Mr. Bancroft happily and truly describes the peculiar condition of Southern men in this regard. "An instinctive aversion," says he, "to too much government was always a trait of Southern character expressed in the solitary manner of settling in the country, in the absence of munic.i.p.al governments, in the indisposition of the scattered inhabitants to engage in commerce, to collect in towns, or to a.s.sociate in townships under corporate powers. As a consequence there was little commercial industry; and on the soil of Virginia there were no vast acc.u.mulations of commercial wealth. The exchanges were made almost entirely--and it continued so for more than a century--by factors of foreign merchants.
Thus the influence of wealth, under the modern form of stocks and acc.u.mulations of money, was always inconsiderable; and men were so widely scattered--like hermits among the heathen--that far the smallest number were within the reach of the direct influence of the established Church or of Government."[24]
[24] Bancroft"s _Hist. United States_, Vol. II. p. 189.
In this description of the early, which is also measurably and comparatively true of the present, state of the South, we find a solution of the circ.u.mstance that the failure of Hamilton"s policy was so much more signal there than in other quarters, and that the principles upon which it was founded have there been since so perseveringly and unitedly resisted. The political principles of the landed interest, const.i.tuting an immense majority of their people, have prevailed in the administration of their State governments, save in regard to the ratification of the Federal Const.i.tution, from the recognition of our Independence to the present day. There has also been a remarkable consistency in the political positions of their public men.
In Virginia, which State has done so much to give a tone to national politics, Patrick Henry has been almost, if not quite, the only prominent man who abandoned the principles by which he had been governed during the Confederation, and embraced those of Hamilton at the coming in of the new government. Always admiring his character and conduct during the Revolutionary era, and strongly impressed by the vehemence and consistency with which he had, during the government of the Confederation, opposed every measure that savored of English origin, I pressed Mr. Jefferson, as far as was allowable, for the reasons of his sudden and great change. His explanation was, "that Henry had been smitten by Hamilton"s financial policy."
The Republican party, forced into existence by Hamilton"s obnoxious measures, sprang chiefly from the landed interest. The declaration of its ill.u.s.trious founder, in his letter to Mazzei, that the country would yet preserve its liberties, was mainly based on the fact that "the whole landed interest was republican," and he could not have placed his reliance on a surer foundation. Farthest removed, as has been already said, from the seductive influence of the money power, abounding in strong common sense and love of country, and always greatly superior in numbers to the business men of all other cla.s.ses, it const.i.tuted then, and has ever since const.i.tuted, the balance wheel of the Government. All it asks from administration is the maintenance of order, protection in the enjoyment of its civil and political rights, and the management of public affairs in a spirit of equal justice to all men. Whilst the commercial and manufacturing cla.s.ses are annually approaching the National Legislature with appeals for aid and encouragement, and whilst the Congressional committees charged with their interests are from time to time convulsing the country with their measures, that which is nominally the representative and guardian of agriculture not being asked to do any thing for its support, very properly does nothing; having, indeed, no power under the Const.i.tution to do any thing for it, the advantages of which are not common to all cla.s.ses. What the farmers and planters desire more than this are "the early and the latter rain," for which they look to a source purer and more powerful than human legislation.
Thus sustained, the Republican party of 1790, headed by Thomas Jefferson, with the "laboring oar" in the hands of James Madison, warmed into action by Jefferson"s more fervent though not more deeply seated patriotism, and embracing "a great ma.s.s of talent," determined to oppose every measure of Washington"s administration which they believed to be unauthorized by the Const.i.tution, or anti-republican in its tendencies.
