V. 




mti gsoxitf) ILeaflet 



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i he Birth ot the Nation 



Old South Meeting House. BostOxN. 
1887 



THE 



OLD SOUTH LEAFLETS. 



FIFTH SERIES, 
1887. 



OUT . V t 



ti^ » •» » J a >». 



BOSTON: 

OLD SOUTH MEETING HOUSE. 

1887. 



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INTRODUCTION. 



The Old South Leaflets are prepared primarily for circulation 
among the attendants upon the Old South Lectures for Young People. The 
subjects of the Leaflets are immediately related to the subjects of the lectures, 
and they are intended to supplement the lectures and stimulate historical 
interest and inquiry among the young people. They are made up, for the 
most part, from original pajDcrs of the periods treated in the lectures, in the 
hope to make the men and the public life of the periods more clear and real. 

The Old South Lectures for Young People were instituted in the sum- 
mer of 1883, as a means of promoting a more serious and intelligent atten- 
tion to historical studies, especially studies in American history, among the 
young people of Boston. The success of the lectures has been so great as 
to warrant the hope that such courses may be permanently sustained in 
Boston and established with equal success in other cities of the country. 

The Old South Lectures for 1883, intended to be strictly upon subjects 
in early Massachusetts History, but by certain necessities somewhat mod- 
ified, were as follows: "Governor Bradford and Ciovernor Winthroi)," 
by Edwin D. Mead. "Plymouth," by Mrs. A. M. 1)l\z. "Concord," 
by Frank B. Sanborn. "The Town- Meeting," by Prof. James K. 
HosMER. " Franklin, the Boston Boy," by George M. Towle. "How 
to Study American History," by Prof. G. Stanley Hall. "The Year 
^m^'' by John Fiske. "History in the Boston Streets," by Edward 
Everett Hale. The Leaflets prepared in connection with these lectures 
consisted of (i) Cotton Mather's account of Governor Bradford, from the 
" Magnalia ; " (2) the account of the arrival of the Pilgrims at Cape Cod, 
from Bradford's Journal ; (3) an extract from Emerson's Concord Address 
in 1835; (4) extracts from Emerson, Samuel Adams, De Tocqueville and 
others, upon the Town- Meeting ; (5) a portion of Franklin's Autobiography ; 
(6) Carlyle on the Study of History; (7) an ejftract from Charles Sumner's 
oration upon Lafayette, etc. ; (8) Emerson's poem, " Boston." 

The lectures for 1884 were devoted to men representative of certain 
epochs or ideas in the history of Boston, as follows: " Sir Harry Vane, in 
New England and in Old England," by Edward Everett Hale, Jr. 
"John Harvard, and the Founding of Harvard College," by Edward 
Channing, Ph.D. " The Mather Family, and the Old Boston Ministers," 
by Rev. Samuel J. Barrows. "Simon Bradstreet, and the Struggle for 



the Charter," by Prof. Marshall S. Snow. " vSamuel Adams, and the 
Begmning of the Revolution," by Prof. James K. Hosmer. " Josiah 
Qumcy, the Great Mayor," by Charles W. Slack. "Daniel Webster, 
the Defender of the Constitution," by Charles C. Coffin. "John A. 
Andrew, the Great War Governor," by CoL. T. W. Higginson. The 
Leaflets prepared in connection with the second course were as follows : 
(i) Selections from Forster's essay on Vane, etc. ; (2) an extract from 
Cotton Mather's "Sal Gentium;" (3) Increase Mather's "Narrative of 
the Miseries of New England ; " (4) an original account of " The Revolution 
in New England " in 1689 ; (5) a letter from Samuel Adams to John Adams, 
on Republican Government ; (6) extracts from Josiah Quincy's Boston 
Address of 1830; (7) Words of Webster ; (8) a portion of Governor Andrew's 
Address to the Massachusetts Legislature in January, 1861. 

The lectures for 18S5 were upon " The War for the Union," as follows : 
"Slavery," by William Lloyd Garrison, Jr. "The Fall of Sumter," 
by Col. T. W. Higginson. "The Monitor and the Merrimac," by 
Charles C. Coffin. "The Battle of Gettysburg," by Col. Theodore 
A. Dodge. " Sherman's March to the Sea," by Gen. William Cogswell. 
" The Sanitary Commission," by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. " Abraham 
Lincoln," by Hon. John D. Long. "General Grant," by Charles C. 
Coffin. The Leaflets accompanying these lectures were as follows: (i) 
Lowell's " Present Crisis," and Garrison's Salutatory in the Liberator of 
January i, 1831 ; (2) extract from Henry Ward Beecher's oration at Fort 
Sumter in 1865; (3) contemporary newspaper accounts of the engagement 
between the Monitor and the Merrimac; (4) extract from Edward Everett's 
address at the consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, with 
President Lincoln's address ; {5) extract from General Sherman's account 
of the March to the Sea, in his Memoirs; (6) Lowell's "Commemoration 
Ode ; " (7) extract from Lincoln's First Liaugural Address, the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation, and the Second Inaugural Address ; (8) account of 
the service in memory of General Grant, in Westminster Abbey, with Arch- 
deacon Farrar's address. 

The lectures for 1886 were upon "The War for Independence," as 
follows: "Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry," by Edwin D. Mead. 
" Bunker Hill, and the News in England," by John Fiske. " The Declar- 
ation of Independence," by James MacAlister. " The Times that Tried 
Men's Souls," by Albert B. Hart, Ph.D. " Lafayette, and Help from 
France," by Prof. Marshall S. Snow. "The Women of the Revolu- 
tion," by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore. " Washington and his Generals," 
by George M. Towle. "The Lessons of the Revolution for these 
Times," by Rev. Brooke Herford. The Leaflets were as follows: (i) 
Words of Patrick Henry ; (2) Lord Chatham's Speech, urging the removal 
of the British troops from Boston ; (3) extract from Webster's oration on 
Adams and Jefferson; (4) Thomas Paine's "Crisis," No. i; (5) extract 
from Edward Everett's eulogy on Lafayette; (6) selections from the Letters 



5 

of Abigail Adams ; (7) Lowell's " Under the Old Elm ; " (8) extract from 
Whipple's essay on " Washington and the Principles of the Revolution." 

The course for the summer of 1S87 was upon " The Birth of the 
Nation," as follows : " How the Men of the English Commonwealth Planned 
Constitutions," by Prof. James K. Hosmer. " How the American Colo- 
nies Grew Together," by John Fiske. "The Confusion after the Revolu- 
tion," by Davis R. Dewey, Ph.D. "The Convention and the Constitu- 
tion," by Hon. John D. Long. "James Madison and his Journal," by 
Prof. E. B. Andrews. " How Patrick Henry Opposed the Constitution," 
by Henry L. Southwick. "Alexander Hamilton and the Federalist.'''' 
"Washington's Part and the Nation's First Years," by Edward Everett 
Hale. The Leaflets prepared for these lectures were as follows: (i) 
Extract from Edward Everett Hale's lecture on " Puritan Politics in 
England and New England;" (2) "The English Colonies in America," 
extract from De Tocqueville's "Democracy in America;" (3) Wash- 
ington's Circular Letter to the Governors of the States, on Disbanding 
the Army; (4) The Constitution of the United vStates; (5) "The Last Day 
of the Constitutional Convention," from Madison's Journal ; (6) Patrick 
Henry's First Speech against the Constitution, in the Virginia Convention; 
(7) The Federalist, No. IX; (8) Washington's First Inaugural Address. 

The course for the summer of 1888 had the general title of " The Story 
of the Centuries," the several lectures being as follows : " The Great Schools 
after the Dark Ages," by Ephraim Emerton, Professor of History in 
Harvard University. "Richard the Lion-Hearted and the Crusades," by 
Miss Nina Moore, author of "Pilgrims and Puritans." "The World 
which Dante knew," by Shattuck O. Hartwell, Old South first-prize 
essayist, 1883. "The Morning- Star of the Reformation," by Rev. Philip 
S. MoxoM. "Copernicus and Columbus, or the New Heaven and the 
New Earth," by Prof. Edward S. Morse. "The People for whom 
Shakespeare wrote," by Charles Dudley Warner. " The Puritans and 
the Enghsh Revolution," by Charles H. Levermore, Professor of History 
in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. " Lafayette and the Two 
Revolutions which he saw," by George Makepeace Towle. 

The Old South J^ectures are devoted primarily to American history. 
But this object is liberally construed, and a constant aim is to impress ujion 
the young people the relations of our own history to English and general 
European history, and our indebtedness to the long past. It was hoped that 
the glance at some striking chapters in the history of the last eight centuries 
afforded by these lectures would be a good prei)aration for the great anniver- 
saries of 1889 and give the young people a truer feeling of the continuity of his- 
tory. In connection with the lectures, the young people were requested to fix 
in mind the following dates, observing that in most instances the date comes 
about a decade before the close of the century. An effort was made in 
the Leaflets for the year to make dates, which are so often dull and useless 
to young people, interesting, significant, and useful. — nth Century: Lan- 



franc, the great mediaeval scholar, who studied law at Bologna, was prior 
of the monastery of Bee, the most famous school in France in the nth 
century, and archbis-hop of Canterbury under William the Conqueror, died, 
io8g. i2th Cent.: Richard I crowned, ii8g. 13th Cent. : Dante at the 
battle of Campaldino, the final overthrow of the Ghibellines in Italy, 1289. 
14th Cent.: Wyclif died, 1384. 15th Cent.: America discovered, 1492. 
i6th Cent. : Spanish Armada, 1588. 17th Cent. : William of Orange lands 
in England, 1688. i8th Cent. : Washington inaugurated, and the Bastile 
fell, 1789. The Old South Leaflets for 1888, corresponding with the several 
lectures, were as follows : (i) "The Early History of Oxford, "from Green's 
History of the English People ; (2) " Richard Coeur de Lion and the Third 
Crusade," from the Chronicle of Geoffrey de Vinsauf ; (3) "The Univer- 
sal Empire," passages from Dante's De Moiiarchia ; (4) "The Sermon on 
the Mount," Wyclif's translation; (5) "Copernicus and the Ancient 
Astronomers," from Humboldt's Cosmos; (6) "The Defeat of the Span- 
ish Armada," from Camden's Annals; (7) "The Bill of Rights," 1689; 
(8) "The Eve of the French Revolution," from Carlyle. The selections 
are accompanied by very full historical and bibliographical notes, and it is 
hoped that the series will prove of much service to students and teachers 
engaged in the general survey of modern history. 

The year 1889 being the centennial both of the beginning of our own 
Federal Government and of the French Revolution, the lectures for the 
year, under the general title of " America and France," were devoted en- 
tirely to subjects in which the history of America is related to that of 
France, as follows : " Champlain, the Founder of Quebec," by Charles 
C. Coffin. " La Salle and the French in the Great West," by Rev. 
W. E. Griffis. "The Jesuit Missionaries in America," by Prof. James 
K. Hosmer. " Wolfe and Montcalm : the Struggle of England and 
France for the Continent," by John Fiske. " Franklin in France," 
by George M. Towle. " The Friendship of Washington and Lafayette," 
by Mrs. Abba Goold Woolson. "Thomas Jefferson and the Louisiana 
Purchase," by Robert Morss Lovett, Old South prize essayist, 1888. 
" The Year 1789," by Rev. Edward Everett Hale. The Leaflets for 
the year were as follows : (i) Verrazzano's Account of his Voyage to Amer- 
ica ; (2) Marquette's Account of his Discovery of the Mississippi ; (3) Mr. 
Parkman's Histories; (4) The Capture of Quebec, from Parkman's " Con- 
spiracy of Pontiac;" (5) Selections from Franklin's Letters from France; 
(6) Letters of Washington and Lafayette; (7) The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence; (8) The French Declaration of the Rights of Man, 1789. 

The lectures for the summer of 1890 were on " The American Indians," 
as follows : " The Mound Builders," by Prof. George H. Perkins; " The 
Indians whom our Fathers Found," by Gen. H. B. Carrington ; "John 
Eliot and his Indian Bible," by Rev. Edward G. Porter; " King Philip's 
War," by Miss Caroline C. Stecker, Old South prize essayist, 1889; 
"The Conspiracy of Pontiac," by Charles A. Eastman, M.D., of the 



Sioux nation ; "A Century of Dishonor," by Herbert Welsh; "Among 
the Zunis," by J. Walter Fewkes, Ph.D.; "The Indian at School," by 
Gen. S. C. Armstrong. The Leaflets were as follows: (i) Extract from 
address by William Henry Harrison on the Mound Builders of the Ohio 
Valley ; (2) Extract from Morton's " New English Canaan " on the Manners 
and Customs of the Indians ; (3) John Eliot's " Brief Narrative of the Prog- 
ress of the Gospel among the Indians of New England," 1670; (4) Extract 
from Hubbard's "Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians" (1677) on 
the Beginning of King Philip's War ; (5) The Speech of Pontiac at the 
Council at the River Ecorces, from Parkman's " Conspiracy of Pontiac ; " 
(6) Extract from Black Hawk's autobiography, on the Cause of the Black 
Hawk W^ar; (7) Coronado's Letter to Mendoza (1540) on his Explorations 
in New Mexico; (8) Eleazar Wheelock's Narrative (1762) of the Rise and 
Progress of the Indian School at Lebanon, Conn. 

The lectures for 1891, under the general title of " The New Birth of the 
World," were devoted to the important movements in the age preceding 
the discovery of America, the several lectures being as follows: "The 
Results of the Crusades," by F. E. E. Hamilton, Old South prize essay- 
ist, 1883; " The Revival of Learning," by Prof. Albert B. Hart; "The 
Builders of the Cathedrals," by Prof. Marshall S. Snow ; " The Changes 
which Gunpowder made," by FRANK A. Hill; " The Decline of the Barons," 
by William Everett; "The Invention of Printing," by Rev. Edward G. 
Porter; "When Michael Angelo was a Boy," by Hamlin Garland; 
"The Discovery of America," by Rev. E. E. Hale. The Leaflets were as 
follows: (i) "The Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders," from the 
Chronicle of William of Malmesbury ; (2) Extract from More's " Utopia; " 
(3) " The Founding of Westminster Abbey," from Dean Stanley's " Historical 
Memorials of Westminster Abbey ; " (4) " The Siege of Constantinoi)le," 
from Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empne;" (5) "Simon 
de Montfort," selections from Chronicles of the time; (6) " Caxton at 
Westminster," extract from Blades's Life of William Caxton; (7) "The 
Youth of Michael Angelo," from Vasari's " Lives of the Italian Painters; " 
(8) "The Discovery of America," from Ferdinand Columbus's life of his 
father. 

The Leaflets for 1883 are now mostly out of print. Those for 1884 and 
subsequent years, bound in flexible cloth or paper covers, may be procured 
fof LllJinfaAiiiHaents per volume. 

The Old South Leaflets, which have been published, during the last eight 
years, in connection with these annual courses of historical lectures at the 
Old South Meeting House, have attracted so much attention and proved of 
so much service, that the Directors have entered upon the publication of a 
general series of Leaflets, with the needs of schools, colleges, private clubs 
and classes especially in mind. The Leaflets are prepared by Mr. Edwin D. 
Mead. They are largely reproductions of important original papers, accom- 
panied by useful historical and bibliographical notes. They consist, on an 



8 

average, of sixteen pages, and are sold at the low price of five cents a 
copy or three dollars per hundred. The aim is to bring them within easy 
reach of everybody. Schools and the trade will be supplied by Messrs. 
D. C. Heath & Co. The Old South work is a work for the education of 
the people, and especially the education of our young people, in American 
history and politics, and its promoters believe that few things can contribute 
better to this end than the wide circulation of such leaflets as those now 
undertaken. It is hoped that professors in our colleges and teachers every- 
where will welcome them for use in their classes, and that they may meet 
the needs of the societies of young men and women now happily being 
organized in so many places for historical and political studies. Some idea 
of the character of this geiiei-al series of Old South Leaflets may be gained 
from the following list of the subjects of the first twenty-eight numbers, 
which are now ready : 

No. 1. The Constitution of the United States. 2. The Articles of 
Confederation. 3. The Declaration of Inde]:)endence. 4. Washington's 
Farewell Address. 5. Magna Charta. 6. Vane's "Healing Question." 
7. Charter of Massachusetts Bay, 1629. 8. Fundamental Orders of Con- 
necticut, 1638. 9. Franklin's Plan of Union, 1754. 10. Washington's 
Inaugurals. 11. Lincoln's Inaugurals and Emancipation Proclamation. 
12. The Federalist, Nos. i and 2. 13. The Ordinance of 1787. 14. The 
Constitution of Ohio.* 15. Washington's Circular Letter to the Govern- 
ors of the States, 1783. 16. W^ashington's Letter to Benjamin Harrison, 
1784. 17. Verrazzano's Voyage, 1524. 18. The Constitution of Swit- 
zerland.* 19. The Bill of Rights, 1689. 20. Coronado's Letter to Men- 
doza, 1540. 21. Eliot's Brief Narrative of the Progress of the Gospel 
among the Indians, 1670. 22. Wheelock's Narrative of the Rise of the 
Indian School at Lebanon, Conn., 1762. 23- The Petition of Rights, 1628. 
24. The Grand Remonstrance. 25. The Scottish National C'ovenants. 
26. The Agreement of the People. 27. The Instrument of Government. 
28. Cromwell's First Speech to his Parliament. 

* Double number, price ten cents. 

The Directors of the Old South Studies in History and Politics have 
also published a Manual of the Constitution of the United States, with 
bibliographical and historical notes and outlines for study, by Edwin D. 
Mead. This manual is published for the use of schools and of such clubs, 
classes and individual students as may wish to make a careful study of the 
Constitution and its history. Our societies of young men and women enter- 
ing upon historical and political studies can do nothing better to begin with 
than to make themselves thoroughly familiar with the Constitution. It is 
especially with such societies in view that the table of topics for study, which 
follows the very full bibliographical notes in this manual, has been prepared. 
A copy of the manual will be sent to any address on receipt of twenty-five 
cents ; one hundred copies, fifteen dollars. Address Directors of Old South 
Studies, Old South Meeting Hoicsc. 

Old South Meeting House, 
Boston, i8gi. 



FIFTH SERIES, 1887. No. 



Puritan Politics in England and New 

England. 



BY EDWARD EVERETT HALE.» 



I think the key to the whole story may be found in the 
ominous words which King James's first House of Commons 
addressed to the House of Lords immediately after he had been 
lecturing them on his own prerogative, and on his intolerance 
to the Puritans : " There may be a people without a King, but 
there can be no King without a people." This was comfortable 
doctrine for a monarch who, in his escape from Scotland, had 
promised himself the privileges of unrestricted tyranny. For- 
tunately for civil liberty in England and America, in all coun- 
tries and in' all times, none of the Stuarts ever learned in time 
what this ominous sentence means — not James I, the most 
foolish of them ; nor Charles I, the most false ; nor Charles II, 
the most worthless ; nor James II, the most obstinate. For 
eighty-six years, however, it was the business of the Puritans of 
England, counselled and led in large measure by the Puritans 
of New England, to teach the Stuarts, and to teach the world, 
that lesson! And they taught it — that the people is stronger 
than the King, and can tie the King's hands. The state-craft 
jugglery of the closet shall not undo the knots ; the trenchant 
sword of battle shall not cut the cords. If the King will learn 
the lesson in no other way, he shall learn it when he sees the 
headsman's axe flashing before his eyes. The people is stronger 
than the sovereign ; and from the people's power his power 
comes. That is the lesson. There may be a people without a 
King ; there can be no King without a people. 

The first five years of Charles's reign were one steady insult 
to the best feeling of his people. In those five years Rev. John 
White, minister of Dorchester, the founder of Massachusetts, 
was, in his way, encouraging this man, who had heard of New 



1 An extract from his lecture on the subject in the volume of Lowell Lectures on the 
Early History of Massachusetts. 



England, and teaching that to whom the name had never come 
before. "There was a land of refuge," White was saying to all 
men. And a larger and larger company of the merchants of 
London, of the merchants of the other cities, and gradually of 
the country gentlemen of England, were learning that, if their 
battle were lost at home, it might be won in a land where there 
was no bishop and no King. I make no 'question that White, 
and those who acted with him, appealed to every motive that 
was honest, that would swell the number of those who would 
engage in the colonization movement. I have myself, in my 
poor way, in later times acted with those who were promoting 
emigration to the west of the Missouri River, when we thought 
that on that emigration great principles for all time depended. 
And 1 think, therefore, that, unless men are very different now 
from what they were then, men entered into the great emigra- 
tion from which we have grown with a large variety of motive. 
Only I am sure no man came here because he loved King 
Charles, or because he believed in Laud's Court of High Com- 
mission. And I am sure that John White and Matthew Cradock 
and Isaac Johnson and Richard Saltonstall and our great leader, 
Winthrop, meant that the enterprise should be controlled by men 
who would never give in to the tyrannies of Charles or to the 
pretensions of Laud. It is certain that Hampden and Eliot 
were interesting themselves in our Massachusetts Colony when 
it sailed, and were among those who saw how essential was this 
beginning to the success of their great cause. Under such 
auspices the government and charter were transferred from 
England to New England — the boldest change of base in his- 
tory. In its success, as I believe, the history of constitutional 
liberty begins. That change was made by men who meant that 
their new-born State should not be dependent, if they could help 
it, on the powers which were ruling England to her ruin. The 
Governor and assistants only, for the first twelve years, were 
sworn to be faithful to King Charles ; but, so soon as he took 
up arms against the Parliament, his name disappears from the 
oath, long before it was disused by any one in England. Four 
years only after the foundation of 'Boston, a rumor came from 
England that a governor-general was to be appointed by the 
King. The magistrates took counsel with the ministers ; and 
the ministers advised that if a governor-general were sent, " we 
ought not accept him ; but defend our lawful possessions if we 
were able ; otherwise, to avoid and protract." 

