for the poor is a duty which falls on the State as a whole, and has regard only to the general advantage.

Correctness of conduct (modestia), that is, the desire of pleasing men, which is determined by reason, is attributable to piety, but, if it spring from emotion, it is ambition, or the desire whereby men, under the false cloak of piety, generally stir up discords and seditions. For he who desires to aid his fellows either in word or in deed, so that they may together enjoy the highest good-he, I say, will before all things strive to win them over with love; not to draw them into admiration, so that a system may be called after his name, nor to give any cause for envy. Further, in his conversation he will shrink from talking of men's faults, and will be careful to speak but sparingly of human infirmity; but he will dwell at length on human virtue or power, and the way whereby it may be perfected. Thus will men be stirred not by fear nor by aversion, but only by the emotion of joy, to endeavor, so far as in them lies, to live in obedience to reason.

As, therefore, those things are good which assist the various parts of the body, and enable them to perform their functions; and as pleasure consists in an increase of, or aid to, man's power, in so far as he is composed of mind and body: it follows that all those things which bring pleasure are good. But seeing that things do not work with the object of giving us pleasure, and that their power of action is not tempered to suit our advantage, and lastly, that pleasure is generally referred to one part of the body more than the other parts; therefore most emotions of pleasure (unless reason and watchfulness be at hand), and consequently the desires arising therefrom, may become excessive. Moreover, we may add that emotion leads us to pay most regard to what is agreeable in the present, nor can we estimate what is future with emotions equally vivid.

Superstition, on the other hand, seems to account as good all that brings pain, and as bad all that brings pleasure. However, none but the envious take delight in any infirmity and trouble. For the greater the pleasure whereby we are affected, the greater is the perfection whereto we pass, and consequently the more do we partake of the divine nature; no pleasure can ever be evil, which is regulated by a true regard for our advantage. But contrariwise, he who is led by fear, and does good only to avoid evil, is not guided by reason.

POWERS CONFERRED BY NEW CONSTITUTION.

BY ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

[ALEXANDER HAMILTON, the great American statesman, was the son of a Scotch merchant and a French physician's daughter in Nevis Island, West Indies; born January 11, 1757. He had no schooling beyond twelve; then taken into a general store, at fourteen was left in sole charge of it for months. Writing at fifteen a description of a hurricane in the West Indies which attracted wide attention, he was enabled to go to King's (now Columbia) College in New York in 1774. He took vigorous part in the debates on resistance to England, and at eighteen was the recognized head of the moderate patriotic section. He studied the art of war, became captain of the first Continental artillery company, fought at Long Island, Trenton, Princeton, etc., was Washington's private secretary 1777-1781, married General Schuyler's daughter in 1780, and aided in forcing Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown. After this he became a lawyer and leader of the bar in New York, and head of the party which wished a strong central United States government. His letters and other counsel outlived the form which that government first took, and his influence was decisive in turning the Annapolis Commercial Convention of 1786 into one which discussed the remodeling of the whole governmental framework, and procured the one at Philadelphia in 1787 which did so remodel it. The struggle over this brought out the Federalist papers from Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, which remain among the foremost political treasures of the world; he had even during the Revolution preluded them by the Continentalist. In the New York Convention to ratify the Constitution, he turned a small initial minority into a majority for ratification. In Washington's first Cabinet he was Secretary of the Treasury, organized the department as in the main it still exists, and created sound national finance and prosperity out of most disheartening material. His State papers are of the highest permanent value. He framed a sound system of taxation, created (on a very moderate scale) the protection-tariff system, outlined the internal-improvement policy, and devised the policy of a United States Bank. In 1794 he crushed with great vigor and promptness the insurrection in western Pennsylvania against the whisky tax. Returning to private practice in New York, he became the head of the Federalist party when the Jefferson-Madison wing split away as the Republican party, later Democratic-Republican; in 1796-1800 his irreconcilable feud with John Adams, the official party chief, helped greatly to split the party and elect Jefferson. A deeper quarrel with Aaron Burr, the Vice-President, a political condottière who represented only personal ambition, resulted in a duel in which Hamilton fell, dying next day, July 11, 1804.]

To the People of the State of New York, —

To the powers proposed to be conferred upon the federal government, in respect to the creation and direction of the national forces, I have met with but one specific objection, which, if I understand it right, is this that proper provision has not been made against the existence of standing armies in time of peace; an objection which I shall now endeavor to show rests on weak and unsubstantial foundations.

The objection under consideration turns upon a supposed necessity of restraining the LEGISLATIVE authority of the

nation, in the article of military establishments; a principle unheard of, except in one or two of our State constitutions, and rejected in all the rest.

A stranger to our politics who was to read our newspapers at the present juncture, without having previously inspected the plan reported by the convention, would be naturally led to one of two conclusions: either that it contained a positive injunction that standing armies should be kept up in time of peace; or that it vested in the EXECUTIVE the whole power of levying troops without subjecting his discretion, in any shape, to the control of the legislature.