This resolution was carried out with unflinching firmness, but, whatever has been said to the contrary, was made and designed to be performed in a manner consistent with the respect they entertained for the character and feelings of President Washington, and without even a desire to displace him from the high office with which they had contributed to invest him. It would have been strange if, in a state of party violence so excited as that which naturally sprung up, the dominant party should have refrained from aspersing the motives of their opponents by attributing to them personal hostility to a chief so justly beloved by the people as was Washington. Mr. Jefferson, in his letter to me, referring to similar charges but speaking of a subsequent period, says "General Washington, after the retirement of his first cabinet and the composition of his second, entirely Federal, and at the head of which was Mr. Pickering himself, had no opportunity of hearing both sides of any question. His measures consequently took more the hue of the party in whose hands he was. These measures were certainly not approved by the Republicans; yet they were not imputed to him, but to the counselors around him; and his prudence so far restrained their impa.s.sioned course and bias that no act of strong mark during the remainder of his administration excited much dissatisfaction. He lived too short a time after, and too much withdrawn from information to correct the views into which he had been deluded, and the continued a.s.siduities of the party drew him into the vortex of their intemperate career, separated him still farther from his real friends, and excited him to actions and expressions of dissatisfaction which grieved them but could not loosen their affections from him."[25]
[25] See Appendix.
Such charges were freely made and with unsparing bitterness; yet I cannot but think that unprejudiced minds, if it is not too soon to expect to find many such upon this subject, would, on a careful review of facts, acquit the Republican party of them. Madcaps, and those who, looking to party for their daily bread, hope to commend themselves by extremes and by violence to those whom they sustain, are to be found in all parties and should not be allowed to make those to which they attach themselves responsible for their acts. Nothing has ever been adduced that may fairly be regarded as the act of the Republican party which proves the existence of the disposition charged against it in regard to General Washington; and the single fact that, although its opposition commenced three years before the expiration of his first term, there was not the slightest effort made to prevent his reelection, or the exhibition of any desire to prevent it, is, of itself, sufficient to refute the charge of personal unfriendliness toward him. Nor did the Republicans desire to embarra.s.s his administration beyond what was inevitable from their opposition to measures which they regarded as unconst.i.tutional or in the highest degree inexpedient, of which the bank and funding system were appropriate ill.u.s.trations.
The Federal party, without extraordinary or difficult attention and care, might have preserved untarnished a character made respectable by ill.u.s.trious names and honorable history, notwithstanding the overwhelming defeat to which it was subsequently exposed, and its principles, however erroneous, might have stood a chance of restoration to power in the course of those changes and overturns of men and things to which public affairs and political parties have ever been subject.
Even error of opinion not unfrequently regains a lost ascendancy by means of the perseverance and consistency with which it is adhered to, and when the organization by which it has been upheld is maintained with the fidelity and dignity that belong to a good cause. In all these respects there was, on the part of the members of the Federal party, a complete failure. They suffered its lead to fall into less respectable hands, and its support to be lent to seceders (one after another) from the Republican ranks between whom and themselves there was no ident.i.ty of political feeling, and still less of principle. The motives for this course were usually censurable, and the results generally disastrous from the beginning, and always so in the sequel. Hamilton, as has been seen, twice threw himself in the path of his party to save it from such degradation, for his intelligence and integrity appreciated the impossibility of preserving the respect of the people at large for principles, whose special advocates showed by their acts that they did not themselves respect them. His counsels were unheeded, and the banner of a once highly honored party continued to be trailed in the dust until its name was disowned by its adherents with shame and disgust.
Those who agree with me in believing that General Hamilton was sincere in the opinion he expressed that the republican system could not be made adequate to the purpose of good government here, and that the welfare of the country would be best promoted by approaching as near to the English model as public sentiment would tolerate, are well justified in holding him undeserving of censure for his introduction of the anti-republican plan which he submitted to the Federal Convention. The right of the people to "alter or abolish" existing systems, and "to inst.i.tute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness," was the corner-stone of the Revolution, in defense of which he had freely ventured his life. The Convention was not only an appropriate but the appointed place for the a.s.sertion and exercise of that right. So far from being a fit subject for censure, the submission to that body by a man in Hamilton"s position, with the claims he had established upon the confidence and support of the people by his superior abilities and his Revolutionary services, of propositions which every body knew, and which he himself felt, were strongly adverse to the prevailing current of public sentiment, and the intrepidity and extraordinary talent with which he sustained them, without a single open supporter in the Convention, solely because he believed them to be right and their adoption necessary to the public good, exhibited a patriotic and self-sacrificing spirit alike honorable to himself and to his principles. His course in the Convention, for which he has been extensively reviled, was in my judgment the most brilliant and creditable portion of his political career. It presented an example of candor and devotion to principle which there was not a single one among his friends willing to follow, although there were, doubtless, a few who felt substantially as he did and sympathized with all he said, and although they all admired his gallant hearing while lamenting his indiscretion. It was, unhappily for himself, the culminating point in his political life, from which every subsequent step gradually lowered him, until he justly forfeited the confidence and countenance of every sincere friend to republican government.