The overthrow and death of Charles I were the work of the 
English Independents. The same men who established the 
Commonwealth of Massachusetts in this act established the 
Commonwealth of England. Not that the Independents voted, 



without distinction, for the execution of the King ; but they did 
mean, without distinction, to give to the people the rule of the 
Commonwealth. I have no desire to overstate the share which 
New Englanders who had recrossed to England had in the great 
issue. I say simply that New England did, on a small scale, 
what England then did on a large scale ; and that the same men 
directed there as had sympathized here. Here, were but ten 
thousand men, all told ; there, were at least a million. The 
population of England was at least iive millions, of whom one 
fifth, I suppose, were men. To the assistance of England the 
ten thousand here lent such men as Stephen Winthrop, Edward 
Winslow, John Leverett, and Robert Sedgwick, who took the 
highest military rank ; such men as Desborough, Peters, Down- 
ing, and Hopkins, who took high civil rank. And you remem- 
ber it is said that of the first graduates of Harvard College, the 
abler part always returned to England to give there the service 
of their lives. 

The words "Independence" and "Independent" are now 
favorite words in America. I have observed in later days that 
they have found especial favor in connection with the word 
" Sovereignty " in those States of this Union which fancy they 
are descended from the cavaliers of England. "Independent 
and Sovereign States," they say. Favorite words in America 
since a Continental Congress of the United States, led by the 
children of Roundheads, proclaimed the United States to be 
" free and independent." It is well, therefore, to remember 
how those words came into the English language. They are 
not in the English Bible. They are not in Shakespeare's plays. 
You read there of Dependence. Yes. But not yet of Independ- 
ency. The word " Independency '" was born when the hated 
Brownists separated themselves from the Church of England. 
The word " Independent " was borro'wed from their vocabulary 
to designate the men who triumphed with Cromwell ; and from 
that dictionary of the Church the word was borrowed again in 
1776, when the United States of America became an independ- 
ent nation. 

I must not attempt any further details of the triumphs of 
the Commonwealths of England and of New England. I have 
attempted to show that their politics were at heart the same. 
The leaders of the Commonwealth of England were the friends 
of New England. The leaders in New England came here with 
omens which seemed unpromising, to win a success which was 
denied at home. I know no self-sacrifice in history more loyal 
and gallant than that of our great governor when he was asked 
to go back to England to take place of honor and command, in 
their hopeful beginnings ; and when he held to the little State 



4 

in the wilderness rather than return to the delights of home and 
the certainty of distinction. It was that little State, of perhaps 
30,000 people, which treated almost as an equal with the Parlia- 
ment of England. In speaking of that State, the Long Parlia- 
ment speaks of commerce between "the kingdom of England" 
and " the kingdom of New England." To that independent 
State the Parliament yielded the privilege of universal com- 
merce, which to all coloiiies of England was denied. And that 
independent State, in the next session of the General Court of 
Massachusetts, returned the international civility ; and, by the 
first reciprocal treaty, gave to the kingdom of England like 
privileges to those which to "the kingdom of New England" 
had thus been granted. To the navigation laws of that Parlia- 
ment and of Cromwell England owes this day the commerce 
which whitens every sea. To that first reciprocal treaty New 
England owed the early maritime development which has sent 
her ships to every ocean. 

As time has passed by, the Parliament of England has 
learned that Oliver Cromwell was never sovereign in that island. 
In the line of statues of English sovereigns in Parliament 
House, the eye first rests upon the vacant space between the 
images of Charles I and Charles II. There is no Cromwell 
there ! Yet, if he were not sovereign of England for the ten 
years after the royal traitor died, it would be hard to say who 
was. He was not the sovereign of New England in those years. 
In those years New England knew no sovereign but her people. 
But he was the friend of New England and the friend of her 
rulers. They loved him, they believed in him, they honored 
him. He represented the policy which for ten years triumphed 
in Old England, and which has triumphed in New England till 
this time. Massachusetts is about to acknowledge her debt to 
Winthrop, which she can never pay, by erecting his statue in 
the National Capitol. There it is to stand first among the 
founders of America ; first, where Virginia Dare and John Smith 
and George Calvert, and even Roger Williams and William 
Penn, are second. When that obligation is thus acknowledged, 
Massachusetts may well erect in her own capitol, face to face 
with Chantrey's statue of George Washington, the statue which 
England has not reared of Oliver Cromwell. It may bear this 
inscription : 

OLIVEk CROMWELL. 

This man believed in Independency. 

He was the sovereign of England for ten years. 

He was the friend of New England through his life. 

This statue stands here till the England which we love, and from 
which we were born, shall know who her true heroes were. 



SIR HARRY VANE ON A CONSTITUTION. 



Upon Cromwell's assumption of the protectorship, Vane 
wrote a political treatise, which he entitled " A Healing Ques- 
tion propounded and resolved, upon Occasion of the late public 
and seasonable Call to Humiliation, in order to Love and Union 
among the honest Party, and with a Desire to apply Balm to the 
Wound before it become incurable. By Henry Vane, Knight." 
In this treatise he enforced his old doctrines of civil and relio-- 
ious liberty, and added some theories and recommendations 
concerning the construction of a civil government, the result, no 
doubt, of quiet and philosophical reflection on the occurrences 
of his political life, which are in the last degree striking and 
memorable. He here proposed, in fact, for the first time in the 
records of history, that expedient of organizing a government 
"on certain fundamentals not to be dispensed with," which was 
thought " visionary " and impracticable by the world till the 
world learned to venerate the name of Washington. 

Vane begins with a statement of the question thus : "The 
question propounded is, What possibility doth yet remain (all 
things considered) of reconciling and uniting the dissenting 
judgments of honest men within the three nations, who still 
pretend to agree in the spirit, justice, and reason of the same 
GOOD CAUSE, and what is the means to effect this ? " Of that 
CAUSE he proceeds to say, that surely it " hath still the same 
goodness in it as ever, and is, or ought to be, as much in the 
hearts of all good people that have adhered to it ; it is not less 
to be valued now than when neither blood nor treasure were 
thought too dear to carry it out, and hold it up from sinking ; 
and hath the same omnipotent God, whose great name is con- 
cerned in it, as well as his people's outward safety and welfare ; 
who knows also how to give a revival to it when secondary in- 
struments and visible means fail or prove deceitful.^'' 

In a subsequent passage this is more distinctly stated, thus : 
" In the management of this war it pleased God, the righteous 
Judge (who was appealed to in the controversy), so to bless the 
counsel and forces of the persons concerned and engaged in 
this cause, as in the end to make them absolute and complete 
conquerors over their common enemy ; and by this means they 
had added unto the natural right which was in them before 
(and so declared by their representatives in Parliament assem- 
bled), the right of conquest, for the strengthening of their just 
claim to be governed by national councils, and successive 
representatives of their own election and setting up. This they 
once thought they had been in possession of, when it was rati- 
fied, as it were, in the blood of the last king. But of late a 
great interruption having happened unto them in their former 



expectations, and, instead thereof, soinething 7'ising up that seejJis 
rather accommodated to the private and selfish interest of a particu- 
lar part (in comparison) than truly adequate to the common 
good and concern of the whole body engaged in this cause ; 
hence it is that this compacted body is now falling asimder into 
ma?iy dissected parts (a thing not unforeseen nor unhoped for 
by the common enemy all along as their last relief) ; and if 
these breaches be not timely healed, and the offences (before 
they take too deep root) removed, they will certainly work more 
to the advantage of the common enemy than any of their own 
unwearied endeavors and dangerous contrivances in foreign 
parts put altogether." 

Enlarging next on the universal advantages of liberty in civil 
and religious matters. Vane goes on to develop the method by 
which he thinks it might be secured to the people, and therein 
suggests the idea of a fundamental constitution. He then 
directs the following vigorous passage against Cromwell : " The 
offence which causes such great thoughts of heart among the 
honest party (if it may be freely expressed, as sure it may, when 
the magistrate himself professes he doth but desire and wait for 
conviction therein), is, in short, this : that when the right and 
privilege is returned, nay, is restored by conquest unto the whole 
body (that forfeited not their interest therein), of freely dispos- 
ing themselves in such a constitution of righteous government as 
may best answer the end held forth in this cause ; that, never- 
theless, either through delay they should be withheld as they are, 
or through design they should come at last to be utterly denied 
the exercise of this their right, upon pretence that they are not in 
a capacity as yet to use it, which, indeed, hath some truth in it, 
if those that are now in power, and have the command of the 
arms, do not prepare all things requisite thereunto, as they may, 
and, like faithful guardians to the Commonwealth, admitted to 
be in its nonage, they ought. But if the bringing of true freedom 
into exercise among men, yea, so refined a party of 7nefi, be impossi- 
ble, why hath this been concealed all this while / aiid why was it 
not thought on before so ?nuch blood was spilt, and treasure spent ? 
Surely such a thing as this was judged real and practicable, not 
imagifiary and notional. Besides, why may it not sufhce to have 
been thus long delayed and withheld from the whole body, at 
least as to its being brought by them into exercise now at last ? 
Surely the longer it is withheld, the stronger jealousies do in- 
crease, that it is intended to be assumed and engrossed by a 
part only, to the leaving the rest of the body (who, in all reason 
and justice, ought to be equally participants with the other in 
the right and benefit of the conquest, for as much as the war was 
managed at the expense and for the safety of the whole) in a 



condition almost as much exposed, and subject to be imposed 
upon, as if they had been enemies and conquered, not in any 
sense conquerors. If ever such a?t tmrigkteous, unkind^ and de- 
ceitful dealing with brethren should happejt, although it might con- 
tinue above the reach of question from human judicature, vet 
can we think it possible it should escape and go unpunished by 
the immediate hand of the righteous Judge of the whole world, 
whejt he ariseth out of his place to do right to the oppressed I " 

After this solemn and searching reproof. Vane proceeds to 
present such a view of events and affairs as, without any per- 
sonal allusion, made it clear that the ambition of Cromwell was 
the obstacle in the way of the establishment of a just and free 
government. He then delineates, in a passage ever deservino; 
of remembrance, the course of proceedings by which a consti- 
tution might be agreed upon and established, in reparation of 
all these injuries. The method, the reader will perceive, is 
exactly that which more than a century after was adopted by 
Washington and his immortal associates. 

" The most natural way for which would seem to be by a gen- 
eral council, or convention of faithful, honest, and discerning 
men, chosen for that purpose by the free C07isent of the whole body of 
adherents to this cause, in the several parts of the nation, and observ- 
ing the time and place of meeting appointed to them (with other 
circumstances concerning their election), by order from the 
present ruling power, but considered as general of the army ; 
which convention is not properly to exercise the legislative power, but 
o?ily to debate freely and agree upon the particulars, that by ivay 
^FUNDAMENTAL CONSTITUTION shall be laid and inviolably ob- 
served as the conditions upon which the whole body so repre- 
sented doth consent to cast itself into a civil and politic incor- 
poration, and under the visible form and administration of 
government therein declared, and to be by each individual mem- 
ber of the body subscribed in testimony of his or their particular 
consent given thereunto ; which conditions so agreed (and among 
them an act of oblivion for all) will be without danger of being 
broken or departed from, considering of what it is they are the 
conditions, and the nature of the convention wherein they are 
made, which is of the people represented in their highest state 
of sovereignty, as they have the sword in their hands un sub- 
jected unto the rules of civil government, but what themselves, 
orderly assembled for that purpose, do think fit to make. And 
the sword, upon these conditions, subjecting itself to the 
supreme judicature thus to be set up, how suddenly might 
harmony, righteousness, love, peace, and safety unto the whole 
body follow hereupon, as the happy fruit of such a settlement, 
if the Lord have any delight to be among us ! " — Forster. 



THE COMPACT SIGNED ON BOARD THE MAYFLOWER. 

The first written Constitiition iji history. 



In ye name of God, Amen. We whose names are imderwriten, 
the loyall subjects of our dread soveraigne Lord, King James, by ye 
grace of God, of Great Britaine, Franc, & Ireland king, defender of 
ye faith, &c., haveing undertaken, for ye glorie of God, and advance- 
mente of ye Christian faith, and honour of our king & countrie, a voy- 
age to plant ye first colonie in ye Northerne parts of Virginia, doe by 
these presents solemnly & mutualy in ye presence of God, and one of 
another, covenant & combine our selves togeather into a civill body 
politick, for our better ordering & preservation & furtherance of ye 
ends aforesaid ; and by vertue hearof to enacte, constitute, and frame 
such just & equall lawes, ordinances, acts, constitutions, & offices, 
from time to time, as shall be thought most meete & convenient for 
ye generall good of ye Colonie, unto which we promise all due sub- 
mission and obedience. In witnes whereof we have hereunder sub- 
scribed our names at Cap-Codd ye ii. of November, in ye year of ye 
raigne of our soveraigne lord. King James, of England, France, & 
Ireland ye eighteenth, and of Scotland ye fiftie fourth. Ano : Dom. 
1620. 



Although no statue of Cromwell yet stands in the Parliament House at Westminster, at 
least three statues of him have been erected in England since Mr. Hale wrote, in 1S69, — the 
first at Manchester, about ten years after that date. But the greatest monument to Cromwell 
had been reared twenty-five years before Mr. Hale wrote, in Carlyle's work on " Oliver Crom- 
well's Letters and Speeches." This work revolutionized opinion concerning Cromwell, and re- 
mains tlie important work for the thorough student. There is a good briefer biography of Crom- 
well by Picton. Forster's " Statesmen of the English Commonwealth " contains lives of Crom- 
well, Eliot, Pym, Hampden and Vane. In Sparlcs's American Biography, vol. iv, there is an 
excellent short life of Vane, the most American of all the statesmen of the Commonwealth ; no 
full and adequate biography of Vane exists, but this deficiency is about to be supplied by Prof. 
Hosmer. Vane's original and radical proposition, in 1656, of a P'undamental Constitution, to 
be framed by a Convention chosen by the nation, should have special attention ; his tract, " A 
Healing Question, etc.," from which extracts are published in this leafiet, maybe found entire 
in the appendix to the life of Vane, in Forstei-'s woi-k. An account of the remarkable " Instru- 
ment of Government," drawn up by the Council of State in 1654, and under which Cromwell's 
protectorate begun, may be found in Green's " Histon,' of the English People " and in most of 
the histories, as well as in the lives of Cromwell and Vane. The young people are advised to 
read the whole section upon the Puritan period, in Green's histoiy. Read also the chapter 
upon Alagna Charta. Alagiia Charta (12 15), and the Dutch Great Privilege (1477), which 
can be learned about in Motley, were great anticipations of constitutions. So were the charters 
under which Massachusetts and other American colonies were fomided ; read about the long 
struggle over the Massachusetts charter, in the histories of Massachusetts, in the Life of Win- 
throp, or in the volume of lectures from which Mr. Hale's words in this leaflet are taken. 
Gladstone's essay, " Kin beyond Sea," contains interesting comparisons of the British and 
American constitutions ; there are several good separate works upon the British Constitution, 
by Amos, Bagelot, De Lolme and others, which are easily accessible; and the interesting little 
volumes (on such subjects as " Central Government," " The Electorate and the Legislature," 
"The National Budget," "The State in its Relation to Education," " The Land Laws," 
etc.). in the English Citizen Series, are warmly commended to the young people. Some of the 
older high school students will be glad to make this study of the relations of English and Amer- 
ican history and politics the beginning of broader comparative studies of political organization. 
Such should read Erskine May's " Democracy in Europe," with its valuable chapters upon 
Switzerland and the Italian republics ; and then they will go on to learn about the laws of 
Rome and the organization of the little states of Greece, the institutions of Solon and Lycurgus 
and the schemes in Plato's " Republic " and Aristotle's " Politics." 



FIFTH SERIES, 1887. No. 2. 



The Engrlish Colonies in America. 



De TOCQUEVILLE.^ 



After the birth of a human being, his early years are ob- 
scurely spent in the toils or pleasures of childhood. As he 
grows up, the world receives him when his manhood begins, 
and he enters into contact with his fellows. He is then studied 
for the first time, and it is imagined that the germs of the vices 
and the virtues of his maturer years are then formed. 

This, if I am not mistaken, is a great error. We must 
begin higher up ; we must watch the infant in his mother's 
arms ; we must see the first images which the external world 
casts upon the dark mirror of his mind, the first occurrences 
which he witnesses ; we must hear the first words which awaken 
the sleeping powers of thought, and stand by his earliest efforts 
— if we would understand the prejudices, the habits, and the 
passions which will rule his life. The entire man is, so to 
speak, to be seen in the cradle of the child. 

The growth of nations presents something analogous to 
this ; they all bear some marks of their origin. The circum- 
stances which accompanied their birth and contributed to their 
development affect the whole term of their being. 

If we were able to go back to the elements of states, and to 
examine the oldest monuments of their history, I doubt not 
that we should discover in them the primal cause of the preju- 
dices, the habits, the ruling passions, and, in short, of all that 
constitutes what is called the national character. We should 
there find the explanation of certain customs which now seem 



1 From the second chapter of his " Democracy in America. 



at variance with the prevailing manners ; of such laws as con- 
fiict with established principles ; and of such incoherent opin- 
ions as are here and there to be met with in society, like those 
fragments of broken chains which we sometimes see hanging 
from the vaults of an old edifice, and supporting nothing. • This 
might explain the destinies of certain nations which seem borne 
on by an unknown force to ends of which they themselves are 
ignorant. But hitherto facts have been wanting to researches 
of this kind : the spirit of inquiry has only come upon com- 
munities in their latter days ; and when they at length contem- 
plated their origin, time had already obscured it, or ignorance 
and pride adorned it with truth-concealing fables. 

America is the only country in which it has been possible 
to witness the natural and tranquil growth of society, and where 
the influence exercised on the future condition of states by 
their origin is clearly distinguishable. 

At the period when the peoples of Europe landed in the 
New World, their national characteristics were already com- 
pletely formed ; each of them had a physiognomy .of its own ; 
and as they had already attained that stage of civilization at 
which men are led to study themselves, they have transmitted 
to us a faithful picture of their opinions, their manners, and 
their laws. The men of the sixteenth century are almost as 
well known to us as our contemporaries. America, conse- 
quently, exhibits in the broad light of day the phenomena 
which the ignorance or rudeness of earlier ages conceals from 
our researches. Near enough to the time when the states of 
/\merica were founded to be accurately acquainted with their 
elements, and sufficiently removed from that period to judge of 
some of their results, the men of our own day seepi destined to 
see further than their predecessors into the series of human 
events. Providence has given us a torch which our forefathers 
did not possess, and has allowed us to discern fundamental 
causes in the history of the world which the obscurity of the 
past concealed from them. 

If we carefully examine the social and political state of 
America, after having studied its history, we shall remain per- 
fectly convinced that not an opinion, not a custom, not a law, 
I may even say not an event, is upon record which the origin 
of that people will not explain. 

The emigrants who came at different periods to occupy 
the territory now covered by the American Union differed from 
each other in many respects ; their aim was not the same, and 
they governed themselves on different principles. 



These men had, however, certain features in common, and 
they were all placed in an analogous situation. The tie of 
language is, perhaps, the strongest and the most durable that can 
unite mankind. All the emigrants spoke the same tongue; 
they were all offsets from the same people. Born in a country 
which had been agitated for centuries by the struggles of fac- 
tion, and in whichall parties had been obliged in their turn to 
place themselves under the protection of the laws, their politi- 
cal education had been perfected in this rude school ; and they 
were more conversant with the notions of right, and the prin- 
ciples of true freedom, than the greater part of their European 
contemporaries. At the period of the first emigrations, the town- 
ship system, that fruitful germ of free institutions, was deeply 
rooted in the habits of the English ; and with it the doctrine 
of the sovereignty of the people had been introduced into the 
bosom of the monarchy of the house of Tudor. 

The religious quarrels which have agitated the Christian 
world were then rife. England had plunged into the new 
order of things with headlong vehemence. The character of 
its inhabitants, which had always been sedate and reflective, 
became argumentative and austere. General information had 
been increased by intellectual contests, and the mind had re- 
ceived in them a deeper cultivation. Whilst religion was the 
topic of discussion, the morals of the people became more pure. 
All these national features are more or less discoverable in the 
physiognomy of those Englishmen who came to seek a new 
home on the opposite shores of the Atlantic. 

