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prohibited.

Though the bill was strongly opposed, first in the House of Representatives by Madison, and afterwards in the cabinet by Jefferson and Randolph, it became a law.

We remember that in the Federal Convention Hamilton made an elaborate argument for a constitution providing for an aristocratic republic and a central government, to which the governments of the states were to be

Hamilton's speech in the Convention

and his financial policy.

completely subordinated. It is interesting

to note the relations between these ideas and his financial policy. The payment of the domestic debts to those who held certificates of debt, the assumption of state debts, the incorporation of the national bank, did not make the government an aristocratic republic. But they did give to many of the wealthy and intelligent men of the country a direct pecuniary interest in the support of the government. The law imposing an excise on whisky did not subordinate the state governments to the general government. But it gave to thoughtful men a striking object lesson of the power of the new government. made them realize that the new government had power to collect taxes as well as levy them, and that the claim of state sovereignty was but the boast of a child who had not measured himself with the world. The implied powers vindicated for the government by Hamilton in the incorporation of the national bank did not subordinate the governments of the states to that of the United States.

It

But the incorporation of the national bank did show that the powers of the general government were capable of indefinite expansion. When we realize how enormously the powers of the general government have in fact been increased, through the doctrine of implied powers,* we have no reason to be surprised that the opponents of Hamilton regarded the doctrine as tending to put the powers of the states at the mercy of the general government.

QUESTIONS.

1. What was the leading trait in Hamilton's character? 2. What were the objects of his financial policy?

3. What, according to Professor Sumner, was the great work that went to the making of the nation at the end of the last century?

4. What were the various measures of Hamilton's financial

policy?

tion?

5. Why, in your opinion, did Madison favor discrimina

6. What political object had Hamilton in recommending assumption, and why was it so violently opposed?

7. By what means was the measure finally carried?

8. It is often said that Madison's opposition to Hamilton was due to Jefferson's influence; does this chapter throw any light on that, and if so, what?

9. What was Hamilton's object in recommending a national bank? An excise?

10. State the relation between Hamilton's financial policy and his speech in the Convention?

*See Woodrow Wilson's Congressional Government, pp. 21-22.

A

CHAPTER VIII.

THOMAS JEFFerson.

LTHOUGH Washington's cabinet consisted of but four men, no other cabinet in American history has contained so large a number of men of the first order of ability; for Hamilton was not the only remarkable man in it. The Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, was also a political genius, and, like Hamilton, he impressed his individuality so powerfully upon the institutions of the country that his personality is a question of the first importance to the student of our history.

Contrast be

and Jefferson.

It would be difficult to find two men more perfectly devoted to what they conceived the welfare tween Hamilton of the country, and at the same time more unlike than Hamilton and Jefferson. The leading trait of Hamilton, we have seen, was his love of justice, stability and order; the leading trait of Jefferson was his love of liberty and his belief in its practicability to a greater extent and on a larger scale than the world had ever seen. The one thought the supreme need of society was a government strong enough to do justice and preserve order; the other regarded liberty, and a government too weak to interfere with it, as the supreme political good. The one regarded anarchy as the greatest enemy of society; the other saw in tyranny its greatest foe.

Hamilton was also devoted to liberty. But he thought it impossible unless it was under the protection of a strong government. Jefferson was also a friend to stability, but he believed that the intelligent self-interest of men was a sufficient guarantee of it. The one thought it better to risk the tyranny of a strong central government than to put order and stability in jeopardy. The other would risk the anarchical tendencies of a weak central government rather than endanger liberty.

Almost every act of Jefferson's public life may be traced, more or less directly, to his love of Influence of

liberty. His bills in the Virginia House of

Burgesses to abolish the laws of entail and

Jefferson's love

of liberty upon his political career.

primogeniture, and to provide for the gradual emancipation of slaves; his efforts in Congress to have slavery prohibited in all the territories of the United States, anticipating by seventy years the platform upon which the present Republican party first stood, had their origin in this characteristic. As soon, therefore, as Jefferson understood the trend of Hamilton's financial policy, when he saw how it tended to strengthen the central government, it was impossible for him not to oppose it.

He did indeed, as we have seen, lend his influence to the passage of one of its measures, but that

was because he did not understand its ten

dencies. When he arrived in March, 1790,

Why he gave
his influence for
assumption.

at the seat of government, and entered upon the duties of his office, the laws providing for the payment of the

foreign and domestic debts had already passed, and Congress was angrily debating the bill for assumption. He heard on all sides threats of dissolution, and rightly came to the conclusion that the Union was in danger. So while he was of the opinion, as he said, "that Congress should always prefer letting the states raise money in their own way," when it could be done, yet in that instance he saw "the necessity of yielding to the cries of the creditors in certain parts of the country for the sake of union," and "to save us from the greatest of all calamities, the total extinction of our credit in Europe." Accordingly, he consented to use his influence for assumption in consideration of the location of the capital on the Potomac.

But when he came to see the trend of Hamilton's financial policy, he regretted his act as he never did any other in his political career. By the time the whole country began to see the outlines of Hamilton's policy, it provoked the antagonism of a well organized political party, and Jefferson was its leader. But before stating its creed, it is desirable to summarize the arguments presented by Hamilton and Jefferson, the one for, the other against, the constitutionality of the bill providing for a national bank.

When the bill was before the House of Representatives, Madison made a strong speech in opposition to it on the ground that it was unconstitutional. ality of the bill Impressed by these arguments, when the to incorporate bill was submitted to him, Washington

His opinion of the constitution

a bank.

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