Inquiry Into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States

I will give my interpretation of the character of those relations, fully aware of the misrepresentations and misunderstandings to which they have been subjected, and from which no subject connected with partisan conflicts can, it appears, be entirely free, but conscious of a single desire to state things truly, and of an inability to do intentional injustice to either. It will be for others to judge of my success.

Mr. Charles F. Adams, in the work to which I have referred,[14] says, "Without much hold upon the judgment or affections of the people at large, he (Hamilton) had yet by the effect of his undisputed abilities and his masculine will gained great sway over the minds of the intelligent merchants along the Atlantic border. His previous doctrines, in unison with the feelings and interests of the most conservative class, had drawn to him their particular confidence, whilst his position in the first administration had facilitated the establishment by him of a chain of influence resting for its main support on his power over the mind of Washington himself, but carried equally through all the ramifications of the executive department. Thus it happened that even after he ceased to be personally present his opinions continued to shape the policy of Washington's second administration, and even that of his successor." This declaration extending so far would have been deemed quite credible at the period to which it relates, and, coming from the grandson of that "successor"—himself the undisguised enemy of Hamilton—was probably called forth by the recent publication of the private papers of the latter.

As far as Mr. Adams affirms that the policy of Washington's administration, and also, in many very important respects, that of his successor, were guided by the opinions of Hamilton, his declaration has my full concurrence. No candid and intelligent man can, I think, read the evidence which has recently appeared, in connection with facts previously known, without acknowledging the undeniable truth of these positions. But I do not by any means intend to concede the control of Hamilton over the mind of Washington which is implied by the terms employed by Mr. Adams without qualifications which limit and very materially change its character. The policy of both administrations was guided by the opinions of Hamilton, but those opinions received their influence through different channels, and were enforced in very different ways. Hamilton's opinions, when known as his, had very little weight with the successor of Washington, save, in many cases, to secure a bad reception for themselves; but that successor had little if any control over, or influence with, the members of his own cabinet, and not much with Congress or the Federal party, by whom the policy of his administration was shaped. With them Hamilton's opinions established the rule of action. In respect to the two latter, this arose mainly from the sway he was capable of exerting over them by the force of his great talents, and from a general concurrence in his views. In respect to the prominent members of Mr. Adams's cabinet his control arose from the power he had in part acquired over their minds whilst they were also members of General Washington's administration. Timothy Pickering, who, after the retirement of Mr. Jefferson and the brief term of Randolph, was Secretary of State under both Presidents, was a remarkable man, sincere and honest, I am willing to believe, in his political opinions, but savagely bitter in his feelings toward his opponents. It seemed pretty much a matter of course in him to hate those to whose political course he was opposed, and, as is usually the case with minds thus constituted, he was equally bigoted in his devotion to those with whom he agreed and acted.

General Hamilton was his beau ideal of a politician and statesman, and it would not have been an easy matter in him to have dissented from any opinion positively advanced by Hamilton, whatever his own first impressions on the subject might have been. Mr. McHenry, Secretary of War in both cabinets, was undoubtedly an honorable and well-disposed gentleman. He was, in the opinion of those who had the best opportunities for judging, including Washington and Hamilton, not entirely competent for the duties of his office, and that circumstance drove him the more to rely for support on Hamilton, for whom he cherished an early and ardent friendship. His personal devotion to Hamilton was such as to prevent Mr. Adams from longer overlooking his incompetency, as Washington had done, and precipitated his resignation. Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, the member of his cabinet most trusted by President Adams because the least suspected, was, notwithstanding, the one among his official advisers who went the greatest lengths to testify his entire allegiance to Hamilton, who had been the artificer of his political fortunes from the beginning and by whose influence he had been advanced to the high position he occupied. Throughout he advised with and was assisted by Hamilton in the performance of his official duties. Such was Hamilton's "power over his mind" that he was applied to successfully by the former for evidence of facts to be derived from the treasury archives to sustain an attack that Hamilton contemplated making upon the President—an attack that he did make, although he acknowledged to Wolcott that it would not be regarded as proper that he should have received the evidence at his hands, and that that fact ought not therefore to be known.

No one can read the correspondence between General Hamilton and Mr. Wolcott, as recently published with Hamilton's Works, without regretting that the parties to it should have been so forgetful of the proprieties due to the occasions to which it relates, or without a disposition to excuse the strong expression of Mr. Charles F. Adams, in speaking of his grandfather's cabinet, applied to Mr. Wolcott "as the most venomous serpent of them all."

Mr. Charles F. Adams places Hamilton's sway over the mind of Washington upon the same footing with that which he exerted over the executive department, composed principally of the members of his second cabinet of whom we have been speaking. From this view I entirely dissent. If Hamilton possessed any power over the mind of Washington, it was of a very different character from that which he exercised over those members. Washington was to an unusual extent free from the weakness of overrating his own powers; with just conceptions of his capacities for public service he was always ready to place them at the public disposal, but he was very far from pretending to qualifications which he did not possess. No one was more sensible than he that the science of civil government—the construction of constitutions and the administration of the civil affairs of the State—were not best learned in the camp, where so large a portion of his life had been spent. He therefore, as we have seen, selected two of the ablest statesmen in the country, particularly versed in those portions of the public business which he devolved upon them. They differed irreconcilably in respect to the policy of the administration, and in the performance of his duty he decided between their conflicting opinions in favor of those of Hamilton. Preferring the policy of the latter he adopted the measures he recommended to carry it out, which happened also to appertain principally to Hamilton's department, and sustained him in their execution. In doing so he but sustained the measures of his administration and views which were either originally his own or made such upon conviction. Participating in the general opinion in favor of Hamilton's remarkable talents, having full opportunities to judge of his character, and confiding in his integrity, he extended to him, it is true, but with the purest motives, the degree of countenance and trust which established his extraordinary power and influence. Of the consequences, as well to his administration as to the country, we will have much to say hereafter. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that there ever was a period at which, or a transaction between them in which, their relative positions, rights, and duties were either forgotten or disregarded. It was well understood that the degree of weight to be attached to Hamilton's advice would depend upon the unbiased opinion which Washington himself should form of its soundness, influenced as he naturally would be, and always was, by a conviction of Hamilton's undoubted integrity, and his superior capacity for the decision of the question under consideration. There certainly never was a time when the slightest indication of a desire or design on the part of Hamilton to sway the mind of Washington in his official acts through his personal influence, or by any considerations which did not point distinctly and exclusively to the public good, would not have been peremptorily and indignantly repelled. It is evident from the whole tenor of Washington's life that no man ever lived who was more tenacious of self-respect, or more absolute in his reservation of the right to judge for himself of what belonged to his individual independence and personal dignity, or more prompt to resist every attempt to encroach upon either. No one understood his temperament in that respect better than General Hamilton, or would have been less likely to bring himself in conflict with it. Many indications of this understanding and of its effects are to be found in the accounts of their personal intercourse. The correspondence between them in regard to the discreditable use that Washington thought was being made in Congress of the sufferings and dissatisfaction of the army, already referred to, will be found to throw much light upon the sense of both as to the nature of their personal relations.