Another remark, to which we shall hereafter have occasion 
to recur, is applicable not only to the English, but to the 
French, the Spaniards, and all the Europeans who successively 
established themselves in the New World. All these European 
colonies contained the elements, if not the development, of a 
complete democracy. Two causes led to this result. It may 
be said generally,' that on leaving the mother country the 
emigrants had, in general, no notion of superiority one oyer 
another. The happy and the powerful do not go into exile, 
and there are no surer guaranties of equality among men than 
poverty and misfortune. It happened, however, on several 
occasions, that persons of rank were driven to America by 
political and religious quarrels. Laws were made to establish 
a gradation of ranks; but it was soon found that the soil of 
America was opposed to a territorial aristocracy. To bring 
that refractory land into cultivation, the constant and inter- 
ested exertions of the owner himself were necessary ; and 



when the ground was prepared,' its produce was found to be 
insufficient to enrich a proprietor and a farmer at the same 
time. The hind was then naturally broken up into small por- 
tions, which the proprietor cultivated for himself. Land is the 
basis of an aristocracy, which clings to the soil that supports 
it ; for it is not by privileges alone, nor by birth, but by landed 
property handed down from generation to generation, that an 
aristocracy is constituted. A nation may present immense 
fortunes and extreme wretchedness ; but unless those fortunes 
are territorial, there is no true aristocracy, but simply the class 
of the rich and that of the poor. 

All the British colonies had then a great degree of family 
likeness at the epoch of their settlement. All of them, from 
their beginning, seemed destined to witness the growth, not of 
the aristocratic libertv of their mother countrv, but of that 
freedom of the middle and lower orders of which the history of 
the world had as yet furnished no complete example. 

In this general uniformity, however, several striking differ- 
ences were discernible, which it is necessary to point out. Two 
branches may be distinguished in the great Anglo-American 
family, which have hitherto grown up without entirely com- 
mingling; the one in the South, the other in the North. 

Virginia received the first English colony ; the emigrants 
took possession of it in 1607. The idea that mines of gold and 
silver are the sources of national wealth was at that time singu- 
larly prevalent in Europe ; a fatal delusion, which has done 
more to impoverish the European nations who adopted it, and 
has cost more lives in America, than the united influence of war 
and bad laws. The men sent to Virginia were seekers of gold, 
adventurers without resources and without character, whose turbu- 
lent and restless spirit endangered the infant colony, and ren- 
dered its progress uncertain. Artisans and agriculturists arrived, 
afterwards ; and, although they were a more moral and orderly 
race of men, they were hardly in any respect above the level of 
the inferior classes in England. No lofty views, no spiritual 
conception, presided over the foundation of these new settle- 
ments. The colony was scarcely established when slavery was 
introduced ; this was the capital fact which was to exercise an 
immense influence on the character, the laws, and the whole 
future of the South. Slavery, as we shall afterwards show, dis- 
honors labor ; it introduces idleness into society, and with idle- 
ness, ignorance and pride, luxury and distress. It enervates 
the powers of the mind and benumbs the activity of man. The 



5 

influence of slavery, united to the English character, explains 
the manners and social condition of the Southern States. 

In the North, the same English character as the ground re- 
ceived totally different colors. Here I may be allowed to enter 
into some details. 

In the English colonies of the North, more generally known 
as the States of New England, the two or three main ideas which 
now constitute the basis of the social theory of the United States 
were first combined. The principles of New England spread at 
first to the neighboring States ; they then passed successively 
to the more distant ones; and at last, if I may so speak, they 
mterpeiietrated the whole confederation. They now extend their 
influence beyond its limits, over the whole American world. 
The civilization of New England has been like a beacon lit upon 
a hill, which, after it has diffused its warmth immediatelv around 
it, also tinges the distant horizon with its glow. 

The foundation of New England was a novel spectacle, and 
all the circumstances attending it were singular and original. 
Nearly all colonies have been first inhabited either by men 
without education and without resources, driven by their poverty 
and their misconduct from the land which gave them birth, or 
by speculators and adventurers greedy of gain. Some settle- 
ments cannot even boast so honorable an origin ; St. Domingo 
was founded by buccaneers ; and, at the present day, the crimi- 
nal courts of England supply the population of Australia. 

The settlers who established themselves on the shores of 
New England all belonged to the more independent classes of 
their native country. Their union on the soil of America at 
once presented the singular phenomenon of a society containing 
neither lords nor common people, and we may almost say, 
neither rich nor poor. These men possessed, in proportion to 
their number, a greater mass of intelligence than is to be found 
in any European nation of our own time. All, perhaps without 
a single exception, had received a good education, and many of 
them were known in Europe for their talents and their acquire- 
ments. The other colonies had been founded by adventurers 
without families ; the emigrants of New England brought with 
them the best elements of order and morality ; they landed on 
the desert coast accompanied by their wives and children. But 
what especially distinguished them from all others was the aim 
of their undertaking. They had not been obliged by necessity 
to leave their country ; the social position they abandoned was 
one to be regretted, and their means of subsistence were certain. 



Nor did they cross the Atlantic to improve their situation or to 
increase their wealth ; it was a purely intellectual craving which 
called them from the comforts of their former homes; and in 
facing the inevitable sufferings of exile, their object was the 
triumph of an idea. 

The emigrants, or, as they deservedly styled themselves, the 
Pilgrims, belonged to that English sect the austerity of whose 
principles had acquired for them the name of Puritans. Puri- 
tanism was not merely a religious doctrine, but it corresponded 
in many points with the most absolute democratic and republi- 
can theories. It was this tendency that had aroused its most dan- 
gerous adversaries. Persecuted by the government of the 
mother countrv, and disgusted bv the habits of a societv which 
the rigor of their own principles condemned, the Puritans went 
forth to seek some rude and unfrequented part of the world, 
where they could, live according to their own opinions, and 
worship God in freedom. 

The religious and political passions which ravaged the 
British empire during the whole reign of Charles I drove fresh 
crowds of sectarians every year to the shores of America. In 
England, the stronghold of Puritanism continued to be in the 
middle classes ; and it was from the middle classes that most of 
the emigrants came. The population of New England increased 
rapidly ; and whilst the hierarchy of rank despotically classed 
the inhabitants of the mother country, the colony approximated 
more and more the novel spectacle of a community homogene- 
ous in all its parts. A democracy, more perfect than antiquity 
had dared to dream of, started in full size and panoply from the 
midst of an ancient feudal society. 

The English colonies (and this is one of the main causes of 
their prosperity) have always enjoyed more internal freedom 
and more political independence than the colonies of other na- 
tions ; and this principle of liberty was nowhere more exten- 
sively applied than in the States of New England. In general, 
charters were not given to the colonies of New England till their 
existence had become an established fact. Plymouth, Provi- 
dence, New Haven, Connecticut, and Rhode Island were founded 
without the help, and almost without the knowledge, of the mother 
country. The new settlers did not derive their powers from the 
head of the empire, although they did not deny its supremacy ; 
they constituted themselves into a society, and it was not till 
thirty or forty years afterwards, under Charles II, that their exist- 
ence was legally recognized by a royal charter. This frequently 
renders it difficult, in studying the earliest historical and legisla- 



tive records of New England, to detect the link which connected 
the emigrants with the land of their forefathers. They contin- 
ually exercised the rights of sovereignty ; they named their mag- 
istrates, concluded peace or declared war, made police regula- 
tions, and enacted laws, as if their allegiance was due only to 
God. 

The general principles which are the groundwork of modern 
constitutions — principles which, in the seventeenth century, 
were imperfectly known in Europe, and not completely triumph- 
ant even in Great Britain — were all recognized and established 
by the laws of New England : the intervention of the people in 
public affairs, the free voting of taxes, the responsibility of the 
agents of power, personal liberty, and trial by jury, were all 
positively established without discussion. These fruitful prin- 
ciples were there applied and developed to an extent such as no 
nation in Europe has yet ventured to attempt. The political 
existence of the majority of the nations of Europe commenced 
in the superior ranks of society, and was gradually and imper- 
fectly conununicated to the different members of the social 
body. In America, on the contrary, it may be said that the 
township was organized before the county, the county before 
the State, the State before the Union. In New England, town- 
ships were completely and definitively constituted as early as 
1650. The independence of the township w^as the nucleus 
round which the local interests, passions, rights, and duties col- 
lected and clung. It gave scope to the activity of a real politi- 
cal life, thoroughly democratic and republican. The colonies 
still recognized the supremacy of the mother country ; monarchy 
was still the law of the State ; but the republic was already 
established in every township. 



VERSES ON THE PROSPECT OF PLANTING ARTS AND LEARNING 

IN AMERICA. 



The Muse, disgusted at an age and clime 
Barren of every glorious theme, 

In distant lands now waits a better time. 
Producing subjects worthy fame. 

In happy climes, where from the genial sun 
And virgin earth such scenes ensue, 

The force of art by nature seems outdone. 
And fancied beauties by the true : 



8 

In happy climes, the seat of innocence, 

Where nature guides and virtue rules, 
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 

The pedantry of courts and schools : 

There shall be sung another golden age. 

The rise of empire and of arts. 
The good and great inspiring epic rage, 

The wisest heads and noblest hearts. 

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay; 

Such as she bred when fresh and young. 
When heavenly flame did animate her clay. 

By future poets shall be sung. 

Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 

The four first acts already past, 
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; 

Time's noblest offspring is the last. 

— Bisliop Berkeley 



In the first chapter of his " Democracy in America," De Tocqueville 
treats of the physical features of the country, and of the dangers from the 
Indians, which gradually compelled much united effort on the part of the 
colonies. Elsewhere he discusses fully the Ne.w England town-meeting, 
which did so much to nurse the spirit of independence. There is a good 
chapter on the Town-Meeting in Mr. Fiske's "American Political Ideas;" 
and the other two chapters of this little book, on the Federal Union and the 
Manifest Destiny of the English Race, may now also be profitably read by 
the student in connection with the general subject of the lectures. The 
chapter entitled "An English Nation," in Higginson's "Larger History 
of the United States," should be read by the young people, and they 
would do well to keep on through the next six chapters. In Cothn's 
" Old Times in the Colonies " are many chapters which will show the 
youngest readers of history how early the feelings of independence and of 
union were born in the colonies. The best single book for the thorough stu- 
dent, on the development of the national spirit, is Frothingham's " Rise of 
the Republic of the United States." Doyle's' "The English in America" 
and Lodge's "Short History of the English Colonies in America" should 
also be read. In the second volume ofMasson's " Life and Times of Mil- 
ton " is a valuable chapter on Independency and the character of the New 
England colonies. Parkman's " Montcalm and Wolfe " contains important 
reflections upon the contest which settled the question of English supremacy 
in America. Of the conditions under which the first Continental Congress 
met, and of the various federal movements and institutions which made the 
Revolution possible and successful, the student can read in Bancroft and in 
the lives of Franklin, Samuel Adams, and the other great leaders. Cooley's 
"General Principles of Constitutional Law in the United States," a hand- 
book which is especially commended to the maturer students attending these 
lectures, contains a valuable introductory chapter on "The Rise of the 
American Union ; " and the same general subject is treated in Story's " Com- 
mentaries on the Constitution," Kent's "Commentaries," and Curtis's 
"History of the Constitution," works to which there will be occasion to 
refer in subsequent leaflets. 



FIFTH SERIES, 1SS7. No. 3. 

The Time of Our Political Probation. 



Circjilai' Letter addressed by If^as/iiits^toit to the Governors of all the 
States, on disbanding the Army. 



Head-Quarters, Newburg, 8 June, 1783. 

Sir : The great object for which I had the honor to hold an 
appointment in the service of my country being accomphshed, 1 
am now preparing to resign it into the hands of Congress, and 
to return to that domestic retirement which, it is well known, I 
left with the greatest reluctance ; a retirement for which I have 
never ceased to sigh through a long and painful absence, and in 
which (remote from the noise and trouble of the world) I medi- 
tate to pass the remainder of life in a state of undisturbed repose. 
But before I carry this resolution into effect, I think it a duty 
incumbent on me to make this my last official communication ; 
to congratulate you on the glorious events which Heaven has 
been pleased to produce in our favor; to offer my sentiments 
respecting some important subjects which appear to me to be 
intimately connected with the tranquillity of the United States ; 
to take my leave of your Excellency as a public character ; and 
to give my final blessing to that country in whose service I have 
spent the prime of my life, for whose sake I have consumed so 
many anxious days and watchful nights, and whose happiness, 
being extremely dear to me, will always constitute no inconsid- 
erable part of my own. 

Impressed with the liveliest sensibility on this pleasing oc- 
casion, I will claim the indulgence of dilating the more copiously 
on the subjects of our mutual felicitation. When we consider 
the magnitude of the prize we contended for, the doubtful nature 
of the contest, and the favorable manner in which it has termi- 
nated, we shall find the greatest possible reason for gratitude 
and rejoicing. This is a theme that will afford dnfinite delight 
to every benevolent and liberal mind, whether the event in con- 
templation be considered as the source of present enjoyment or 
the parent of future happiness ; and we shall have equal occa- 
sion to felicitate ourselves on the lot which Providence has 
assigned us, whether we view it in a natural, a political, or moral 
point of light. 

The citizens of America, placed in the most enviable con- 
dition as the sole lords and proprietors of a vast tract of conti- 
nent, comprehending all the various soils and climates of the 
world, and abounding with all the necessaries and conveniences 
of life, are now, by the late satisfactory pacification, acknowledged 



to be possessed of absolute freedom and independency. Thev 
are from this period to be considered as the actors on a most 
conspicuous theatre, which seems to be peculiarly designated by 
Providence for the display of human greatness and felicity. 
Here they are not only surrounded with everything which can 
contribute to the completion of private and domestic enjoyment, 
but Heaven has crowned all its other blessings by giving a fairer 
opportunitv for political happiness than any other nation has 
ever been favored with. Nothing can illustrate these observa- 
tions more forcibly than a recollection of the happy conjuncture 
of times and circumstances under which our republic assumed 
its rank among the nations. The foundation of our empire was 
not laid in the gloomy age of ignorance and superstition, but 
at an epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood 
and more clearly defined than at any former period. The re- 
searches of the human mind after social happiness have been 
carried to a great extent ; the treasures of knowledge, acquired 
bv the labors of philosophers, sages, and legislators, through a 
long succession of years, are laid open for our use, and their 
collected wisdom may be happily applied in the establishment 
of our forms of government. The free cultivation of letters, the 
unbounded extension of commerce, the progressive refinement 
of manners, the growing liberality of sentiment, and, above all, 
the pure and benign light of Revelation, have had a meliorating 
influence on mankind and increased the blessings of society. 
At this auspicious period the United States came into existence 
as a nation ; and if their citizens should not be completely free 
and happv the fault will be entirely their own. 

Such is our situation and such are our prospects ; but, not- 
withstanding the cup of blessing is thus reached out to us, not- 
withstanding happiness is ours, if we have a disposition to seize 
the occasion and make it our own, yet it appears to me there is 
an option still left to the United States of America, that it is in 
their choice, and depends upon their conduct, whether they will 
be respectable and prosperous or contemptible and miserable, 
as a nation. This is the time of their political probation ; this 
is the moment when the eyes of the whole world are turned 
upon them ; this is the moment to establish or ruin their national 
character forever; this is the favorable moment to give such a 
tone to our federal government as will enable it to answer the 
ends of its institution, or this may be the ill-fated moment for 
relaxing the powers of the Union, annihilating the cement of the 
confederation, and exposing us to become the sport of European 
politics, w^hich may play one State against another to prevent 
their growing important and to serve their own interested pur- 
poses. For, according to the system of policy the States shall 
adopt at this moment they wall stand or fall ; and by their con- 
firmation or lapse it is yet to be decided whether the revolution 



must ultimately be considered as a blessing or a curse ; a bless- 
ing or a curse not to the present age alone, for with our fate will 
the destiny of unborn millions be involved. 

With this conviction of the importance of the present crisis 
silence in me would be a crime. I will, therefore, speak to your 
Excellencv the Ian2;ua2:e of freedom and of sinceritv without dis- 
guise. 1 am aware, however, that those who differ from me in 
political sentiment may perhaps remark that I am stepping out of 
the proper line of my duty, and may possibly ascribe to arrogance 
or ostentation what 1 know is alone the result of the purest inten- 
tion. But the rectitude of my own heart, which disdains such 
unworthy motives, the part I have hitherto acted in life, the 
determination I have formed of not taking any share in public 
business hereafter, the ardent desire I feel, and shall continue 
to manifest, of quietly enjoying in private life, after all the toils 
of war, the benefits of a wise and liberal government, will, I flat- 
ter myself, sooner or later convince my countrymen that I could 
have no sinister views in delivering with so little reserve the 
opinions contained in this address. 

There are four things which I humbly conceive are essen- 
tial to the well-being, I may even venture to say to the exist- 
ence, of the United States as an independent power. 

First. An indissoluble union of the States under one 
federal head. 

Second. A sacred regard to public justice. 

Third. The adoption of a proper peace establishment ; 
and 

Fourth. The prevalence of that pacific and friendly dispo- 
sition among the people of the United States which will induce 
them to forget their local prejudices and policies, to make those 
mutual concessions which are requisite to the general prosper- 
it3^ and, in some instances, to sacrifice their individual advan- 
tages to the interest of the community. 

These are the pillars on which the glorious fabric of our 
independency and national character must be supported. Lib- 
erty is the basis ; and whoever would dare to sap the foundation 
or overturn the structure, under whatever specious pretext he 
may attempt it, will merit the bitterest execration and the sever- 
est punishment which can be inflicted by his injured country. 

On the three first articles I will make a few observations, 
leaving the last to the good sense and serious consideration of 
those immediately concerned. 

Under the first head, althous^h it mav not be necessarv or 
proper for me in this place to enter into a particular disquisition 
on the principles of the Union, and to take up the great ques- 
tion which has been frequently agitated, whether it be expedi- 
ent and requisite for the States to delegate a larger proportion 
of power to Congress or not, yet it will be a part of my duty, 



and that of every true patriot, to assert without reserve and to 
insist upon the following positions : That, unless the States 
will suffer Congress to exercise those prerogatives they are un- 
doubtedly invested with by the Constitution, everything must 
very rapidly tend to anarchy and confusion. That it is indis- 
pensable to the happiness of the individual States that there 
should be lodged somewhere a supreme power to regylate and 
govern the general concerns of the confederated republic, with- 
out which the Union cannot be of long duration. That there 
must be a faithful and pointed compliance on the part of every 
State with the late proposals .and demands of Congress, or the 
most fatal consequences will ensue. That whatever measures 
have a tendency to dissolve the Union or contribute to violate 
or lessen the sovereign authority, ought to be considered as hos- 
tile to the liberty and independency of America, and the authors 
of them treated accordingly. And lastly, that unless we can be 
enabled by the concurrence of the States to participate of the 
fruits of the revolution, and enjoy the essential benefits of civil 
society under a form of government so free and uncorrupted, so 
happily guarded against the danger of oppression, as has been 
devised and adopted by the articles of confederation, it will be 
a subject of regret that so much blood and treasure have been 
lavished for no purpose, that so many sufferings have been en- 
countered without a compensation, and that so many sacrifices 
have been made in vain. 

Many other considerations might here be adduced to prove 
that without an entire conformity to the spirit of the Union, we 
cannot exist as an independent power. It will be sutffcient for 
my purpose to mention but one or two which seem to me of the 
greatest importance. It is only in our united character as an 
empire that our independence is acknowledged, that our power 
can be regarded or our credit supported among foreign nations. 
The treaties of the European powers with the United States of 
America will have no validity on a dissolution of the Union. 
We shall be left nearly in a state of nature ; or we may find by 
our own unhappy experience that there is a natural and neces- 
sary progression from the extreme of anarchy to the extreme of 
tyranny, and that arbitrary power is most easily established on 
the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. 

As to the second article, which respects the performance of 
public justice, Congress have, in their late address to the United 
States, almost exhausted the subject ; they have explained their 
ideas so fully, and have enforced the obligations the States are 
under to render complete justice to all the public creditors, with 
so much dignity and energy, that in my opinion no real friend 
of the honor and independency of America can hesitate a single 
moment respecting the propriety of complying with the just and 
honorable measures proposed. If their arguments do not pro- 



5 

duce conviction I know of nothing that will have greater influ- 
ence, especially when we recollect that the system referred to, 
being the result of the collected wisdom of the continent, must 
be esteemed, if not perfect, certainly the least objectionable of 
any that could be devised, and that if it shall not be carried into 
immediate execution a national bankruptcy, with all its deplor- 
able consequences, will lake place before any different plan can 
possibly be proposed and adopted. So pressing are the present 
circumstances and such is the alternative now offered to the 
States. 

The ability of the country to discharge the debts which have 
been incurred in its defence is not to be doubted ; an inclination, 
I flatter myself, will not be wanting. The path of our duty is 
■ plain before us ; honesty will be found on every experiment to 
be the best and only true policy. Let us then as a nation be 
just; let us fulfill the public contracts which Congress had un- 
doubtedly a right to make for the purpose of carrying on the war, 
with the same good faith we suppose ourselves bound to perform 
our private engagements. In the meantime let an attention to 
the cheerful performance of their proper business, as individuals 
and as members of society, be earnestly inculcated on the citi- 
zens of America; then will they strengthen the hands of govern- 
ment and be happy under its jDrotection ; every one will reap 
the fruit of his labors, every one will enjoy his ow'n acquisitions 
without molestation and without danger. 

