[22] 3 Bancroft's History of the United States, p. 8.
CHAPTER IV.
Excitement of the Public Mind caused by Hamilton's Measures—Great Men brought thus into the Political Field—The Preponderance of leading Politicians and Commercial Classes on the side of Hamilton—Not so with the Landed Interest—Character of Farmers and Planters of the United States—Position of the Landed Interest toward the Anti-Federal Party and toward Hamilton's System—Success in maintaining its Principles greater in the Southern than in the Northern States and the Causes thereof—The Landed Interest the Fountain of the old Republican Party—Course of that Party toward Washington and his Administration—Decline of the Federal Party—Hamilton's Course in the Convention the most Brilliant and Creditable of his Political Career—His Candor and Devotion to Principle on that Occasion—His subsequent Loss of the Confidence of the Friends of Republican Government—Coincidences and Contrasts in the Public Lives of Hamilton and Madison—Their several Contributions in the First Congress to the Promotion of the Financial Branch of the Public Service—The Fate and the Fruits of each—The Country chiefly indebted to them for the Constitution—Their Treatment of it after its Adoption not the same—The Provision authorizing Amendments necessary to save the Constitution from Rejection—Memorials from New York and Virginia—Dread of a New Convention on the Part of the Federalists—Madison's Amendments—Consequences of their Adoption—Character of Madison's Statesmanship—Different Courses of Hamilton and Madison on Questions of Constitutional Power—Unconstitutionality of Hamilton's Measures—His Consciousness thereof—His Sense of the Obligations of Public Men—His View of the Constitution as "a Temporary Bond of Union"—Subsequent Change of Opinion, but Final Return in 1802 to his Original View—Separation between him and Madison—"Sapping and Mining Policy" of Hamilton—That Policy counteracted by the Republican Party—Discrimination between Washington and Hamilton in the Adoption of the latter's Policy—Probable Ground of Washington's Official Approval of the Bank Bill—Subsequent similar Position and Conduct of Madison—Instances of a like Transcending of Constitutional Limits under a supposed Necessity, by Jefferson and by Jackson—The Hamiltonian Rule of Construction discarded by Washington in the case of his Veto of the First Apportionment Bill—Portions of the Community liable to be attracted to Hamilton's Policy—The Principles of that Policy inaugurated in England in 1688—Extension of its Influence in this Country to almost every Class but the Landed Interest—Points of Agreement and of Difference between Hamilton and Politicians of his School in our Time—Exceptions to the General Rule—Influence of the Money Power in attracting Literary and Professional Men—Great Preponderance in Numbers of Newspapers and Periodicals supporting the Views of the Money Power over those devoted to the Advocacy of Democratic Principles—The same Fact observable in Monarchical Countries—Caucuses and Conventions not necessary to the Harmony of the Federal Party—Sagacity indicated by Hamilton's System—The Secret of its Failure in the Numerical Preponderance, often underrated, of the Agricultural Class—The Policy best adapted to succeed with our People is that of a Strict Construction of the Constitution as to the Powers of the General Government—Such the Successful Policy of Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson—Struggles of the Money Power Ineffectual till crowned with Exceptional Success in the Overthrow of Van Buren's Administration—Latitudinarianism of Hamilton's School—John Quincy Adams elected as a Convert to the Principles of the Republican Party—His early Disavowal of those Principles, and the consequent Overthrow of his Administration—Relative Power of the Landed Interest—The Safety of our Institutions depends on the Right Convictions of the great Agricultural Class—Growth of the Money Power in England—The Political Influence of that Power Beneficent in Europe but Injurious in the United States.
I have already spoken of the extent to which the public mind was excited by Hamilton's measures. Large portions of the people regarded the most prominent among them as violations of the Constitution, and most of them as servile imitations of the English system, inexpedient in themselves and contrary to the genius and spirit of our institutions. Their arraignment and vindication brought into the political field the ablest men of the country at a period when she abounded in great men. The American Revolution accomplished here that which the French Revolution, then at its commencement, and similar crises in all countries and times, have brought about, namely, the production of great men by great events, developing and calling into action upon a large scale intellects the powers of which, but for their application to great transactions, might have remained unknown alike to their possessors and to the world. Among the master minds which were thus roused to political activity were Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Patrick Henry, John and Samuel Adams, John Jay, Chancellor Livingston, Gouverneur Morris, George Clinton, Robert Yates, Chancellor Lansing, John Langdon, Elbridge Gerry, Rufus King, Roger Sherman, John Dickinson, Speight and Williamson and the Rutledges, Pinckneys, and Middletons of North and South Carolina, Chace and Luther Martin of Maryland, Jackson, Few, and Baldwin, of Georgia, John Mason, Marshall, Pendleton, and Wythe of Virginia, and others; men, some of whom have under various circumstances added celebrity to the best informed communities in the world and at one of the brightest periods of the human intellect, and who, if they could now be congregated, would eclipse the great men of any country.
