were to be coerced into the Union. Hamilton in the convention and elsewhere hinted clearly at the eventuality of the coercion of stubborn States.

Washington signed the Constitution, but expressed to General Lafayette discontent with provisions which did not meet his approbation. The leader of the Revolution desired with Hamilton a stronger government. He did not believe in the capacity of the people for self-government, and thus wrote to Gen. Harry Lee: "It exhibits a melancholy verification of what our trans-Atlantic foes have predicted, and of another thing, to be still more regretted, and is yet more unaccountable, that mankind when left to themselves are unfit for self-goverment."

Can a State be constitutionally coerced?

No.

Hamilton and Madison made an effort to so amend the Articles of Confederation as to coerce a State when a debtor to the Confederation, as was New Hampshire. It signally failed. Edmund Randolph, in his draft of a new Constitution, submitted the following: "That the national legislature ought to be empowered to call forth the force of the Union on a State failing to fulfil its duty thereof." Not a deputy voted for it nor in any wise advocated it. In committee of the whole it fell dead. Madison

was now against coercion.

Hamilton was not. Yet he dared not advocate a measure which de

stroyed free government.

Coercion of a State in peace or war is neither expressed nor implied in the Constitution. Why? Because if the Union was not consent it was tyranny. In fact, there was no implication in enumerated powers.

Was popular opposition to the Constitution widespread?

The Constitution unamended was overwhelmingly opposed by the people of six States: Virginia, North Carolina, New York, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Deputies in these and other States, some from the best, others from unquestionable motives, were unfaithful to their constituents. The machinery of a government for the United States had been constructed; the rights of the States and the people overlooked.

A second convention for revision might have healed the differences quickly and fully. It might have saved posterity blood, treasure, and partisan and sectional conflict in politics.

Six States ratified unconditionally, namely, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, and Maryland. For some time the

outlook indicated that Mr. Bingham's proposition in the old Congress, to divide the country into several confederacies; or the hint of Gouverneur Morris in the convention, of a peaceful and friendly separation of the Northern and Southern States; or the separate republic composed of New York and New England favored by Governor George Clinton; or the Confederacy of Southern States favored by Patrick Henry, might at last be prophetic.

Where did the new Congress meet?

Congress met in the city of New York. For twenty-seven days there was no quorum, which compelled Congress to adjourn from day to day. On the first day of April, 1789, they elected Gen. Frederick Augustus Muhlenburg, of Pennsylvania, Speaker of the House of Representatives.

It required an earnest appeal to the laggard members to come to New York and start the wheels of the new machine. It was necessary to count the electoral votes and apprise General Washington that he had been elected President. The retired soldier at Mt. Vernon was silent and reticent. A strange apathy, if not timidity, had fallen on some Senators.

On the 6th of April the clouds parted and let through some sunshine.

Richard Henry Lee, Senator from Virginia, who had offered the first resolution of independence, and who had opposed ratification without amendments, arrived in New York. That graceful and eloquent patriot gave the Senate a quorum. A temporary president enabled the body to count the vote of the electors and notify the Presidentelect. Colonel Lee had left Henry and Mason dissatisfied, but he carried with him amendments to the Constitution with which to neutralize consolidation.

While Congress was in a dilemma, which looked as if failure might bring chaos, there were antiFederalists who still resisted. As late as the 9th of April, Representative Tucker of South Carolina was the sole member of the House south of Virginia. Washington came, and on his inauguration at Federal Hall, in Wall Street, April 30th, the "new form," as he called the untried government, went into operation.

Was this an auspicious beginning?

A future Buckle, writing a history of American civilization, might reason as follows: The sword had achieved the independence of the States. The new government was civil. A civilian pure and simple should have been elected President. General Washington was a coercionist, a national

ist, and a protectionist. Hamilton ruled. Thomas Jefferson should have been the first instead of the third President. That event would have made impossible the odiously tyrannical Alien and Sedition law of John Adams.

The reaction came, and Jefferson, the champion of the States, broke down the nationalistic Federalists. He gave in his inaugural the true theory of the reserved rights of the States and the limitations of the government of the Union.

The great war between the States could not have occurred if Jefferson had been chosen first President and Madison second President. The States would have been on their good behavior. No one, no party thereafter, would have stood for "the nation," which means localized coercion and consequent tyranny. The start was wrong, and we have not yet paid the penalty.

Whatever a future historian may say, we of the latter part of the nineteenth century, looking over into the new century, find Washington without a parallel in heroism and patriotism. honor to the model man of the world!

What of the third term heresy?

All

There was a deep and bitter prejudice against unusual power among our revolutionary ancestors. When it was proposed in Virginia, during the war,