In this state of absolute freedom and perfect security, who 
will grudge to yield a very little of his property to support the 
common interest of society and insure the protection of govern- 
ment ? Who does not remember the frequent declarations, at 
the commencement of the war, that we should be completely 
satisfied if, at the expense of one half, we could defend the re- 
mainder of our possessions .'' Where is the man to be found 
who wishes to remain indebted for the defence of his own per- 
son and property to the exertions, the bravery, and the blood of 
others, without making one generous effort to repay the debt of 
honor and of gratitude ? In what part of the continent shall we 
find any man, or body of men, who would not blush to stand up 
and propose measures purposely calculated to rob the soldier of 
his stipend and the public creditor of his due ? And were it 
possible that such a flagrant instance of injustice could ever hap- 
pen, would it not excite the general indignation, and tend to 
bring down upon the authors of such measures the aggravated 
vengeance of Heaven .'' If, after all, a spirit of disunion, or a 
temper of obstinacy and perverseness, should manifest itself in 
any of the States, if such an ungracious disposition should at- 
tempt to frustrate all the happy effects that might be expected 
to flow from the Union, if there should be a refusal to comply 
with the requisitions for funds to discharge the annual interest 



of the public debts, and if that refusal should revive again all 
those jealousies and produce all tliose evils which are now hap- 
pily removed. Congress, who have, in all their transactions, 
shown a great degree of magnanimity and justice, will stand justi- 
fied in the sight of God and man ; and that State alone which 
puts itself in opposition to the aggregate wisdom of the conti- 
nent, and follow\s such mistaken and pernicious counsels, will be 
responsible for all the consequenc("S. 



Washington next enforces the ol^ligations of the country to the soldiers. 
The resolutions of Coi^gress concerning half-pay and commutation to officers 
he pronounces "as absolutely binding upon the United States as the most 
solemn acts of confederation or legislation." He continues: "As to the 
idea, which I am informed has in some instances prevailed, that the half- pay 
and commutation are to be regarded merely in the odious light of a pension, 
it ought to be exploded forever. That ])rovision should be viewed, as it 
really was, a reasonable compensation offered by Congress at a time when 
they had nothing else to give to the officers of the army for services then to 
be performed. It was the only means to prevent a total dereliction of the 
service. It was a part of their hire. I may be allowed to say it was the 
price of their blood and of your independency ; it is, therefore, more than a 
common debt ; it is a debt of honor ; it can never be considered as a pension 
or gratuity, nor be cancelled until it is fairly discharged. Should a further 
reward to the private soldiers," he adds, " be judged equitable, I will venture 
to assert that no one will enjoy greater satisfaction than myself on seeing an 
exemption from taxes for a limited time (which has been petitioned for in 
some instances), or any other adequate inmiunity or compensation granteci 
to the brave defenders of their country's cause." 



Before I conclude the subject of public justice 1 cannot 
omit to mention the obligations this country is under to that 
meritorious class of veteran non-commissioned officers and pri- 
vates who have been discharged for inabilitv, in consequence of 
the resolution of Congress of the 23d of April, 1782, on an annual 
pension for life. Their peculiar sufferings, their singular merits 
and claims to that provision, need only be known to interest 
all the feeliniis of humanity in their behalf. Nothins; but a 
punctual payment of their annual allowance can rescue them 
from the most complicated misery ; and nothing could'be a more 
melancholy and distressing sight than to behold those who have 
shed their blood or lost their limbs in the service of their coun- 
try, without a shelter, without a friend, and without the means 
of obtaining any of the necessaries or comforts of life, compelled 
to beg their daily bread from door to door. Suffer me to recom- 
mend those of this description belonging to your State to the 
warmest patronage of your Excellency and your legislature. 

It is necessary to say but a few words on the third topic 
which was pro]30sed. and which regards particularly the defence 
of the republic, as there can be little doubt that Congress will 
recommend a proper peace establishment for the United States, 



in which a due attention will be paid to the importance of plac- 
ing the militia of the Union upon a regular and respectable foot- 
ing. If this should be the case, J would beg leave to urge the 
great advantage of it in the strongest terms. The militia of this 
country must be considered as the palladium of our securit}' and 
the first effectual resort in case of hostility. It is essential, 
therefore, that the same system should pervade the whole ; that 
the formation and discipline of the militia of the continent should 
be absolutely uniform, and that the same species of arms, accoutre- 
ments, and military apparatus should be introduced in everv part 
of the United States. No one who has not learned it from ex- 
perience can conceive the difficulty, expense, and confusion 
which result from a contrarv svstem, or the vasue arrano'ements 
which have hitherto prevailed. 

If, in treating of political points, a greater latitude than 
usual has been taken in the course of this address, the impor- 
tance of the crisis, and the magnitude of the objects in discus- 
sion, must be my apology. It is, however, neither my wish nor 
expectation that the preceding observations should claim any 
regard, except so far as they shall appear to be dictated by a 
good intention, consonant to the immutable rules of justice, cal- 
culated to produce a liberal system of policy, and founded on 
whatever experience may have been acquired by a long and close 
attention to public business. Here I might speak with the more 
confidence from my actual observations ; and if it would not 
swell this letter (already too prolix) beyond the bounds I had 
prescribed to myself, I could demonstrate to every mind open 
to conviction, that in less time and with much less expense than 
has been incurred, the war might have been brought to the same 
happy conclusion if the resources of the continent could have 
been properly drawn forth ; that the distresses and disappoint- 
ments which have very often occurred ha\'e, in too many in- 
stances, resulted more from a want of energy in the Continental 
government than a deficiency of means in the particular States ; 
that the inefficacy of measures arising from the want of an adequate 
authority in the supreme power, from a partial compliance with 
the requisitions of Congress in some of the States, and from a 
failure of punctuality in others, while it tended to damp the zeal 
of those who were more willing to exert themselves, served also 
to accumulate the expenses of the war, and to frustrate the best 
concerted plans ; and that the discouragement occasioned by 
the complicated difficulties and embarrassments in which our 
affairs were by this means involved, would have long ago pro- 
duced the dissolution of any army less patient, less virtuous, and 
less persevering than that which I have had the honor to com- 
mand. But, while I mention these things, which are notorious 
facts, as the defects of our federal constitution, particularly in 
the prosecution of a war, I beg it may be understood that as I 



8 

have ever taken a pleasure in gratefully acknowledging the 
assistance and support I have derived from every class of citi- 
zens, so shall I always be happy to do justice to the unparalleled 
exertions of the individual States on many interesting occasions. 

I have thus freely disclosed what I wished to make known 
before I surrendered up my public trust to those who committed 
it to me. The task is now accomplished. I now bid adieu to 
your Excellency as the chief magistrate of your State, at the 
same time I bid a last farewell to the cares of office and all the 
employments of public life. 

It remains, then, to be my final and only request that your 
FLxcellency will communicate these sentiments to your legisla- 
ture at their next meeting, and that they may be considered as 
the legacy of one who has ardently wished on all occasions to be 
useful to his country, and who, even in the shade of retirement, 
will not fail to implore the Divine benediction upon it. 

I now make it my earnest prayer that God would have you 
and the State over which you preside in his holy protection ; 
that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a 
spirit of subordination and obedience to government ; to enter- 
tain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fel- 
low citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for 
their brethren who have served in the field; and finally, that he 
would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, 
to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humil- 
ity, and pacific temper of mind which were the characteristics of 
the Divine Author of our blessed religion, and without an humble 
imitation of whose example in these things we can never hope 
to be a happy nation. 

I have the honor to be, with much esteem and respect. Sir, 
your Excellency's most obedient and most humble servant, 

George Washington. 



Of the conditions under which Washington wrote the circular letter here given, and which 
he entreated the people to receive as " his legacy " on his retirement to private life, the stu- 
dent can read in Irving's Life of Washington and in the other biographies. " How the Land 
Received the Legacy of Washington " is the subject of an entire chapter in Bancroft's History 
of the Formation of the Constitution (vol. vi of the new edition of his History of the United 
States). Bancroft's work gives the best general account of the period between the close of the 
Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution. The last chapter of Frothingham's Rise of 
the Republic covers this " period of probation," as Washington well termed it ; and the young 
people will find the same briefly treated in all the smaller histories, Higginson's, Scudder's, 
John.ston's, etc. McMaster's History of the People of the United States is commended to 
the careful student ; the entire first volurne relates to the period now under survey, the first 
chapter painting a picture of the social conditions and life of the people at the close of the 
Revolution, and the three following chapters treating of the confusion preceding the adoption 
of the Constitution. The articles by John Fiske in "the Atlantic Monthly for 1886 and 1887 
are also warmly commended : these articles were originally lectures given in the Old South 
Meeting House, under the title of "The Critical Period of American History." Cooley, 
Curtis, and Story may be consulted, as before. 



FIFTH SERIES, 1S87. No. 4. 

<£>\h ^outft leaflet^. 



The Constitution of the United 

States. 



We, the people of the United States, hi order to form a more 
perfect union, estabUsh justice, insure domestic tranquiUty, pro- 
vide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and 
secm'e the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States 
of America. 

ARTICLE I. 

SECTION I. 

All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a 
Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate 
and House of Representatives. 

SECTIOiSr II. 

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members 
chosen every second year by the people of the several States, 
and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications 
requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State 
legislature. 

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have at- 
tained the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citi- 
zen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be 
an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen. 

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among 
the several States which may be included within this Union, 
according to their respective numbers, which shall be deter- 
mined by adding to the whole number of free persons, includ-^ 
insT those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding 
Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual 



euiimeration shall bs made within three years after the first 
meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every 
subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by 
law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed 
one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least 
one Representative ; and until such enumeration shall be made, 
the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, 
Massachuaetts eight, Ehode Island and Providence Plantations 
one, Connecticut live. New York six, Neiv Jersey four, Penn- 
sylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, 
North Carolina five. South Carolina five, and Georgia three. 

When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, 
the executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to 
fill such vacancies. 

The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker 
and other officers ; and shall have the sole power of impeach- 
ment. 

SECTION III. 

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 
Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof, for 
six years ; and each Senator shall have one vote. 

Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of 
the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into 
three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall 
be vacated at the expiration of the second year; of the second 
class, at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third 
class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one-third may 
be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resig- 
nation or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature of any 
State, the executive thereof may make temporary appointments 
until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill 
such vacancies. 

No person shall be a Senator, who shall not have attained to 
the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the 
United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant 
of that State for which he shall be chosen. 

The Vice President of the United States shall be President 
of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally 
divided. 



The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a Presi- 
dent pro tempore in the absence of the Vice President, or when 
he shall exercise the office of President of the United States. 

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. 
When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirma- 
tion. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief 
Justice shall preside : and no person shall be convicted without 
the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present. 

Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further 
than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and 
enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United 
States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and 
subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment, accord- 
ing to law. 

SECTION IV. 

The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Sen- 
ators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by 
the legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by 
law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of 
choosing Senators. 

The Congress shall assemble at least once in eveiy year, and 
such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless 
they shall by law appoint a different day. 

SECTION V. 

Each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and 
qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall 
constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may 
adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the 
attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such 
penalties, as each house may provide. 

Each house may determine the rules of its proceedings, pun- 
ish its members for disorderly behavior, and with the concur- 
rence of two-thirds, expel a member. 

Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from 
time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in 
their judgment require secrecy, and the yeas and nays of the 
members of either house on any question shall, at the desire of 
one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal. 



Neither house, during the session of Congress, shaH, without 
the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, 
nor to any other place than that in which the two houses shall 
be sitting. 

SECTION VI. 

The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensa- 
tion for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of 
the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases ex- 
cept treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from 
arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective 
houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for 
any speech or debate in either house, they shall not be ques- 
tioned in any other place. 

No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which 
he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the au- 
thority of the United States, which shall have been created, or 
the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such 
time; and no person holding any olfice under the United States, 
shall be a member of either house during his continuance in 
office. 

SECTION VII. 

All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives ; but the Senate may propose or concur with 
amendments as on other bills. 

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representa- 
tives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented 
to the President of the United States; if he approye he shall 
sign it, but if not he shall retm-n it, with his objections to that 
house in wh;ch it shall have originated, who shall enter the ob- 
jections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. 
If after such reconsideration two-thirds of that house shall 
agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objec- 
tions, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be recon- 
sidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that house, it shall be- 
come a law. But in all such cases the votes of both houses shall 
be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons 
voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal 
of each house respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by 



5 



the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall 
have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, ii . like 
manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their ad- 
journment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a 
law. 

Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of 
the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary 
(except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the 
Tresident of the United States ; and before the same shall take 
effect, shall be approved by him, or being disproved by him, 
shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed 
in the case of a bill. 

SECTION VIII. 

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, du- 
ties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the 
common defence and general welfare of the United States ; but 
all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the 
United States; 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States ; 

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the 
several States, and with the Indian tribes ; 

To establish an miiform rule of naturalization, and imiform 
laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United 
States; 

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign 
coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures ; 

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securi- 
ties and current coin of the United States ; 

To establish post-offices and post-roads ; 

To promote the progress of science and useful arts by secur- 
ing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive 
right to their respective writings and discoveries ; 

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court ; 

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the 
high seas and offences against the law of nations ; 

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make 
rules concerning captures on land and water; 



To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money 
to that use shall be for a longer term than two years j 

To provide and maintain a navy ; 

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land 
and naval forces ; 

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of ' 
the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the mili- 
tia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in 
the service of the United States, reserving to the States respec- 
tively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of 
training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by 
Congress ; 

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over 
such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by ces- 
sion of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, be- 
come the seat of the Government of the United States, and to 
exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent 
of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for 
the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other 
needful buildings ; — and 

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for car- 
rying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers 
vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United 
States, or in any department or officer thereof. 

SECTION IX. 

The migration or importation of such persons as any of the 
States now existing shall think proper to admit shall not be pro- 
hibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such 
imp»ortation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. 

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be sus- 
pended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public 
safety may require it. 

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in pro- 
portion to the census or enumeration hereinbefore directed to 
be taken. 



No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any 
State. 

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce 
or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor 
shall vessels bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, 
clear, or pay duties in another. 

No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in conse- 
quence of appropriations made by law ; and a regular statement 
and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money 
shall be published from time to time. 

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States ; and 
no person holding any office of profit or trust mider them, shall, 
without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emol- 
ument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, 
prince, or foreign State. 

SECTION X. 

No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confedera- 
tion; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit 
bills of credit ; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender 
in pajanent of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto 
law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any 
title of nobility. 

No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any im- 
posts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be 
absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the 
net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on im- 
ports or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the Uni- 
ted States; and all such laws shall be subject to the revision and 
control of the Congress. 

No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty 
of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter 
into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a 
foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in 
such imminent danger as will not admit of delay. 

ARTICLE II.' 

SECTION I. 

The executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
United States of America. He shall hold his office during the 



8 



term of four years, and together with the Vice President, chosen 
for the same term, be elected as follows : 

Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature 
thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole 
number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may 
be entitled in the Congress : but no Senator or Representative, 
or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United 
States, shall be appointed an elector. 

[The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by 
ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an in- 
habitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall 
make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of 
votes for each ; which list they shall sign and certify, and trans- 
mit sealed to the seat of government of the United States, 
directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the 
Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Rep- 
resentatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be 
counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall 
be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole num- 
ber of electors appointed ; and if there be more than one who have 
such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the 
House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one 
of them for President ; and if no person have a majority, then 
from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like 
manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, 
the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each 
State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist 
of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a 
majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In 
every case, after the choice of the President, the person having 
the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice 
President. But if there should remain two or more who have 
equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the 
Vice President.] * 

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the elec- 



* This clause of the Coustitutioii has beeu amended. See twelfth arti* 
cle of the ameudmeuts. 



tors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which 
day shall be the same throughout the United States. 

No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the 
United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution 
shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any 
person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to 
the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident 
within the United States. 

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his 
death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and du- 
ties of tjie said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice Presi- 
dent, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of 
removal, death, resignation, or inability, both of the President 
and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as Presi- 
dent, and such officer shall act accordingly, mitil the disabiUty 
be removed, or a President shall be elected. 

The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a 
compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished 
during the period for which he may have been elected, and he 
shall not receive within that period any other emolument from 
the United States, or any of them. 

Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take 
the following oath or affirmation : — 

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully exe- 
cute the office of President of the United States, and will to the 
best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the ConstitU' 
tion of the United States." 

SECTION n. 

The President shall be Commander-in-chief o^ the Army and 
Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several 
States, when called into the actual service of the United States ; 
he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer 
• in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating 
to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power 
to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United 
States, except in cases of impeachment. 

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of 
the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-Lhirds of the sena- 



10 



tors present concur; and he shall nominate, and, by and with 
the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassa- 
dors, otlier public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme 
Court, and all otlier officers of the United States, whose appoint- 
ments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall 
be established by law; but the Congress may by law vest the 
appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in 
the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of da- 
partments. 

The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may 
happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commis- 
sions which shall expire at the end of their next session. 

SECTION III. 

He shall from time to time give to the Congress information 
of the state of the Union, and recommend to their considera- 
tion such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; 
he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses, or 
either of them, and in case of disagreement between them,- 
with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them 
to such time as he shall think proper ; he shall receive ambassa- 
dors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the 
laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the offi- 
cers of the United States. 

SECTION' IV. 

The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the 
United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment 
for, and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes 
and misdemeanors. 

ARTICLE III. 

SECTION I. 

The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one 
Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress 
may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both 
of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices dur- 
ing good behavior, and shall, at stated times, receive for their 
services a compensation which shall not be diminished during 
their continuance in office. 



II 



SECTION II. 

The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, 
arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, 
and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their author- 
ity; — to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, 
and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdic- 
tion ; to controversies to which the United States shall be a 
party ; to controversies between two or more States ; between a 
State and citizens of another State; between citizens of differ- 
ent States, — between citizens of the same State claiming lands 
under grants of different States, and between a State, or the 
citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens or subjects. 

In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and 
consuls, and those in which a State shall be party, the Supreme 
Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases 
before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate juris- 
diction, both as to law and fact; with such exceptions, and 
under such regulations as the Congress shall make. 

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall 
be by jury ; and such trial shall be held in the State where the 
said crimes shall have been committed ; but when not committed 
within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the 
Congress may by law have directed. 

SECTION III. 

Treason against the United States shall consist only in levy- 
ing war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving 
them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason 
unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, 
or on confession in open court. 

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of 
treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of 
blood or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted. 

ARTICLE IV. 

SECTION I. 

Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the pub- 
lic acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. 



12 



And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner id 
which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and 
the effect thereof. 

SECTION II. 

The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges 
and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other 
crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another 
State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State 
from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State 
having jurisdiction of the crime. 

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the 
laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of 
any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service 
or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to 
whom such service or labor may be due. 

SECTION III. 

New States maybe admitted by the Congress into this Union; 
but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdic- 
tion of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junc- 
tion of two or more States, or parts of States, without the con- 
sent of the legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the 
Congress. 

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all 
needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other 
property belonging to the United States ; and nothing in this 
Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of 
the United States, or of any particular State. 

SECTION IV. 

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this 
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each 
of them against invasion, ana on application of the legislature, 
or of the executive, ( when the legislature cannot be convened, ) 
against domestic violence. 



13 



ARTICLE Y. 

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem 
it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, 
on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the seve- 
ral States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, 
which in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, 
as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of 
three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three- 
fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification 
may be proposed by the Congress, provided that no amend- 
ments which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight 
hundred and eight, shall in any manner affect the first and 
fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article ; and that 
no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suf- 
frage in the Senate. 

ARTICLE YL 

All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before 
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the 
United States under this Constitution, as under the confedera- 
tion. 

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which 
shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or 
which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, 
shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every 
State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or 
laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. 

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the 
members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and 
judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several 
States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this 
Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a 
qualification to any office or public trust under the United 
States. 

ARTICLE YII. 

The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be 
sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the 
States so ratifying the same. 



14 



AMENDMENTS. 



ARTICLE I. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging 
the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the peo- 
ple peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a 
redress of grievances. 

ARTICLE 11. 

A well-regulated militia, being necessaiy to the security of a 
free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall 
not be infringed. 

ARTICLE IIL 

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house, 
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a 
manner to be prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE lY. 

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seiz- 
ures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but 
upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and 
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the per- 
son or things to be seized 

ARTICLE Y. 

TsTo person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a 
grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, 
or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or pub- 
lic danger ; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence 
to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be com- 
pelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor 



15 



be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process 
of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, with- 
out just compensation. 

ARTICLE VI. 

In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right 
to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State 
and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which 
district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be 
informed of the nature and cause of the accusation ; to be con- 
fronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory 
process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the 
assistance of counsel for his defence. 

