him, not under, but outside of that instrument.

The first marked effect of Hamilton's determination to pursue the course I have described was a separation between him and his most efficient coadjutor upon many points during the government of the Confederation, and the next was the formation of the old Republican party. The motives for the separation between those distinguished associates have been made the subject, as might have been expected, of various and extensive comment. So far as I know, Hamilton never spoke of Madison, after their separation, in any other terms than those which were consistent with the knowledge he possessed of the purity and integrity of his character. Few men had such perfect control over their feelings as Mr. Madison, and few exercised more reserve in speaking of the motives of his political opponents. It has been rare indeed that he has ventured to touch upon them even when necessary to his vindication from aspersions upon his own character, a truth obvious to any one familiar with his life and writings. I however accidentally came into the possession of information upon this precise question of very great interest, which will be found in the letter below from Nicholas P. Trist, Esq. In the course of a conversation between Mr. Trist, myself, and other gentlemen, at Philadelphia, last spring,[26] upon the subject of which they had only a general bearing, the former alluded to the circumstances here given in detail, and subsequently, at my request, reduced them to the shape in which they now appear.

[26] In the spring of 1857. Eds.

Mr. Trist was a much esteemed and highly trusted friend of Mr. Jefferson, and married his favorite grand-daughter, a lady of superior intelligence, with whom I was well acquainted. He was also for many years a neighbor and confidential friend of Mr. Madison, toward the decline of the life of the latter. My knowledge of him has been derived from long and familiar intercourse with him as a confidential clerk in my department whilst I was Secretary of State, as consul of the United States at Havana, and as private secretary of President Jackson, and I do not hesitate to say that I never knew a more upright man. No one who has had opportunities to become well acquainted with his character, however politically or personally prepossessed in regard to him in other respects, will, I am very sure, fail to admit his perfect truthfulness, and the authenticity of any relation he might make upon the strength of his own knowledge.

FROM MR. TRIST.

PHILADELPHIA, _May 31, 1857_.

MY DEAR SIR,--My promise, however tardily performed, has never been
forgotten; and now, complying with your request preferred at the
time and since renewed, I give you in writing the statement made by
me a month or two ago in conversation at Mr. Gilpin's; which
statement you will recollect was casually elicited, as the proper
commentary upon the charge mentioned by one of the company as being
brought against Mr. Jefferson--the charge, namely, that he had
"stolen Mr. Madison from the Federalists." This notion, by the way,
involves an utterly erroneous conception of the relation which
existed between the minds and characters of the two men. But I must
here confine myself to doing what you asked of me.

During the latter years of Mr. Madison's life, (the exact date is
recorded in a memorandum not now at hand,) the following incident
occurred.

My intimate friend Mr. Davis, Law Professor in the University of
Virginia, mentioned to me, as a thing which he thought Mr. Madison
ought to be apprised of, that in a forthcoming Life of Colonel
Hamilton, by one of his sons, the authenticity of his (Mr. M.'s)
report of Colonel H.'s speech in the Federal Convention was to be
denied; and furthermore he was to be represented as having
"abandoned" Colonel Hamilton. This Davis had learnt from Professor
George Tucker, of the same University, then recently returned from a
trip to the North.

Of course, on my first visit to Mr. Madison, which occurred soon
after, I told him of what Davis had said.

The effect upon his countenance was an expression of painful
surprise, succeeded by a very remarkable look his face assumed
sometimes, and which was deeply impressive from its concentration
and solemnity. A silence of some moments was broken by his saying,
in a tone corresponding to that look, "Sorry to hear it." Then a
pause, followed by these words, "I abandoned Colonel Hamilton,--or
Colonel Hamilton abandoned me,--in a word, we _parted_,--upon its
plainly becoming his purpose and endeavor to _adminis_TRATION
(administer) the government into a thing totally different from
that which he and I both knew perfectly well had been understood and
intended by the Convention which framed it, and by the people in
adopting it."

