those, who were attached to the Revolution was not lost when the constitution was adopted; that it was not necessary to change the constitution in order to have a government compatible with the safety, liberty and happiness of the people.

QUESTIONS.

1. What was the programme of the Antifederalists? 2. Why should not the Republicans be confused with them?

3. Enumerate the three classes of which they were composed.

4. Contrast the character of the leading Antifederalists in Virginia with those in the northern states.

5. How do you account for it?

6. Give an account of the struggle over the constitution in Massachusetts, New York and Virginia.

7. By what majorities was it carried in those states?

8. There were three other states in which the Antifederalists were a strong party. Name them.

9. In what section of the country were the Antifederalists stronger?

CHAPTER V.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

ITH the adoption of the constitution the first chap

WITH

the Federal par

when the constitution was

ter in the history of the Federalists closed. But the men who fought its first battle did not, like the Antifederalists, lay down their arms when the Classes of which victory was won. They had, indeed, con- ty was composed sisted of very different classes, and they adopted. had been influenced by very different motives. Among them were the commercial class, chiefly from New England, who wished to have the constitution adopted because it proposed to create a government with power to regulate commerce, and because it prohibited the states from making anything but gold and silver a legal tender for the payment of debts. There were also the creditor classes, who had seen with dismay the tendencies of the states to repudiate all debts, public and private, and who hoped that a government with power to collect taxes would pay its debts, and check the repudiating propensities of the states. There were the planters of the South who looked to the new system to put an end to the financial depression, from which they, in common with all the owners of property in the country, had suffered. There was also a class deserving of special mention, because of the influence which they exerted on the future of the

party, the class who had been most reluctant to separate from Great Britain-some of them, perhaps, had never been willing that the country should declare itself independent, but had pretended to be in order to save their estates from confiscation-the class who were ardent admirers of the British form of government, and who had most distrust of a government which derived its powers from the people.* Last but not least in importance, there was the small class whose hatred of anarchy made them, like Hamilton, regard a nation without a rational government, as an awful spectacle; the class whose national patriotism made them want a home, so to speak, for their feeling of nationality. These were the components of the Federal party when it won its first victory.

"The Federal Convention was the work of the commercial people in the seaport towns, of the planters of the slave-holding states, of the officers of the revolutionary army, and the property holders everywhere. And these parties could never have been strong enough of themselves to procure the general adoption of the instrument which they matured, had it not been that the open insurrection in Massachusetts, and the assemblages threatening to shut up the courts of justice in other states, had thrown the intermediate body of quiet citizens of every shade of opinion, in panic all on their side. It was under the effect of this panic that the delegates had been elected, and that they acted. Among the Federalists were to be found a large body of the patriots of the revolution, and a great number of the substantial citizens along the line of the seaboard towns and populous regions. But these could never have succeeded in effecting the establishment of the constitution had they not received the active and steady co-operation of all that was left in America of attachment to the mother country, as well as of the moneyed interest, which ever turns to strong government, as surely as the needle to the pole." John Adams' Works, vol. I, pp. 441-443.

*

Callender expressed the same opinion as to the influence of Shay's rebellion when he said that the constitution "was crammed down the gullet of America

Could they stand side by side when its next battle was fought?

The second great question which the Federalists attempted to answer was, "Shall the financial policy recommended by Alexander Hamilton be adopted?" Before this question came before the country, the Federalists had indeed accomplished work of great importance under the new constitution. They had organized the government, having provided for a Secretary of State, of War, of the Treasury, and for an Attorney-General.* They had provided temporarily for the pressing needs of the treasury by imposing a duty on imports. They had put through Congress twelve amendments, ten of which became incorporated into the constitution.

Most im

portant of all, they had passed a Judiciary Judiciary Act. Act, one section of which provided that in

all cases where the powers of the general government were called in question and the decision was unfavorable to them, an appeal might be taken from the courts of the state to those of the United States, thus making the courts of the general government the ultimate judge of its powers, and depriving the states of all power of effective resistance.

But though the discussion of these measures, and the votes upon their passage showed wide differences of opinion, there was not that organized opposition to them

These offices were filled by Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Henry Knox and Edmund Randolph, respectively.

which was necessary to make them party questions; the opponents of them had not organized themselves into a party for the accomplishment of definite ends. When it is said that they were passed by the Federalists, no more is meant than that the majorities in favor of them were composed for the most part of those who had been elected to Congress as friends of the constitution. For until Hamilton submitted his financial policy to Congress a dead issue was the only test of Federalism. Up to that time to be a Fed

Second period in the history of the Federalists.

eralist meant to prefer the constitution to the Articles of Confederation. But when men had made up their minds as to this financial policy, Federalism acquired a new meaning; it meant to be a believer in this financial policy. And the significant thing to note is that some of the men who led in the opposition to Federalism in the second period of its history had been ardent Federalists before. Why was this? Why was it that those who had agreed when the question was as to the adoption of the constitution were unable to agree when the question was as to the adoption of this financial policy? Why was it that they not only disagreed, but, as we shall see, so radically, that each party felt that the other was an enemy to the country? To understand this, we must make some attempt to understand the greatest political genius which this country has so far produced, Alexander Hamilton.

The life of this remarkable man reads almost like a