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Impair the relations or the vigor of any part, and dis- CHAP. ease enters into the veins of the whole. That there may be life in the whole, there must be healthy life 1787. in every part. The United States are the states in union; these are so inwrought into the constitution that the one cannot perish without the other.

Is it asked who is the sovereign of the United States? The words "sovereign" and "subjects" are unknown to the constitution. There is no place for princes with unlimited power, or conquering cities, or feudal chiefs, or privileged aristocracies, ruling absolutely with their correlative vassals or subjects.

The people of the United States have declared in their constitution that the law alone is supreme; and have defined that supreme law. Is it asked who are the people of the United States that instituted the "general government"? The federal convention and the constitution answer, that it is the concurring people of the several states. The constitution is constantly on its guard against permitting the action of the aggregate mass as a unit, lest the whole people, once accustomed to acting together as an individual, might forget the existence of the states, and the states now in union succumb to centralization and absolutism. The people of the states demanded a federal convention to form the constitution; the congress of the confederation, voting by states, authorized that federal convention; the federal convention, voting likewise by states, made the constitution; at the advice of the federal convention the federal congress referred that constitution severally to the people of each state; and by their united voice taken

CHAP. severally it was made the binding form of governI. ment. The constitution, as it owes its life to the 1787. concurrent act of the people of the several states,

permits no method of amending itself except by the several consent of the people of the states; and within the constitution itself, the president, the only officer who has an equal relation to every state in the union, is elected not by the aggregate people of all the states, but by the people of the several states according to the number of votes allotted to each of them.

Finally, there is one more great and happy fea ture in the constitution. Rome, in annexing the cities around itself, had not given them equal influence with itself in proportion to their wealth and numbers, and consequently there remained a cause of dissatisfaction never healed. America has provided for admission of new states upon equal terms with the old ones.

For Europe, there remained the sad necessity of revolution. For America, the gates of revolution are shut and barred and bolted down, never again to be thrown open; for it has found a legal and a peaceful way to introduce every amelioration. Peace and intercitizenship and perfect domestic free trade are to know no end. The constitution is to the American people a possession for all ages; it creates an indissoluble union of imperishable states.

The federal republic will carry tranquillity, and freedom, and order throughout its vast domain. Will it, within less than a century, extend its limits to the capes of Florida, to the mouth of the Mississippi, to the region beyond the Mississippi, to California, to

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Oregon, to San Juan? Will it show all the Spanish CHAP. colonies how to transform themselves into independent republics stretching along the Pacific till they 1787. turn Cape Horn? Will it be an example to France, teaching its great benefactor how to gain free institutions? Will it assist the liberal statesmen of the country from which it broke away to bring parlia ment more nearly to a representation of the people? Will it assist 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 Eng land 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.

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CHAPTER II.

THE LINGERING STATES.

1787-1789.

СНАР. WHEN the constitution was referred to the states Hamilton revived a long cherished plan, and, obtain1787. ing 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 fifty-one.' They form a work of enduring interest,

1 Mr. Madison's list of the au- No. 48, J. M. No. 49, J. M. thors of The Federalist:

Number 1 by A. H.

No. 3, J. J.
No. 6, A. H.
No. 9, A. H.
No. 12, A. H.
No. 15, A. H.
No. 18, J. M.
No. 21, A. H.
No. 24, A. H.

No. 50, J. M.

No. 51, J. M.

No. 52, J. M.

No. 53, J. M.

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No. 57, J. M.

No. 58, J. M.

No. 59, A. HI.

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No. 4, J. J. No. 5, J. J.
No. 7, A. H. No. 8, A. H.
No. 10, J. M. No. 11, A. H.
No. 13, A. H. No. 14, J. M.
No. 16, A. H. No. 17, A. H.
No. 19, J. M. No. 20, J. M.
No. 22, A. H. No. 23, A. H.
No. 25, A. II. No. 26, A. H.
No. 27, A. H. No. 28, A. H. No. 29, A. H.
No. 30, A. H. No. 31, A. H. No. 32, A. H.
No. 33, A. H. No. 34, A. H. No. 35, A. H.
No. 36, A. H. No. 37, J. M. No. 38, J. M.
No. 39, J. M. No. 40, J. M. No. 41, J. M.
No. 42, J. M. No. 43, J. M. No. 44, J. M.
No. 45, J. M. No. 46, J. M. No. 47, J. M.

No. 60, A. H. No. 61, A. H.
No. 63, J. M. No. 64, J. J.
No. 66, A. H. No. 67, A. H. No. 68, A. H.
No. 69, A. H. No. 70, A. H. No. 71, A. H.
No. 72, A. H. No. 73, A. H. No. 74, A. H.
No. 75, A. H. No. 76, A. H. No. 77, A. H.
No. 78, A. H. No. 79, 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. H. had drawn up something on the subjects of this (No. 18) and

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because they are the earliest commentary on the new CHAP. experiment of mankind in establishing a republican government for a country of boundless dimensions; 1787. 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 confedera- 175 8. tion; 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. Him. Jan. self a friend to the protection of manufactures, he condemned "exorbitant duties on imported articles,'

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 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. H., 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 enquiring friend, long before it was known or supposed

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(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.

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