In the country benefactor how to gain free institutions? from which it broke away will it assist the liberal statesmen to bring parliament more nearly to a representation of the people? Will it help the birthplace of the reformation to gather together its scattered members and become once more an empire, with a government so entirely the child of the nation that it shall have but one hereditary functionary, with a federal council or senate representing the several states, and a house elected directly by universal suffrage? Will it teach England herself how to give peace to her groups of colonies, her greatest achievement, by establishing for them a federal republican dominion, in one continent at least if not in more? And will America send manumitted dark men home to their native continent, to introduce there an independent republic and missions that may help to civilize the races of Africa? The philosophy of the people of the United States was neither that of optimism nor of despair. Believing in the justice of "the Great Governor of the world," and conscious of their own honest zeal in the cause of freedom and mankind, they looked with astonishment at their present success and at the future with unclouded hope. CHAPTER II. THE LINGERING STATES. 1787 TO 2 AUGUST 1788. WHEN the constitution was referred to the states Hamilton revived a long-cherished plan, and, obtaining the aid of Jay and Madison, issued papers which he called The Federalist, to prepare all the states and the people for accepting the determinations of the federal convention. Of its eighty-five numbers, Jay wrote five, Madison twenty-nine, and Hamilton fiftyone.* They form a work of enduring interest, because they are Mr. Madison's list of the authors of The Federalist: No. 18, J. M. No. 24, A. H. No. 30, A. H. No. 36, A. H. No. 42, J. M. No. 48, J. M. No. 54, J. M. No. 60, A. H. No. 66, A. H. No. 13, A. H. No. 14, J. M. No. 4, J. J. No. 5, J. J. No. 20, J. M. No. 26, A. H. No. 74, A. H. No. 15, A. H. No. 22, A. H. No. 23, A. H. No. 80, A. H., and to the end. Note in Mr. Madison's own hand. "No. 18 is attributed to Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Madison jointly. A. II. had drawn up something on the subjects of this (No. 18) and the two next Nos. (19 and 20). On finding that J. M. was engaged in them with larger materials, and with a view to a more precise delineation, he put what he had written into the hands of J. M. It is possible, though not recollected, that something in the draught may have been incorporated into the numbers as printed. But it was certainly not of a nature or amount to affect the impression left on the mind of the earliest commentary on the new experiment of mankind in establishing a republican government for a country of boundless dimensions; and were written by Madison, who was the chief author of the constitution, and Hamilton, who took part in its inception and progress. Hamilton dwelt on the defects of the confederation; the praiseworthy energy of the new federal government; its relations to the public defence; to the functions of the executive; to the judicial department, to the treasury; and to commerce. Himself a friend to the protection of manufactures, he condemned "exorbitant duties on imported articles," because they "beget smuggling," are "always prejudicial to the fair trader, and eventually to the revenue itself;" tend to render "other classes of the community tributary in an improper degree to the manufacturing classes," and to "give them a premature monopoly of the markets;" to "force industry out of its most natural channels," and to "oppress the merchant." * Madison commented with severe wisdom on its plan; its conformity to republican principles; its powers; its relation to slavery and the slave-trade; its mediating office between the union and the states; its tripartite separation of the depart J. M., from whose pen the papers went to the press, that they were of the class written by him. As the historical materials of A. II., as far as they went, were doubtless similar, or the same with those provided by J. M., and as a like application of them probably occurred to both, an impression might be left on the mind of A. H. that the Nos. in question were written jointly. These remarks are made as well to account for a statement to that effect, if made by A. H., as in justice to J. M., who, always regarding them in a different light, had so stated them to an inquiring friend, long before it was known or supposed that a different impression existed anywhere. (Signed) J. M." There exists no list of the authors of The Federalist by the hand of Hamilton. There exists no authentic copy of any list that may have been made by Hamilton. It is a great wrong to Hamilton's memory to insist that he claimed the authorship of papers which were written for him at his request by another, and which the completest evidence proves that he could not have written. The list of the authors of the several papers given above rests