such as would tend to render the United States independent of foreign nations for military and other essential supplies. Frankly declaring that "protective duties evidently amount to a virtual bounty on the domestic fabrics, since by enhancing the charge on foreign articles they enable the manufacturers to undersell their foreign competitors," he looked no further than to a temporary and moderate aid to nascent industries, or, as Madison has already expressed it, "infant manufactories," believing that "the continuation of bounties on manufactures long established must always be of questionable policy, because a presumption would arise in every such case that these were natural and inherent impediments to success."

His reason for stimulating the growth of manufactures was, "the restrictive regulations, which in foreign markets abridge the vent of our increasing surplus of agricultural products."

He never questioned, but, on the contrary, expressly averred, that the consumer paid the duties; and, so far from advocating protective duties, in the interest of good wages for labor, he reckoned on the scarcity of funds and the dearness of labor as among the existing obstacles to manufactures, which justified the imposition of duties as temporary bounties to them. He rightly argued that the protective system would help to do away with the scarcity of hands by promoting immigration from abroad, and that any dearness of labor, if due to this scarcity, would diminish with it and with the use of machinery; or, if due also to greater profits, would be no objection, as the undertaker could afford to pay the price. It will thus

be seen that this report contemplated a system of protection radically different from that advocated by the Republican party of to-day, and contains admissions and declarations utterly at war with the grounds on which that party seeks to maintain its system of so-called protection.

These reports fully disclose the purposes which run through them. Those purposes were not more financial than political. His aim was: First, to establish the credit and provide for the debt and annual necessities of the government. Second, to bring to the support of the government the powerful moneyed interest by giving it direct pecuniary benefits.

Hamilton had no faith that the experiment of a government resting on the people could succeed. He aimed to make it rest on capital, seeking by his "financial policy," as a recent biographer, Mr. Lodge, states it, "to bind the existing class of wealthy men, being, at that day, the aristocracy bequeathed by provincial times, to the new system, and thus, if at all, assure to the property of the country the control of the government."

Such, however, were not the ideas of the men who sat in the General Convention. They intended that the Constitution which they were forming should rest equally and justly as to benefits and burdens on all the people; that there should be no privileged classes; that the machinery of government should not be wrested from its only rightful purpose, the common protection of all citizens, to add to the power and wealth of a limited number. Other governments had sought to keep the great masses of the people

at unremitting labor by taking from them as from bees all their earnings beyond a scanty subsistence. Our Constitution was to establish a government resting on absolute equality of citizenship. Hence it was both reasonable and fitting, that the first leader of opposition to Hamilton's plans should be the great statesman who is, not undeservedly, known as the Father of the Constitution, who was its chief architect, led the splendid fight for its ratification in the Virginia Convention, and had been foremost in the House of Representatives in devising the means necessary to put it into operation. The biographer of Mr. Madison, in the "American Statesmen " series, whose extreme partisanship outstrips, if possible, that of the writer of the "Life of Jefferson," in the same series, is pleased to treat this antagonism of Mr. Madison to the financial policies of Hamilton as a defection from his earlier views and position, and a descent from the statesman to the politician.

This is a very unjust view, and has no warrant in the facts of history. Any other course would have been inconsistent with the previous opinions and utterances of Madison and with the whole tenor of his life. There was no difference of opinion as to the payment of the foreign debt, and the secretary's recommendation as to that was unanimously adopted.

When it came, however, to the domestic debt this condition was found to exist. The original holders were revolutionary soldiers, or others scarcely less meritorious, who had furnished supplies or rendered services to the United States, and had received certificates in settlement.

From their ownership the debt had largely passed into the hands of speculators, who had paid generally a mere nominal price for it. Furthermore, these speculators on the first promulgation of Hamilton's report had despatched swift couriers all over the the country, including trading vessels to the South, to buy up the securities from those who were as yet uninformed as to that report. This they were enabled to do at a few cents on the dollar, whereas the securities had at once become valuable in the market.

Hamilton had strongly argued in favor of full payment to the present holders of the domestic debt. No matter how small the price at which it had been acquired through the ignorance or necessities of the first holder, his plan looked to full payment to the transferees. Undoubtedly this was the law of the contract, and to a secretary whose aim was not less to secure a powerful class of creditors of the government than to pay its debts, it seemed wise and politic. Madison thought and felt otherwise. He could not brook the idea of enriching a greedy and selfish class of speculators and passing by the first holders of the debt, the soldiers who had fought for independence, the farmers whose supplies had fed and clothed the army, and other patriotic friends of the Union in its trials. He believed that the debt should be paid in full, but on the "great and fundamental principles of justice." He believed that in "great and unusual questions of public morality," the heart should be appealed to as well as the head. He accordingly opposed Hamilton's plans and advocated a resolution to divide the payment equitably, allotting to the purchaser the highest

rate of public securities in the market, and paying the residue to the original holder. But his proposition was, after debate, rejected, 13 yeas and 36 nays, and Hamilton's plan adopted. All accounts agree that the effect of its adoption was to enrich suddenly a class who deserved little of their country, but who became at once zealous friends of a strong government, and earnest supporters of Hamilton's party. Mr. Benton's comment is, "The motion of Mr. Madison was lost, and with it the largest door was opened to the pillage of the original creditors, the plunder of the public treasury, and the corruption of Congress which the history of any government has ever seen." Next in order came the proposition for assumption of the debts of the States.

This gave rise to a long and bitter struggle in Congress. None denied that the debts incurred by the States in the common cause should be a common charge. But some of the States had received advances out of the general treasury, others still owed balances on their several quotas of the requisitions. These should be deducted and the true state of the accounts ascertained before there was any assumption. But Hamilton's plan was to assume the gross amount of the debts of the several States without any adjustment of accounts. Here again he was looking to the consolidation of the general government as much as to meeting the demands of justice. As expressed by himself two years later, "the leading objects of the assumption of the State debts, as recommended by him, were an accession of strength to the general government, and an assurance of