In June, 1793, Hamilton announced to President Washington, that considerations relative both to the public interest and his own dignity had brought his mind to the conclusion to resign his office at the termination of the close of the next session of Congress, and one of the reasons he assigned for delaying his final retirement to that period was to give Congress an opportunity to complete the investigation that had been instituted in regard to his official conduct. In March thereafter Hamilton informed the President that the committee charged to inquire, among other things, "into the authority of the President respecting the making and disbursement of the loans under certain acts of Congress," were about to meet. He sent to him at the same time, a copy of a paper he had presented to the committee, containing his opinion in relation to the proper limits of a legislative inquiry, but said that he deemed it expedient to fix in advance, with the President, on the true state of facts, of which he proceeded to make a statement, and requested the President to sanction it. General Washington soon thereafter made a declaration, in the form of a letter to Hamilton, of his recollections and opinions in respect to the matter. The latter, in reply, protested vehemently against the sufficiency of the declaration for the protection of his honor, and in a letter of considerable length, written with his usual ability, undertook to show that the character of the President's declaration would enable, his (Hamilton's) enemies to say that "the reserve of the President is a proof that he does not think that Hamilton's representations are true, else his justice would have led him to rescue the officer concerned even from suspicion upon the point."

The subject of loans and their frequency produced much excitement in Congress, and not a few calls upon the President and the Secretary of the Treasury for information in regard to them. It does not appear from the published works of Hamilton, that any answer was made by General Washington to his letter, or any other explanation of the subject; and no one, I think, can read the correspondence without feeling that the interpretation I give to its abrupt termination is the correct one, viz.: that Washington intended by his silence to reprove the freedom of Hamilton's letter. The resignation of the latter was deferred, with the approbation of the President, till January, 1795, when it was accepted in a letter from General Washington, containing an approval of Hamilton's official conduct as full as words could make it.[15]

The construction I have placed upon the character of their personal relations is also sustained by a correspondence between them in May, 1798, after Hamilton's retirement from office, which will be found in the sixth volume of Hamilton's "Works," at p. 289. Hamilton's object appears to have been to impress the mind of Washington with a proper sense of the dangerous crisis which had arrived in the condition of public affairs. His letter contains the following extraordinary paragraph: "I am sincere in declaring my full conviction, as the result of a long course of observation, that the faction which has for years opposed the government are ready to remodel our Constitution under the influence or coercion of France, to form with her a perpetual alliance, offensive and defensive, and to give her a monopoly of our trade, by peculiar and exclusive privileges. This would be in substance, whatever it might be in name, to make this country a province of France. Neither do I doubt that her standard displayed in this country would be directly or indirectly seconded by them in pursuance of the project I have mentioned."

In such a state of things it was impossible, he said, not to look up to him, (Washington,) and to wish that his influence might, in some proper way, be brought into direct action, and he added: "Among the ideas that have passed through my mind for this purpose, I have asked myself whether it might not be expedient for you to make a circuit through Virginia and North Carolina under some pretense of health, &c. This would call forth addresses, public dinners, &c., which would give an opportunity of expressing sentiments in answers, toasts, &c., which would throw the weight of your character into the scale of the government, and revive enthusiasm for your person which might be turned into the right channel."

Although Washington himself had been highly excited, by the course of events, against those to whom Hamilton attributed such treasonable designs, he was yet enabled by his good sense and by his knowledge of his countrymen to see at a glance the reckless extravagance of Hamilton's imputations, and he was doubtless dissatisfied with the uses, little creditable, which it was proposed to make of himself. His answer was a truly imposing production. It narrowed Hamilton's description of the portions of his countrymen whose course he deemed objectionable, virtually disapproved his charges by giving his own views of the extent of the danger which was to be apprehended from those whose patriotism Hamilton so grossly impeached, and placed the objectionable character of the course recommended to him in a striking light by showing that, his health never having been better, he would be obliged to commence his journey with the propagation of a falsehood.

Those who wish to read these letters will do well to look for them in Hamilton's "Works," as I am sorry to say that in Mr. Sparks's "Writings of Washington" the above extract from Hamilton's letter, containing his suggestion of an electioneering tour in the South by Washington, is omitted, and the whole paragraph in Washington's reply, in which he rejects and virtually rebukes it, suppressed. Neither is that part of Hamilton's letter given in which he denounces "the powerful faction which has for years opposed the government" with fanatical violence, (for his description of them deserves no other name,) whilst what Washington says upon that point is set forth with considerable aggravation. The results of those omissions and suppressions are not only to conceal the fact that such a proposition was made to Washington, and the grounds upon which he declined to adopt it, but his remarks, condemnatory of a portion of his fellow-citizens, are left to stand as voluntary denunciations of his own instead of, as they in truth were, modifications of the charges to which Hamilton had called his attention.

I have thus selected a few transactions between these great men, occurring at long intervals and embracing the entire period of their intercourse, to show that the influence which it must be conceded Hamilton exercised over Washington's conduct in the civil service of his country was not of the character which is commonly understood and intended by the imputation of it in the case of high official personages, and which necessarily involves the sacrifice of personal independence and, at least in some degree, of self-respect on the part of the person influenced.