ARTICLE YII. 

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall 
exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be pre- 
served, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-exam- 
ined in any court of the United States, than according to the 
rules of the common law. 

ARTICLE VIII. 
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines im- 
posed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. 

ARTICLE IX. 

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall 

not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the 

people. 

ARTICLE X. 

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Consti- 
tution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the 
States respectively, or to the people. 

ARTICLE XL 

The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed 
to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted 
against one of the United States by citizens of another State, 
or by citizens or subjects of any foreign State. 



i6 



ARTICLE XII. 

The electors shall meet in their respective States and vote by 
ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, 
shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves; 
they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as Presi- 
dent, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-Presi- 
dent, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for 
as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and 
of the number of votes for each; which lists they shall sign and 
certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the 
United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The 
President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and 
House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes 
shall then be counted ; — the person having the greatest number 
of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number 
be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed ; and 
if no person have such majority, then from the persons having 
the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those 
voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall 
choose mmediately, by ballot; the President. But in choosing 
the President, the votes shall taken by States, the representa- 
tion from each State having one vote; a quorum for this iDur- 
pose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of 
the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to 
a choice. And if the House of Representatives shall not choose 
a President whenever the right of choice shall devolve upon 
them, before the fourth day of March, next following, then the 
Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of the death 
or other constitutional disability of the President. 

The person having the greatest number of votes as Vice- 
President shall be the Vice-President, if such number be a ma- 
jority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if no 
person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers on 
the list the Senate shall choose the Vice-President ; a quorum 
for the purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number 
of Senators, and a majority of the whole number shall be ne- 
cessary to a choice. But no person constitutionally ineligible 
to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-Presi- 
cient of the United States. 



17 



ARTICLE XIII. 

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except 
as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been 
duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place 
subject to their jurisdiction. 

S-ECTioN 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article 
by appropriate legislation. 

ARTICLE XIV. 

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United 
States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the 
United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State 
shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges 
or immunities of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any 
State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without 
due process of law ; nor deny to any person within its jurisdic- 
tion the equal protection of the laws. 

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the 
several States according to their respective numbers, coimting 
the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians 
not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the 
choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the Uni- 
ted States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judi- 
cial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, 
is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being 
twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in 
any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other 
crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in 
the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall 
bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of 
age in such State. 

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative 
in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold 
any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under 
any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member 
of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a mem- 
ber of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial offi- 
cer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United 



i8 



States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against 
the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But 
Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove 
such disability. 

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United 
States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for pa;^Tnent 
of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrec- 
tion or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the 
United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obli- 
gation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the 
United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any 
slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held 
illegal and void. 

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by 
appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. 

ARTICLE Xy. 

Section 1. The right of citizens "of the United States to vote 
shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any 
State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servi- 
tude. 

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this 
article by appropriate legislation. 



FIFTH SERIES, 18S7. No. 



The Last Day of the Constitutional 

Convention. 



FROM MADISON'S JOURNAL. 



Monday, September 17. In Convention — The engrossed Con- 
stitution being read, Doctor Franl<^lin rose with a speech in his 
hand, which he had reduced to writing for his own convenience, 
and which Mr. Wilson read in the words following : 

" Mr. President : I confess that there are several parts of this 
Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not 
sure I shall never approve them. For, having lived long, I 
have experienced many instances of being obliged by better in- 
formation, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on 
important subjects which I once thought right, but found to be 
otherwise. It is therefore that, the older I grow, the more apt 
I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to 
the judgment of others. Most men, indeed, as well as most 
sects in religion, think themselves in possession of all truth, and 
that wherever others differ from them it is so far error. Steele, 
a Protestant, in a dedication tells the Pope that the only differ- 
ence between our churches, in their opinions of the certainty of 
their doctrines, is, ' the Church of Rome is infallible, and the 
Church of England is never in the wrong.' But though many pri- 
vate persons think almost as highly of their own infallibility as of 
that of their sect, few express it so naturally as a certain French 
lady who, in a dispute with her sister, said, ' I don't know how 
it happens, sister, but I meet with nobody but myself that is 
always in the right — il n'y a que moi qui a toujours raisoji.'' 

" In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution, with 
all its faults, if they are such, because I think a General Gov- 



ernment necessary for us, and there is no form of government 
but what may be a blessing" to tlie people if well administered ; 
and beHeve further, that this is likely to be well administered 
for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other 
forms have done before it, when the people shall become so 
corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of 
an\' other. I doubt, too, whether any other Convention we can 
obtain may be able to make a better Constitution. For when 
you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their 
joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men all their 
prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local in- 
terests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a 
perfect production be expected ? It, therefore, astonishes me, 
sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it 
does ; and I think it will astonish our enemies, who are waiting 
with confidence to hear that our councils are confounded, like 
those of the builders of Babel, and that our States are on the 
point of separation, only to meet hereafter for the purpose of 
cutting one another's throats. Thus I consent, sir, to this Con- 
stitution because I expect no better, and because I am not sure 
that it is not the best. The opinions I have had of its errors I 
sacrifice to the public good. I have never whispered a syllable 
of them abroad. Within these walls they were born and here 
they shall die. If every one of us, in returning to our constitu- 
ents, were to report the objections he has had to it, and en- 
deavor to gain partisans in support of them, we might prevent 
its being generally received, and thereby lose all the salutary 
effects and great advantages resulting naturally in our favor 
among foreign nations as well as among ourselves, from our 
real or apparent unanimity. Much of the strength and efficiency 
of any government, in procuring and securing happiness to the 
people, depends on opinion — on the general opinion of the 
goodness of the government as well as of the wisdom and integ- 
rity of its governors. I hope, therefore, that for our own sakes, 
as a part of the people, and for the sake of posterity, we shall 
act heartily and unanimously in recommending this Constitu- 
tion (if approved by Congress and confirmed by the Conven- 
tions) wherever our influence may extend, and turn our future 
thoughts and endeavors to the means of having it well admin- 
istered. 

" On the whole, sir, I cannot help expressing a wish that 
every member of the Convention who may still have objections 



to it would, with me, on this occasion doubt a little of his own in- 
fallibiiit}- and, to make manifest our unanimity, put his name to 
this instrument." 

He then moved that the Constitution be signed by the mem- 
bers, and offered the following as a convenient form, viz. : 
" Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States 
present the seventeenth of September, etc. In witness whereof 
we have hereunto subscribed our names." 

This ambiguous form had been drawn up by Mr. Gouverneur 
Morris, in order to gain the dissenting members, and put into 
the hands of Doctor P'ranklin, that it might have the better 
chance of success. 

Mr. Gorham said, if it was not too late, he could wish, for the 
purpose of lessening objections to the Constitution, that the 
clause declaring that " the number of Representatives shall not 
exceed one for every forty thousand," which had produced so 
much discussion, might be yet reconsidered in order to strike 
out "forty thousand" and insert "thirty thousand." This 
would not, he remarked, establish that as an absolute rule, but 
only give Congress a greater latitude, which could not be 
thought unreasonable. 

Mr. King and Mr. Carroll seconded and supported the ideas 
of Mr. Gorham. 

When the President rose for the purpose of putting the ques- 
tion, he said, that although his situation had hitherto restrained 
him from offering his sentiments on questions depending in the 
House, and it might be thought ought now to impose silence on him, 
yet he could not forbear expressing his wish that the alteration 
proposed might take place. It was much to be desired that the 
objections to the plan recommended might be made as few as 
possible. The smallness of the proportion of Representatives 
had been considered by many members of the Convention an 
insufficient security for the rights and interests of the people. 
He acknowledged that it had always appeared to himself among 
the exceptionable parts of the plan;, and late as the present 
moment was for admitting amendments, he thought this of so 
much consequence that it would give him much satisfaction to 
see it adopted.' 

No opposition was made to the proposition of Mr. Gorham, 
and it was agreed to unanimously. 

1 This was the only occasion on which the President entered at all into the discussions of 
the Convention. 



On the question to agree to the Constitution, enrolled, in order 
to be signed, it was agreed to, all the States answering, aye. 

Mr. Randolph then rose, and with an allusion to the observa- 
tions of Doctor Franklin, apologized for his refusing to sign the 
Constitution notwithstanding the vast majority and venerable 
names that would give sanction to its wisdom and its worth. 
He said, however, that he did not mean by this refusal to decide 
that he should oppose the Constitution without doors. He 
meant only to keep himself free to be governed by his duty as 
it should be prescribed by his future judgment. He refused to 
sign because he thought the object of the Convention would be 
frustrated by the alternative which it presented to the people. 
Nine States will fail to ratify the plan and confusion must en- 
sue. With such a view of the subject he ought not, he could 
not, by pledging himself to support the plan, restrain himself 
from taking such steps as might appear to him most consistent 
with the public good. 

Mr. Gouverneur Morris said that he too had objections, but 
considering the present plan as the best that was to be attained, 
he should take it with all its faults. The majority had deter- 
mined in its favor and by that determination he should abide. 
The moment this plan goes forth all other considerations will 
be laid aside, and the great question will be. Shall there be a 
National Government or not ? and this must take place or a gen- 
eral anarchy will be the alternative. He remarked that the 
signing in the form proposed related only to the fact that' the 
States present were unanimous. 

Mr. Williamson suggested that the signing should be con- 
fined to the letter accompanying the Constitution to Congress, 
which might perhaps do nearly as well, and would be found sat- 
isfactory to some members who disliked the Constitution.^ For 
himself he did not think a better plan was to be expected, and 
had no scruples against putting his name to it. 

Mr. Hamilton expressed his anxiety that every member should 
sign. A few characters of consequence, by opposing or even 
refusing to sign the Constitution, might do infinite mischief by 
kindling the latent sparks that lurk under an enthusiasm in 
favor of the Convention which may soon subside. No man's 
, ideas were more remote from the plan than his own were 
known to be ; but is it possible to deliberate between anarchy 



2 He alluded to Mr. Blount for one. 



5 

^ 

and convulsion on one side, and the chance of good to be ex- 
pected from the plan on the other ? 

Mr. Blount said he had declared that he would not sign so as 
to pledge himself in support of the plan, but he was relieved bv 
the form proposed, and would, without committing himself, 
attest the fact that the plan was the unanimous act of the States 
in Convention. 

Doctor Franklin expressed his fears, from what Mr. Randolph 
had said, that he thought himself alluded to in the remarks of- 
fered this morning to the House. He declared that when draw- 
ing up that paper he did not know that any particular member 
would refuse to sign his name to the instrument, and hoped to 
be so understood. He possessed a high sense of obligation to 
Mr. Randolph for having brought forward the plan in the first 
instance, and for the assistance he had given in its progress ; 
and hoped that he would yet lay aside his objections, and by 
concurring with his brethren prevent the great mischief which 
the refusal of his name might produce. 

Mr. Randolph could not but regard the signing in the pro- 
posed form as the same with signing the Constitution. The 
change of form, therefore, could make no difference with him. 
He repeated, that in refusing to sign the Constitution he took a 
step which might be the most awful of his life ; but it was dic- 
tated by his conscience, and it was not possible for him to hesi- 
tate — much less to change. He repeated, also, his persuasion 
that the holding out this plan, with a final alternative to the peo- 
ple of accepting or rejecting it ?>/ toto^ would really produce the 
anarchy and civil convulsions which were apprehended from the 
refusal of individuals to sign it. 

Mr. Gerry described the painful feelings of his situation, and 
the embarrassments under which he rose to offer any further 
observations on the subject which had been finally decided. 
\\'hilst the plan was depending he had treated it with all the 
freedom he thought it deserved. He now felt himself bound, 
as he was disjDOsed, to treat it with the respect due to the act of 
the Convention. He hoped he should not violate that respect 
in declaring on this occasion his fears that a civil war may result 
from the present crisis of the United States. In Massachusetts, 
particularly, he saw the danger of this calamitous event. In 
that State there are two parties, one devoted to Democracy, the 
worst, he thought, of all political evils ; the other as violent in 
the opposite extreme. From the collision of these in opposing 



and resisting the Constitution confusion was greatly to be 
feared. He had thought it necessary, for this and other rea- 
sons, that the plan should have been proposed in a more mediat- 
ing shape in order to abate the heat and opposition of parties. 
As it had been passed by the Convention he was persuaded it 
would have a contrary effect. He could not, therefore, by sign- 
ing the Constitution, pledge himself to abide by it at all events. 
The proposed form made no difference with him. But if it 
were not otherwise apparent, the refusals to sign should never 
be known from him. Alluding to the remarks of Doctor Frank- 
lin he could not, he said, but view them as leveled at himself 
and the other orentlemen who meant not to sis'n. 

General Pinckney. We are not likely to gain many converts 
b\; the ambiguity of the proposed form of signing. He thought 
it best to be candid and let the form speak the substance. If 
the meaning of the signers be left in doubt his puipose would 
not be answered. He should sign the Constitution with a view 
to support it with all his inliuence, and wished to pledge him- 
self accordingly. 

Doctor Franklin. It is too soon to pledge ourselves before 
Congress and our constituents shall have approved the plan. 

Mr. Ingersoll did not consider the signing either as a mere 
attestation of the fact or as pledging the signers to support the 
Constitution at all events, but as a recommendation of what, all 
thino-s considered, was the most eli2;ible. 

On the motion of Doctor Franklin — New Hampshire, Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut. New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 
Mar^-land, Virs^inia, North Carolina. Geors^ia, ave — lo ; South 
Carolina, divided.^ 

Mr. King suggested that the journals of the Convention should 
be either destroyed or deposited in the custody of the President. 
He thought if suffered to be made public a bad use would be made 
of them by those who would wish to prevent the adoption of the 
Constitution. 

Mr. Wilson preferred the second expedient. He had at one 
time liked the first best, but as false suggestions may be propa- 
gated it should not be made iniDOSsible to contradict them. 

A question was then put on depositing the journals and other 
papers of the Convention in the hands of the President, on 



' General Pinckney and Mr. Butler disliked the equivocal form of signing, and on that 
account voted in the nesrative. 



which — New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New 
jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South 
Carolina, Georgia, aye — lo; Maryland, no — i. 

The President having asked what the Convention meant 
should be done with the journals, etc., whether copies were to 
be allowed to the members if applied for, it was resolved, nem. 
con., " that he retain the journal and other papers subject to the 
order of Congress, if ever formed under the Constitution." 

The members then proceeded to sign the Constitution as 
finally amended. The Constitution being signed by all the 
members except Mr. Randolph, Mr. Mason, and Mr. Gerry, who 
declined giving it the sanction of their names, the Convention 
dissolved itself by an adjournment sine die. 

Whilst the last members were signing. Doctor Franklin, look- 
ing towards the President's chair, at the back of which a rising 
sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near 
him that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their 
art a rising from a setting sun. I have, said he, often and 
often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my 
hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the Presi- 
dent without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting ; 
but now, at length, I have the happiness to know that it is a 
rising, and not a setting, sun. 



" Madison is called ' the Father of the Constitution.' A paper written by him was 
laid before his colleagues of Virginia, before the meeting of the Constitutional Convention at 
Philadelphia, and was made the basis of the ' Virginia plan,' as it was called, out of which the 
Constitution was evolved. In another way his name is so identified with it that one cannot be 
forgotten so long as the other is remembered. From that full and faithful report of the pro- 
ceedings of the Convention, in which his own part was so active and conspicuous, we know 
most that we do, o*r ever can, know of the perplexities and trials, the concessions and tri- 
umphs, the acts of wisdom and the acts of weakness of that body of men whose coming to- 
gether time has shown to have been one of the important events in the history of mankind." 

The standard life of Madison is the large work, in three volumes, by Rives. The second 
volume contains what is most important to the student attending these lectures; "it compre- 
hends," in the words of the preface, " the most instructive and, in a civil and political view, 
the most eventful period of American annals — from the close of the war of the Revolution, 
down to and inchiding the formation and establishment of the Constitution of the United 
States." There is a good brief biogi-aphy, by Gay, in the American Statesmen Series. 
Madison's " Journal of the Debates in the Federal Convention of 17S7 " fills the greater por- 
tion of the second and third volumes of the Madison Papers, published by the government. 
He gives an account in the preface of the reasons which led him to undertake the Journal, of 

I 



8 

the exceptional advantages which he had in its preparation, and of the great care which he 
gave to the work. This account is reproduced in Rives's Life of Madison, chap, xxviii. 
Madison's is the only complete record of the debates of the Federal Convention which has 
come down to us, and is invaluable. Judge Yates, one of the delegates from New York, took 
notes of a portion of the debates, covering about one third of the session of the Convention, 
and these notes have been published: but they are, as Madison himself pronounced them, 
" crude and desultory." Madison's ideas of the nature and extent of the reforms which the 
new Constitution should effect were first communicated to Jefferson, then in Paris, in a letter 
dated March 19, 1787, embodied in a letter to Randolph, April 8, and developed more fully in 
a letter to Washington, April 16, 1787. The outline contained in these letters is believed, to 
use Madison's own words, to be " the earliest sketch on paper of a constitutional government 
for the Union (organized into the regular departments, with physical means operating on in- 
di\aduals), to be sanctioned by the people of the States, acting in their original and sovereign 
character." The letters to Jefferson and Randolph are given in the Madison Papers, Vol. ii. 
The letter to Washington appears in the appendix to Vol. ix of Sparks's edition of the Writ- 
ings of \\'ashington, p. z^yb, and the important part of it is quoted by Rives, chap, xxviii. In 
this same chapter, Rives gives an admirable account of the men who composed the Constitu- 
tional Convention, and his general account of the proceedings may be compared with Ban- 
croft's. There are good separate biographies of most of the leading men of the Conven- 
tion. The names of all the signers of the Constitution are here appended, the names of those 
who were also signers of the Declaration of Independence being printed in italics : 

George Washington, President, and Deputy from Virginia. 

New Hampshire — John Langdon. Nicholas Oilman. 

IMassachi'setts — Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King. 

Connecticut — William Samuel Johnson, Roger Sher77iaii. 

New- York — Alexander Hamilton. 

New Jersey — William Livingston, David Brearly, William Patterson, Jonathan Dayton. 

Pennsylvania — Benjamhi Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clynier, 
Thomas Fitzsimons, Jared IngersoU, fames Wilson, Gouverneur Morris. 

Delaware — George Read, Q>\x\\\\\w^^&A.iord., Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, 
Jacob Broom. 

Maryland — James McHenry, Daniel of .St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll. 

Virginia — John Blair, James Madison, Jr. 

North Carolina — William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson. 

South Carolina — John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, 
Pierce Butler. 

Georgi.\ — William Few, Abraham Baldwin. 

William Jackson, Secretary. 



FIFTH SERIES, 1887. No. 6. 

Patrick Henry Against the Constitu- 
tion. 



Extracts from his first speech in the Virginia Convention, y^ne, ijSS. 



Mr. Chairman : The public mind, as well as my own, is 
extremely uneasy at the proposed change of government. Give 
me leave to form one of the number of those, who wish to be 
thoroughly acquainted with the reasons of this perilous and un- 
easy situation, and why we are brought thither to decide on this 
great national question. I consider myself as the servant of 
the people of this commonwealth, as a sentinel over their rights, 
liberty, and happiness. Before the meeting of the late federal 
convention at Philadelphia, a general peace, and an universal 
tranquillity prevailed in this country, and the minds of our citi- 
zens were at perfect repose ; but since that period, they are 
exceedingly uneasy and disquieted. I conceive the republic 
to be in extreme danger. Whence has arisen this fearful 
jeopardy? It arises from a proposal to change our govern- 
ment — a proposal that goes to the utter annihilation of the 
most solemn engagements of the states — a proposal of estab- 
lishing nine states into a confederacy, to the eventual exclusion 
of four states. I expected to have heard the reasons of an 
event so unexpected to my mind, and many others. Was 
our civil polity, or public justice, endangered or sapped ? 
Was the real existence of the country threatened, or was 
this preceded by a mournful' progression of events .'* This 
proposal of altering our federal government is of a most 
alarming nature. Instead of securing your rights, you may 
lose them forever. I repeat it again, and I beg gentlemen to 
consider, that a wrong step, made now, will plunge us into 
misery, and our republic will be lost. It will be necessary 
for this convention to have a faithful historical detail by the 
facts, that preceded the session of the federal convention, and 
the reasons that actuated its members in proposing an entire 
alteration of government — and to demonstrate the dangers that 
awaited us. If they were of such awful magnitude, as to war- 
rant a proposal so extremely perilous as this, I must assert, 
that this convention has an absolute right to a thorough discov- 
ery of every circumstance relative to this great event. And 
here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who 
composed a part of the late federal convention. I am sure 



they were fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great 
consolidated government, instead of a confederation. That 
this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear; and 
the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very striking. 
I have the highest veneration for, those gentlemen; but, sir, 
give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, " We, the 
People ? " My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious so- 
licitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, who authorized 
them to speak the language of, " We, the People," instead of 
We, the States ? States are the characteristics, and the soul 
of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this com- 
pact, it must be one great consolidated national government of 
the people of all the states. I have the highest respect for 
those gentlemen who formed the convention ; and were some 
of them not here, I would express some testimonial of esteem 
for them. America had on a former occasion put the utmost con- 
fidence in them : a confidence well placed. I am sure, sir, 
I would cheerfully confide in them as my representatives. But 
on this great occasion, I would demand the cause of their conduct. 
Even from that illustrious man, who saved us by his valor, I 
would have a reason for his conduct; that liberty which he has 
given us by his valor, tells me to ask this reason, and sure I am, 
were he here, he would give us that reason : but there are other 
gentlemen here, who can give us this information. The people 
gave them no power to use their name. That they exceeded 
their power is perfectly clear. I wish to hear the real, actual, 
existing danger, which should lead us to steps so dangerous in my 
conception. Disorders have arisen in other parts of America, 
but here, sir, no dangers, no insurrection or tumult, has hap- 
pened; everything has been calm and tranquil. But notwith- 
standing this, we are wandering on the great ocean of human 
affairs. I see no landmark to guide us. We are running we 
know not whither. Difference in opinion has gone to a degree 
of inflammatory resentment, in different parts of the country, 
which has been occasioned by this perilous innovation. The 
federal convention ought to have amended the old system ; for 
this purpose, they were solely delegated : the object of their 
mission extended to no other consideration. 

