judge hold his place during good behavior, and have a permanent salary.

10. All laws of the particular states, contrary to the constitution or laws of the United States, to be utterly void. And the better to prevent such laws being passed, the governor or president of each state shall be appointed by the general government, and shall have a negative upon the laws about to be passed in the state of which he is governor, or president.

II. No state to have any forces, land or naval; and the militia of all the states to be under the sole and exclusive direction of the United States; the officers of which to be appointed and commissioned by them.

4

THE

HE first problem before the new nation was who should decide whether the general government kept faith with the States. Could it decide on its own act, or should the States themselves pass judgment as to whether more power was exercised than they had granted? It is not surprising that the contracting parties claimed that they, having made the government, were judges of what the government might do. Hamilton was quick to see that the only hope for a strong central government was to assert its right to pass on its own actions. The essays constituting the Federalist were along this line; and were among the ablest political papers ever produced. Some of these were written by Hamilton, others by Madison, and by those who afterwards became Republicans.

There was a deal of thinking going on, and fortunately for the young nation the civil service had not become subordinated to party fealty; so that the people had the continuous aid of the ablest men they could produce. Imagine the supreme disaster if Thomas Jefferson could not have been in almost continuous public service from the first years of his mature life.

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The result was that Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Washington, Adams, while moulding the Republic, could themselves grow into larger views and learn by trial and experience. In fact they felt their way through dangers not now comprehensible. The natural drift of minds was in the two directions of equality, and of aristocracy. Those who felt strongest the Saxon heredity believed English institutions were, apart from monarchy, very closely ideal. Those who had also some comprehension of individualism, developed more largely in France, were ready to dispense with aristocracies and trust the people. Hamilton and Jefferson soon became leaders of the two schools of politics. They were masters well pitted. Hamilton's eleven propositions in the Constitutional Convention were indicative of his tendencies of thought. Jefferson can be best comprehended by a study of the Declaration of Independence.

The confidence that Jefferson had in the people as contrasted with any form of aristocracy, follows a wellknown law that the ablest commoners have been of noble blood. This has been true in England, France, Germany, and Russia as well as in the United States. Jefferson was of the Randolph stock, as proud a family as Virginia held; but of such pedigree he merely remarked, "Any one might ascribe to it the faith and merit he chose." As for himself he cared nothing for 'cyphers of aristocracy." He was a member of the House of Burgesses at twenty-six. At thirty-one he wrote the Summary View of the Rights of British America; in which he told King George that "kings are the servants, not proprietors of the people; and that the whole art of government is the act of being honest." At thirty-three he wrote the Declaration of Independ

ence, and later was author of the Ordinance excluding slavery from our Northwestern Territories. Not afraid of experiments; a mind of extraordinary synthetic powers; an idealist who fully believed in the possible realization of the Golden Rule; cautious in action but prompt in a crisis, Jefferson in politics was what Franklin was in physics, a student of the past but not a slave to precedent. Hamilton was rash in action but conservative in theory. Capable of adjusting himself to conditions that he disapproved, he never rid himself of aristocratic sentiments and a lack of confidence in the people. By nature an intriguer, both in his social relations and in public affairs, he not seldom weakened his cause by intricate plots to overthrow his opponents.

Jefferson says of his experience in Washington's cabinet, "Hamilton and I were pitted against each other every day in the cabinet, like two fightingcocks." Washington stood not only between the two to moderate and soften antagonism, but to prevent a collision of their followers. It was destined that American history, down to the present time at least, should be a conflict of Hamiltonian and Jeffersonian ideas and methods. Washington found more help in immediate stress of events from Hamilton. Jefferson looked more into the future, laying deep and broad the basis of the educational and political and social structure.

Hamilton's Funding law was joined with an Assumption law, that, transferring all State war debts to the nation, increased the opposition to both measures. Virginia memorialized Congress to repeal them. Hamilton, never able to comprehend opposition, declared that such a spirit must be stamped out." There was no doubt truth in Jefferson's charge that, while Hamilton accepted the Constitution, he did so with the belief that

it would be temporary; and he intended to see that it was temporary. As late as 1802 he wrote, "I am still trying to prop the frail and worthless fabric." On another occasion he averred: "I myself am affectionately attached to the republican theory, and desire to demonstrate its practical success. But as to State governments, if they can be circumscribed consistently with preserving the Union, it is well. I seriously apprehend that the United States will not be able to maintain itself against their influence. Hence I am disposed for a liberal construction of the powers of the general government." He urged that there be an amendment of the Constitution, granting Congress power to cut up the States at its option into smaller ones. Such a plan would of course have given the party in power perpetuity of rule. Jefferson grew so suspicious of these theories and plans that he wrote, taken altogether, their object in his judgment was "to draw all the powers of government into the hands of the general legislature; to establish means for corrupting a sufficient corps in that legislature, to subvert step by step the principles of the Constitution."

"Where," said Jefferson," do they lead us but to the overthrow of the Republic and the establishment of a monarchy." To the taunt "Jacobin" the Jeffersonians hurled back the epithet Monarchists." Monroe in 1817, referring to this era, wrote to Andrew Jackson: "That some of the leaders of the Federal party entertained principles unfriendly to our system of government I have been thoroughly convinced; that they meant to work a change in it by taking advantage of favorable circumstances I am equally satisfied." But he thought these purposes were never known by any large number of the rank and file of the Federal party.