Anecdotes of distinguished men are always interesting, although their accuracy is not so reliable, of course, as that of statements substantiated by their own writings. I was told of one, several years since, which struck me as throwing light upon this subject of the personal relations between Washington and his immediate associates and friends. So thinking, and especially as General Hamilton was in one sense a party concerned, I have recently obtained reliable testimony of its authenticity. Judge Fine, the writer of the following note, is well known in New York, and not a little in other States; he has been a State Senator, a Representative in Congress, a State Judge, &c., &c., and is regarded as a gentleman of the utmost probity and of superior intelligence. Judge Burnet, with whom I have served in the United States Senate, was also well known as a gentleman in whose statements entire confidence might be placed, and was, withal, a Hamiltonian Federalist, and never, politically, any thing else; in whose eyes, I am very sure, any statement disparaging to the memory of either Washington or Hamilton would have appeared a grave offense against morality and truth.

Hon. M. Van Buren:

Dear Sir,—During the session of the Presbyterian General Assembly in Cincinnati—May, 1852—I dined twice at the hospitable mansion of Hon. Jacob Burnet, now deceased. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1770, and was the son of Dr. William Burnet, who was in the medical service of his country through the Revolution.

Judge Burnet was acquainted with our early distinguished statesmen, and his conversation was rich in the recollection of their manners and characters. He related an anecdote of Washington which he had from the lips of Alexander Hamilton.

When the Convention to form a Constitution was sitting in Philadelphia in 1787, of which General Washington was President, he had stated evenings to receive the calls of his friends. At an interview between Hamilton, the Morrises, and others, the former remarked that Washington was reserved and aristocratic even to his intimate friends, and allowed no one to be familiar with him. Gouverneur Morris said that was a mere fancy, and he could be as familiar with Washington as with any of his other friends. Hamilton replied, "If you will, at the next reception evening, gently slap him on the shoulder and say, 'My dear General, how happy I am to see you look so well!' a supper and wine shall be provided for you and a dozen of your friends."

The challenge was accepted. On the evening appointed a large number attended, and at an early hour Gouverneur Morris entered, bowed, shook hands, laid his left hand on Washington's shoulder, and said: "My dear General, I am very happy to see you look so well!" Washington withdrew his hand, stepped suddenly back, fixed his eye on Morris for several minutes with an angry frown, until the latter retreated abashed and sought refuge in the crowd. The company looked on in silence.

At the supper which was provided by Hamilton, Morris said: "I have won the bet but paid dearly for it, and nothing could induce me to repeat it."

Better proof of the truth of this statement could not, at this day, be expected or desired, and assuming it to be substantially true, the transaction, in my estimation, illustrates the character of the personal relations that existed between Washington and the two distinguished men, Hamilton and Morris, who, in respect to the management of public affairs, enjoyed perhaps his fullest confidence.

It is without doubt true, that in his intercourse with public men Washington observed an extraordinary degree of dignified reserve, and there is every reason to believe that this invariable habit was natural to him, and in no degree assumed for effect. We indeed know nothing of his character if he was at all capable of practicing the low device of hiding mental deficiencies under a wise look and a mysterious manner, which is sometimes the resort of meaner minds; but some such foundation (or some degree of it) for his habit must have been presupposed by the very unusual proceeding of Morris and it is quite impossible to believe that a man was in danger of being unduly influenced by his personal friends who could thus, by the power of his eye and the solemnity of his countenance, abash and punish the presumption of a man of Morris's standing, confessedly the sauciest man in his society, without causing the slightest confusion or excitement in the surrounding company.

He had nothing to conceal; he never desired to pass for more than he was worth, and there have been few men who formed a juster estimate of their own qualifications and capacities. In respect to military affairs he was evidently self-reliant, but not more so than was justified by his large experience and by the success which had crowned his efforts; but neither in that nor in any other department was he above receiving advice. In the intricate and complex affairs of civil administration, and in grave questions of constitutional construction and of national law, he felt that his experience and study had been much less than those of some who were associated with him in the public service, and he did not hesitate to recognize the difference. The principal aid he could bring to the settlement of such questions consisted of a clear head, a sound judgment, and an honest heart. These he never failed to apply after such questions had been prepared for decision by the previous examination and discussions of those of his cabinet whose attention had been more directed to them than his own. To secure these prerequisites he had, as I have said before, availed himself of the highest talent which the country afforded, without reference to distinctions of party.

This was the way in which he dealt with the grave questions that arose during the early stages of his administration, touching the numerous and complicated difficulties between us and our old friend and ally France, the reception and treatment of her ministers, Genet and his successor Adet, our assumption of a neutral position between European belligerents, the claims of France under the treaty of alliance and guaranty, the powers of Congress under the Constitution in relation to a national bank, and other subjects. In respect to the first of these matters he went so far as to consult Hamilton by letter on the question of his own personal demeanor at a Presidential levee toward the French minister, by whose conduct he had been offended. Whatever may be our regret at finding the confidential note asking that advice preserved to so late a period and now recklessly published, we may yet be satisfied that the step itself only affords additional evidence of the prudence and manliness of Washington's character. Few men stood less in need of advice in respect to his treatment of those who had given him offense in a matter purely personal; but it was natural for him to assume that the usages of diplomacy had settled rules for the action of the heads of government in such cases, of which he was not informed and in respect to which he was not ashamed to ask advice and information from proper sources. The constancy with which he invoked the aid of his cabinet upon all questions of the general character to which I have alluded, the unreserved manner in which he submitted them to their consideration, the delicacy with which he withheld his opinions until theirs were pronounced, and the spirit in which these were received, whether agreeing with or differing from his own, were above all praise. The information we possess of the details of those interesting proceedings is principally derived from Mr. Jefferson, and in all that he has written or in all that we have understood him to have said upon the subject no word of complaint or allegation at variance with the description here given of them is to be found. The idea that Washington ever sought to advance his objects by indirect or exceptionable means, or that he was actuated in his public measures by any other motive than an honest desire to promote the good of his country, seems never to have presented itself to Mr. Jefferson's mind, however erroneous he considered some of those measures. I spent some days with him, as I have elsewhere described,[16] two years before his death, and in the course of our repeated conversations he dwelt long and particularly upon these early transactions. I attributed the circumstance at the time to a desire, consistent with his very genial disposition, to gratify my curiosity, which was strong and not concealed; and it did not occur to me that he might have had other views, until, after my return home, I received his long letter avowedly written for the purpose for which I now use it, "to throw light on history, and to recall that into the path of truth when he was no more, nor those whom it might offend." In all that he said—and he spoke with perfect freedom of men and things—there was nothing inconsistent with the inference I have here drawn from his writings, but much to confirm it. The President's decisions upon cabinet questions were generally in favor of Hamilton's views; but that circumstance, very much to his credit, was not permitted to influence Jefferson's estimate of motives, but was regarded as the natural result of Washington's general sympathy with Hamilton's political opinions, and his confidence in his ability and integrity,—a sympathy, however, that never even approached the subject of a change in the existing form of our Government. That was a question as to which we have the best reason to believe that Washington would have never taken counsel except from his God and his conscience. He more than once declared to Jefferson "that he was determined that the republican form of our Government should have a fair chance of success, and that he would, if necessary, spill the last drop of his blood in its defense,"—a resolution, and the likelihood of its being sustained, that no one understood better than Hamilton.

