became, as we shall see the fathers of the two great opposing political parties which have, down to the present time, divided the people of the United States.

Alexander Hamilton had no faith in the capacity of the people for self-government. He believed, in great sincerity, that they must be governed for their own good, in spite of themselves. Early bred to arms, and knowing the importance of supreme authority in military affairs, he had formed an exaggerated estimate of the importance of executive authority in civil administration. He was, in fact, a sincere and avowed monarchist. From the first, he had hoped that a centralized general Government would be established, and had no confidence in the success of the federative one that was established by the Constitution of the United States; he therefore considered the Constitution as only a temporary bond of union, a mere transitional form in the progress of events towards a centralized Government; and believed, with perfect sincerity, that it was the duty of statesmen, in administering the Government, to interpolate into the Constitution, by construction, such powers as would gradually build up a central authority, in which the reserved sovereignty of the States would be ignored and finally abolished. With this political faith honestly entertained, for he belonged to the school of Machiavelli,-he, as the head of the Treasury department, strove at once to begirt and strengthen the new

Government with the moneyed power of the country organized under the control of the Federal executive. He thought that the people could only be governed by corruption, as it is called in politics, or self-interest, as it is called in philosophy. He repudiated ideas altogether in politics as unpractical and absurd. Governing, therefore, solely by state craft, he succeeded in inducing Congress to establish a funded system and a national bank. These were the means by which he began the work of centralization.

The latitudinarian construction of the Constitution, by which Hamilton persuaded Congress to establish a national bank, was opposed by a doctrine of strict construction denying the power to establish a bank, put forth at the time by Jefferson, as Secretary of State, and enforced by Madison in the House of Representatives by irrefutable argument. General Washington yielded, rather than acceded, to the view of Hamilton. It was not Hamilton's imperial policy that influenced Washington, but the expediency of the juncture of a new Government founded on the ruins of one that had been declared perpetual, and yet had perished without any attempt to uphold it.

With the establishment of the bank, in 1791, the two old parties reappeared in the politics of the country-the Federal party with its old name, and the anti-Federal party with the name Republican. Hamilton was the leader of the first, and Jefferson was the leader of the last.

Under the countenance of Washington, the Federal party grew so strong that it elected as his successor to the Presidency John Adams, who was only a little less of a monarchist than Hamilton. Such was the genius of Hamilton and his rational control over the minds of the leading men of the Federal party, that, though not of the Cabinet of Adams, he controlled. his administration, making the Federal party almost ignore him. Hamilton was the soul of his party. The leading men thought his thoughts and spoke his words, and the very acts of Congress were his. To carry out his centralizing policy of making everything yield to Federal authority, the Alien and Sedition laws were passed by Congress, which struck at personal freedom of speech. From the passage of these laws began the struggle of the States against Federal usurpation, under color of construing the Constitution. The State of Virginia, by a series of resolutions passed by her Legislature in 1798, condemning the Alien and Sedition laws, called on the other States to co-operate with her in arresting Federal usurpation. These resolutions were prepared by Madison, who was a member of the Legislature. And when the other States sent in answers hostile to the resolutions, as most of them did, he, as the chairman of a committee, made a report of extraordinary ability, defining the character of the Government which had been established by the Constitution, of which he was the chief architect. By

these resolutions and this report, the doctrine of Staterights was declared. It was proclaimed that ours is a Government of divided powers, and that the States are sovereign in their sphere; and that it is their right and their duty to interpose between the Federal Government and a violated Constitution. Kentucky passed similar resolutions drawn by Jefferson.

Taking the resolutions of Virginia and of Kentucky as their political creed, the Republican party organized itself amidst the dissatisfaction created by the Alien and Sedition laws, and, in 1800, elected Jefferson President in opposition to Adams. The landed interest everywhere was for the Republican or Staterights party. The mercantile and moneyed power were with the Federal or centralizing party. Jefferson was re-elected in 1804. Jefferson was a man of the most commanding genius, and was at the same time a great political manager; so that he organized a party held together by a great principle underlying the Constitution, and determining the character of the polity embodied in it.

The Republican party was so strong as to defy all opposition. It elected Madison President in 1808, and re-elected him in 1812. So, too, in a regular line of Republican presidents, it elected Monroe President in 1816, and re-elected him in 1820. The Federal party had ceased to influence the Federal administration at all; and had, in fact, become so odious to the

country, because of its course in the War of 1812, that it was almost extinguished.

It was fortunate for the success of our institutions, that the Government fell so soon into the hands of the strict constructionists, and continued in their hands for twenty-four years. For, notwithstanding Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe were strict constructionists, the Federal Government in its working, during their administrations, encroached upon the reserved rights of the States. Jefferson, without any constitutional authority, as he admitted, purchased Louisiana, justifying it upon State necessity. And Madison, though he had shown by conclusive argument, on the floor of Congress, that the Federal Government had no power to charter a bank, yet yielded to the mischief of the paper currency issued by the State banks during the War of 1812, and agreed to charter another to correct the mischief, as he supposed it would. Madison can only be justified upon the principle of interpretation of the Federal party, which construes the Constitution by facts and considerations extrinsic to the Constitution. The words "necessary and proper" which are applied by the Constitution to the merely incidental powers which are given by an express grant like the substantive powers, in order to make the substantive powers a limitation upon the incidental powers, are made to vary in their import by the exigencies of Government which are brought about by the abuses