Alas! how deeply is it to be lamented that this great statesman, as able as an impracticable man can be, when he knew that he was about to attempt a ladder upon the first round of which his boldest friend dared not even to place his foot, had not rather followed, in some respects at least, the example of his coadjutor and friend, James Madison. The coincidences in the occurrence of opportunities to make themselves useful to their country, and the contrasts in the ways in which these were improved and the consequences that followed, to be found in the public lives of these ill.u.s.trious men, are both striking and instructive. In regard to one subject a partial reference to them has already been made. They were co-workers in a series of efforts to obtain from the Congress of the Confederation authority for the Federal head to levy and collect impost duties to enable it to perform the offices devolved upon the General Government by the Articles of Confederation, instead of trusting to the unsafe and unstable requisitions upon the States. No sooner had the first Congress of the new Government, established for that and other purposes, formed a quorum, than Mr.
Madison, as we have already seen, before the executive branch had been organized, or even the President elect been informed of his election, introduced bills for the imposition and collection of duties on imported goods, which he pushed forward _de die in diem_ until they became laws, and the duties were in the process of being collected, and the public coffers in the way of being replenished. This good work he followed up in due time by the introduction into Congress of resolutions (and the most able support of them on its floor) in favor of a commercial policy recommended by the Secretary of State, Mr. Jefferson, to improve our trade and thus increase our revenue. These were the contributions of Mr.
Madison, simple, practical, and direct like their author, for promoting the financial branch of the public service under the new Government, which was committed by President Washington to the special superintendence of Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury.
The Secretary"s contributions to the same objects consisted of two very elaborate and very able reports, the first upon public credit, recommending the establishment of a funding system, and the second in favor of a national bank, embracing plans for each and, in the former, a scheme to raise funds for the payment of the interest of a debt to be funded. The _eclat_ which he acquired by these imposing state papers was so great, and many minds are still so much dazzled by the traditional splendor of their effects upon the credit and resources of the country as to render it not a little embarra.s.sing to discuss, in a plain, matter-of-fact way, the questions of their real influence or non-influence upon our finances.
In previous as well as in subsequent parts of this work will be found notices of the rise, progress, and effects of Hamilton"s funding system, which, if they do not show that the measure, judged by its results, partook more of the character of a castle in the air than of a wise and practicable financial scheme, do not, I think, fall far short of it. But both it and the bank are now only "obsolete ideas"--to remain so probably while our Government endures. References, under such circ.u.mstances, can only be usefully made to them to show the principles and objects of men and parties.
Whilst Hamilton"s measures have been, it is hoped and believed, forever abandoned--the funding system by his own political friends, and a national bank in consequence of its explicit and emphatic condemnation by the whole country--those put into immediate and successful operation by Madison not only performed at the time the useful office designed for them by the Const.i.tution, and gradually provided for the wants of the existing Government, but have supplied it with a revenue abundantly sufficient to pay the public debt and to defray all expenses and disburs.e.m.e.nts required by the public service in war and in peace, with rare and limited additions, for nearly three quarters of a century, and will, in all likelihood, continue so to do to the end.