By these repeated declarations to Mr. Jefferson, Washington only renewed to a civilian, whose character and position made them the more significant and impressive, a pledge which he had given to the world at Newburgh in the presence of the companions of his glory, yet with arms in their hands—that his name should never be added to the list of those who, having done much to emancipate a people from thralldom, were the first to blast their hopes and sacrifice their dearest interests at the promptings of selfish and unhallowed passions. They only proved that the flattery of the world during the ten intervening years had not corrupted his heart nor endangered the observance of a pledge which had derived its value from the character of the man who gave it, and on whose continued fidelity to the principle it involved the future liberties and welfare of his country were in so large a degree dependent.

It has always been believed that if Washington had inclined a favorable ear to the suggestions of the Newburgh letters, and in due season had given his name and influence to the counter-revolution they were intended to promote, it might have been made successful, and the system which the Revolution had overthrown might have been in some modified form restored. The disparity between the means which were at his disposal when propositions looking to such a result were thrown before the army at Newburgh and those within his reach when the declarations to Mr. Jefferson were made was not as great as might be supposed. At the former period it is true that the army of the Revolution was yet in the field, mortified, irritated, and indeed highly inflamed by the assumed injustice and ingratitude of their country, and in all probability prepared to follow his lead in furtherance of any views he might disclose which did not exceed the proposed limits; and the government to be overthrown was feeble, distracted, destitute of the sinews of war, and with but a slight hold upon the confidence and affections of the people. But it must also be remembered that the fervor and spirit of the Revolution—that intense hatred of royalty and monarchical institutions in any shape—which had roused the country to the contest, had as yet in no sensible degree abated amongst the masses, neither had they surrendered those sanguine anticipations of the blessings and advantages of republican government by which their hearts had been fortified and their arms strengthened for the struggle. That any attempt to bring about a counter-revolution under such circumstances, however popular the name and character of him by whom it was sanctioned, or however imposing the means by which it was sustained, would meet with a formidable opposition from the great body of the people was certain; and it was not easy to estimate the nature and extent of the resistance that might spring from the sources to which I have referred to confront an army which had so lately been the object of their unalloyed admiration and affection.

In the lapse of time between that period and the one at which Mr. Jefferson received the assurances he describes great changes had taken place in respect to all these matters, but, as I have said, not so adverse as might on first impression be supposed to the practicability of an attempt such as Washington referred to. The army of the Revolution had indeed been dissolved, and, in regard to the elements of which it was principally composed, beyond recall; but its officers, who, next to Washington, were capable of giving a tone and direction to the spirit of the troops, were alive, several of them again under his command, not a few about his person, and all filled with unabated admiration and affection for their idolized chief. If the account given us by Mr. Jefferson of the feelings he found most prevalent in our principal cities and at the seat of government on his return from France and in his progress to Philadelphia, to take upon himself the office of Secretary of State, is to be relied upon,—and many important contemporaneous occurrences corroborate his statement,—sad changes had taken place in the public opinion and feeling, of absorbing interest in this connection. "The President," he says, "received me cordially, and my colleagues and the circle of principal citizens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of dinner-parties given me, as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in familiar society. But I cannot describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican governments was evidently the favorite sentiment." In his description of what he heard and saw there can be no mistake; but it is more than probable that changes among the people at large, upon the point spoken of, had not occurred to any thing like the same extent as among those portions of society to which he more particularly refers. Still it is undeniably true that from the influence of examples set by men in high places, from the difficulties under which the late government had labored, and from other causes, there had been at that moment a falling off from the true faith respecting governments and the administration of them which could now be scarcely credited. Add to these favoring circumstances the fact that the man, without whose countenance or coöperation no reactionary attempt would have been thought of even by the rankest advocate for monarchical institutions, was at the head of the Government to be overthrown, and the unquestioned object of the national confidence and affection, and the scheme, with his coöperation, was not likely to be then regarded as so impracticable as it would now certainly be considered. If such a work were at this day thought of by any man or men, however elevated in position or loved by the people, they could reap no other harvest than contempt and derision; but the single fact that Washington, who always handled serious matters seriously, and who was not liable to be alarmed by "false fires," treated the subject as he did, is sufficient to mark the difference between the condition of the country and of the public mind then and now.

But happily for us he was the same man in 1793 that he was in 1783. The principle upon which he acted upon both occasions was maintained through life without spot or blemish. The world believed, and for the best reasons, that he had refused to become the master of a people, whose liberties he had, through the favor of God and the fortitude and bravery of his countrymen, been made instrumental to establish, because he deemed it a higher honor to be their servant. It compared his acts with those of the Cæsars, of Cromwell, and of Napoleon, and glorified his name above that of any other mortal man. Such has been his reward for his faithfulness to the most sacred of human trusts—a reward and a fidelity unparalleled! Services have been rendered in every age which entitled the actors in them to the gratitude of their country, and to the thanks of mankind, but lacking the distinguishing feature of Washington's, their traces have become fainter with the lapse of time, whilst the remembrance of his unequaled merits grows more distinct and strong with each revolving year.

That he committed grave errors in giving his sanction, probably with considerable reluctance, to some of the measures of his administration, is certain. I say this not merely on the strength of my own poor opinion, but because such is the unreserved and irreversible judgment of the country, to which, under a republican government, the acts of all public men are subjected. But the assent which he gave to these measures was never, even by those most opposed to them, attributed to him as a fault, but was regarded only as an honest error of opinion; and hence the extraordinary political phenomenon of a party having its origin in the adoption by him of those measures expelling from power his immediate successor, who claimed to act upon his principles, placing those principles by protracted and diligent efforts under the ban of public opinion, and keeping them and their supporters there, in the main, for more than half a century—and yet being not a whit behind those who approved them in its respect for his name and character, because its members, in the eloquent language of Mr. Jefferson, "would not suffer the temporary aberration to weigh against the immeasurable merits of his life; and although they tumbled his seducers from their places, they preserved his memory embalmed in their hearts with undiminished love and devotion, and there it forever will remain embalmed in entire oblivion of every temporary thing which might cloud the glories of his splendid life."

