Netherlands. The other confederacy which has been mentioned has no kind of analogy to our situation.

From a review of these leagues, we find the causes of the misfortunes of those which have been dissolved to have been a dissimilarity of structure in the individual members, the facility of foreign interference, and recurrence to foreign aid. After this review of those leagues, if we consider our comparative situation, we shall find that nothing can be adduced from any of them to warrant a departure from a confederacy to a consolidation, on the principle of inefficacy in the former to secure our happiness. The causes which, with other nations, rendered leagues ineffectual and inadequate to the security and happiness of the people, do not exist here. What is the form of our State governments? They are all similar in their structure-perfectly democratic. The freedom of mankind has found an asylum here which it could find nowhere else. Freedom of conscience is enjoyed here in the fullest degree. Our States are not disturbed by a contrariety of religious opinions and other causes of quarrels which other nations have. They have no causes of internal variance. Causes of war between the States have been represented in all those terrors which splendid genius and brilliant imagination can so well depict. But, sir, I conceive they are imaginary-mere creatures of fancy.

HAMILTON

אן

AMERICAN annals there have been four statesmen, none of whom ever be. came President, yet each of whom is generally acknowledged to have been a greater man than most of those who attained to the Chief Magistracy. The four whom we have in mind were Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Daniel Webster, and John C. Calhoun. The second of these, Alexander Hamilton, was born on the island of Nevis, one of the British Antilles, in 1757. While still a child, he was taken by some of his mother's relatives to the island of St. Croix, and when, in his thirteenth year, he entered the counting-house of Nicholas Kruger in that port, he had received all the benefit that the insular schools were able to impart. Henceforth he was self-educated, until in October, 1772, he left the West Indies for New York. After spending a year at the Grammar School of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, he entered King's (now Columbia) College, in 1774, and, while still a collegian, became the captain of the first company of artillery employed in the Continental service. At the head of his artillerists he took part in the battle of Long Island and in subsequent engagements at Harlem Plains, New Brunswick, Trenton and Princeton. When the Continental Army went into winter quarters at Morristown, in January, 1777, Hamilton became Washington's private secretary, and was raised to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1780 he married a daughter of General Philip Schuyler, a distinguished soldier and statesman of the Revolution. He was present with a command at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. In a series of papers he had exposed the inherent defects of the existing Confederation, and it is now generally acknowledged that the first suggestion toward the establishment of an adequate Federal Government came from him. Although the particular plan proposed by Hamilton in the Federal Convention, which met at Philadephia in 1787, was laid aside, yet it was the spirit of the system conceived by him which then and there prevailed, and has since been a controlling principle in the administration of the Federal Government. Guizot has said of him that "there is not in the Constitution of the United States an element of order, of force and of duration, which he did not powerfully contribute to inject into it and cause to predominate." While it was still uncertain whether the Constitu tion would be adopted by the several State Conventions, Hamilton, in conjunc tion with James Madison and John Jay, wrote "The Federalist," to recommend the proposed national organic law as the best obtainable under the circumstances.

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It was mainly Hamilton who, at the New York State Convention, called for the purpose of ratifying the Federal Constitution, transformed a disheartened minority into a triumphant majority. When Washington formed his first Cabinet, he invited Hamilton to become Secretary of the Treasury, and it was the latter who accomplished the payment of the Federal and State debts. Although offered the position of Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Hamilton preferred to remain at the New York bar, and, after his resignation of the office of Secretary of the Treasury, he became the unrivalled chief of his profession in his adopted State. He deemed it a patriotic duty to oppose the re-election of John Adams to the Presidency, and afterward to defeat the personal ambition of Aaron Burr, who, having received in 1800 a number of electoral votes equal to those cast for Thomas Jefferson, tried to become President of the United States. His relentless opposition to the Burr family finally brought about a duel, which took place on July 11, 1804, and in which he was mortally wounded. He died on the following day in the forty-seventh year of his age.

ON THE EXPEDIENCY OF ADOPTING THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION

CONVENTION OF NEW YORK, JUNE 24, 1788

AM persuaded, Mr. Chairman, that I in my turn shall be indulged, in addressing the committee. We all, in equal sincerity, profess to be anxious for the establishment of a republican government, on a safe and solid basis. It is the object of the wishes of every honest man in the United States, and I presume that I shall not be disbelieved, when I declare, that it is an object of all others the nearest and most dear to my own heart. The means of accomplishing this great purpose become the most important study which can interest mankind. It is our duty to examine all those means with peculiar attention, and to choose the best and most effectual. It is our duty to draw from nature, from reason, from examples, the best principles of policy, and to pursue and apply them in the formation of our government. We should contemplate and compare the

systems, which, in this examination, come under our view; distinguish, with a careful eye, the defects and excellencies of each, and, discarding the former, incorporate the latter, as far as circumstances will admit, into our Constitution. If we pursue a different course and neglect this duty, we shall probably disappoint the expectations of our country and of the world.

In the commencement of a revolution, which received its birth from the usurpations of tyranny, nothing was more natural than that the public mind should be influenced by an extreme spirit of jealousy. To resist these encroachments, and to nourish this spirit, was the great object of all our public and private institutions. The zeal for liberty became predominant and excessive. In forming our Confederation, this passion alone seemed to actuate us, and w● appear to have had no other view than to secure ourselves from despotism. The object certainly was a valuable one, and deserved our utmost attention. But, sir, there is another object equally important, and which our enthusiasm rendered us little capable of regarding: I mean a principle of strength and stability in the organization of our govern ment, and vigor in its operations. This purpose can never be accomplished but by the establishment of some select body, formed peculiarly upon this principle. There are few positions more demonstrable than that there should be in every republic some permanent body to correct the prejudices, check the intemperate passions, and regulate the fluctuations of a popular assembly. It is evident that a body instituted for these purposes must be so formed as to exclude as much as possible from its own character those infirmities and that mutability which it is designed to remedy. It is therefore necessary that it should be

small, that it should hold its authority during a considerable period, and that it should have such an independence in the exercise of its powers as will divest it as much as possible of local prejudices. It should be so formed as to be the centre of political knowledge, to pursue always a steady line of conduct, and to reduce every irregular propensity to system. Without this establishment, we may make experiments without end, but shall never have an efficient government.

It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity; but it is equally unquestionable, that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest errors by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise. That branch of administration especially, which involves our political relations with foreign States, a community will ever be incompetent to. These truths are not often held up in public assemblies, but they cannot be unknown to any who hear me. From these principles it follows, that there ought to be two distinct bodies in our government: one, which shall be immediately constituted by and peculiarly represent the people, and possess all the popular features; another, formed upon the principle and for the purposes before explained. Such considerations as these induced the Convention who formed your State Constitution, to institute a Senate upon the present plan. The history of ancient and modern republics had taught them, that many of the evils which these republics had suffered, arose from the want of a certain balance and mutual control indispensable to a wise administration; they were convinced that