Upon the two words which I have underscored, especially the second,
and most especially its last two syllables, a marked emphasis was
laid. The latter (the word _administration_ used as a verb) is the
only instance of neologism I ever observed in Mr. Madison. Its
effectiveness was most striking; it hit the nail plumb on the head,
and drove it home at one blow. The whole history of that business,
the entire truth of the matter, was compressed into that one word.
As uttered by him there was a pause at "_adminis_"--and then came
out "TRATION." It was followed by the word "administer," thrown in
parenthetically, and in an under-tone; as much as to say, "I have
been coining a word here, which, as you are aware, is not my habit;
but just as I was about to say _administer_ the government, I felt
that this term is too general, too commonplace, too tame to convey
the idea present to my mind; and this modification of it presented
itself as exactly suited to the case."

As regards the speech, Mr. M. seemed painfully troubled at the
thought of the fidelity of his report of it being disputed, and at a
loss to realize the possibility of such a thing. "Why, as I once
related to you, that speech was placed by me in Colonel Hamilton's
own hand; and was, after deliberate perusal, returned by him with an
explicit recognition of its correctness--all to a very few verbal
alterations, which were made; on which occasion he placed in my
hands, as the proper accompaniment of his speech in my record, and
as presenting in a precise and exact shape his views as to the
government which it was desirable to establish, the draft of a
Constitution which he had prepared before coming to the
Convention."

This substantially, if not exactly, is what Mr. M. said upon that
point. He then went on to conjecture in what way Colonel H.'s
biographer might have been misled into this error; not a doubt being
intimated or evinced by him as to its being honestly an error.
Colonel H. spoke several times in the Convention--at greater or less
length, as would be seen when his (Mr. M.'s) notes were given to the
world. Perhaps, among his papers notes had been found, which, in the
absence of means of discriminating between remarks made on different
occasions, and between notes for an intended speech and that which
the speaker had actually said, might have given rise to the
misconception.

To the foregoing incident you wished me to add what I was led to
say, in the course of the same conversation, regarding Mr.
Jefferson's habitual tone in speaking of Colonel Hamilton. This was
always the very reverse of that in which he spoke of those whose
_characters_, personal or political, were objects of his disesteem.
It was invariably such as to indicate, and to infuse (certainly this
effect was produced upon my mind) a high estimate of Colonel
Hamilton _as a man_, whether considered with reference to personal
matters or to political matters. He was never spoken of otherwise
than as being a gentleman--a lofty-minded, high-toned man. As
regards politics, their convictions, their creeds, were
diametrically opposite. Colonel H. had no faith in republican
government. In his eyes the British Government was the perfection of
human government, the model of all that was practically attainable
in politics. His doctrine, openly avowed, was that there are but two
ways of governing men, but two ways in which the business of
government can be conducted: the one is through fear, the other
through self-interest--that is, influencing the conduct of those
upon whom the course of political affairs depends, through their
desire for personal advantages, for position, for wealth, and so
forth. In this country, to operate upon men through their fears was
out of the question; and consequently the latter constituted the
only practicable means. These political convictions on the part of
Colonel H., united as they were with his splendid abilities _and_
his lofty character as a man, both _public_ and _private_, were
regarded by Mr. Jefferson as having constituted the great peril to
which republicanism had been exposed in our country. But for the
_character_ of Colonel H., for the _man_, for his honesty and
sincerity and single-mindedness,--I mean considered with reference
to politics,--there was never the least indication of depreciation
or disrespect on the part of Mr. Jefferson; always the direct
reverse.

Never, in a single instance, when Colonel H. was the subject of
conversation with me, or in my presence, was it otherwise than
perfectly manifest that, in Mr. J.'s habitual feeling toward him,
the broadest possible line of demarcation existed between the man,
the character, (the _public_ character, I repeat, no less than the
_private_,) and the creed by which the action and course of that
character were determined; and that whilst the latter was abhorrent
to his own cherished faith, and had been for him the cause of the
intensest anxiety and gloomiest forebodings ever suffered by him,
the former was nevertheless no less truly an object of sincere
respect.