CHAPTER III.

The Fact that Hamilton shaped and guided the Administrations of Washington and John Adams at the Time generally believed, now clearly established—Occasions when his Influence did not prevail—His Views and Purposes on entering the Cabinet—Some of his early Measures not authorized by the Constitution—True Character of that Instrument—Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury—His extraordinary Ability—His exaggerated Ideas as to the Embarrassments of the Country—Unfounded Alarm at that Period on the Subjects of the Public Debt and Public Revenues—Device for surmounting Constitutional Obstacles to Hamilton's Plan—Source of the Doctrine of Implied Powers—Foundation of Hamilton's Policy under his Construction of the Constitution—His Measures and the Effects he anticipated from them—The Funding System—The Weakening of State Authority a leading Feature of Hamilton's Policy—Further Aims and other "Stages of Improvement"—Hamilton's Report on Manufactures; its Ability, Spirit, and Political Effects upon its Author and his Party—Hamilton's Desire to build up in this Country a "Money Power" similar to that of England—Such a Power antagonistic to the Democratic Spirit of our People—The Real Object of Hamilton in endeavoring to transplant the System here—His temporary Success, and the Influence thereof in forming a School that survived him—His Motives and the Convictions upon which they were Founded.

THAT the policy of every administration of the Federal Government for the first twelve years of its existence was shaped, and the action of the Federal party guided, by the opinions and advice of Hamilton, was the general impression of the opponents of that party, and of course known to the leading Federalists. I have in another place[17] referred to the fact that Mr. Jefferson, in all my conversations with him in 1824, when he spoke of the course pursued by the Federal party, invariably personified it by saying "Hamilton" did or insisted thus; and, on the other hand, "the Republicans" held or claimed so and so; and that upon my calling his attention to the peculiarity of his expression, he smiled and attributed his habit to the universal conviction of the Republicans that Hamilton directed every thing. But the evidence they possessed of the truth of that impression was slight indeed in comparison with that which is now before the country. They had only the opinions given in the cabinet upon the important public questions that arose during that period, with the decisions of the President upon them and other public documents relating to them, and the general conjectural impressions on the minds of politicians, which can seldom be traced to any specific authority, in respect to the influence which governs the action of parties. The additions now made by the publication of Hamilton's private papers alone, and more especially when they are read in connection with those of other distinguished public men, prove those impressions to have been well founded, and to an extent far beyond what was even imagined in those days. I had read these papers with care, and, I hope, weighed their contents with candor, before I gave my assent to the declaration of Mr. Charles F. Adams upon the subject, quoted on p. 96 above. Many of General Washington's letters to Hamilton are marked "private," and some "private and confidential." It is not for me to decide upon the propriety of their publication, however much I may regret that the friends of the latter should have deemed that course necessary in respect to many of them. I content myself with a general reference to those which have a bearing upon the point under consideration, without making extracts or adding remarks explanatory of their tendency and effect. The letters between Washington and Hamilton more particularly in point will be found in the fifth volume of Hamilton's "Works," p. 106, in answer to letter at p. 12; and in the sixth volume, at pp. 19, 34, 35, 36, 52, 63, 64, 73, 90, 143, 156, 179, 197; those between Hamilton and members of Washington's cabinet, in the sixth volume, at pp. 29, 41, 67, 129, 238.

The steps taken by General Hamilton to shape the policy and to prescribe the action of Mr. Adams's administration were designed to embrace its entire course, and were carried into effect with but little respect for the wishes or opinions of its constitutional head. Three weeks had not elapsed after Mr. Adams's inauguration before General Hamilton wrote a letter to Mr. Pickering, Secretary of State, in which he expressed "his extreme anxiety that an exactly proper course should be pursued in regard to France," and suggested for his consideration, under seven different heads, what he thought that course ought to be. The Secretary was not requested to submit these views to the President, nor was any desire indicated that he should do so, nor any notice taken of the President in the letter further than may be found in the closing paragraph,—"The executive, before Congress meet, ought to have a well-digested plan and coöperate in getting it adopted."

If there was a single instance in which Hamilton, in his numerous letters of advice to the Secretaries, requested them to submit his views to the consideration of the President, it has escaped my observation. He was several times spoken of, but generally as to what he ought to do and what he might or might not be induced to do. The letters and papers bearing upon the subject will be found in the sixth volume of Hamilton's "Works," at pp. 213, 215, 218, 246, 250, 251, 252, 269, 278, 292, 294, 381, 444, 447, 471, 477, 484.

During the whole period Hamilton was regarded as the leader of the Federal party by most of the prominent members of that party,—Mr. Adams and a few of his friends excepted,—by those who represented the country abroad, by members of Congress, &c., &c. He was considered the fountain head of partisan authority, was freely applied to for advice, and gave it when it was asked, and quite as freely when it was not. He from time to time furnished members of Congress with specifications of steps proper to be taken, in one of which will be found suggested the passage of the celebrated sedition law. A few instances of his interference in this form will be found in Volume V. Hamilton's "Works," pp. 79, 86, and in Volume VI. at pp. 92, 94, 381, 383, 390.

The most important, if not the only occasions on which the influence of Hamilton over the action of the Federal party was exerted without success, were those of the formation of the Federal Constitution, and the support of Aaron Burr, by that party, for President, and for Governor of New York in 1801 and 1804. The first can scarcely be regarded, however, as such an occasion, because it was one in which party distinctions were merged in a compromise to which he himself ultimately assented. The others belong to the number of those occasions which, from time to time, present themselves in the history of all political parties, when the lust of power overrides the advice of their ablest and best friends. A party which has been long out of power, or which, having long held it, is threatened with imminent danger of losing it, can rarely resist the temptation when it is presented of securing success by dividing its opponents. Such a temptation is almost always strong enough to silence other objections, and Hamilton, on those occasions, shared the fate of party leaders who place their individual influence in opposition to the excited passions and short-sighted schemes of their party.