If he came afterward to peruse the plan itself, he would be surprised to discover that neither the one nor the other was the case; that the whole power of raising armies was lodged in the Legislature, not in the Executive; that this legislature was to be a popular body, consisting of the representatives of the people, periodically elected; and that instead of the provision he had supposed in favor of standing armies, there was to be found, in respect to this object, an important qualification even of the legislative discretion, in that clause which forbids the appropriation of money for the support of an army for any longer period than two years—a precaution which, upon a nearer view of it, will appear to be a great and real security against the keeping up of troops without evident necessity.

Disappointed in his first surmise, the person I have supposed would be apt to pursue his conjectures a little further. He would naturally say to himself, it is impossible that all this vehement and pathetic declamation can be without some colorable pretext. It must needs be that this people, so jealous of their liberties, have, in all the preceding models of the constitutions which they have established, inserted the most precise and rigid precautions on this point, the omission of which, in the new plan, has given birth to all this apprehension and clamor.

If, under this impression, he proceeded to pass in review the several State constitutions, how great would be his disappointment to find that two only of them contained an interdiction of standing armies in time of peace; that the other eleven had either observed a profound silence on the subject, or had in express terms admitted the right of the legislature to authorize their existence.

Still, however, he would be persuaded that there must be some plausible foundation for the cry raised on this head. He

would never be able to imagine, while any source of informa tion remained unexplored, that it was nothing more than an experiment upon the public credulity, dictated either by a deliberate intention to deceive or by the overflowings of a zeal too intemperate to be ingenuous. It would probably occur to him that he would be likely to find the precautions he was in search of in the primitive compact between the States. Here at length he would expect to meet with a solution of the enigma. No doubt, he would observe to himself, the existing Confederation must contain the most explicit provisions against military establishments in time of peace; and a departure from this model, in a favorite point, has occasioned the discontent which appears to influence these political champions.

If he should now apply himself to a careful and critical survey of the articles of Confederation, his astonishment would not only be increased, but would acquire a mixture of indignation at the unexpected discovery that these articles, instead of containing the prohibition he looked for, and though they had, with jealous circumspection, restricted the authority of the State legislatures in this particular, had not imposed a single restraint on that of the United States. If he happened to be a man of quick sensibility or ardent temper, he could now no longer refrain from regarding these clamors as the dishonest artifices of a sinister and unprincipled opposition to a plan which ought at least to receive a fair and candid examination from all sincere lovers of their country! How else, he would say, could the authors of them have been tempted to vent such loud censures upon that plan, about a point in which it seems to have conformed itself to the general sense of America as declared in its different forms of government, and in which it has even superadded a new and powerful guard unknown to any of them? If, on the contrary, he happened to be a man of calm and dispassionate feelings, he would indulge a sigh for the frailty of human nature, and would lament that, in a matter so interesting to the happiness of millions, the true merits of the question should be perplexed and entangled by expedients so unfriendly to an impartial and right determination. Even such a man could hardly forbear remarking that a conduct of this kind has too much the appearance of an intention to mislead the people by alarming their passions, rather than to convince them by arguments addressed to their understandings.

But however little this objection may be countenanced, even

by precedents among ourselves, it may be satisfactory to take a nearer view of its intrinsic merits. From a close examination it will appear that restraints upon the discretion of the legislature in respect to military establishments in time of peace would be improper to be imposed, and if imposed, from the necessities of society, would be unlikely to be observed.

Though a wide ocean separates the United States from Europe, yet there are various considerations that warn us against an excess of confidence or security. On one side of us, and stretching far into our rear, are growing settlements subject to the dominion of Britain. On the other side, and extending to meet the British settlements, are colonies and establishments subject to the dominion of Spain. This situation and the vicinity of the West India Islands, belonging to these two powers, create between them, in respect to their American possessions and in relation to us, a common interest. The savage tribes on our Western frontier ought to be regarded as our natural enemies, their natural allies, because they have most to fear from us, and most to hope from them. The improvements in the art of navigation have, as to the facility of communication, rendered distant nations, in a great measure, neighbors. Britain and Spain are among the principal maritime powers of Europe. A future concert of views between these nations ought not to be regarded as improbable. The increasing remoteness of consanguinity is every day diminishing the force of the family compact between France and Spain. And politicians have ever, with great reason, considered the ties of blood as feeble and precarious links of political connection. These circumstances, combined, admonish us not to be too sanguine in considering ourselves as entirely out of the reach of danger.

Previous to the Revolution, and ever since the peace, there has been a constant necessity for keeping small garrisons on our Western frontier. No person can doubt that these will continue to be indispensable, if it should only be against the ravages and depredations of the Indians. These garrisons must either be furnished by occasional detachments from the militia or by permanent corps in the pay of the government. The first is impracticable; and, if practicable, would be pernicious. The militia would not long, if at all, submit to be dragged from their occupations and families to perform that most disagreeable duty in times of profound peace. And if they could be pre