The question turns, sir, on that poor little thing — the ex- 
pression. We, the people, instead of the states of America. I 
need not take much pains to show, that the principles of this 
system are extremely pernicious, impolitic, and dangerous. Is 
this a monarchy, like England — a compact between prince and 
people ; with checks on the former to secure the liberty of the 
latter? Is this a confederacy, like Holland — an association 
of a number of independent states, each of which retains its 
individual sovereignty? It is not a democracy, wherein the 
people retain all their rights securely. Had these princii^les 



been adhered to, we should not have been brought to this 
alarming transition, from a confederacy to a consolidated 
government. Here is a revolution as radical as that which 
separated us from Great Britain. It is as radical, if, in this 
transition, our rights and privileges are endangered, and the 
sovereignty of the states relinquished. And cannot we plainly 
see, that this is actually the case ? The rights of conscience, 
trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and fran- 
chises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are ren- 
dered insecure, if not lost, by this change so loudly talked of 
by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relin- 
quishment of rights worthy of freemen ? Is it worthy of that 
manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans.'* It is 
said eight states have adopted this plan. I declare that if 
twelve states and an half had adopted it, I would, with manly 
firmness, and in spite of an erring world, reject it. You are 
not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you 
are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liber- 
ties can be secured ; for liberty ought to be the direct end of 
your government. Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings 
— give us that precious jewel, and you may take every thing 
else. But I am fearful I have lived long enough to become an 
old-fashioned fellow. Perhaps an invincible attachment to the 
dearest rights of man may, in these refined, enlightened days, 
be deemed old-fashioned : if so, I am contented to be so. 
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every 
one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will 
preserve it, but downright force. Whenever you give up that 
force, you are inevitably ruined. I am answered by gentlemen, 
that though I may speak of terrors, yet the fact is, that we are 
surrounded by none of the dangers I apprehend. I conceive 
this new government to be one of those dangers : it has pro- 
duced those horrors, which distress many of our best citizens. 
We are come hither to preserve the poor commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia, if it can be possibly done : something must be done to 
preserve your liberty and mine. The confederation, this same 
depised government, merits, in my opinion, the highest enco- 
mium : it carried us through a long and dangerous war : it ren- 
dered us victorious in that bloody conflict with a powerful 
nation : it has secured us a territory greater than any European 
monarch possesses : and shall a government which has been 
thus strong and vigorous, be accused of imbecility, and aban- 
doned for want of energy ? Consider what you are about to do, 
before you part with this government. Take longer time in 
reckoning things : revolutions like this have happened in almost 
every country in Europe : similar examples are to be found in 
ancient Greece and ancient Rome : instances of the people losing 
their liberty by their own carelessness and the ambition of a few. 



We are cautioned by the honorable gentleman who presides, 
against faction and turbulence. I acknowledge that licentious- 
ness is dangerous, and that it ought to be provided against : I 
acknowledge also the new form of government may effectually 
prevent it: yet, there is another thing it will as effectually do: 
it will oppress and ruin the people. There are sufficient guards 
placed against sedition and licentiousness : for when power is 
given to this government to sujDpress these, or, for any other 
purpose, the language it assumes is clear, express, and unequiv- 
ocal ; but when this constitution speaks of privileges, there is 
an ambiguity, sir, a fatal ambiguity — an ambiguity which is 
very astonishing. In the clause under consideration, there 
is the strangest language that I can conceive. I mean, when 
it says, that there shall not be more representatives, than one 
for every 30,000. This may be satisfied by one representative 
from each state. Let our numbers be ever so great, this im- 
mense continent may, by this artful expression, be reduced to 
have but thirteen representatives. I confess this construction 
is not natural : but the ambiguity of the expression lays a good 
ground for a quarrel. Why was it not clearly and unequivocally 
expressed, that they should be entitled to have one for every 
30,000 ? This possibility of reducing the number to one for 
each state, approximates to probability by that other expression, 
"but each state shall at least have one representative." Now is 
it not clear that, from the first expression, the number might be 
reduced so much, that some states should have no representa- 
tive at all, were it not for the insertion of this last expression ? 
And as this is the only restriction upon them, we may fairly con- 
clude that they may restrain the number to one from each state. 
I shall be told I am continually afraid : but, sir, I have strong 
cause of apprehension. In some parts of the plan before you, 
the great rights of freemen are endangered, in other parts abso- 
lutely taken away. But we are told, that we need not fear, 
because those in power being our representatives, will not abuse 
the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in his- 
tory, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has 
been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, 
or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the 
balance on the side of tyranny. Happy will you be, if you miss 
the fate of those nations, who, omitting to resist their oppress- 
ors, or negligently suffering their liberty to be wrested from 
them, have groaned under intolerable despotism ! Most of the 
human race are now in this deplorable condition. And those 
nations who have gone in search of grandeur, power and 
splendor, have also fallen a sacrifice, and been the victims of 
their own folly. While they acquired those visionary blessings, 
they lost their freedom. 

The honorable gentleman said, that great danger would en- 



5 

sue, if the convention rose witliout adopting this system. I ask, 
where is that danger ? I see none. Other gentlemen have told 
us, within these walls, that the union is gone — or, that the 
union will be gone. Is not this trifling with the judgment of 
their fellow-citizens ? Till they tell us the ground of their fears, 
1 will consider them as imaginary. I rose to make inquiry 
where those dangers were; they could make no answer: I be- 
lieve I never shall have that answer. Is there a disposition in 
the people of this ■ country to revolt against the dominion of 
laws .f" Has there been a single tumult in Virginia? Have not 
the people of Virginia, when laboring under the severest press- 
ure of accumulated distresses, manifested the most cordial 
acquiescence in the execution of the laws ? Is there any rev- 
olution in Virginia ? Whither is the spirit of America gone ? 
It was but yesterday, when our enemies marched in triumph 
through our country. Yet the people of this country could not 
be appalled by their pompous armaments : they stopped their 
career, and victoriously captured them : where is the peril now, 
compared to that ? 

Some minds are agitated by foreign alarms. Happily for us, 
there is no real danger from Europe ; that country is engaged 
in more arduous business ; you may sleep in safety forever for 
them. Where is the danger ? If there was any, I would recur to 
the American spirit to defend us — that spirit which has enabled us 
to surmount the greatest difficulties : to that illustrious spirit I 
address my most fervent prayer, to prevent our adopting a 
system destructive to liberty. Let not gentlemen be told, 
that it is not safe to reject this government. W^ierefore is it 
not safe ? We are told there are dangers ; but those dangers 
are ideal ; they cannot be demonstrated. To encourage us to 
adopt it, they tell us, that there is a plain, easy way of getting 
amendments. When I come to contemplate this part, I suppose 
I am mad, or, that my countrymen are so. The way to amend- 
ment is, in my conception, shut. Let us consider this plain, 
easy way. " The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses 
shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this con- 
stitution ; or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds 
of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing 
amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents 
and purposes, as part of this constitution, when ratified by the 
legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conven- 
tions in three fourths thereof, as the one, or the other mode of 
ratification may be proposed by the Congress." 

Hence it appears, that three fourths of the states must ulti- 
mately agree to any amendments that may be necessary. Con- 
sider the consequences of this. However uncharitable it may 
appear, yet I must express my opinion, that the most unworthy 
characters may get into power and prevent the introduction of 



amendments. Let us suppose, (for the case is supposable, pos- 
sible and probable,) that you happen to deal these powers to 
unworthy hands ; will they relinquish powers already in their 
possession, or agree to amendments ? Two thirds of the Con- 
gress, or of the state legislatures, are necessary even to propose 
amendments. If one third of these be unworthy men, they may 
prevent the application for amendments ; but a destructive and 
mischievous feature is, that three fourths of the state legisla- 
tures, or of the state conventions, must concur in the amend- 
ments when proposed. In such numerous bodies, there must 
necessarily be some designing, bad men. To suppose that so 
large a number as three fourths of the states will concur, is to 
suppose that they will possess genius, intelligence and integrity, 
approaching to miraculous. Four of the smallest states, that do 
not collectively contain one tenth part of the population of the 
United States, may obstruct the most salutary and necessary 
amendments. Nay, in these four states, six tenths of the people 
may reject these amendments. A bare majority in these four 
small states, may hinder the adoption of amendments ; so that 
we may fairly conclude, that one twentieth part of the people may 
prevent the removal of the most grievous inconveniences and 
oppression, by refusing to accede to amendments. Is this an 
easy mode of securing the public liberty ? It is, sir, a most 
fearful situation, when the most contemptible minority can pre- 
vent the alteration of the most oppressive government; for it 
may, in many respects, prove to be such. Is this the spirit of 
republicanism ? What, sir, is the genius of democracy ? Let 
me read that clause of the Bill of Rights of Virginia which re- 
lates to this : 3d clause ; "That government is, or ought to be, 
instituted for the common benefit, protection and security of the 
people, nation, or community. Of all the various modes and 
forms of government, that is best, which is capable of producing 
the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effect- 
ually secured against the danger of mal-administration, and that 
whenever any government shall be found inadequate, or con- 
trary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an 
indubitable, unalienable and indefeasible right to reform, alter, 
or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive 
to the public weal." This, sir, is the language of democracy — 
that a majority of the community have a right to alter their gov- 
ernment when found to be oppressive : but how different is the 
genius of your new constitution from this ! If, sir, amendments 
are left to the twentieth, or to the tenth part of the people of 
America, your liberty is gone forever. We have heard that 
there is a great deal of bribery practiced in the house of com- 
mons in England ; and that many of the members raise them- 
selves to preferments, by selling the rights of the people. But, 
sir, the tenth part of that body cannot continue oppressions on 



the rest of the people, English liberty is, in this case, on a 
firmer foundation tlian American liberty. 

Had the delegates, who were sent to Philadelphia, a power 
to propose a consolidated government instead of a confederacy ? 
Were they not deputed by states, and not by the people ? Hie 
assent of the people, in their collective capacity, is not necessary 
to the formation of a federal government. The people liave no 
right to enter into leagues, alliances, or confederations : they 
are not the proper agents for this purpose : states and sovereign 
powers are the only proper agents for this kind of government. 
Show me an instance where the people have exercised this busi- 
ness : has it not always gone through the legislatures ? 1 refer 
you to the treaties with France, Holland, and other nations : 
how were they made ? Were they not made by the states ? Are 
the people, therefore, in their aggregate capacity, the proper 
persons to form a confederacy ? This, therefore, ought to de- 
pend on the consent of the legislatures ; the people having never 
sent delegates to make any proposition of changing the govern- 
ment. Yet I must say, at the same time, that it was made on 
grounds the most pure, and perhaps I might have been 
brought to consent to it, so far as to the change of government ; 
but there is one thing in it, which I never would acquiesce in. 
I mean, the changing it into a consolidated government, which 
is so abhorrent to my mind. 

An opinion has gone forth, we find, that we are a contempt- 
ible people. The time has been when we were thought other- 
wise. Under this same despised government, we commanded 
the respect of all Europe : wherefore are we now reckoned oth- 
erwise ? The American spirit has fled from hence : it has gone 
to regions, where it has never been expected : it has gone to 
the people of France, in search of a splendid government — a 
strong, energetic government. Shall we imitate the example of 
those nations, who have gone from a simple to a splendid gov- 
ernment ? Are those nations more worthy, of our imitation.'' 
What can make an adequate satisfaction to them for the loss 
they have suffered in attaining such a government — for the loss 
of their liberty ? If we admit this consolidated government, it 
will be because we like a great and splendid one. Some way 
or other we must be a great and mighty empire ; we must have 
an army, and a navy, and a number of things. When the Amer- 
ican spirit was in its youth, the language of America was differ- 
ent : liberty, sir, was then the primary object. We are descended 
from a people whose government was founded on liberty : our 
glorious forefathers, of Great Britain, made liberty the founda- 
tion of everything. That country is become a great, mighty and 
splendid nation ; not because their government is strong and 
energetic : but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and founda- 
tion. We drew the spirit of liberty from our British ancestors ; 



8 

by that spirit we have triumphed over every difficulty. But 
now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains 
of consoUdation, is about to convert this country into a powerful 
and mighty empire. If you make the citizens of this country 
agree to become the subjects of one great consolidated empire 
of America, your government will not have sufficient energy to 
keep them together : such a government is incompatible with 
the genius of republicanism. What can avail your specious, 
imaginary balances ; your rope-dancing, chain-rattling, ridicu- 
lous, ideal checks and contrivances ? But, sir, we are not feared 
by foreigners ; we do not make nations tremble. Would this 
constitute happiness, or secure liberty ^ I trust, sir, our politi- 
cal hemisphere will ever direct its operations to the security of 
those objects. Consider our situation, sir; go to the poor man, 
ask him what he does ; he will inform you that he enjoys the 
fruits of his labor, under his own fig-tree^ with his wife and 
children around him, in peace and security. Go to every other 
member of the society, you will find the same tranquil ease and 
content ; you will find no alarms or disturbances ! Why then 
tell us of dangers, to terrify us into an adoption of this new form 
of government ? And vet who knows the danoers that this new^ 
system may produce ? They are out of the sight of the common 
people : they cannot foresee latent consequences. I dread the 
operation of it on the middling and lower classes of people : it 
is for them I fear the adoption of this system. 

Suppose the people of Virginia should wish to alter their 
government, can a majority of them do it ? No, because they 
are connected with other men ; or, in other words, consolidated 
with other states. When the people of Virginia, at a future day, 
shall wish to alter their government, though they should be 
unanimous in this desire, yet they may be prevented therefrom 
by a despicable minority at the extremity of the United States. 
The founders of your own constitution made your government 
changeable : but the power of changing it is gone from you ! 
Whither is it gone ? It is placed in the same hands that hold 
the rights of twelve other states ; and those, who hold those 
rights, have power to keep them. This government is not a Vir- 
ginian, but an American government. Suppose every delegate 
from Virginia opposes a law, what will it avail ? They are opposed 
by a majority ; eleven members can destroy their efforts : those 
feeble ten cannot prevent the passing the most oppressive tax- 
law. So that in direct opposition to the spirit and express lan- 
guage of your declaration of rights, you are taxed, not by your 
own consent, but by people who have no connection with you. 

This constitution can counteract and suspend any of our 
laws, that contravene its oppressive operation ; for they have the 
power of direct taxation, which suspends our bill of rights ; and 
it is expressly provided, that they can make all laws necessary 



for carrying their powers into execution ; and it is declared para- 
mount to the laws and constitutions of the states. Consider 
how the only remaining defense we have left is destroyed in this 
manner. I might be thought top inquisitive, but I believe I 
should take up but very little of your time in enumerating the 
little power that is left to the government of Virginia ; for this 
power is reduced to little or nothing. Their garrisons, maga- 
zines, arsenals and forts, which will be situated in the strongest 
places within the states — their ten miles square, with all the 
fine ornaments, of human life, added to their powers, and taken 
from the states, will reduce the power of the latter to nothing. 
The voice of tradition, 1 trust, will inform posterity of our 
struggles for freedom. If our descendants be worthy the name 
of Americans, they will preserve, and hand down to their latest 
posterity, the transactions of the present times; and though, I 
confess, my exclamations are not worthy the hearing, they will 
see that I have done my utmost to preserve their liberty. Were 
all the states, more terrible than the mother country, to join 
against us, I hope Virginia could defend herself ; but, sir, the 
dissolution of the union is most abhorrent to my mind. The 
first thing I have at heart is American liberty ; the second thing 
is American union ; and I hope the people of Virginia will en- 
deavor to preserve that union. The increasing population of 
the southern states, is far greater than that of New England ; 
consequently, in a short time, they will be far more numerous 
than the people of that country. Consider this, and you will 
find this state more particularly interested to support American 
liberty, and not bind our posterity by an improvident relinquish- 
ment of our rights. 

In this scheme of energetic government, the people will 
find two sets of tax gatherers — the state and the federal sher- 
iffs. This, it seems to me, will produce such dreadful oppres- 
sion, as the people cannot possibly bear. The federal sheriff 
may commit what oppression, make what distresses, he pleases, 
and ruin you with impunity : for how are you to tie his hands ? 
Have you any sufficient, decided means of preventing him from 
sucking your blood by speculations, commissions and fees ? 
Thus thousands of your people will be most shamefully robbed. 
Our state sheriffs, those unfeeling blood-suckers, have, under 
the watchful eye of our legislature, committed the most horrid 
and barbarous ravages on our people. It has required the most 
constant vigilance of the legislature to keep them from totally 
ruining the people. If sheriffs, thus immediately under the eye 
of our state legislature and judiciary, have dared to commit these 
outrages, what would they not have done if their masters had 
been at Philadelphia or New York ? 

This constitution is said to have beautiful features; but 
when I come to examine these features, sir, they appear to me 



lO 



horribly frightful. Among other deformities, it has an awful 
squinting ; it squints towards monarchy : and does not this raise 
indignation in the breast of every true American? Your presi- 
dent may easily become king. Your senate is so imperfectly 
constructed, that your dearest rights may be sacrificed by a small 
minority. Where are your checks in this government.'' Your 
strongholds will be in the hands of your enemies. It is on a 
supposition that your American governors shall be honest, that 
all the good qualities of this government are founded ; but its 
defective and imperfect construction puts it in their power to 
perpetrate the worst of mischiefs, should they be bad men. 
And, sir, would not all the world, from the eastern to the west- 
ern hemisphere, blame our distracted folly in resting our rights 
upon the contingency of our rulers being good or bad ? Show 
me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the 
people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good 
men, without a consequent loss of liberty. I say that the loss 
of that dearest privilege has ever followed, with absolute cer- 
tainty, every such mad attempt. If your American chief be a 
man of ambition and abilities, how easy will it be for him to 
render himself absolute ! The army is in his hands, and, if he 
be a man of address, it will be attached to him ; and it will be 
the subject of long meditation with him to seize the first auspi- 
cious moment to accomplish his design. And, sir, will the 
American spirit solely relieve you when this happens ? I would 
rather infinitely, and I am sure most of this convention are of 
the same opinion, have a king, lords and commons, than a gov- 
ernment so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make 
a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his 
people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from in- 
fringing them : but the president in the field, at the head of his 
army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master. 
If ever he violates the laws, one of two things will hap- 
pen : he will come at the head of his army to carry every- 
thing before him ; or, he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief 
Justice will order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollec- 
tion of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the 
American throne .'* Will not the immense difference between 
being master of everything, and being ignominiously tried and 
punished, powerfully excite him to make this bold push ? But, 
sir, where is the existing force to punish him .'* Can he not, at 
the head of his army, beat down every opposition ? Away with 
your jDresident, we shall have a king : the army will salute him 
monarch ; your militia will leave you, and assist in making him 
king, and fight against you : and what have you to oppose this 
force ? What will then become of you and your rights ? 

My great objection to the constitution is that there is no 
true responsibility, and that the preservation of our liberty de- 



II 



pends on the single chance of men being virtuous enough to 
make laws to punish themselves. In the country from which 
we are descended, they have real, and not imaginary responsi- 
bility ; for there, mal-administration has cost their heads to some 
of the most saucy geniuses that ever were. The senate, by 
making treaties, may destroy your liberty and laws, for want of 
responsibility. Two thirds of those that shall happen to be 
present, can, with the president, make treaties, that shall be the 
supreme law of the land : they may make the most ruinous 
treaties, and yet there is no punishment for them. The 
history of Switzerland clearly proves, that we might be in ami- 
cable alliance with the other states, without adopting this consti- 
tution. Switzerland is a confederacy, consisting of dissimilar 
governments. This is an example, which proves that govern- 
ments, of dissimilar structures, may be confederated. That 
confederate republic has stood upwards of four hundred years; 
and, although several of the individual republics are democratic, 
and the rest aristocratic, no evil has resulted from this dissimi- 
larity, for they have braved all the power of France and Ger- 
many, during that long period. The Swiss spirit, sir, has kept 
them together: they have encountered and overcome immense 
difficulties, with patience and fortitude. In the vicinity of pow- 
erful and ambitious monarchs, they have retained their inde- 
pendence, republican simplicity and valor. 