But the most interesting aspect of these coincidences and contrasts to which I refer is to be found in the ill.u.s.trations they furnish of the use and abuse of the Const.i.tution by those distinguished men and by their followers respectively. Co-workers again in persevering efforts to obtain from Congress or the States a call for a general convention to revise the Articles of Confederation, it would be difficult to decide which contributed most to effect that object, and it is not too much to say that it would not have been then accomplished if the efforts of either had been withheld. They were neither of them satisfied with the Const.i.tution framed by the Convention; Madison not entirely, Hamilton scarcely at all. The former sympathized, as I have already said, with Hamilton"s distrust of the State governments, made unsuccessful efforts to impose stringent restrictions upon their power, and would have been better pleased with the Const.i.tution if it had inclined more decidedly in that direction.
They both signed the instrument notwithstanding; Hamilton under a sort of protest against its sufficiency (or rather its want of it), and Madison with apparent and, I doubt not, real cordiality. In the numbers of the "Federalist," (of which they were the princ.i.p.al authors,) they offered a joint and honorable testimonial to the Const.i.tution, which became in the sequel an enduring monument to their own a.s.sociated memories. Each rendered "yeoman"s service" in the conventions, respectively, of New York and Virginia, to decide upon its ratification; in neither of which was the ratification probable at the beginning, and in both there is the best reason to believe that, without their powerful aid, it must have ultimately failed. In such an event the failure of the Const.i.tution would have been next to certain.
Although Gouverneur Morris"s a.s.sertion that Hamilton had comparatively nothing to do with the construction of the Federal Const.i.tution is true, yet as Madison had a greater agency in that work than any other individual, and as the obtaining the call of the Convention and the ratification of the Const.i.tution, in which Madison and Hamilton acted the chief parts, were also the portions of the whole transaction most exposed to the action of the States and of the public mind, and therefore the most difficult of accomplishment, it may with truth be affirmed that there were not any fifty or a hundred other men taken together to whom the country was as much indebted for the Federal Const.i.tution as to those two gentlemen. But in their subsequent treatment of that sacred instrument, which each had done so much to bring to maturity, they, unfortunately for the country, differed very widely. The Const.i.tution was ratified and adopted in the first instance by more than the requisite number of States, and finally by the whole thirteen. General Washington was elected President. He appointed Alexander Hamilton to be Secretary of the Treasury, and James Madison was elected a member of the first Congress. The latter, although overruled in the Convention upon points which he deemed important, acquiesced in the decisions of the majority, accepted the Const.i.tution in good faith with a determination to do all in his power, not only to secure its ratification, but to give to the people and the States the full benefit of its provisions as those were understood by them, and to do this with the same fidelity and honor with which he would perform any private arrangement to which he had made himself a party. Satisfied from numerous exhibitions of public sentiment elsewhere as well as in the State conventions, and perhaps more particularly in that of his own State, not only that there was far greater opposition in the minds of the people at large to the Const.i.tution as it came from the hands of the Convention than he at first supposed, but that it was, in point of fact, defective in some particulars important in themselves and well calculated to excite the solicitude of the ma.s.ses, he determined to leave no means within his reach unimproved to make it, by suitable and seasonable amendments, what a brief experience convinced him that it ought to be. It might perhaps be inferred, from some general expressions used by him in the first Congress, that he felt as if something had been said or done on his part rendering his attention to this matter a special duty, although nothing of that nature is apparent; but, be that as it may, there were other considerations imperative upon a mind so circ.u.mspect and so just to prevent his losing sight of the subject.
Mr. John Quincy Adams a.s.serts that the Const.i.tution "was extorted from the grinding necessity of a reluctant nation." Although this may be deemed an exaggerated description no one can make himself familiar with the history of that period without becoming sensible of the truth of two positions, viz.: that vast numbers who were greatly dissatisfied with the Const.i.tution were induced to withhold their active opposition by the embarra.s.sed condition of the country, and that even this consideration would not have sufficed to overcome the decided Anti-Federal majority against it but for the provision authorizing amendments, and the confident antic.i.p.ation that such as were proper and necessary would be speedily made. The consciousness of these truths, and a conviction that a successful operation of, and general acquiescence in, the provisions of the new Const.i.tution were not to be expected unless proper steps were immediately taken to appease the opposition still in force among the Anti-Federalists, secured the early and unremitting attention of Mr.