Having thus, my dear sir, at length fulfilled my promise,--though
not within the limited space (far from it) which you intimated,--I
tender the assurance of my respectful regard and friendly
remembrance.

N. P. TRIST.

MARTIN VAN BUREN,
_Ex-President of the U. S._

Hamilton took the position of which the virtuous Madison, whilst standing at the brink of his grave, left behind him a description so graphic, promptly and, as was his habit, immovably. The crisis met him in his last intrenchment. He believed honestly, sincerely, and without any designs other than such as related to the public welfare, that nothing short of monarchical institutions would prove adequate to the wants of the country, but these he was well satisfied could not be obtained then, and possibly not for a long period. He had approached them in the Convention as nearly, in respect to the point of efficiency, as would afford the slightest chance of success for his plan, and he had been left without a single open supporter in that body. Regarding the Constitution, as framed by the Convention, as the only avenue to escape from anarchy, he finally promoted its passage there and its ratification by the States and people, avowedly as a temporary bond of union. Appointed to assist in carrying it into effect, and sincerely believing that, with no other powers than those only which he and Madison so well knew it was intended to authorize, it must prove a failure and the government established under it must go to pieces, he decided, unhesitatingly and absolutely, to do under it whatever he in good faith might think would promote the general welfare, without reference to the intentions of its authors. He was a man of too much good sense to do unnecessary violence to public feeling,--as he said to Jefferson "to publish it in Dan or Beersheba,"--but such was his unchangeable design. On the contrary, he entered into labored and able discussions to show that his principal measures were authorized by the Constitution, but these were in deference to the prejudices and ideas of the people, nothing more.

There is nothing in the writings, speeches, or declarations of General Hamilton inconsistent with the truth of this statement. In papers which have been referred to, and others, he submitted ingenious arguments to show that the Convention might have so intended, and that Congress had a right to hold from the words employed that it did so intend, but he was too circumspect to insist that the intention of the Convention ought not to prevail when it could be ascertained, or to make the actual intention, as a matter of fact, a point in the argument. Giving due weight to the intention of the body when that was ascertained, he adopted a course of reasoning which every body understood went to defeat it, desiring no other efficacy for the opinion he labored to establish than the vote of the majority. The better knowledge of the country overthrew his specious deductions in a short time, and its traditions will, it is to be hoped, render them forever harmless.

The principle of construction contended for by Hamilton, and for a season to some extent made successful, was not designed for the promotion of a particular measure, for which the powers of Congress under the Constitution were to be unduly extended, on account of its assumed indispensable importance to the public safety, but intended as a sweeping rule by which those powers, instead of being confined to the constitutional enumeration, were to authorize the passage of all laws which Congress might deem conducive to the general welfare and which were not expressly prohibited; a power similar to that contained in the plan he proposed in the Convention. He desired, in short, to make the Constitution a tablet of wax upon which each successive administration would be at liberty to impress its rescripts, to be promulgated as constitutional edicts.