I believe that it is yet doubtful, whether it is not proper to 
stand by a while, and see the effect of the adoption of the con- 
stitution in other states. In forming a government, the utmost 
care should be taken, to prevent its becoming oppressive. The 
other states have no reason to think, from the antecedent con- 
duct of Virginia, that she has any intention of seceding from the 
union, or of being less active to support the general welfare. 
Would they not, therefore, acquiesce in our taking time to delib- 
erate — deliberate whether the measure be not perilous, not 
only for us, but the adopting states ? Permit me, sir, to say, that 
a great majority of the people, even in the adopting states, are 
averse to this government. I believe I would be right to say, 
that they have been egregiously misled. Pennsylvania has, 
perhaps, been tricked into it. If the other states, which have 
adopted it, have not been tricked, still they were too much hur- 
ried into its adoption. There were very respectable minorities 
in several of them ; and, if reports be true, a clear majority of 
the people are averse to it. If we also accede, and it should 
prove grievous, the peace and prosperity of our country, which 
we all love, will be destroyed. This government has not the 
affection of the people, at present. Should it be oppressive, 
their affection will be totally estranged from it — and, sir, you 
know, that a government without their affections, can neither 
be durable nor happy. I speak as one poor individual — but, 



12 

when I speak, I speak the language of thousands. But, sir, I 
mean not to breathe the spirit, nor utter the language of seces- 
sion. 

On this occasion, I conceived myself bound to attend 
strictly to the interest of this state ; and I thought her dearest 
rights at stake. Before you abandon the present system, I 
hope you will consider not only its defects, most maturely, but 
likewise those of that which you are to substitute for it. May 
you be fully apprised of the dangers of the latter, not by fatal 
experience, but by some abler advocate than I. 



Patrick Henn' was the strongest and most notable opponent of the Constitution, when it 
was submitted to the people. His opposition was the more significant and formidable, as he 
had been preeminently the leader in Virginia in the beginnings of the Revolution and was still 
a great popular idol. He had been appointed one of the seven delegates from Virginia to the 
Constitutional Convention, his name standing next to Washington's on the list, but his strait- 
ened circumstances prevented his acceptance of the office. The general grounds of his oppo- 
sition to the Constitution appear from these extracts from his first speech in the Virginia 
Convention. His two other more important speeches are included in Williston's " Eloquence 
of the United States," vol. i. Liberal extracts are given in Wirt's Life of Patrick Henry, in 
a graphic account of the proceedings of the Convention. Some will prefer to consult the 
briefer Life of Henry by A. H. Everett, in Sparks's American Biography, vol. xi, A new 
biography, by Moses Coit Tyler, is about to appear in the American Statesmen Series. Henry's 
objections were ably answered by Madison, Marshall and Randolph, whose speeches should 
be read in connection. Henry bowed to the will of the majority, his last words in the Con- 
vention being, " I will be a peaceable citizen. My head, my hand and my heart shall be free 
to retrieve the loss of liberty and remove the defects of that system, in a constitutional way. . . 
I shall patiently wait, in expectation of seeing that government changed, so as to be compati- 
ble with the safety, liberty and happiness of the people." 

Samuel Adams, the great leader in the Revolution in the North, as Patrick Henry had 
been in the South, also found much to criticise in the new Constitution. " I confess," he 
wrote, " as I enter the building, I stumble at the threshold. I meet with a national govern- 
ment instead of a federal union of sovereign States. I am not able to conceive why the 
wisdom of the Convention led them to give the preference to the former before the latter.'' 
It was probably owing to his strong State-rights views that he had not been chosen a delegate 
to the National Convention at Philadelphia. He was a member of the Massachusetts Con- 
vention which ratified the Constitution, taking a most moderate course and voting for the 
ratification. See Wells's Life of Samuel Adams, vol. iii, chap. Ix, or the briefer biography 
by Hosmer, chap, xxii, for a clear explanation of his attitude, which has often been much 
misapprehended. 

The fourth section of Bancroft's History of the Formation of the Constitution is entitled 
" The People of the States in Judgment on the Constitution," aiid the five chapters devoted to 
this subject detail the various objections of Jefferson and other leaders to the new Constitution, 
the various expressions of popular opinion, and the proceedings in the different State Conven- 
tions called to consider the question of adoption. John Adams well expressed the average 
sentiment, in writing to Jay : "The proposed plan of government appears to be admirably 
calculated to cement all America in affection and interest as one great nation. A result of 
compromise cannot perfectly coincide with every one's ideas O'f perfection; but, as all the 
great principles necessary to order, liberty and safety are respected in it, and provision is 
mad« for amendments as they may be found necessary, I hope to hear of its adoption by all 
the States." The reports of the proceedings in the several State Conventions were gathered 
into uniform volumes by Jonathan Elliot, in 1827, and have since been published in better 
form. This work, generally known as " ElHot's Debates," is of the highest value to the 
student of original authorities. Here will be found in full the utterances of Patrick Henry, 
Madison and their colleagues in the Virginia Convention ; and here can be studied exactly the 
attitude of Samuel Adams, Hancock and others in the Massachusetts Convention. The 
report of the debates in the Massachusetts Convention was published separately at the time, 
a second edition appeared in 180S, and a much better edition, prepared for the State by order 
of the legislature, and containing much additional matter illustrating public opinion concerning 
the Constitution, in 1856. This volume can be seen at the libraries, and is especially com- 
mended to the young people of Boston and Massachusetts. 



ai"IFTH SERIES, 18S7, No. 7. 

The Federalist. No. IX. 



BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



To the People of the State of New York : 

A firm Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace 
and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction 
and insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the 
petty Republics of Greece and Italy, without feeling sensations 
of horror and disgust, at the distractions with which they were 
continually agitated, and at the rapid succession of revolutio'ns, 
by which they were kept in a state of perpetual vibration, be- 
tween the extremes of tyranny and anarchy. If they exhibit 
occasional calms, these only serve as short-lived contrasts to the 
furious storms, that are to succeed. If, now and then, intervals 
of felicity open themselves to view, we behold them with a mix- 
ture of regret, arising from the reflection, that the pleasing 
scenes before us are soon to be overwhelmed by the tempestu- 
ous waves of sedition and party rage. If momentary rays of 
glory break forth from the gloom, while they dazzle us with a 
transient and fleeting brilliancy, they, at the same time, admon- 
ish us to lament, that the vices of Government should pervert 
the direction, and tarnish the luster of those bright talents and 
exalted endowments, for which the favored soils that produced 
them have been so justly celebrated. 

From the disorders that disfigure the annals of those Re- 
publics, the advocates of despotism have draw^n arguments, not 
only against the forms of Republican Government, but against 
the very principles of civil liberty. They have decried all free 
Government as inconsistent with the order of society, and have 
indulged themselves in malicious exultation over its friends and 
partisans. Happily for mankind, stupendous fabrics reared on 
the basis of liberty, which have flourished for ages, have, in a 
few glorious instances, refuted their gloomy sophisms. And, I 
trust, America will be the broad and solid foundation of other 



edifices, not less magnificent, which will be equally permanent 
monuments of their errors. 

But it is not to be denied, that the portraits they have 
sketched of Republican Government were too just copies of the 
originals from which they were taken. If it had been found 
impracticable to have devised models of a more perfect struct- 
ure, the enlightened friends to liberty would have been obliged 
to abandon the cause of that species of Government as indefen- 
sible. The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, 
has received great improvement. The efficacy of various prin- 
ciples is now well understood, which were either not known at 
all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distri- 
bution of power into distinct departments ; the introduction of 
legislative balances and checks ; the institution of Courts com- 
posed of Judges holding their offices during good behavior ; the 
representation of the people in the Legislature, by Deputies of 
their own election ; these are either wholly new discoveries, or 
have made their principal progress towards perfection in mod- 
ern times. They are means, and powerful means, by which the 
excellences of Republican Government may be retained, and its 
imperfections lessened, or avoided. To this catalogue of cir- 
cumstances, that tend to the amelioration of popular systems of 
civil Government, I shall venture, however novel it may appear 
to some, to add one more, on a principle which has been made 
the foundation of an objection to the New Constitution ; I 
mean the enlargement of the orbit within which such systems 
are to revolve, either in respect to the dimensions of a single 
State, or to the consolidation of several smaller States into one 
great Confederacy, The latter is that which immediately con- 
cerns the object under consideration. It will, however, be of 
use to examine the principle, in its application to a single State, 
which shall be attended to in another place. 

The utility of a Confederacy, as well to suppress faction, 
and to guard the internal tranquillity of States, as to increase 
their external force and security, is in reality not a new idea. 
It has been practiced upon, in different countries and ages, and 
has received the sanction of the most approved writers on the 
subjects of politics. The opponents of the Plan proposed, have, 
with great assiduity, cited and circulated the observations of 



Montesquieu on the necessit}- of a contracted territory for a 
Republican Government. But they seem not to have been ap- 
prised of the sentiments of that great man, expressed in another 
part of his work, nor to have adverted to the consequences of 
the principle, to which they subscribe with such ready acqui- 
escence. 

When Montesquieu recommends a small extent for Repub- 
lics, the standards he had in view were of dimensions far short 
of the limits of almost every one of these States. Neither Vir- 
ginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, 
nor Georgia, can by any means be compared with the models 
from which he reasoned, and to which the terms of his descrip- 
tion apply. If we therefore take his ideas on this point, as the 
criterion of truth, we shall be driven to the alternative, either of 
taking refuge at once in the arms of Monarchy, or of splitting 
ourselves into an infinity of little jealous, clashing, tumultuous 
Commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord, 
and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt. Some 
of the writers, wiio have come forward on the other side of the 
question, seem to have been aware of the dilemma ; and have 
even been bold enough to hint at the division of the larger 
States, as a desirable thing. Such an infatuated policy, such a 
desperate expedient, might, by the multiplication of petty offices, 
answer the views of men, who possess not qualifications to ex- 
tend their influence beyond the narrow circles of personal in- 
trigue ; but it could never promote the greatness or happiness 
of the people of America. 

Referring the examination of the principle itself to another 
place, as has been already mentioned, it will be sufficient to re- 
mark here, that in the sense of the author who has been most 
emphatically quoted upon the occasion, it would only dictate a 
reduction of the size of the more considerable members of the 
Union ; but would not militate against their being all compre- 
hended in one Confederate Government. And this is the true 
question, in the discussion of which we are at present inter- 
ested. 

So far are the suggestions of Montesquieu from standing in 
opposition to a general Union of the States, that he explicitly 
treats of a Confederate Republic as the expedient for extend- 



lug the sphere of popular Government, and reconciling the ad- 
vantages of monarchy with those of republicanism. 

" It is very probable," (says he^) " that mankind would have 
" been obliged, at length, to live constantly under the Govern- 
" ment of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of 
" Constitution, that has all the internal advantages of a Repub- 
" lican, together with the external force of a Monarchical! 
" Government. I mean a Confederate Republic. 

" This form of Government is a Convention by which sev- 
" eral smaller States agree to become members of a larger one^ 
" which they intend to form. It is a kind of assemblage of so- 
" cieties, that constitute a new one, capable of increasing by 
" means of new associations, till they arrive to such a degree of 
" power, as to be able to provide for the security of the united 
" body. 

" A Republic of this kind, able to withstand an external 
" force, may support itself without any internal corruptions. 
" The form of this society prevents all manner of inconven- 
" iences. 

" If a single meml^er should attempt to usurp the supreme 
" authority, he could not be supposed to have an equal 
" authority and credit in all the Confederate States. Were he 
" to have too great influence over one, this would alarm the rest. 
" Were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free 
" might oppose him with forces, independent of those which he 
" had usurped, and overpower him before he could be settled in 
" his usurpation. 

" Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the Con- 
" federate States, the others are able to quell it. Should abuses 
" creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain 
" sound. The State may be destroyed on one side, and not on 
" the other ; the Confederacy may be dissolved, and the Con- 
" federates preserve their Sovereignty. 

" As this Government is composed of small Republics, it 
" enjoys the internal happiness of each; and with respect to its 
" external situation, it is possessed, by means of the Association, 
" of all the advantages of large Monarchies." 



^ Spirit of Lazus, Vol. I, Book IX, Chap. I. — Puhlius. 



I have thought it proper to quote at length these interest- 
ing passages, because they contain a luminous abridgement of 
the principal arguments in favor of the Union, and must effect- 
ually remove the false impressions, which a misapplication of 
other parts of the work was calculated to make. They have, at 
the same time, an intimate connection with the more imme- 
diate design of this Paper ; which is, to illustrate the tendency 
of the Union to repress domestic faction and insurrection. 

A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised 
between a Confederacy and a consolidation of the States. The 
essential characteristic of the first is said to be, the restriction 
of its authority to the members in their collective capacities, 
without reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. 
It is contended, that the National Council ought to have no con- 
cern with any object of internal administration. An exact 
equality of suffrage between the members has also been insisted 
upon as a leading feature of a Confederate Government. These 
positions are, in the main, arbitrary; they are supported neither 
by principle nor precedent. It has indeed happened, that Gov- 
ernments of this kind have generally operated in the manner 
which the distinction, taken notice of, supposes to be inherent 
in their nature ; but there have been in most of them extensive 
exceptions to the practice, which serve to prove, as far as ex- 
ample will go, that there is no absolute rule on the subject. 
And it will be clearly shown, in the course of this investigation, 
that as far as the principle contended for has prevailed, it has 
been the cause of incurable disorder and imbecility in the Gov- 
ernment. 

The definition of a Confederate Republic seems simply to be 
" an assemblage of Societies," or an Association of two or more 
States into one State. The extent, modifications, and objects 
of the Federal authority, are mere matters of discretion. So 
long as the separate organization of the members be not abol- 
ished ; so long as it exists, by a constitutional necessity, for 
local purposes ; though it should be in perfect subordination to 
the general authority of the Union, it would still be, in fact and 
in theory, an Association of States, or a Confederacy. The 
proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the 
State Governments, makes them constituent parts of the Na- 



tional Sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in 
the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and 
very important portions of Sovereign power. This fully corre- 
sponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a 
Federal Government. 

In the Lycian Confederacy, which consisted of twenty-three 
CITIES, or Republics, the largest were entitled to three votes in 
the COMMON COUNCIL, those of the middle class to two, and the 
smallest to o?ie. The common council had the appointment of 
all the Judges and Magistrates of the respective cities. This 
was certainly the most delicate species of interference in their 
internal administration ; for if there be anything that seems ex- 
clusively appropriated to the local jurisdictions, it is the appoint- 
ment of their own officers. Yet Montesquieu, speaking of this 
Association, says, " Were I to give a model of an excellent Con- 
" federate Republic, it would be that of Lycia." Thus we per- 
ceive, that the distinctions insisted upon were not within the 
contemplation of this enlightened civilian ; and we shall be led 
to conclude, that they are the novel refinements of an erroneous 
theory. ^ PUBLIUS. 

The papers called "The Federalist," which were published in 1787 and 1788 in the col- 
umns of certain New York newspapers, were written to explain the new Constitution, then 
awaiting ratification, and to defend it from objections urged against it. " They form a work of 
enduring interest," says Bancroft, "because they are the earliest commentary on the new ex- 
periment of mankind in establishing a republican government for a country of boundless dimen- 
sions, and were written by Madison, who was the chief author of the Constitution, and Hamil- 
ton, who took part in its inception and progress." The original conception of the " Federal- 
ist " was Hamilton's, and by far the greater portion of the work i^ his. As Madison was the 
great constructive man in the convention, Hamilton was the great defender of the Constitution 
before the people. The papers were all signed " Publius," and there has been much contro- 
versy as to the proportionate share of Madison and Jay in the authorship. Very full and crit- 
ical discussions of this question may be found in the introductions to both Dawson's and Ham- 
ilton's editions of the " Federalist." Bancroft's conclusion is that of the eighty-five numbers, 
Jay wrote five, Madison twenty-nine, and Hamilton fifty-one. Hamilton's friends claim for 
him a still larger proportion. The " Federalist '.' probably did more tha 1 anything else at the 
time to secure the adoption of the new Constitution, and it still occupies the highest place as 
an exposition of the principles of our federal government. " It shows us with much clearness," 
says Sir Henry Sumner Maine, in his valuable essay on the Constitution of the United States, 
in his work on " Popular Government," " either the route by which the strongest minds among 
the American statesmen of that period had traveled to the conclusions embodied in the Consti- 
tution, or the arguments by which they had become reconciled to them. The ' Federalist ' 
has generally excited something like enthusiasm in those who have studied it, and among these 
there have been some not at all given to excessive eulogy. Talleyrand strongly recommended 
it ; and Guizot said of it that, in the application of the elementary principles of government to 
practical administration, it was the greatest work known to him. An early number of the 
' Edinburgh Review ' (No. 24) described it as ' a work little known in Europe, but which ex- 



7* 

liibits a profundity of research and an acuteness of understanding which would have done honor 
to the most iUustrious statesmen of modern times.' The American commendations of the 
' Federalist ' are naturally even less qualified. ' I know not,' wrote Chancellor Kent, ' of any 
work on the principles of free government that is to be compared in instruction and in intrinsic 
value to this small and unpretending volume of the ' Federalist ; ' not even if -we resort to Aris- 
totle, Cicero, Machiavel, Montesquieu, Milton, Locke, or Burke. It is equally admirable in 
the depth of its wisdom, the comprehensiveness of its views, the sagacity of its reflections, and 
tlie freshness, patriotism, candor, simplicity, and eloquence with which its truths are uttered and 
recommended.' Those who have attentively read these papers will not think such praise 
pitched, on the whole, too high." These high commendations of the " Federalist" might be 
indefinitely extended. Jefferson, writing to Madison from Paris in 1788, pronounced it "the 
best commentary on the princiiDles of government which was ever written ; " and Story, in his 
commentaries on the Constitution, places it in the same category, even as to authority, with the 
decisions of the supreme court on questions of constitutional law. 

Hamilton's Works, edited by his son, John C. Hamilton, were published, in 7 vols., in 
1S51. A much better edition, in 9 vols., edited by Henry Cabot Lodge, has just ajDpeared. 
The " Federalist " occupies the second volume of this edition, the first volume containing 
Hamilton's draught of a Constitution and his speeches in and after the Convention. Hamil- 
ton's fame as a political writer rests chiefly upon the '' Federalist," but many of his other papers 
are of equal power, and his financial papers, prepared while first Secretary of the Treasury 
under the new government, should have particular attention from the student of politics. The 
best lives of Hamilton are those by John T. Morse and Henry Cabot Lodge, the latter in the 
American Statesmen Series. An exhaustive biography was undertaken by his son, but only 
two volumes, bringing the record to the time of the Constitutional Convention, were completed. 
Mr. Hamilton's much more important work, however, in 7 vols., " History of the Republic of 
the United States of America, as traced in the writings of Alexander Hamilton and of his Con- 
temporaries," is largely a biography of Hamilton, and should be mentioned in the connection. 

Many of the great contemporaries of Hamilton and Madison wrote much upon the Con- 
stitution and upon theories of government. John Adams published in London, in 1787, "A 
Defense of the Constitutions of the United States of America against the attack of M. Turgot," 
a work in three volumes, largely devoted to a defense of the features of the English Constitu- 
tion which had been retained in America, as against the more democratic schemes of the French 
political theorists, who accused our statesmen of a servile following of the precedents set by 
the mother country. James Monroe left a fragmelit, first published in 1867, entitled "The 
People the Sovereigns, — a comparison of the Government of the United States and the Repub- 
lics of Athens, Lacedemon, and Carthage." Nearer our own times, Calhoun's work upon the 
" Constitution and Government of the United States" should be read as representing the 
strong State-rights theory, and Webster's speeches as the great exposition of the national idea. 
The conflict of tiiese two views, finally culminating in the Civil War, is best traced by Von 
Hoist in his " Constitutional History of the United States." A new work by Von Hoist, on 
" The Constitutional Law of the United States," has just been published, and perhaps no bet- 
ter single book on the Constitution can be commended to the general reader ; the historical 
part is quite full, and the exposition is strong and clear. The works ot Kent, Story and Cooley 
have been referred to in previous leaflets ; and Pomeroy's " Introduction to the Constitution of 
the United States " should be mentioned here, as second to none of these works in value. Far- 
rar's '' Manual of the Constitution "is a clear and scholarly work ; Lamphere's " United States 
Government " is a similar manual ; and Goodrich's " Science of Government as Exhibited in 
the Institutions of the United States" is a good series of lectures, first given before the Lowell 
Institute in Boston in 1853. Miss Dawes's " How We are Governed " is the best book for 
younger readers. Edmund Alton's " Among the Law Makers " is a work of a yet rnore popular 
character and somewhat similar aim ; and Nordhof's " Politics for Young Americans " should 
be remembered. Perhaps the profoundest philosophical work upon the foundations of political 
life in the United States is Dr Mulford's " The Nation." Charles Sumner, who was a careful 
student of this work, said in a letter to Francis Lieber, " If you write to Mr. Mulford, let 
him know that I am one of his pupils." Reference should be made in this connection to 
Brownson's thoughtful work upon " The American Republic." " I have no fears," says the 



author in the preface, " that my book will be neglected because avowedly by a Catholic author 
and from a Catholic publishing house." 