Madison to that point.
This view of the expectations of the country upon the subject of amendment and of the condition of the public mind in respect to it was strongly confirmed by memorials presented to the first Congress, at its first session, by the States of New York and Virginia, containing averments framed in the strongest terms, that whilst they dreaded the operation of the Const.i.tution in its then imperfect state, they had, notwithstanding, yielded their a.s.sent to its ratification from motives of affection for their sister States, and from an invincible reluctance to separate from them, and with a full confidence that its imperfections would be speedily removed; that the existence of great and vital defects in the Const.i.tution was the prevailing conviction of those States; that the dissatisfaction and uneasiness upon the subject amongst their people would never cease to distract the country until the causes of them were satisfactorily removed; that the matter would ill admit of postponement, and concluding with applications to Congress that they should, without delay, call a new convention with full powers to revise and amend the Const.i.tution. Although these memorials referred to the opinions expressed by their respective State conventions that that instrument ought to undergo further revision, which, in one of them, was a unanimous expression, Congress nevertheless took no steps toward a compliance with the request they contained. But the whole subject was brought before it by Mr. Madison as soon as he had perfected his revenue measures, and he caused amendments to be carried through that body, I had almost said by his own unaided efforts, which were satisfactory to the people--certainly to that portion of them by whom the Const.i.tution had been opposed.
A tolerably full and obviously fair account of the debates and proceedings in the House of Representatives upon this subject--those in the Senate, I fear, are lost--may be found in the first and second volumes of Lloyd"s "Register of the Proceedings and Debates of the First House of Representatives of the United States," which I am sorry to find has not been transferred to Colonel Benton"s "Abridgment." The subject, speaking of the ten amendments as one measure, was only second in intrinsic importance, on account of the influence its success exerted on the solidity and perpetuity of the new system, to the Const.i.tution itself, and the debates in point of ability and earnestness, particularly on the part of Mr. Madison, not inferior to any of the discussions by which that interesting period when the foundations of the present government were laid was so greatly distinguished; one cannot read them without acknowledging the difficulty of recalling another instance in which a measure of equal gravity was so successfully carried through a public body against the obvious and decided preferences of a large majority of its members, or without admiring the extent to which that success was achieved by the exertions of one man.
Now that the dangers which environed these proceedings have pa.s.sed away, they afford amus.e.m.e.nt to the curious in such matters by the picture they furnish of the twists and turns to which men in high positions and of generally fair views will sometimes resort to stave off distasteful propositions, with the hope of ultimately defeating what they do not feel it to be safe directly to oppose. The Virginia and New York applications were presented by Mr. Bland, of the former, and Mr.
Lawrence, of the latter State, both friends of Hamilton; and although both were solicitous that the applications should be respectfully received, neither of them ever took a step to make them successful, nor were they in favor of the amendments proposed by Mr. Madison. That gentleman gave notice of his intention to bring the subject before the House several weeks before the day he named for that purpose. When that day arrived he moved that the House should resolve itself into a committee of the whole to receive the amendments he proposed to offer.
Opposition to going into such committee came from almost all sides of the House, some urging one species of objections and some another, but generally indicative of decided unfriendliness to the views of the mover. Perceiving that his motion was neither satisfactory nor likely to succeed, Mr. Madison withdrew it, and submitted a proposition for the appointment of a select committee to report such amendments to the Const.i.tution as they should think proper. Having done this, he, in a very able speech, went over the whole subject, stated at length the necessity that existed for some amendments, and the high expediency of proposing others, and furnished a statement of those he had intended to offer to the committee of the whole; these he trusted would now be referred to the select committee, and thus the matter would proceed there without interruption to the other business of the House.