Hamilton's measures, of which the funding system was the pioneer, presented their first field, after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, for the display of their opinions and talents. They supported in those grave discussions, with few exceptions, relatively the same principles by which they had been influenced in respect to federal politics during the government of the Confederation, by which also they and men of their stamp had been governed under the colonial system, and to which they would have adhered, in all probability, throughout the intermediate period if they had not been driven into open rebellion by the indiscriminate and intolerable oppression of a bigoted tyrant, and by their own innate hatred of wrong and outrage, without immediate regard to the government that should result from their revolution.
Jefferson was absent from the country during a large portion of the government of the Confederation, and through the entire period of the formation and adoption of the new Constitution. He sympathized throughout with the feelings and concurred in the opinions of the Anti-Federal party, with the exceptions that he was not opposed to conferring on the Federal Government the powers to regulate commerce and to raise its own revenues; was in favor of a convention for the construction of a new constitution, and of the formation by that body of a substantive and effective federal government, composed of legislative, executive, and judicial departments; approved of the Constitution as made, with modifications which were principally provided for by amendments proposed and adopted, and was sincerely anxious for its ratification. These things have, I know, been controverted and are still disbelieved by many, but will be found fully established by references to the following documents, viz.: Jefferson's "Correspondence," Vol. I. p. 441; Vol. II. pp. 64, 162, 221, 236, 273, 303; Letter to Washington expressing his anxiety for the adoption of the Constitution; p. 310, some strong remarks in favor of it; p. 342, to Madison, congratulating him on its adoption, and p. 348, to John Jay, to the same effect.
Of Madison's character and general course I have already spoken. His position at the period now under consideration differed from that of all his contemporaries in the public service. He had supported all the commercial and financial measures advocated by the Federal party during the government of the Confederation, and had been as active, and I think as efficient, as Hamilton in his efforts to promote the call of the Federal Convention; had opposed, with ability and firmness, the Anti-Federal plan of a Constitution; had, as far as we have knowledge of Washington's opinions, acted in concert with him in the Convention, and was first selected by him at a later period to prepare his Farewell Address; had combined his labors with those of Hamilton and Jay to promote the ratification of the Constitution by the well-known papers of the "Federalist," and, upon the whole, had done more than any other man to secure that great object. Yet there had been no time, as before observed, when he could with propriety have been regarded as a member of the Federal party, in the sense in which Hamilton, Adams, and Jay were so regarded, or when he did not possess the confidence of the Anti-Federal party, in respect to all public questions other than those to which I have referred, and, what is still more remarkable, there was not, during the whole of this period, a single occasion on which his perfect probity and disinterestedness were not very generally felt and acknowledged.
Among the leading politicians of the epoch of which I speak, the preponderance in numbers, in wealth, in social position, and possibly in talent, was on the side of Hamilton; and when to these were added the commercial and numerous other classes interested in and dependent upon the money power then just rising into importance, an estimate may be formed of his ability to give tone and direction to the state and to society, and to cover with odium those who disapproved of his measures by charging them with personal hostility to Washington, who so well deserved the confidence and good will of all, and who enjoyed them to an extent that led John Adams, at a much later day, to stigmatize the deference paid to him as "impious homage." Hamilton wielded this great power with tremendous effect, for, although his judgment in the management of men was always deemed defective, he exerted, in the promotion of his particular objects, talents and industry which could not fail to produce great results. His activity and capacity for labor were not equaled by any of his contemporaries save Madison; his powers of persuasion and the effects of his eloquence were strikingly exemplified by his success in making Mr. Jefferson believe, on his first arrival at the seat of government from France, that the safety of the Union depended upon the passage of the bill for the assumption of the State debts, which had been at the moment rejected in the House of Representatives by a majority of one or two, and in inducing him to "hold the candle," as Jefferson afterwards described it, to a bargain by which Messrs. White and Lee, Southern members, were prevailed upon to vote for its reconsideration and passage on condition that Hamilton would get the requisite number of Northern members to vote for the establishment of the seat of the Federal Government on slave territory. Jefferson gives an interesting account of the earnestness of Hamilton's appeal to him on the subject, and of his own mortification and regret at having been made a party to so exceptionable a transaction in support of a measure he soon found the strongest reasons to condemn.[23]