Hamilton never well understood the distinctive character of our people, but he understood human nature too well to believe that any people could long respect or desire to uphold a Constitution the most stringent provisions of which were thus regarded or treated. Its inevitable fate is illustrated in the experience of France, after one of her unscrupulous wits had aided in consigning to general derision that litter of Constitutions which had rapidly followed one after the other, by accompanying his oath with a grimace and a jest upon the number which he had successively and with equal solemnity sworn to support. The example of France was not lost upon a mind so watchful as Hamilton's, and he did not doubt that our Constitution would be overthrown with the same certainty, if not with equal facility, after it had been long enough treated with similar disrespect, and that the door would be thus opened for the ultimate introduction, under the influence of the money power, of the only political institutions in which he placed absolute confidence. He declared it to be his opinion, in the Convention, that he regarded ours as the last chance for a republican government, and assigned that opinion as a reason for his attempt to infuse into the new system qualities as stringent as those he proposed and which he knew very well were not generally regarded as belonging to a republican system. No man better understood than he that the inviolate sanctity of a written Constitution was the life of a republican government, and that its days were numbered from the moment its people and rulers ceased thus to preserve, protect, and defend it. Mr. Jefferson spoke, in his letter, of Hamilton as "_professing_" that it was "the duty of its administrators to conduct the Government on the principles their constituents had elected." I did not at first, and for a long time afterwards, attach as much significance to the word I have here italicized, as I do now, when I have studied Hamilton's course more carefully. I knew the letter was written in a liberal spirit toward his memory. As I have elsewhere said, during my visit to Mr. Jefferson we talked most of Hamilton, and the general course of Mr. J.'s remarks was substantially similar to those now related, more than thirty years after his decease, and without the slightest knowledge of what I have said upon the same subject, by his relative, Mr. Trist, who was also a member of his family. Mr. Jefferson was evidently disposed to confirm the favorable impressions I had imbibed of the personal side of Hamilton's character, and the words quoted above from his letter were designed to qualify his imputation of monarchical principles to the latter, and I can now appreciate the motive for the expression used, which did not commit him to a concession that the opinion of Hamilton in regard to the duty of administration was that upon which he acted.

With all these considerations before him, Hamilton did more than any, and I had almost said than all, his contemporaries together, to counteract the will of the people and to subvert by undermining the Constitution of their choice. If his sapping and mining policy had been finally successful, if the Republican party, mostly composed of old Anti-Federalists, led by so bold a spirit and such a root-and-branch Republican as Mr. Jefferson, had not arrested the farther progress of his principles and demolished his scheme, this glorious old Constitution of ours, of which we all seem so proud, of which it is so great an honor to have been and of which so many have been ambitious to be, regarded as the faithful expounder, under the wings of which we have risen from small beginnings to be a puissant nation,--attracting the admiration and able to command the respect of the civilized world,--would long since have sunk beneath the waters of time, an object of neglect and scorn. Our system might then have dissolved in anarchy, or crouched under despotism or under some milder type of arbitrary government,--a monarchy, an aristocracy, or, most ignoble of all, a moneyed oligarchy,--but as a Republic it would have endured no longer. In this aspect, notwithstanding his great and good qualities,--and he had many,--Hamilton's course was an outrage upon liberty and a crime against free government.

How happy would it have been for himself and for every interest if he had not parted from his friend and faithful fellow-laborer through so many and such trying scenes,--if, like Madison, not entirely satisfied with the Constitution, but knowing that many others were in the same predicament, he had applied his great talents to the business of making it as generally acceptable as possible, and in giving to the masses an administration of the Government according not only to the form but to the spirit also in which it had been framed. The country would then at length have rested after so many storms, and his great and good friend Washington, instead of being steeped to the lips in partisan anxieties, (as his nephew, Judge Bushrod Washington, described him to me to have been within the year of his death,) would not only have had a glorious and successful administration, but would have lived in his retirement and finally passed from earth without having been ever annoyed by the canker of party spirit. His own political career would doubtless have been far more prosperous and more agreeable; no occasion would then have arisen for such reflections as he expressed to his confidential friend describing his only reward, after all his efforts and sacrifices, as "the murmurs of the friends of the Constitution and the curses of its foes," and concluding, sadly enough for one who had so greatly distinguished himself in its service, that "the American world was not made for him!"