The proposition for a select committee was not more fortunate or acceptable than its predecessor. It was opposed from the same quarters, and several who had evinced no favor toward the motion to go into committee of the whole now said that, if the subject was to be taken up at all, that would have been, but for its withdrawal, the preferable mode. Mr. Madison declared himself, as he said, "unfortunate in not satisfying gentlemen with respect to the mode of introducing the business; he had thought, from the dignity and peculiarity of the subject, that it ought to be referred to a committee of the whole; he had accordingly made that motion first, but finding himself not likely to succeed in that way, he had changed his ground. Fearing again to be discomfited on his motion for a select committee, he would change his mode, and move the propositions he had stated before directly to the House, and it might then do what it thought proper with them. He accordingly moved the propositions by way of Resolutions to be adopted by the House."
This course was also objected to on several grounds; but the majority saw that if the game of staving off the subject was not broken up by Mr.
Madison"s third proposition, it had at least been so far exposed as to require time to put it in some new form, and with that view Mr.
Lawrence, who, as already said, was not in favor of amendments, moved that the subject be referred to a committee of the whole,--the proposition first submitted by Mr. Madison,--which was done. This occurred on the 8th of June. On the 21st of July thereafter Mr. Madison "begged the House to indulge him in the further consideration of the subject of amendments to the Const.i.tution, and as there appeared, in some degree, a moment of leisure, he would move to go into a committee of the whole upon the subject, conformably to the order of the 8th of last month."
This proposition was met by a motion from Mr. Fisher Ames, of Ma.s.sachusetts, to rescind the vote of the 8th of June, and to refer the business to a select committee. This motion gave rise to speeches professing not to be opposed to the consideration of amendments at a proper time and under proper circ.u.mstances, but showing a decided distrust of and distaste for the whole proceeding. The motion prevailed by a vote of 34 to 15, and a select committee was appointed, of which Mr. Vining, an opponent, was made chairman. The report of this committee contained substantially the amendments proposed by Mr. Madison, with some alterations and additions. These, after revision by the House, were finally pa.s.sed by a vote of two thirds in both Houses, submitted to the States and ratified by them, as they now appear as the first ten of the twelve amendments that have been made to the Federal Const.i.tution since its first adoption.
Some of Mr. Madison"s colleagues occasionally expressed a desire for the success of his propositions, and similar avowals were sometimes made by two or three members from other States; but of substantial, persevering, and effective a.s.sistance, he may, with truth, be said to have had none, and two thirds of the House were at heart decidedly opposed to the amendments that were made. With all his talents, industry, and perseverance, Mr. Madison would not have been able to carry them if his exertions had not been seconded by an influence still more efficacious.
The legislature of Virginia alluded to the defects of the Const.i.tution as "involving all the great and inalienable rights of freemen," declared that its objections were not founded on speculative theory, but deduced from principles which had been established by the melancholy examples of other nations in different ages, and said, "they will never be removed until the cause shall cease to exist." It announced the "cause of amendment as a common cause," and its trust that commendable zeal would be shown by others also for obtaining those "provisions which experience had taught them were necessary to secure from danger the inalienable rights of human nature." It expressed its impatience of delay and its doubt as to the disposition of Congress; complained of the slowness of its forms, but congratulated itself on the possession of another remedy, which it was determined to pursue, under the Const.i.tution itself--that of a convention of The States.
The New York application, signed, as Speaker, by John Lansing, Jr., who had left the Federal Convention in consequence of his dissatisfaction with its proceedings and never returned to it, though not going as much into details, employed language equally bold and uncompromising in demanding from Congress another convention, which might propose such amendments "as it might find best calculated to promote our common interests, and secure to ourselves and our latest posterity the great and inalienable rights of mankind." This memorial a.s.serted not only that the New York Convention had ratified "in the fullest confidence of obtaining a revision of the Const.i.tution by a general convention, as appeared on the face of its ratification," but that that body (of which Hamilton was a member) were unanimous in the opinion that such a revision was necessary to recommend that instrument to the approbation and support of a numerous body of its const.i.tuents.
