as to foreign concerns, and keep us distinct in domestic ones, gives the outline of the proper division of powers between the general and particular Governments. But, to enable the Federal head to exercise the powers, given it, to best advantage, it should be organized, as the particu lar ones are, into Legislative, Executive and Judiciary. The first and last are already separated. The second should be. When last with Congress, I often proposed to members to do this, by making of the Committee of the States an Executive Committee, during the recess of Congress; and, during its session, to appoint a committee to receive and despatch all Executive business, so that Congress itself should meddle only with what should be Legislative. But I question if any Congress (much less all successively) can have self-denial enough to go through with this distribution. The distribution, then, should be imposed on them."

This, as far as I have been able to discover, after no inconsiderable research, is the first embodied conception of the general outline of those proper changes of the old Constitution or Articles of Confederation, which were subsequently, as we shall see, actually and in fact, ingrafted on the old system of Confederations; and which makes the most marked difference between ours, and all other like systems. Of all the Statesmen in this country, none ever excelled Mr. Jefferson in grasp of political ideas, and a thorough understanding of the principles of human Government.

This is a brief, but unquestionable, history of the complaints under the old system. The great leading object, at the time, with Congress, was to get additional power to regulate trade, and to raise revenue directly by law,

* Jefferson's Complete Works, vol. ii, p. 66.