In these views of General Hamilton's course and in the opinions expressed in respect to it, I have designed to confine myself strictly to what I consider the deliberate judgment of the country, pronounced in various ways and among others through the ballot-box--its constitutional exponent. The most prominent of his measures have been, as already said, discarded, and those who constituted the party in whose name they were first introduced have so far yielded to the current of public opinion as to abandon them forever. I have also before alluded to the gratifying circumstance that the odium attached to those measures never in any degree affected the confidence of the people in the patriotism of Washington or in his fidelity to republican institutions, or weakened their affection for him while he lived, or their respect for his memory when he was no more. These were not the results of mere personal devotion, but of an intelligent and just discrimination on the part of the people. Hamilton designed to effect a civil revolution by changing the powers of Congress from the restricted character given to them in obedience to the wishes of the people to one in effect unlimited. Washington entertained no such views. His constructions of the Constitution were designed for the cases that called them forth, and had no ulterior views.

The subject of the bank presented the principal and almost the only question upon which President Washington gave a construction to that instrument which met the disapprobation and excited the apprehensions of the old Republicans. To the assumption of the State debts Hamilton, as has been seen, succeeded in obtaining--how much to his mortification and regret his writings show--the coöperation of Mr. Jefferson, and thereby the unanimous support of the cabinet; and his Report on Manufactures, as to most of its obnoxious details, was not acted upon during Washington's administration, but in respect to its principal objects remained a dead letter. President Washington, notwithstanding the conflicting opinions of his cabinet, gave no reasons for his approval of the Bank Bill. The public were therefore left to draw their own inferences in regard to their character. Diverse opinions upon the point of course arose, and there is much reason to believe (and that belief is strengthened by his subsequent course in respect to another important matter) that he was induced to regard a bank as indispensable, in the then condition of the country, to the success of the new Government--an exigency in public affairs of that peculiar sort which men in power assume to deal with under the sanction of the great principle, _Salus populi suprema lex._ (See note.) Mr. Madison, who had demonstrated in Congress its unconstitutionality at its creation, who had opposed the banking system through his whole public life, and whose fame was in a very great degree founded on the ability with which he had defined the true principles of constitutional construction, in a way to exclude the idea of any power in Congress to establish such an institution, did, notwithstanding, at the close of his public career, in a condition of the country not unlike that in which President Washington acted, and viewing the subject from the same official station, arrive at the same conclusion in regard to its imperative necessity, and gave his approval to the erection of a new national bank.

NOTE.--(_Feb. 16th, 1858_.) Whilst reviewing the "era of
good-feeling," as it was called, during the administration of Mr.
Monroe, I conceived the idea of adding some account of the rise and
progress of our political parties, and entered upon the task
immediately, designing it to stand as an episode in my Memoirs. The
subject grew upon my hands to such an extent that for the last two
years it has, in necessary reading and examinations into facts,
&c., occupied most of the time that could be devoted to the general
object. The idea of limiting this portion to a mere digression was
therefore substantially laid aside, and the dignity of a separate
and distinct consideration, to which its dimensions, if nothing
else, entitled it, was assigned to it. Accordingly I continued my
examination of the course of parties in the United States down to
the present time, including the first months of President
Buchanan's administration. Whilst engaged in correcting the
manuscript and arranging it to be copied, and after I had, by many
pages, passed the place in the text to which this note is appended,
the first volume of Mr. Randall's _Life of Jefferson_, recently
published, came to my hands, and on reading its last two chapters
first, because they have a more immediate bearing on my subject, I
find the following very striking confirmation of the correctness of
my inference as to the state of General Washington's mind, on the
occasion spoken of:--

FROM RANDALL'S "LIFE OF JEFFERSON," VOL. 1. p. 631.

"On the subject of President Washington's feelings on the Bank Bill
we find the following entry in Mr. Trist's memoranda:--

"'MONTPELIER, _Friday, May 25, 1827_.

* * * * *

"'_Mr. Madison:_ "General Washington signed Jay's Treaty, but he
did not at all like it. He also signed the Bank. But he was _very_
near not doing so; and if he had refused, it would, in my opinion,
have produced a crisis. I will mention to you a circumstance which
I have never imparted, except in strict confidence. You know, by
the Constitution, ten days are allowed for the President's veto to
come in. If it does not appear within that time, the bill becomes a
law. I was conversing with a distinguished member of the Federal
party, who observed that according to his computation the time was
running out, or indeed _was run_ out; when just at this moment,
Lear[27] came in with the President's sanction. _I am satisfied
that had it been his veto, there would have been an effort to
nullify it, and they would have arrayed themselves in a hostile
attitude._ Between the two parties, General Washington had a most
difficult course to steer."