These doc.u.ments, and especially that of Virginia, pointed very emphatically to the source of that discontent with the Const.i.tution which so extensively prevailed in the old Anti-Federal ranks. Even they felt that the Const.i.tution was much better than they had expected, and the most considerate among them, those who were most capable of suspending their suspicions as to the designs of their opponents long enough to give the instrument a dispa.s.sionate consideration, were soon satisfied--and Samuel Adams, who stood at the head of the Anti-Federal party, admitted--that its general structure was free from any insuperable objection. The life-tenure given to the Federal Judges was, as it indeed might well be, regarded as inconsistent with republican principles; but it was to be remembered that those officers were expected to be, as they ought always to be, non-combatants in partisan politics by reason of their appointment to act as arbiters of the fates and fortunes of their countrymen. Upon the great point to which the attention of such men was first directed, that of the ability of the State governments to maintain their sovereignty and independence under the new system, there was no real ground for apprehension. But the Const.i.tution was princ.i.p.ally confined to what were more strictly public concerns, the powers and duties of the Federal and State Governments in regard to National and State affairs, with only a slight sprinkling of provisions looking particularly to the protection of the citizen against the exercise of arbitrary power; and it was accompanied by no Bill of Rights, such as those to which the people had been accustomed in respect to their State governments. In the latter cases they might more readily have been reconciled to the absence of such provisions, as those governments were carried on under their immediate observation, and they formed a part of them in much larger portions than they could expect to do of the Federal Government. The latter they were too much in the habit of regarding, at that early period, as a foreign government only remotely responsible to them. We have already spoken of the settled character of their distrust of power for which there was only a remote, if any, responsibility, and of their having been trained by experience to expect only abuses from the exercise of such authority, whether in State or Church,--an experience embracing the sorrowful and well-remembered accounts of outrage and persecution against their ancestors, and the cruel oppression of the then existing generation by the distant government of the mother country. We have seen how great had been their aversion and that of their ancestors to the establishment of a general government, and with what difficulties their consent to the call of the then recent Convention had been obtained, and what care had been taken to restrict its power. It was not therefore surprising that a large majority of them should have manifested such intense dissatisfaction when a Const.i.tution was presented for their approval containing so few, so very few safeguards for the protection of "the great and inalienable rights of freemen," as Virginia described them--of the "great and inalienable rights of mankind," as the New York Legislature styled them--points to which the ma.s.ses, especially of the Anti-Federalists, were so keenly alive.
These considerations and circ.u.mstances 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 Const.i.tution, "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 circ.u.mstances, 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 th.o.r.n.y 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 Const.i.tution. 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 circ.u.mstances most extraordinary success.
The dread of another Federal Convention has never failed, when the circ.u.mstances 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 pa.s.sed, the Middle States would arm, and that they would "call a convention to reorganize and amend the Const.i.tution;" 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 Const.i.tution."
Mr. Madison"s ten amendments consisted of provisions in favor of the free exercise of religion, of speech, and of the press; of a.s.sembling peaceably to pet.i.tion 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 a.s.sistance 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 Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution 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 Const.i.tution, whose members, as well as their political predecessors in every stage of our history, const.i.tuted 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 _bona 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 Const.i.tution in that body, that he deservedly won the n.o.ble t.i.tle of "Father of the Const.i.tution."
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 Const.i.tution 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 const.i.tutional 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 Const.i.tution for the establishment of a national bank, or for the a.s.sumption of the State debts, or for the unlimited claim of power by the Federal Government over the collection and disburs.e.m.e.nt 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 Const.i.tution conferred no such powers when he advocated successfully the first two of those measures, and a.s.serted the power and recommended its exercise in respect to the latter.
It is not agreeable to be obliged to a.s.sume 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 acc.u.mulation 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 Const.i.tution 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 cla.s.s he spoke of to Mr. Adams as const.i.tuting 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 a.s.sume--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 Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution, 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 Const.i.tution. In February, 1802, after his lat.i.tudinarian scheme had been arrested and was in danger of being permanently overthrown, he described the Const.i.tution to Gouverneur Morris as a "frail and worthless fabric," the "fate" of which he had "antic.i.p.ated from the very beginning." He never reproached his friends with an unwillingness to go as far as the Const.i.tution 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 a.s.sociates 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 circ.u.mstances 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.