The works of Alexander Hamilton, comprising his most important official Reports, an improved edition of the Federalist, &c.-In three volumes. New York, published by Williams and Whiting, 1810. IN that part of our review of the Federalist, which forms the first article of our second number, we confined ourselves to such portions of the work, as treat of the necessity of political union among these States, and of the benefits of which a federal government would naturally be productive. The purposes for which we have undertaken this investigation, would remain unaccomplished, if we did not allot at least an equal number of our pages, to the topics which occupy the last section. It embraces, as we have stated in our preliminary observations, an exposition of the principles and structure of the Federal Constitution, of the powers with which it is invested, and of the trusts for which it is responsible. To intelligent and reflecting readers, we shall not appear to have engaged in an idle or unprofitable task, if we now proceed to discharge the obligation we had contracted in our preceding number, of explaining the theory "of the federal government,"-of showing with the writers of the Federalist "that it possesses every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects "committed to its care," and of refuting incidentally some of the leading objections, which have been urged against it by the politicians of Europe. These points of investigation VOL. II. A will naturally lead us into an inquiry concerning the principles and views by which both the American people, and their rulers should be actuated, in order to fulfil the spirit, and improve the capacities of our excellent constitution. Those great qualities of mind for which General Hamilton was so illustriously distinguished, and which are so seldom concomitant in one individual, are nowhere more conspicuous, than in his development of the plan and views of the Convention. His essays on this subject exemplify in a striking manner, the unerring sagacity of his political calculations,-his profound and enlarged acquaintance with the science and history of politics, his enlightened and ardent attachment to the cause of temperate freedom,-the magnanimous candor of his disposition, that original, and, if we may be allowed the expression, that magnificent cast of thought, which was visible in all his intellectual efforts, and by which nature seemed to have marked him out for the highest sphere of human action. The numbers of the Federalist which explain the structure of the federal system, bear testimony, not only to the extraordinary merits of the writer, but to those of the American Convention, of whose feelings and reasonings he may be considered as the organ. We have already intimated, in general terms, our exalted opinion of the character of that august assembly, and have stated summarily the peculiar advantages as well as difficulties, under which they acted in the execution of their stupendous trust. The more minute examination into which we shall now enter, of the considerations and principles by which they were guided, and of the result of their labours, will confirm the eulogy which we have so unhesitatingly pronounced on them, and on the constitution which issued from their hands. Never was any body of legislators intrusted with so awful and momentous a charge, and never did any deliberative assembly so completely realize an image, which Mr. Burke proclaims to be the most imposing and venerable that can be presented to the imagination-"the concentration of the "wisdom and virtue of a whole people into one focus." The American constitution has divided the opinions, and perplexed the judgment of many of the most sagacious statesmen of the age, and is now variously represented, in the opposite extremes of unqualified panegyric and reprobation. Some of the enthusiastic friends of our system at home, celebrate, (and as we think, most justly) the attempt of the framers, as a grand enterprise of philosophic heroism, and, in a strain of encomium-which however we deem by far too lofty, extol their work as a consummate model of perfect excellence. It is much the fashion abroad, even among those whose understandings are acute, and whose decisions are ingenuous, to decry it, on the other hand, as the mere patch work of political empiricism;-as a frail and feeble contrivance fitted to stimulate and to nourish popular passions; and destined to corrupt the whole mass of the nation with the leaven of democracy. It is confidently pronounced, that our system must speedily conduct us, from the horrors of anarchy to those of military despotism, and that at best we can expect from it, no other than the fugitive and turbulent existence, which characterizes the history of the republics of antiquity. Those who censure in this way, and those who set no bounds to their admiration, are both removed from the truth: the former, however, in a much wider degree. Early and inveterate prejudices with respect to the several forms of government, a want of due attention to the structure and operation of our system, an ignorance of the circumstances in which we were placed at the time of its formation, and of those under which we now exist, may, independently of any malignant motives, explain in great part, the contempt with which the politicians of Europe appear to regard our institutions. We do not despair of making it appear in the course of this discussion, that they are well fitted to inspire sentiments of an opposite nature. We are persuaded that a deliberate and dispassionate perusal of the volumes now under examination, even without a reference to our past history, or to our actual situation, must conduct a liberal and discerning reader to conclusions of the most favourable import. The framers of our constitution, presented their work for the adoption of the country, with a well grounded confidence, that, upon a fair discussion and sound judgment