It was my fortune to hear Hamilton's great speech against the support of Burr for the office of Governor of New York by the Federalists of the State. I happened to visit Albany on the day appointed for the meeting, in company with William P. Van Ness, who was a few months afterwards Burr's second in his duel with Hamilton; and we lodged, as we were in the habit of doing, at Lewis's Tavern, the place where the meeting was to be held. Our room adjoined and communicated with the larger one in which the meeting took place; and after its organization, Mr. Van Ness threw open the door between the rooms, giving us a full view of the assemblage and exposing our presence to them. I mention these circumstances, which I recollect well, because it is my impression that it was very unusual at that day for politicians of one party to attend the meetings of the other. Mr. Van Ness and myself differed irreconcilably in respect to the support of Colonel Burr, but we were both members of the Republican party. The meeting consisted of about one hundred very respectable looking men, generally well advanced in life, and I remember many gray heads among them. Such was a gathering of the Federalists, in a city in which they had complete control, called together to hear the leader of their party, decidedly the most eloquent man of his day, a little more than fifty years ago. Quantum mutatus! My seat was so near to Hamilton that I could hear distinctly every word he said, and three impressions of the scene are still strong in my memory—his imposing manner and stirring eloquence, the obvious disinclination of the larger portion of his audience to be governed by his advice, notwithstanding the unbounded respect and love they bore him, and the marked indignation which often sparkled on the countenance of Van Ness whilst he was speaking.

Preferring monarchical institutions because he conscientiously believed that republican government could not be maintained "consistently with order," but satisfied that public opinion would not then admit of their establishment in this country, and indisposed for the reasons I have assigned to advocate the use of force for that purpose, yet expecting a crisis to arrive by which the opinions of the people would be changed, or the use of force be rendered justifiable, Hamilton entered the cabinet of President Washington determined to recommend a line of policy and the adoption of measures, which, whilst they would give the Government sufficient power to sustain itself against the democratic spirit of the country,—always the object of his dread,—would not be out of place when a resort to the English model, the object of his life-long choice, should have become necessary. If, in the execution of this policy, he had confined himself to the powers intended to be conferred upon the Federal Government by the Constitution, however much his conduct might have been censured on account of the anti-republican spirit it evinced, it would nevertheless have presented a very different aspect to posterity. But this was unhappily far from his intention. No one knew better than Hamilton that power to adopt some of the most important of the measures included in the chart he had devised for the action of the Federal Government was not designed to be granted to it either by those who framed, or by those who had adopted the Constitution, and that if there had been any reason to suspect that that instrument conferred such powers there would not have been the slightest chance for its ratification.

The Convention that framed the Constitution was well aware that the portion of its labors which related to the extent of the powers to be given to the new government was that upon which the public mind was most sensitive. It was not ignorant how far the apprehensions of the people upon that point had, through the entire period of our colonial history, prevented the establishment of any general government, and even the institution of one since the Declaration of Independence that was adequate to the necessities of the country. It knew that the powers given to Congress, particularly, would be the part of the Constitution to which the attention of the friends of the State governments would be directed, and upon which their opposition would be most likely to arise. Understanding these things, the Convention, with that good sense and prudence by which its entire course was so greatly distinguished, bestowed upon that branch of its business the utmost care and circumspection. Instead of describing the power given to Congress in general terms, as was done by Hamilton, in the plan submitted by him for its adoption,—viz.: "To pass all laws which they shall judge necessary to the common defense and general welfare of the Union,"—by which much would of necessity be left to the discretion of those who were to execute the power, the Convention specified the powers it intended to grant under seventeen heads, and described them in the simplest and plainest language, so that none should be at a loss to understand their import. So well was this design executed that no room for doubt or cavil remained to those who had no other desire than to arrive at the meaning of the framers of the Constitution.

Here the Convention might have stopped, for no implication could have been more unavoidable than that Congress should have the right to promulgate the rules they adopted by the enactment of laws. But as if aware of the uses which the able men from whom it apprehended opposition might make of the fact that a necessity of a resort to implication had been left by the instrument, it granted that power also in express terms. The principal part of that clause was moreover designed to constitute Congress the law-maker for the other great departments of the government, and to exclude the idea that they should also have the power of legislation.

Having thus, as it thought, guarded the work of its hands from misrepresentation or misinterpretation upon what it justly considered the most delicate and, if disregarded, the most vulnerable point, and having framed a Constitution with which all friends to republican principles ought to be satisfied, the Convention appealed with confidence to the ratifying conventions, and in doing so it did no more than justice to those bodies,—the instrument, thus guarded, was ultimately ratified by the votes of all the States.

If Hamilton, either in the articles of the "Federalist," to which he largely contributed, or on the floor of the Convention of Ratification, of which he was a member, had only countenanced that construction of the Constitution which he set up for it as Secretary of the Treasury, or if in any other way a suspicion had been produced that it was intended to give that instrument such a construction after its ratification, its rejection would have been inevitable. No one who has studied the state of the public mind at that period can for a moment doubt that this would have been the result. Such was the true character of the Constitution which the people of the United States intended to establish, and thought they had established, and such were the circumstances under which it was ratified.