* * * * *

"'The foregoing is written immediately after the conversation,
which has not lasted half an hour,--Mr. Madison having stepped out,
and I taking advantage of this interruption to retire to my room
and commit the substance to paper. The very words I have retained,
as near as I could. In many instances (where I have run a line over
the words[28]) I have done this exactly.'"

This statement by Mr. Madison substantially sustains the view I
have taken of General Washington's position at that period. The
letters of all the leading Federalists of that day, and those that
followed it for some years, show that they looked with great
unanimity to Hamilton rather than to Washington for the tone and
direction that was to be given to the movements of the Federal
party, and leave scarcely a doubt that they would have sided with
Hamilton if a difference had arisen between the two, as is here
intimated by Mr. Madison.

How much is it to be regretted that the latter did not leave behind
him a history of the events of his life and an account of what he
knew of the views of others. No man was better informed upon all
political subjects than himself. At the time he referred to, in his
observations to Mr. Trist, he probably enjoyed as large a share of
Washington's confidence as any other man, and was at all times most
reluctant to be placed in opposition to him. Afterwards General
Washington placed in his hands the papers from which to write his
Farewell Address. But it was a rule of Mr. Madison's life, as I
have noticed before, never to injure the feelings of any man as
long as it could possibly be avoided, and he suffered long and much
to avoid it. His papers will be examined in vain for imputations of
faults to his contemporaries. They are even omitted in cases where
they would have been the readiest and apparently the indispensable
means of repelling unjust imputations upon himself. He carried this
self-denial farther than any other public man. The pain and regret
that he exhibited in his conversation with Mr. Trist, in respect to
the parting between Hamilton and himself, were obviously genuine,
but the necessity was absolute, and the danger that justice might
not otherwise he done to his character imminent. He was on the eve
of his departure for another world,--his well earned and well
established reputation was about to lose his own personal
guardianship,--and the subject was brought before him in such a way
that he must either confess the forthcoming impeachments by his
silence, or repel them by declaring the truth.

Some other citations which I have found occasion to make from Mr.
Randall's work are incorporated in the text.

[27] President Washington's Private Secretary.

[28] We have italicized these words.

Other instances have occurred in our Government and elsewhere in which statesmen have transcended the constitutional limits of their power under a necessity sincerely believed to be controlling, trusting to that circumstance for the indulgence of their constituents; and in no case which has presented itself here has that indulgence been withheld where the motives for the assumption of responsibility were pure. Mr. Jefferson's course in the purchase of Louisiana and General Jackson's conduct at New Orleans were striking cases of that description.

But we have, fortunately, evidence the most authentic and unequivocal that President Washington never intended by his approval of the Bank Bill to express an approval of the systematic and general disregard of the intentions of the framers of the Constitution, in respect to the powers of Congress, whenever such disregard should be deemed expedient. The provisions of the first Apportionment Bill sent to him for his approval were contrary to the Constitution, and Mr. Jefferson gave an opinion to that effect and recommending a veto, whilst the opinion of General Hamilton was in favor of their constitutionality. The division by which the bill passed had been exclusively sectional, and the objection of unconstitutionality was raised by the South. The Union was, at that early period, believed to stand upon a precarious footing, and the President was seriously apprehensive that the worst consequences might result, in the then state of the public mind, if he were to throw himself on the side of his own section by a veto.

