difficult issue. The Convention finally concluded that one duty of the Federal government would be to stand between the people and the consummation of their first passionate desire. The Constitution should be a restraining document, which should create an engine capable of preventing the people from having their way for a number of years. Far from its being intended that the government should facilitate the expression of the popular will, it was in fact shaped so as to make difficult the fulfilment of popular desire. "Why has government been instituted at all?" asked Hamilton in the famous fifteenth paper of the Federalist. "Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint." To some extent this determination to restrain the people caused the Convention to omit mention of explicit powers as granted Congress, which it seemed dangerous to put firmly in the people's hands. As Chief Justice Marshall later phrased it, "That power might be abused was deemed a conclusive reason why it should not be conferred."

But the framers were by no means satisfied with omission. To give the Senate a check on both House and President, they made the term of senators six years, and made it a permanent body of men, by allowing two-thirds to hold over at each election and therefore making it impossible for the legislatures to choose more than a third of the Senate at any one time to carry out some particular wish of the people. The House of Representatives which the people elected was given a term of only two years, partly to render it more responsive to the people, partly to allow the President, who sat for four years and the Senate, two-thirds of which would still be sitting, to control it more easily. If all three agreed upon some measure, it would be clear that the nation wanted it and ought to have its way. But if any considerable opposition existed in the country, enough of it would be reflected in Congress to prevent agreement. When all three did not agree, there was to be no method legally provided for putting pressure upon the dissenters. Whether Presi

dent or Senate opposed, the highest duty of that branch to the people consisted in maintaining its firm front until a new election could be held and the people could once more indicate their desires. In four years at the most, the President and Senate could be brought into agreement with the House of Representatives, and if the people were decided enough in their opinion to maintain it for four years, nothing further could or ought to be done to prevent them from having their way. To the end that this arrangement should not cripple the efficiency of the Federal government, however, the executive power was placed unreservedly in the President's hands: the existing law should be enforced promptly and efficiently in any case; new laws should be enacted, new policies adopted, only after due deliberation. The routine administration was made easy; the adoption of new legislation was consciously made as difficult as possible. After four months of anxious debate, from May to September 1787, the Convention submitted its work to the country, requesting that the document should be ratified by conventions or by popular vote in each State, and that when nine States had accepted it, it should go into operation as binding upon those who ratified it. A long and bitter campaign was fought in State after State. The old "Patriot party" of 1775 led by Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, Melancthon Smith of New York, and George Mason of Virginia felt that the Constitution sacrificed all that the Revolution had been fought to win.11 "Who authorized them to speak the language of We the People, instead of We the States?" cried Henry.12 "I stumble at the threshold," declared Samuel Adams, "I meet with a national government instead of a federal union of sovereign States." 18 The very strong

11 The Constitution was the "triumph of the legitimate successors of the Anti-Revolutionary party of 1775." Judge Chamberlain in Papers of the American Historical Association, III, No. 1.

12 Speech in the Virginia Convention. Elliott, Debates, III, 22, 29, 44, 521-522. "Even from that illustrious man who saved us by his valor, I would have a reason for his conduct."

13 Samuel Adams to R. H. Lee. Lee's Life of R. H. Lee, II, 130.

objection was also raised that the Convention had exceeded its authority. It had been directed to amend the Articles of Confederation and had proposed a wholly new scheme of government. Nor were men slow to remark that 73 members had been elected, of whom nearly a third never attended and of whom scarcely more than half (39) signed the final document. The boasted unanimity was absent. Detailed objections of all kinds appeared. In Massachusetts, New York, and Virginia the fight was particularly fierce. A series of essays called the Federalist written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, published in New York but widely read throughout the country, were instrumental in convincing the people of the expediency of the new constitution, which was finally adopted by eleven States in the fall of 1788.

The first elections, held in January 1789, caused a succession of disagreements in various States, which for a time threatened to prevent the choice of a Congress or of presidential electors in time to meet on March 4, the date when the old Congress of the Confederation was formally to dissolve. The presidential electors, however, finally did meet; the news quickly spread that George Washington and John Adams had been elected President and Vice-President respectively; but when March 4 dawned, there was no President-elect in New York to be inaugurated, because the votes had not been officially counted and the President not yet officially elected. Furthermore, there were not enough members of either the House or the Senate in the city to form a quorum to count the votes; the Assembly Hall was still in the carpenters' hands; and Washington and Adams both declined to leave home until they should be officially assured of their election. It is most difficult for us to understand to-day the anxiety and suspense of those weeks in March and April 1789, when, with the old government legally dead, it was as yet more than doubtful whether the new could be even formally put in power. After weeks of alarm and speculation, a bare quorum in both houses of Congress finally assembled on April 6, more than a month after the date set for the inauguration

of the new President; the votes were counted; and a fortnight later, on April 30, Washington was inaugurated. Few people remember now that in 1789 it was doubtful for nearly two months whether men could be got together to fill enough of the formal posts created by the new Constitution to make it possible to begin the task of creating a new administration. As the Anti-Federalists derisively declared, the "old man" (Franklin) and "the two boys" (Madison and Hamilton) were all wrong: the old roof had leaked but the new one was not even on the building. "If the system can be put in operation without touching much the pockets of the people," wrote Washington to Jefferson, "perhaps it may be done; but, in my judgment, infinite circumspection and prudence are yet necessary in the experiment." 14

Fisher Ames has left us a touching picture of Washington at this time. Just after the inauguration, "I was present in the pew (at church) with the President and must assure you that, after making all deductions for the delusion of one's fancy in regard to characters, I still think of him with more veneration than for any other person. Time has made havoc upon his face. That and other circumstances not to be reasoned about, conspire to keep up the awe which I brought with me. He addressed the two Houses in the Senate Chamber; it was a very touching scene and quite of a solemn kind. His aspect grave almost to sadness; his modesty, actually shaking; his voice deep, a little tremulous, and so low as to call for close attention; added to the series of objects presented to the mind and overwhelming it, produced emotions of the most affecting kind upon the members." In the inaugural address Washington had said: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American people." Such were the hopes and aspirations, such the sense of responsibility, with which the fathers began work under the Constitution.

14 Washington to Jefferson, August 31, 1788. Writings of Washington. Sparks, IX, 426-7.

XIV

THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PERMANENT ADMINISTRATION

WERE it not for our after-knowledge and the realization that the difficulties to be remedied were for the most part superficial and curable, the immediate success of the new government would be as astonishing to us as it was gratifying to its contemporaries. But the Constitution was not, as the vast majority assumed, the cause. The secret lay in the changed economic conditions, in the disappearance of the commercial stringency by the operation of economic factors on which governments and constitutions had no influence. Of this Washington was well aware. "It was indeed next to a miracle," he wrote in 1790, "that there should have been so much unanimity in points of such importance among such a number of citizens, so widely scattered, and so different in their habits in many respects, as the Americans were. Nor are the growing unanimity and increasing good-will of the citizens to the government less remarkable than favorable circumstances. . . . Perhaps a number of accidental circumstances have concurred with the real effects of the government to make the people uncommonly well pleased with their situation and prospects."1

Chief among these, he placed the natural reaction from a long period of business depression and confusion, and the result of the frugality and economy which hard times inevitably inculcate. "I expect that many blessings will be attributed to our new government which are now taking their rise from the industry and frugality into the practice of which the people have been forced from necessity. I really 1 Writings of Washington, Ford's ed., XI, 459.