Hamilton was placed by Washington virtually at the head of his administration; for, although the Secretary of State has, since that period, been regarded in that light, no such impression had then obtained, and in the government of Great Britain, to which attention had been most directed, it was otherwise. The Treasury Department wielded infinitely the most influence, and the superior confidence of the President in the incumbent decided the point of priority, at least for the time being. Perhaps the only question in respect to Hamilton upon which there has never been any diversity of sentiment was in regard to his talents. That they were of the highest order was the opinion of all who knew him. Jefferson scarcely ever spoke of him in his letters to Madison without admonishing him of the extraordinary powers of his mind, and in one of them he says,—"Hamilton is really a Colossus to the Anti-Republican party; without numbers he is a host in himself. In truth when he comes forward there is nobody but yourself (Madison) that can meet him." When I was Minister of the United States in England I saw much of Prince Talleyrand, then French Ambassador at the same Court, and enjoyed relations of marked kindness with him. In my informal visits to him we had long and frequent conversations, in which Hamilton, his acquaintance with him in this country, and incidents in their intercourse, were his favorite themes. He always spoke with great admiration of his talents, and during the last evening that I spent with him he said that he regarded Hamilton as the ablest man he became acquainted with in America,—he was not sure that he might not add without injustice, or that he had known in Europe.[18] With such advantages, greater at that time certainly than the public service of any country afforded to any other man, it is difficult to conceive of a more commanding position than that which he occupied. With a mind that dwelt habitually upon great ideas, the political career of such a man could not fail to produce important results for good or for evil. It must not, however, be forgotten, for it is a truth which exerted a powerful influence on his whole course, that he was at the same time, as his friend Morris described him, "more a theoretic than a practical man." It was natural that a mind so easily excited and an imagination so vivid as Hamilton's seem always to have been, should have formed exaggerated ideas as well of the extent and character of the embarrassments under which the country was laboring, as of the causes from which they sprang. These were undoubtedly very serious, very difficult to be dealt with; and it is equally true that they had been greatly aggravated by, if they were not, as he was very willing to consider them, mainly attributable to the defects of the former federal system. But there was some misapprehension, and no small degree of exaggeration upon these points. We are indeed an imaginative people, and the transfer of our fathers to a new country and climate doubtless accounts for the great difference in this respect between ours and the cool, deliberate, and unimpressible temperaments and character retained by those in Europe who have the same descent. It was not to have been expected that a country so young as our own, and as unprepared, could have passed through a seven years' war with a powerful nation without involving itself in grave embarrassments; but when the extent of those embarrassments, the difficulties of dealing with them, and the then resources of the country are now regarded, it seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the grounds for the alarm then so prevalent upon the subjects of the public credit and the public revenues were greatly overrated.

Our whole foreign debt amounted to but twelve millions of dollars, payable by installments, the last of which did not become due until seven years thereafter. The domestic debt amounted to forty-two millions, for the payment of which the Government was under no obligation to make immediate provision, amounting in all to fifty-four millions, and the annual expenses of the Government were estimated at less than six hundred thousand dollars. This was the full extent of federal responsibilities. Hamilton assumed some fifteen millions of the State debts, but that was an act entirely voluntary, neither asked nor desired by the States, unconstitutional and inexpedient, and caused as much unpopularity to his administration of the department as, perhaps more than, any act by which it was distinguished.

To meet these responsibilities the new Constitution had placed in the hands of the Federal Government the power of collecting a revenue from imposts and taxes, to borrow money on the credit of the United States to any amount which the public service might be deemed to require, and to regulate commerce, both foreign and domestic,—a power from the exercise of which great improvements in the trade of the country were justly anticipated. In aid of these resources we possessed a population of some three and a half millions, as active and enterprising as any on the face of the earth, just emerging from the discouragements of a defective government, and bounding with hope into all the varieties of business and labor, for which a fertile soil and a salubrious climate afforded the most ample facilities. The comparison may be, and doubtless by many will be, regarded as inappropriate; but with the views—simple but practical—which experience has taught me, I cannot but think that if one were instituted between the liabilities of the United States in 1790 and those of the State of New York in 1842,—between the means at the disposal of each, and the extent to which the credit of each had been depressed,—it would be found that speedier and more substantial relief, and under less eligible circumstances, was obtained for the latter by the simple and direct efforts of those unpretending financiers, Michael Hoffman and Azariah C. Flagg, than was accomplished for the United States by the manifold schemes that were resorted to at the period of which we are speaking. Certain I am that if a similar comparison were made between the difficulties which the Treasury Department of the Federal Government had to contend with in 1790, and those which it encountered in 1837, combined with the powerful and active hostility of the United States Bank, the former would lose much of the apparent importance with which tradition, the influence of a great name, and the rhetorical applauses of modern political orators, of the Federal school, have invested them.[19]

The condition of things at the period we are considering was such as to promise the greatest advantages from the simplest, though persevering and well-considered, employment of the means then for the first time placed at the disposal of the General Government.

If it had fortunately so happened that General Washington had placed Hamilton at the head of the State Department, in which the theories which he appears to have studied from his earliest manhood—he having, though anonymously, at the age of twenty-three, sent to Robert Morris, then a member of Congress, the first plan for a bank of the United States, accompanied by an elaborate examination into monetary and financial affairs generally, and those of the United States in particular—would not have been called into action, and if he had appointed Madison to be Secretary of the Treasury, the fate of his administration and the effects of its measures in respect to parties would have been very different. The practical character of Madison's talents and disposition had been exemplified in the whole of his previous career, and was conspicuous in his course on the subject of revenue. On the second day after the votes for President and Vice-President under the new Constitution had been canvassed, and twenty days before the inauguration of President Washington, he commenced operations in the new House of Representatives, of which he was a member, to enable the new government to avail itself of the advantages secured to it by the Constitution in regard to revenue.

To this end he introduced a bill to impose impost and tonnage duties by which he believed all the objects of a national revenue could be secured without being oppressive to the country, and pursued his object day in and day out, until his bill became a law. A prompt application of the means thus acquired to the regular payment of the interest on the public debt, with a resort to others authorized in express terms by the Constitution if the impost had not proved adequate to all the objects of a national revenue, as he believed it would, and a discreet use of the power to borrow exerted in the ordinary way, accompanied by proper efforts to keep public expenditures at the lowest point consistent with an efficient public service, would in all probability have been the sum of the measures which Mr. Madison would have deemed necessary to place the public credit at the highest desirable point and to discharge all the existing obligations of the Government. They constitute all the means employed by the department now, and for several years past have proved abundantly sufficient to meet infinitely higher responsibilities, and there is in truth no conclusive reason to be found in the history of the period referred to why they would not have performed the same offices then.

But these simple and usually efficacious measures did not come up to Hamilton's standard. They fell short of what he thought necessary to the actual wants of the public service, and still more so in regard to what he deemed due to the efficiency, stability, and dignity of the Government. To secure all of these objects he desired to build up a financial system which would approach to an equality with the English model after which he designed to construct it; and he believed that it was in that way only that the public necessities could be amply provided for, the public credit placed at the point which he wished it to occupy, and the respectability of the Government be properly consulted. But this plan required the adoption of measures which, it is not too much to say, he knew that neither those who framed nor those who adopted the Constitution intended to authorize. This difficulty, which to ordinary minds would have appeared insurmountable, was overcome by a device either of his own creation or, as I have for many years believed, the suggestion of another.