of its merits, it would be found and acknowledged to be the best which the dispositions, habits and circumstances of the nation would admit. But they were far from announcing it as a faultless system; as the most perfect of all possible arrangements of polity; or as an archetype for the imitation of the rest of the world, conformably to the language in which our political enthusiasts too frequently indulge on this subject. They appear, on the contrary, to have been impressed with a deep sense of their own fallibility as men, and of the imperfections necessarily incident to a scheme of government, which was, in some respects, the result of compromise between powerful and conflicting interests. Exclusive of the difficulties inherent in the construction of a well balanced commonwealth, "a mat"ter," as a great writer expresses it, "of the most delicate "and complicated skill, requiring a deep knowledge of human "nature and human necessities," they had to contend with extraneous obstacles of a character to force them into deviations, from that complete symmetry and abstract perfection, at which they might otherwise have aimed. We have already, in our preceding number, spoken of the impediments which arose from the necessity of shaping their system, so as to assuage personal jealousies,-to reconcile, as far as was consistent with the preservation of federal equality, the discordant pretensions of the large and small states, and to gratify, without sacrificing to it the important ends of stability and energy, that democratic spirit which pervaded the whole mass of the nation. But we did not advert to what the authors of the Federalist justly represent, as the principal obstruction to the attainment of any very nice proportion, or even an ordinary degree of simplicity, in the arrangements of the Convention. We mean the peculiar and novel constitution of the government which they undertook to frame; a compound republic partaking both of the national and federal character. They had, it is true, as we have before suggested, excellent models of the mixed or balanced forms, the best of all schemes of national polity,-in the limited and tempered monarchy of Great Britain, and in the several constitutions of these States; but history furnished them with no example of a federal system of such regular construction or approved utility, as might serve as a pattern for close imitation, or even as a safe analogy upon which to found any certain or encouraging calculation, of the operation and effects of the federal theory. The various confederacies known in ancient and modern times, which might have been consulted as precedents, were, to employ the ideas of the Federalist, "bottomed on "fallacious principles," and could therefore yield no other light, than that of beacons, which give warning of the course to be shunned, without pointing out that which ought to be pursued. The most that the Convention could do under such circumstances, was to avoid the errors suggested by the experience of other countries, and of their own in the case of the old confederation, and to provide a convenient mode of rectifying those which the future might unfold. The system then which they were called upon to frame, was one of double intricacy, and required, from the novelty of the structure, a more than ordinary share of genius, fore sight, enterprise and skill in the architects. They were to hazard a new combination of political elements; to build up from the foundation, a fabric of government upon an original plan," a theoretic, experimental edifice." It became for the Convention, as it is justly stated in the Federalist, a task of peculiarly delicate and arduous execution, to draw the proper line of partition between the authority of the general, and that of the state governments; to attemper and adjust these distinct sovereignties, so as not only to maintain unimpaired the integrity of both, and to obviate the danger of a collision either of power or interests, but to render them permanently and effectually ministerial to the salutary purposes contemplated by their union; to provide additional securities for the permanence and strength of the republic, in the very opposition of feelings and views inseparable from their nature; to establish between them, through the struggle of conflicting forces, a harmony like that of the planetary system, of which our federal association should be as it were the moral image. It was a part of the duty of the Convention to aim not solely, at the preservation of the state governments, but also at the happiness of the individuals composing the whole confederation; to consult the national welfare, not merely through the prosperity of the former, but also by the direct and immediate operation of the federal rule. They were to avoid a consolidation of the states, and to leave in each, an authority wholly independent and supreme for certain local and political purposes, and yet to establish a central power affecting the people in their individual capacities, and invested with original jurisdiction in all the leading concerns of civil society. They were authorized to institute something more than a partnership of that kind which looks solely to commercial advantage and mutual defence:-one which might be properly styled a commonwealth; a partnership of freedom and of glory, subservient not merely to temporary interests or to "the gross animal exis"tence of a perishable nature," but to the interests of that sort of life which is most, and ultimately desirable to man as the perfection of his social and moral constitution.* Mr. Burke expresses himself on this subject, in his reflections on the French revolution, in a strain of the most finished eloquence and of the sublimest philosophy. "Society," says he, "is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts of mere occasional interests may be dissolved at pleasure, but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not |