facturers, private creditors, and holders of public securities loomed large among the advocates of the new system, while the opposition came chiefly from the small farmers behind the seaboard, especially from the men who, in earlier years, had demanded paper money and other apparatus for easing the strain of their debts. In favor of the Constitution, wrote General Knox to Washington from Massachusetts. on January 12, 1788, was "the commercial part of the state to which are added all the men of considerable property, the clergy, the lawyers—including all the judges of all the courts, and all the officers of the late army, and also the neighborhood of all great towns. . . . This party are for vigorous government, perhaps many of them would have been still more pleased with the new Constitution had it been more analogous to the British Constitution." In the opposition, General Knox massed the "Insurgents or their favorers, the great majority of whom are for the annihilation of debts public and private."

During the battle over ratification, advocates on both sides produced a large and, in the main, illuminating literature on the science of human government, a literature reminiscent of the grand style of the Revolution. Though time has sunk most of it into oblivion, especially the arguments of the defeated party, the noblest pieces of defense, namely, the letters to the press written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay in support of the Constitution, were rescued from the dust and given immortality under the name of The Federalist.

In the tenth number of this great series, Madison, who has been justly called the "father of the Constitution" and certainly may be regarded as a spokesman of the men who signed it, made a cogent appeal for ratification on practical grounds: "The first object of government" is the protection of "the diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate." After enumerating the chief classes of property holders which spring up inevitably under such protection in modern society, Madison pro

ceeded to show that "the regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation and involves the spirit of party and faction in the ordinary operations of the government."

Then Madison explained how political strife involved economic concerns at every turn: "The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors and those who are debtors fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations and divide them into different classes actuated by different sentiments and views. . . . From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of society into different interests and parties."

Of necessity, according to Madison's logic, legislatures reflect these interests. "What," he asks, "are the different classes of legislators but advocates and parties to the causes which they determine?" For this there is no help. "The causes of factions cannot be removed," and "we know from experience that neither moral nor religious motives can be relied upon as an adequate control." Since that is true, there arises a grave danger, namely, the danger that certain groups, particularly the propertyless masses, may fuse into an overbearing majority and sacrifice to its will the interests of the minority. Given this peril, it followed that a fundamental problem before the Philadelphia convention had been to "secure the public good and private rights against the danger of such a faction and at the same time preserve the spirit and form of popular government." And the solution offered was in the check and balance system

which refined and enlarged public views "by passing them through the medium of a chosen body of citizens." This, in the language of a leading Father, was the spirit of the new Constitution-the substance of a powerful appeal to all practical men of affairs.

By argument, by negotiation, and by the weight of personality the friends of the proposed revolution triumphed in the end. On June 21, 1788, the ninth state, New Hampshire, ratified the Constitution and the new system could then go into effect as between the parties that had sealed the contract. Within a few weeks, Virginia and New York, aware that the die had already been cast, gave their reluctant consent. With victory thus doubly assured, the federalists could ignore the smoldering anger of the opposition that had proposed many amendments and could laugh at the solemn resolve of New York calling for another national assembly to modify the Constitution. Leaving North Carolina and Rhode Island still outside the fold unconvinced of its advantages, the old Congress made ready to disband by calling elections for the choice of men to constitute the personnel of the new government.

T

CHAPTER VIII

The Rise of National Parties

HE controversy over the ratification of the federal
Constitution had not died away when the country

was summoned to take part in a contest over the election of men to direct the new government. In this struggle the disputants appealed to the passions that had been invoked in the previous battle, but they now encountered among the people an astonishing indifference. Senators and presidential electors were chosen by the state legislators without arousing any popular uproar. There were, it is true, lively skirmishes in a few congressional districts, but, as a rule, Representatives were returned by a handful of voters. In Maryland and Massachusetts, for example, not more than one-sixth of the adult males took part in the balloting for members of the lower house. As many times before in history, an informed and active minority managed the play.

When the results of the poll were all in and the new government was organized, it was patent to everyone that the men who had made the recent constitutional revolution

were carrying on the work they had begun in 1787. Washington, the chairman of the constitutional convention, was unanimously chosen President of the United States. Of the twenty-four Senators in the first Congress under the Constitution, eleven had helped to draft "the new charter of liberty." In the House of Representatives was a strong contingent from the body of framers and ratifiers, with the "father of the Constitution," James Madison, in the foreground. The Ark of the Covenant was evidently in the house of its friends; or, to put the matter in another way, the machinery of economic and political power was mainly directed by the men who had conceived and established it. And very soon the executive and judicial departments were filled with leaders who had taken part in framing or ratifying the Constitution.

For the most important post in his administration, namely, that of the Treasury, Washington chose Robert Morris, a member of the convention; when that gentleman declined, he turned to another colleague, Alexander Hamilton, a giant of Federalism. For the office of Attorney General, the President selected the spokesman of the Virginia delegation at the Philadelphia assembly, Edmund Randolph. As Secretary of War, he appointed another ardent advocate of the Constitution, General Knox, of Massachusetts. Only one high administrative command went to a statesman whose views on the new government were, to say the least, uncertain; Thomas Jefferson, who had been in Paris during the formation and adoption of the Constitution, was made Secretary of State in charge of foreign affairs. In the judicial department, there was not a single exception: all the federal judgeships created under the Judiciary Act of 1789, high and low, were given to men who had helped to draft the Constitution or had supported it in state conventions or in the ratifying campaigns. In his appointments to minor places in the government Washington was equally discreet; after attempting to conciliate a few opponents by offering them positions, he flatly