The subject of internal improvements by the Federal Government, in regard as well to the power of the latter over the subject as to the expediency of its exercise, was repeatedly and very fully discussed in Congress, whilst Mr. Rufus King and myself represented the State of New York in the Senate of the United States. Upon the question of power we concurred in opinion, he adhering to that of Hamilton—the construction of such works being one of the very few powers which the latter did not claim for the Federal Government. Notwithstanding this agreement the subject was often canvassed between us in respect to the arguments advanced, from time to time, in Congress, by others. On one of those occasions, he told me that on Gouverneur Morris's visit to the city of New York, soon after his return from the Federal Convention, he was congratulated by his friends on the circumstance that the Convention had succeeded in agreeing upon a Constitution which would realize the great object for which it had been convened, and that Morris promptly and, as Mr. King seemed to have understood it, significantly replied—"That will depend upon the construction that is given to it!" Mr. King did not state any inference he had drawn from the remark and seemed to me indisposed to prolong the conversation upon that point, and, knowing his habitual reserve in speaking of his old associates, I yielded to what I believed to be his wish not to be questioned, although I was at the moment strongly impressed by the observation. I referred to it afterwards in a speech I made in the Senate upon the powers of the Government, which was extensively published. At a subsequent period this ready answer of Morris would not have attracted notice; but spoken before even a single officer had been elected to carry the Constitution into effect, and of course before any question as to its construction had arisen, it was to my mind, and, as I believe, to the mind of Mr. King, evidence of a foregone conclusion to claim under that instrument powers not anticipated by the great body of those who framed it, or by those who had given it vitality by their approval. The facts that this reply had been so long remembered by Mr. King, a prominent and sagacious member of the Convention, and repeated under the circumstances I have detailed, were calculated to create such an impression. It gave, at least to my view, a decided direction in respect to the source from whence the doctrine of implied powers originated. I had found it difficult, with the opinions I had formed of Hamilton's character and dispositions, to reconcile the first suggestion of such a policy with them. I could believe that, in accordance with the principles which he avowed, he might be not unwilling to carry it into effect when it was suggested to him; but that, after advancing his opinions in a manner so frank and fearless, notwithstanding their well understood unpopularity, he should be found mousing over the words of the Constitution for equivocal expressions, containing a meaning intelligible only to the initiated, and by such methods preparing to spring a trap upon the people, was, it appeared to me, utterly foreign to his nature and habits. Neither was I disposed to believe that he would, at the very moment of signing, have denounced the Constitution as inadequate to the purposes of good government if he had then regarded it as possessing the very extensive powers he afterwards assisted in claiming for it, nor would he have subsequently declared it to be "a frail and worthless fabric." His complaint upon the latter occasion would have been against the construction that had been given to it, and not against the Constitution itself.

Morris, whose ability no one will question, was a constant attendant upon the Convention, took an active part in its proceedings throughout, was on most of its committees and the working-man of the last,—the duties of which were "to revise the style of, and arrange the articles which had been agreed to by the House,"—and the second and last draft of the Constitution was reported by him. But it is now comparatively unimportant with whom the latitudinarian construction of the Constitution, which has caused so much strife and contention and so little advantage to any person, party, or interest, originated. Hamilton, at least, adopted it as the corner-stone of his constitutional views, and, by his genius and the weight of his official influence, gave it a temporary success.

For reasons which will appear in the sequel, I will confine myself to a simple statement of the questions that were raised in respect to the construction of the Constitution, and a few illustrations of their character. That instrument, as has already been stated, contained a specific enumeration of the powers given to Congress, and the reasons have been also described for this particularity. The measures to which they referred were known by appropriate and distinct names, and applied to definite and well understood objects, and they have been ever since known and understood as they were then. This enumeration of the powers of Congress was followed, as we have seen, by a grant of authority to that body to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

Under this winding-up clause of the Constitutional enumeration of the powers of Congress, the true sense and object of which was so easy to be understood, Hamilton claimed for that body the power of authorizing by law measures of a substantive character, described by well understood names, altogether different from those employed in the enumeration, such as the incorporation of banks, &c., &c., if Congress should declare itself of the opinion that the execution of the enumerated powers would be materially aided by any such measures, reserving to Congress the right of deciding whether the proposed measure would be sufficiently useful to create the "propriety and necessity" required by the Constitution, and placing in its breast alone the final decision of every such question.

The objects of the Constitution, as set forth in its preamble, were "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The first of the powers of Congress, contained in the enumeration of them in the Constitution, is in the following words:

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, and imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;"—and then follow all the other powers, to borrow money, &c.

The terms "common defense and general welfare," used in this enumeration, were taken from the Articles of Confederation, where they stood thus: "All charges of war, and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense and general welfare, and allowed by the United States, in Congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several States in proportion," &c. Under those Articles they were never understood as a substantive grant of power to the Continental Congress, or as authorizing that body to ask from the States moneys, and to expend them for any purposes other than those which the Articles afterwards specified. By the new Constitution the manner of getting the money was happily changed from State requisitions to taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to be expended, however, when so obtained, for the common defense and general welfare, as before, and the Constitution then, like the Articles of Confederation, says upon what objects it is to be expended. The Convention which framed and those which ratified the instrument, of course, understood the terms as used in the same sense. But after the Constitution was ratified, without an intimation of such a construction having been whispered before, it was contended by many that the manner in which the terms common defense and general welfare were used in it authorized Congress to adopt any measure which that body might deem calculated to subserve the common defense and general welfare of the country, whilst others, less reckless, limited the power they claimed for Congress to the application of money to any such measures. Among the former, as to the clause in the preamble, Hamilton placed himself, insisting that, under the grant of powers to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying its given powers into execution, Congress had the power to adopt every measure of government not expressly denied to it or exclusively granted to the States, which it should deem useful in the execution of its enumerated powers, however variant in its name, object, and general understanding; and under the clause quoted from the preamble an unlimited power of taxation, and an equally unlimited authority to expend the money so raised upon objects which it might think would promote the common defense and general welfare. He thus claimed for Congress substantially all legislative power, save such as was expressly prohibited to it, given exclusively to the States, or denied to both, falling but little if any thing short of the power he assigned to the national legislature in his propositions submitted to the Convention, which that body would not even consider, viz.: "to pass all laws which they shall judge necessary to the common defense and general welfare of the Union."