ment, and was employing the same to extend the principles of aristocracy and monarchy. These fears were grounded upon his well-known opposition to the doctrine of State Sovereignty, his yearning for national supremacy, his energy in securing by construction what had been lost in stipulation, and his profuse employment of the doctrine of implied powers. His attitude upon assumption, the Bank, and commerce, was clearly discerned by friend and foe. His insistence upon complete control of taxation and revenues, and the strong hand with which that control was to be effected, had the same meaning. His success in reorganizing the army and his plea for a strong navy for defense as well as for commerce, taught the same lessons. His advice upon a neutral position toward France and England, his leaning in his sympathies to the English, rather than to the French system of government, convinced his opponents that he was monarchical in his nature and aspirations. His policy of territorial expansion, and his conception of American ascendancy in the western world, the former of which was executed by Jefferson, and the latter by Monroe, demonstrated his imperial ambitions. His conception of an energetic government did not cease with his term of office. In 1799 he outlined his views to the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He desired to strengthen centralization in the interest of power in the government, by an enlargement of the national Judiciary. He recommended a policy of internal improvement, a revenue system which would supply abundant funds, a stronger and more efficient army and navy, an enlargement of national authority, a lessening of State rights and an enactment and enforcement of effective Alien and Sedition Laws.

Mark of great weakness. In the revolution of 1800, which witnessed the Hamiltonian administration under Adams superseded by the Jeffersonian, Hamilton saw, as he thought, an end to good government. His petulance broke out in a letter to Morris as follows:

Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself; and contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know from the beginning, I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes, for my reward. What can I do better than to withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me.

What was he, politically? We may now raise the question, Was Hamilton a monarchist? The testimony of his political enemies answers in the affirmative. What will be the verdict of history? He had a great admiration for the English government. He pronounced it the best in existence. He shuddered at the excess of French republicanism which sent the King to the block. He fondly cherished strength in the nation and deplored too much of it in the State. He worshiped at the shrine of authority and order, rather than at that of liberty and freedom. He declared the establishment of justice and the security of freedom to be the ends of government. These ends can be sought successfully only in the government which has authority. He frequently referred to the value of liberty, but never confused it with license. His insistence was ever for the establishment of a republic, and he bitterly resented the charge of desiring to create a monarchy. He proposed to be guided by the British constitution in seeking the elements of stability and permanency which a Republican form demands, and in nothing more. So much from his own testimony. His plan submitted to the convention has been taken as monarchical in spirit. This does not necessarily follow. He persistently asserted that the government must rest on the consent of the people; that with the loss of that principle, liberty would be lost. It must appear to all that his ambition to establish a government, sovereign in its nature and application, energetic in its administration, potent in its influence, stable in its character at home and abroad, whose decrees were to be supreme throughout the land, and re

spected by every State and every citizen, led him to utter doctrines of centralization which were inclined toward monarchy, as viewed by his opponents. It must also appear that it is unfair to judge a political philosophy by fugitive statements made in the heat of controversy. If upon such testimony Hamilton is proved a monarchist, upon the same grounds Jefferson is proved an anarchist. While Jefferson's love of liberty led him to utter extravagances, so Hamilton's regard for order induced him to commit a like blunder in the opposite direction.

Jefferson and Hamilton. All parties must concede to Jefferson invaluable service in emphasizing the value of local self-government and the liberty of the individual, and they must concede to Hamilton no less valuable service in the inauguration of the prerogatives of central authority and order in the nation. To Jefferson was allotted a ripe old age, during which he saw the Hamiltonian theory put into practise by his own adherents, as well as by himself, in numerous cases. Had Hamilton been given the years allotted to the average man, he would have observed the government, which his genius had done most to call into existence, administered by his opponents for forty years, and under that administration developed to such effectiveness as he could scarcely have hoped for even under his own personal direction.

CHAPTER V

JOHN MARSHALL, THE RIGHT ARM OF NATIONALITY

John Marshall with Washington. Among the suffering soldiers in that terrible winter at Valley Forge might have been seen a slight and slender figure, with fair countenance and a stooped posture, frequenting the headquarters of his chief and shivering with cold against which his scanty clothing was little protection. Here, as in the case of another, yet more brilliant, if less judicial, he received the object lessons on the imbecility of a government without coercive powers. The years of war and loose confederation were as significant to him as to Washington and when the Federal Convention had completed its work, in which John Marshall had no part, and had sent it to the people of the several States to ratify or reject, no man in the nation except Washington and his brilliant secretary so clearly recognized the necessity of the adoption of the Constitution as this tall Virginian who was destined to become America's greatest chief justice. Both by nature and training, his was a judicial mind; a man of few words but incisive expression. As was said of him by a contemporary, "He possesses one original and almost supernatural faculty; the faculty of developing a subject by a single glance of the mind and detecting at once the very point on which every controversy depends. No matter what the question; though ten times more knotty than the gnarled oak, the lightning of heaven is not more rapid or more resistless than his astonishing penetration." He was one of the trio who received his legal

training from George Wythe, and it is no disparagement to either Jefferson or Madison to assert that Marshall was the greatest law student ever trained by the great chancellor.

Early public service. After a brief career as a soldier at the head of the Virginia "Minute Men," a promising career at the Bar just opening, which in a decade had placed him at the top, he entered the legislature of his State in 1782 where he labored for six years. This period, which is significantly

JOHN MARSHALL

denominated the "crit

ical period" in American history, prepared him to render his country his really first great service in the State convention which was called to act upon the Federal Constitution.

His service in the ratifying convention. There were at least six men who in history stand out pre-eminently as leaders of two schools of political

theory at this time. At the head of the one stood Jefferson. With him stood Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams. Two were from the "Old Dominion," and one from Massachusetts. At the head of the other school stood Hamilton. With him stood James Madison and John Marshall. Two were from the "Old Dominion," and one from New York. While Madison was better known and was depended upon most for the outcome of the Virginia conduct toward the new Constitution, and while it is conceded on all hands that his influence was superior to that of any other man in the convention, it must also be conceded that Patrick