No writer upon government exercised so great an influence upon the authors of the " Fed- 
eralist" as Montesquieu. His " Spirit of Laws," the popular book of that day, is quoted by 
them far of tener than any other work, and, like Rousseau's " Social Contract " and the writ- 
ings of the other French political speculators of the eighteenth century, should have careful 
attention from the thorough student. 

" The Constitution of the United States of America," says Sir Henry Maine, in the 
essay already quoted, " is much the most important political instrument of modern times." 
To the same effect are the well-known words of Gladstone, in his essay, " Kin beyond Sea: " 
" As the British Constitution is the most subtle organism which has proceeded from the womb 
and the long gestation of progressive history, so the American Constitution is, so far as I can 
see, the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man. 
It has had a century of trial, under the pressure of exigencies caused by an expansion unex- 
ampled in point of rapidity and range ; and its exemption from formal change, though not 
entire, has certainly proved the sagacity of the constructors and the stubborn strength of the 
fabric." In the latest time several formal changes in the Constitution have been warmly 
urged by various writers. More than one able book has appeared advocating the abolition of 
the Presidency ; and the American Senate, at present the subject of particular praise in Eng- 
land from such men as Lord Rosebery, has many critics at home. The Two Chambers and 
the President are the special targets of Mr. Conway, in his book on " Republican Supersti- 
tions." The criticisms in Stickney's "A True Republic " and in Wilson's "Congressional 
Government " should here be considered, and the various recent arguments in favor of a 
directly responsible Cabinet with seats in Congress, like the British Ministrj'. 

The whole of Sir Henry Maine's "Popular Government " should be read; and his other 
works, "The Early History of Institutions," " Early Law and Custom," "Ancient Law," and 
"Village Communities," are also warmly commended to the student of political institutions. 
Many valuable political treatises have appeared in England in recent years, of which it is 
impossible here to make more than bare mention of a few, svich as Freeman's " Comparative 
Politics," Frederic Harrison's " Order and Progress," Arthur Helps's "Thoughts upon Gov- 
ernment," Bagehott's " Physics and Politics" (read especially the two essays on "Nation- 
making"), Amos's " Science of Politics " (read especially the chapter on " Constitutions"), 
Hare on " Representation," and Mill on " Representative Government." Sir George Corne- 
wall Lewis's work on " The Best Form of Government " is a dialogue between Mo7tarchicus, 
AristocraticKs, Deiiiocraticics, and Crito. Bluntschli's valuable work on "The Theory of 
the State " has been translated into English. Seeley's " Expansion of England " is a work 
on the federation of the British Empire. Reference to a few works upon the British Constitu- 
tion, in addition to those named in the first leaflet, may be useful here. " Let not England 
forget her precedence of teaching nations how to live," Milton said ; and everything upon the 
institutions of the mother country has special value for us in America. Freeman's " Growth 
of the English Constitution," Creasy's " Rise and Progress of the English Constitution," 
and his " Imperial and Colonial Constitutions of the Britannic Empire," Brougham's "The 
British Constitution," Earl Russell's " History of the English Government and Lonstitution,'' 
Earl Grey's " Parliamentary Government considered with reference to Reform," Todd's 
" Parliamentary Government in England," and the same writer's " Parliamentary Govern- 
ment in the British Colonies," are all valuable works. 

Having considered the subject of the organization of single nations, the thorough student 
will go on to consider the ever more and more important subject of international relations. 
Sir Robert Phillimore's work on " International Law" is pronounced by Presidei)t Woolsey 
" the most extensive and learned work on the science in our language, if not in any language ; " 
the preface to the second edition of this work (1871) contains interesting discussions of ques- 
tions raised by the relations of England and the United States during our Civil War. Most 
American students are more likely to read the briefer work on " International Law " by Pres- 
ident Woolsey himself, and this contains a very full bibliography. The first great writer on 
ir.ternational law was Hugo Grotius, whose work i English translation by Whewell) holds the 
sr.me place in this field that Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations" holds in the field of political 
rconomy. " Streaks of light from various countries, our own included," says Phillimore, 
" preceded the dawn of International Jurisprudence which appeared in the Mare Liber^ini of 
Giotius, published in i6og; but its full meridian shone forth in his great work, De Jure Belli 
ct Pacts, which was published in 1624. It is scarcely too much to say, that no uninspired 
work has more largely contributed to the welfare of the Commonwealth of States. It is a 
monument which can only perish with the civilized intercourse of nations, of which it has 
laid down the master principles with a master's hand. Grotius first awakened the conscience 
of Governments to the Christian sense of International duty." 



FIFTH SERIES, 18S7. No. 



Washington's First Inaugural 
x\ddress 

To both Houses of Congress^ April jo, i^Sg. 



Fellow-Citizens of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives: 

Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have 
filled me with greater anxieties, than that of which the notifica- 
tion was transmitted by your order, and received on the 14th 
day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned 
by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with venera- 
tion and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fond- 
est predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable 
decision, as the asylum of my declining years ; a retreat which 
was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to 
me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent inter- 
ruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by 
time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the 
trust, to which the voice of my country called me, being suffi- 
cient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citi- 
zens a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but 
overwhelm with despondence one, who, inheriting inferior en- 
dowments from nature, and unpracticed in the duties of civil 
administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own de- 
ficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver is, that it 
has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appre- 
ciation of every circumstance by which it might be affected. All 
I dare hope is, that, if in executing this task, I have been too 
much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or 
by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof of the 
confidence of my fellow-citizens ; and have thence too little con- 



suited my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty 
and untried cares before me ; my error will be palliated by the 
motiv^es which misled me, and its consequences be judged by 
my country with some share of the partiality in which they orig- 
inated. 

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedi- 
ence to the public summons, repaired to the present station, it 
would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first ofificial act, my 
fervent supplications to that Almighty Being, who rules over 
the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose 
providential aids can supply every human defect, that his bene- 
diction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the peo- 
ple of the United States a government instituted by themselves 
for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument 
employed in its administration to execute with success the func- 
tions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the 
great Author of every public and private good, I assure myself 
that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own ; nor 
those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No people 
can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, 
which conducts the affairs of men, more than the people of the 
United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the 
character of an independent nation, seems to have been distin- 
guished by some token of providential agency. And, in the im- 
portant revolution just accomplished in the system of their 
united government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary 
consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event 
has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most 
governments have been established, without some return of pious 
gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future bless- 
ings which the past seems to presage. These reflections, arising 
out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on 
my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me, I trust, in 
thinking that there are none, under the influence of which the 
proceedings of a new and free government can more auspi- 
ciously commence. 

By the article establishing the executive department, it is 
made the duty of the President " to recommend to your consid- 
eration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedi- 



ent." The circumstances, under which I now meet you, will 
acquit me from entering into that subject farther than to refer 
you to the great constitutional charter under which we are 
assembled ; and which, in defining your powers, designates the 
objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more 
consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with 
the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recom- 
mendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the 
talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism, which adorn the char- 
acters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable 
qualifications I behold the surest pledges, that as, on one side, no 
local prejudices or attachments, no separate views or party ani- 
mosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye, which 
ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and 
interests; so, on another, that the foundations of our national 
policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of pri- 
vate morality, and the preeminence of a free government be ex- 
emplified by all the attributes, which can win the affections of 
its citizens, and command the respect of the world. 

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction, which an 
ardent love for my country can inspire ; since there is no truth 
more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the econ- 
omy and course of nature an indissoluble union between virtue 
and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genu- 
ine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid 
rewards of public prosperity and felicity ; since we ought to be 
no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never 
be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of 
order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained ; and since 
the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of 
the republican model of government, are justly considered as 
deeply^ perhaps 2i^ finally staked on the experiment intrusted to 
the hands of the American people. 

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will 
remain with your judgment to decide, how far an exercise of the 
occasional power delegated by the fifth article of the Constitu- 
tion is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature 
of objections which have been urged against the system, or by 
the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. In- 



stead of undertaking particular recommendations on this sub- 
ject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from 
official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire con- 
fidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good ; for 
I assure myself, that, whilst you carefully avoid every alteration, 
which might endanger the benefits of a united and effective gov- 
ernment, or which ought to await the future lessons of experi- 
ence ; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and 
a regard for the public harmony, will sufficiently influence your 
deliberations on the question, how far the former can be more 
impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and advantageously 
promoted. 

To the preceding observations I have one to add, which will 
be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. 
It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. 
When I was first honored with a call into the service of my 
country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, 
the light in which I contemplated my duty required, that I 
should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this res- 
olution I have in no instance departed. And being still under 
the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inappli- 
cable to myself any share in the personal emoluments, which 
may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the 
executive department ; and must accordingly pray, that the 
pecuniary estimates for the station in which I am placed may, 
during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual expendi- 
tures as the public good may be thought to require. 

Having thus imparted to you my sentiments, as they have 
been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall 
take my present leave ; but not without resorting once more to 
the benign Parent of the human race, in humble supplication, 
that, since he has been pleased to favor the American people 
with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquillity, and 
dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form 
of government for the security of their union and the advance- 
ment of their happiness ; so his divine blessing may be equally 
conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, 
and the wise measures, on which the success of this government 
must depend. 



THE INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON. 



From Irving' s Life of Washington. 



The inauguration took place on the 30th of April. At nine 
o'clock in the morning, there were religious services in all the 
churches, and prayers put up for the blessing of heaven on the 
new government. At twelve o'clock the city troops paraded 
before Washington's door, and soon after the committees of 
Congress and heads of departments came in their carriages. 
At half past twelve the procession moved forward preceded by 
the troops ; next came the committees and heads of departments 
in their carriages ; then Washington in a coach of state, his 
aide-de-camp. Colonel Humphreys, and his secretary, Mr. Lear, 
in his own carriage. The foreign ministers and a long train of 
citizens brought up the rear. 

About two hundred yards before reaching the hall, Wash- 
ington and his suite alighted from their carriages, and passed 
through the troops, who were drawn up on each side, into 
the hall and senate-chamber, where the Vice President, the 
Senate and House of Representatives were assembled. The 
Vice President, John Adams, recently inaugurated, advanced 
and conducted Washington to a chair of state at the upper end 
of the room. A solemn silence prevailed ; when the Vice 
President rose, and informed him that all things were prepared 
for him to take the oath of office required by the constitution. 

The oath was to be administered by the Chancellor of the 
State of New York in a balcony in front of the senate chamber, 
and in full view of an immense multitude occupying the street, 
the windows, and even roofs of the adjacent houses. The bal- 
cony formed a kind of open recess, with lofty columns support- 
ing the roof. In the center was a table with a covering of 
crimson velvet, upon which lay a superbly bound Bible on a 
crimson velvet cushion. This was all the paraphernalia for the 
august scene. 

All eyes were fixed upon the balcony, when, at the ap- 
pointed hour, Washington made his appearance, accompanied 
by various public functionaries, and members of the Senate 
and House of Representatives. He was clad in a full suit of 
dark-brown cloth, of American manufacture, vvith a steel-hilted 
dress sword, white silk stockings, and silver shoe buckles. His 
hair was dressed and powdered in the fashion of the day, and 
worn in a bag and solitaire. 



His entrance on the balcony was hailed by universal 
shouts. He was evidently moved by this demonstration of 
public affection. Advancing to the front of the balcony he laid 
his hand upon his heart, bowed several times, and' then retreated 
to an arm-chair near the table. The populace appeared to 
understand that the scene had overcome him ; and were hushed 
at once into profound silence. 

After a few moments Washington rose and again came for- 
ward. John Adams, the Vice President, stood on his right ; 
on his left the Chancellor of the State, Robert R. Livingston ; 
somewhat in the rear were Roger Sherman, Alexander Hamil- 
ton, Generals Knox, St. Clair, the Baron Steuben and others. 

The chancellor advanced to administer the oath prescribed 
by the constitution, and Mr. Otis, the secretary of the Senate, 
held up the Bible on its crimson cushion. The oath was read 
slowly and distinctly ; Washington at the same time laying his 
hand on the open Bible. When it was concluded, he replied 
solemnly, " I swear — so help me God ! " Mr. Otis would have 
raised the Bible to his lips, but he bowed down reverently and 
kissed it. 

The chancellor now stepped forward, waved his hand and 
exclaimed, " Long live George Washington, President of the 
United States ! " At this moment a flag was displayed on the 
cupola of the hall ; on which signal there was a general dis- 
charge of artillery on the battery. All the bells in the city 
rang out a joyful peal, and the multitude rent the air with accla- 
mations. 

Washington again bowed to the people and returned into 
the senate chamber, where he delivered, to both Houses of 
Congress, his inaugural address, characterized by his usual 
modesty, moderation and good sense, but uttered with a voice 
deep, slightly tremulous, and so low as to demand close atten- 
tion in the listeners. After this he proceeded with the whole 
assemblage on foot to St. Paul's church, where prayers suited 
to the occasion were read by Dr. Prevost, Bishop of the Prot- 
estant Episcopal Church in New York, who had been appointed 
by the Senate one of the chaplains of Congress. So closed the 
ceremonies of the inauguration. 



" Every one without exception appeared penetrated with 
veneration for the illustrious chief of the republic. The hum- 
blest was proud of the virtues of the man who was to govern 
him. Tears of joy were seen to flow in the hall of the senate, 
at church, and even in the streets, and no sovereign ever reigned 
more completely in the hearts of his subjects than Washington 
in the hearts of his fellow-citizens. Nature, which had given 



him the talent to govern, distinguished him from all others by 
his appearance. He had at once the soul, the look and the 
figure of a hero. He never appeared embarrassed at homage 
rendered him, and in his manners he had the advantage of join- 
ing dignit}^ to great simplicity." — From the repoi't of Moustier^ 
the French mifilster^ to his governme?it, on the inauguration of IVash- 
ington. 



The influence of Washington was by far the most powerful influence which brought about 
the adoption of the Constitution. " Be assured," wrote Monroe to Jefferson at the close of the 
Virginia Convention, " Washington's influence carried this government." " Nor was that in- 
fluence confined to Virginia alone," says Bancroft. "The country was an instrument with 
thirteen strings, and the only master who could bring out all their harmonious thought was 
Washington. Had he not attended the federal convention its work would have met a colder 
reception and more strenuous opponents. Had the idea prevailed that he would not accept 
the presidency, it would still have proved fatal." No one so deeply realized the necessity of 
a more perfect union and a stronger government. " No man in the United States," he wrote 
to Hamilton, " is or can be more deeply impressed with the necessity of a reform in our pres- 
ent confederation than myself. No man, perhaps, has felt the bad effects of it more sensibly ; 
for to the defects thereof, and want of power in congress, may justly be ascribed the prolonga- 
tion of the war and consequently the expenses occasioned by it. More than half the perplex- 
ities I have experienced in the course of my command, and almost the whole of the difficulties 
and distress of the army, have had their origin here." The circular letter which he addressed to 
the governors of the different states, in June, 1783, has been given in the third leaflet of the 
present series. Two months before he wrote to Lafayette : " State politics interfere too much 
with the more liberal and extensive plan of government which wisdom and foresight would 
dictate. The honor, power and true interest of this country must be measured on a continental 
scale. To form a new constitution that will give consistency, stability and dignity to the 
union and sufficient powers to the great council of the nation for general purposes, is a duty 
upon every man who wishes well to his country." Still earlier he had written to Harrison, 
then governor of Virginia, to entreat his own state to enter upon a movement toward a real 
union. "From the observations I have made in the course of this war," he wrote, — "and 
my intercourse with the states in their united as well as separate capacities has afforded ample 
opportunities of judging, — I am decided in my opinion that, if the powers of congress are not 
enlarged and made competent to all general purposes, the blood which has been spilt, the ex- 
pense that has been incurred, and the distresses which have been felt, will avail nothing, and 
that the band which holds us together, already too weak, will soon be broken, — when anarchy 
and confusion will prevail." He had hardly reached home from the war before writing to 
Harrison again. " The prospect before us is fair," he said ; " I believe all things will come 
right at last; but the disinclination of the states to yield competent powers to congress for the 
federal government will, if there is not a change in the system, be our downfall as a nation. 
This is as clear to me as A, B, C. We have arrived at peace and independence to very little 
purpose, if we cannot conquer our own prejudices. The powers of Europe begin to see this, 
and our newly acquired friends, the British, are already and professedly acting upon this 
ground ; and wisely too, if we are determined to persevere in our folly. They know that in- 
dividual opposition to their measures is futile, and boast that we are not sufficiently united as 
a nation to give a general one. Is not the indignity of this declaration, in the very act of 
peace-making and conciliation, sufficient to stimulate us to vest adequate powers in the sov- 
ereign of these United States? An extension of the federal powers would make us one of the 
most wealthy, happy, respectable and powerful nations that ever inhabited the terrestrial 
globe. Without them, we shall soon be everything which is the direct reverse. I predict the 
worst consequences from a half-starved, limping government, always moving upon crutches 
and tottering at every step." When the assembly of Virginia came together, Washington, 
being invited to offer suggestions, answered: "The proposition is self-evident. We are 






either a united people or we are not so. If the former, let us in all matters of general concern 
act as a nation which has a national character to support." " If the states individually attempt 
to regulate commerce, an abortion or a many-headed monster would be the issue. If we con- 
sider ourselves or wish to be considered by others as a united people, why not adopt the 
measures which are characteristic of it, and support the honor and dignity of one? If we are 
afraid to trust one another under qualified powers, there is an end of the union." Washing- 
ton's part as president of the Constitutional Convention is well known. " I trust," wrote 
Monroe to Jefferson the day after the adjournment, speaking of the dangers that would follow 
the rejection of the Constitution by the people, " that the presence of General Washington 
will overawe and keep under the demon of party, and that the signature of his name to the 
result of the deliberations will secure its passage through the union." Washington's efforts 
after the convention were as Indefatigable as before. He v/rote propitiatory letters to Patrick 
Henry, to Harrison, to Nelson. " I wish," he said, " the Constitution which is offered 
had been more perfect ; but it is the best that could be obtained at this time, and a door is 
opened for amendments hereafter. The political concerns of this country are suspended by a 
thread. The convention has been looked up to by the reflecting part of the community with 
a solicitude which is hardly to be conceived; and if nothing had been agreed on by that body, 
anarchy would soon have ensued, the seeds being deeply sown in every soil." " I saw the 
imperfections of the Constitution I aided in the birth of before it was handed to the public," 
he wrote to Charles Carter ; " but I am fully persuaded it is the best that can be obtained at 
this time, that it is free from many of the imperfections with which it is charged, and that it 
or disunion is before us to choose from." The influence of Washington outweighed all the 
opposition in Virginia. " He was embosomed in the affections and enshrined in the pride of 
the people of Virginia," says Bancroft ; " and in all their waverings during the nine months 
following the federal convention he was the anchor of the Constitution." And, as has been 
already said, his influence was not confined to Virginia alone, but by means of an extensive 
and vigorous correspondence was brought to bear upon leading men in almost every state. 
While the Massachusetts Convention was hesitating, he wrote a letter — already quoted — 
which, first published in a Virginia newspaper, reached Boston in season to be published in 
the Boston "Cenlinel" of January 23, 178S, and did much to weaken the opposition and 
hasten the ratification of the Constitution. 

At last. May 28, 1788, he was able to write to Lafayette : " It is impracticable for any one 
who has not been on the spot to realize the change in men's minds, and the progress toward 
rectitude in thinking and acting. The plot thickens fast. A few short weeks will determine 
the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influ- 
ence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come. Should every- 
thing proceed with harmony and consent according to our actual wishes and expectations, it 
will be so much beyond anything we had a right to imagine or expect eighteen months ago 
that it will, as visibly as any possible event in the course of human affairs, demonstrate the 
finger of Providence." In less than a month from the date of this letter, Virginia ratified the 
Constitution, by a vote of 89 to 79 ; and in less than a year from the date — April 30, 1789 — 
Washington was inaugurated first President of the United States. 

Bancroft's "History of the Formation of the Constitution" gives perhaps the best 
account of the services of Washington in the period here under consideration. Washington's 
Writings, including his addresses, messages and extensive correspondence, were collected by 
Sparks, in 12 vols. The completest and most interesting Life of Washington is that by Irving. 
The admirable Life by Chief-Justice Marshall will always have a special interest as the work 
of a great man who knew Washington well. Sparks prefixed a biography to his edition of 
Washington's Writings, and this has been published separately and is one of the best. A 
good briefer biography is that by Everett ; and the addresses and essays on Washington by 
Everett, Webster, Winthrop, Whipple, and Theodore Parker are important. The volume of 
" Recollections and Private Memoirs of Washington," by George Washington Parke Custis, 
Mrs. Washington's grandson and the boy of the Mt. Vernon household, gives vivid and valu- 
able impressions of Washington's private life and character. The forthcoming Life of Wash- 
ington in the American Statesmen Series will be by Henry Cabot Lodge. 






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