His embarrassment and concern were great, and he was sincerely desirous to avoid a resort to what was then regarded as an extreme measure. He agreed that the method prescribed by the bill "was contrary to the common understanding of that instrument (the Constitution), and to what was understood at the time by the makers of it," but thought "it would bear the construction assumed by the bill." This was the precise issue that was raised upon the passage of the bill to establish the bank, viz.: whether the actual intention, or that which was only inferential, was to prevail. That he would have withheld the veto if he had felt himself at liberty in such a case to follow the letter of the Constitution, and thereby defeat the intention of those who made it, no one, who examines the matter, will for a moment doubt. He appears to have been duly sensible of the magnitude of the question in all its bearings. On the one hand were the evils to be apprehended from a decision in favor of the South upon a disturbing question by a Southern President, in a form not only without precedent here, but very unpalatable--that of a veto; on the other was the grave objection to his committing himself in favor of the principle which had prevailed on the question of the bank in a case that did not furnish any thing like an equal excuse for departing from the honest and straightforward rule of interpreting the Constitution, like any other instrument, by the intention of those who made it. He did not fail to see that to act again, and under existing circumstances, upon the principle to which he had given his sanction in the case of the bank, would be to commit himself to Hamilton's latitudinarian doctrines in respect to the construction of the Constitution, and he vetoed the bill.[29]

[29] Jefferson's _Correspondence_, Vol. IV. p. 466.

It would have been well for the country if the injurious effects of Hamilton's policy and principles had been confined to his own times, but men of such rare genius, distinguished by the same eagerness, industry, and energy in pursuit of their objects, seldom fail to leave a durable mark upon the world in which they have bustled, especially when their day is contemporaneous with the commencement of a new government, and when they are intrusted with great power, as was emphatically the case with Hamilton. He and Jefferson, both answering to this description, have always been regarded by me as the bane and antidote of our political system. Every speech and every writing of Hamilton exhibited proof of deep research and laborious study. Men, governments, and political measures, were his favorite subjects of reflection and discussion. Of the former, more particularly of the mass, he had (as I have elsewhere said) formed unfavorable opinions; not that he was less desirous than others for their welfare--for few men were more philanthropic in disposition--but because of the early and ineffaceable impression upon his mind that the majority of men, in their collective capacity, were radically deficient in respect for order and for the rights of persons and of property. As he thought their fears or their private interests and passions the only alternative methods of managing them and the former inapplicable to our people, so he considered those measures of government "discreetest, wisest, best," which were most likely to enlist their personal interests and feelings on its side. Such measures he deemed indeed indispensable, and his whole scheme for the administration of the Government was founded upon this theory.

Anti-republican as these views undoubtedly were, they nevertheless pointed to principles and to a policy well calculated to make deep impressions upon large portions of the community, in which were, and will always be, found many liable to be influenced by such considerations, and ready to follow the political party organized upon them; many, if not born in the belief, certainly educated in it, that they have something to fear from the major part of their fellow-creatures, and seeing few more important objects for the establishment of governments among men than to keep these in order and to protect the well-disposed portions of society like themselves from the vices and follies of the masses. In the performance of such duties they very naturally conclude that government should look to the more intelligent and better informed classes for support, and as naturally that to enable them to render such support they should receive partial favors and extraordinary advantages from its administration. Men of this class, their associates and dependents, as was foreseen, embraced with alacrity and supported with the energy inspired by self-interest the principle of political reciprocity between government and its supporters inaugurated in England at the Revolution of 1688, and ingrafted upon our system by Hamilton in 1790. He found in the old Federal party a soil well adapted to the cultivation of that policy, and in conjunction with those who expected to share in the profits exerted all the faculties of his great mind to extend the field for its operation.

That extension soon became so great under the fostering influence of Government and the money power as to include among its supporters, either as principals or sympathizers, almost every business class in the community, saving always the landed interest, properly so called, the mechanics not manufacturers, and the working classes. When I speak of the landed interest, I allude (as I have before explained) to those only who cultivate the soil themselves directly or by the aid of _employées_--to the farmers and planters of the country--and do not of course include speculators in lands, who buy to sell and sell to buy, and who, of all classes, are most dependent upon the friendship and most subject to the influence of the money power.