on the written authority of Madison. From this list Madison has never been known to vary in the slightest degree. The correctness of his statement is substantiated beyond room for a cavil by various evidence. Meeting an assertion that Madison in some paper in the department of state had changed one figure in his list, I requested a former secretary of state to order a search to be made for it. A search was made, and no such paper was found. *The Federalist, xxxv. ments; and its mode of constructing the house of representatives. Hamilton began the work by saying that a wrong decision would not only be "the dismemberment of the union," but "the general misfortune of mankind;" he closed with the words: "A nation without a national government is an awful spectacle. The establishment of a constitution, in time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent of a whole people, is a prodigy, to the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety." During the time in which the constitution was in jeopardy Hamilton and Madison cherished for each other intimate and affectionate relations, differing in temperament, but one in purpose and in action. To the day of their death they both were loyally devoted to the cause of union. New York, having the most convenient harbor for worldwide commerce, rivers flowing directly to the sea, to Delaware bay, to the Chesapeake, to the Mississippi, and to the watercourse of the St. Lawrence, and having the easiest line of communication from the ocean to the great West, needed, more than any other state, an efficient general government; and yet of the thirteen it was the most stubborn in opposition. More than half the goods consumed in Connecticut, in New Jersey, in Vermont, and the western parts of Massachusetts, were bought within its limits and paid an impost for its use. ‡ During the war it agreed to give congress power to collect a five per-cent impost; as soon as it regained possession of the city it preferred to appropriate the revenue to its own purposes; and, as a consequence, the constitution called forth in New York the fiercest resistance that selfish interests could organize. To meet the influence of The Federalist, the republicans published inflammatory tracts, and circulated large editions of the Letters from the Federal Farmer by Richard Henry Lee. They named themselves federal republicans. Their electioneering centre was the New York custom-house, then an institution of the state with John Lamb as collector. After the fashion of the days of danger they formed a committee of correspondence and sought connections throughout the land. *The Federalist, i. + The Federalist, lxxxv. Williamson to Iredell, 7 July 1788. McRee's Iredell, ii., 227, 228. They sent their own emissaries to attend the proceedings of the Massachusetts convention, and, if possible, to frustrate its acceptance of the union. Their letters received answers from Lowndes, from Henry and Grayson, from Atherton of New Hampshire, and from Richard Henry Lee, who told them that "the constitution was an elective despotism." At the regular meeting of the legislature in January 1788, Clinton recommended the encouragement of commerce and of manufactures, but sent in the proceedings of the federal convention without remark.* All others remaining silent for twenty days, Egbert Benson, on the last day of January, proposed a state convention in the precise mode recommended by congress. Schoonmaker offered a preamble, condemning the federal convention for having exceeded its powers. Benson conducted the debate with rare ability, and the amended preamble gained but twenty-five votes against twenty-seven. In the senate the motion to postpone the question mustered but nine votes against ten. The convention was ordered; but in its choice the constitutional qualifications of electors were thrust aside, and every free male citizen of twenty-one years of age, though he had been a resident but for a day, might be a voter and be voted for. According to the wish of the Virginia opposition, the time for the meeting of the convention was delayed till the seventeenth of June. Of its sixty-five members, more than two thirds were enemies to the constitution.† But it was found that the state was divided geographically. The seat of opposition was in Ulster county, the home of Governor Clinton, and it extended to the counties above it. The southern counties. on the Hudson river and on Long Island, and the city of New York, were so unanimously for union as to encourage the rumor that they would at all events adhere to it. Clinton himself began to think it absolutely necessary that the state should in some form secure a representation under the new constitution. The greater number of his friends were, like him, averse to its total rejection; but, while some were willing to be content with recommendatory amendments, and others with explanatory ones, to settle doubtful constructions, the majority Hamilton, i., 454. *Ind. Gazetteer, 19 January 1788. |