States through the federal courts; and the laws of any state might be set aside at any time as unconstitutional by a decision of the Supreme Court, which was the final court of appeal in all cases involving the interpretation of the Constitution (Art. III, sects. I, 2).

Because the guardian of our American system of government has been the federal judiciary, rather than the military arm or an executive with the power of issuing administrative decrees, the courts have often been attacked in America as the strongholds of conservatism, and "judge-made law" has been branded as a usurpation of the rights of the popularly elected legislatures. Undoubtedly, the danger of some admixture of politics in our theoretically independent judiciary is the price we have to pay for the maintenance of the law of the land; but it is a small price, after all, to pay for freedom from subjection to a military police or to an arrogant group of minister-courtiers around a king by divine right. It is hard to imagine any agency or power that could have more justly performed the difficult task of adapting the Constitution to the various needs of a rapidly growing democracy than the federal judiciary, secured as it is by appointment and tenure from the undue influence of temporary or local legislation and yet truly national in character from its diffusion through all the states of the Union.

Many extraconstitutional features have developed in the actual application of the Constitution. A stranger reading the document would be well informed on such formal matters as the qualifications of officers, the powers of Congress, the process of amendment; but of the actual forces which move the government in state and nation he would be ignorant. He would find nothing in the Constitution about political parties, conventions, platforms, and "machines." He would have no suspicion of the immense power of the Senate through its control of patronage. He would not know what departments make up the president's cabinet or how many members there are in the Supreme Court. He would know nothing of the complicated process by which hundreds of bills become laws in every session of Congress. He would think that our president is still selected

by a little group of "electors" meeting quietly in their respective states and balloting for a man of their own choice.

Although March 4, 1789, was the day set by the expiring Congress of the Confederation for the inauguration of the new government, it was well into April before the arrival of a majority of Congress in New York enabled the Houses to organize and count the electoral vote. George Washington's name was written first on every one of the sixty-nine ballots. The next highest vote (34) was for John Adams, who was declared vice president. On April 30 Washington took the oath of office on the balcony of Federal Hall, New York, while the great throng that filled the street below shouted, "God bless our Washington! Long live our beloved President!" The event marked the end of an era. That same April day fifteen years before, the British Parliament had been deliberating the first set of measures framed for the coercion and punishment of the recalcitrant American colonies. The victory of the men of 1775 in the war insured us a free field to work out the experiment of American democracy; the victory of the men of 1787 in peace secured a government strong enough to preserve that democracy from degeneration into factional groups despised in the eyes of Europe and distracted by petty rivalries at home. The burden of responsibility borne by the leaders who had labored for victory in war and order in peace during this critical decade and a half had been heavy. Their letters are filled with a courageous anxiety which bears witness to the strain they had been under. The adoption of the Constitution filled them with a kind of awful misgiving, for they knew at what a price they had won the opportunity to prove their faith in their political destiny. It is no wonder that the man who had borne the greatest burden of responsibility in both war and peace spoke in a voice "a little tremulous" in his inaugural address to the members of the first Congress of the United States under the Constitution: "The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment intrusted to the hands of the American People."

CHAPTER IV

WASHINGTON AND ADAMS

The establishment of a republican government on a safe and solid basis is the wish of every honest man in the United States, and is an object of all others the nearest and most dear to my own heart.-ALEXANDER HAMILTON

THE HAMILTONIAN SYSTEM

Six days before the electors met in their ten1 respective states to cast a unanimous vote for George Washington as first president of the United States, the man thus honored had written to General Pinckney, "For my own part, I am entirely persuaded that the present general government will endeavor to lay the foundations for its proceedings in national justice, faith, and honor." Called himself a few weeks later to take the oath of office as chief magistrate of the new "general government," he fulfilled this prophetic pledge with the utmost fidelity. Justice, faith, and honor were the ideals which inspired George Washington his life long, and firmness, diligence, and the long patience which is akin to genius were the qualities of character which those ideals produced. Far less creative than Hamilton and far less learned than Jefferson, without Franklin's wit or Henry's eloquence, Washington was still the acknowledged master of them all in the superb balance of deed and thought, of reason and action, with which he pursued his even way in all vicissitudes of fortune. Most men as courageous would have been precipitate in action; most men as deliberate would have been vacillating in counsel. But Washington was equally removed from exaltation and despair. "Of all the great men in history," says Lecky, "he was the most invariably judicious."

1North Carolina did not enter the Union until November, 1789, and Rhode Island until the following May. In New York a deadlock between the senate and the assembly prevented the choice of presidential electors in 1789.

His ambitions were all weighted with a sense of the responsibilities which they brought, and his labors lightened by the quiet, constant faith that they were contributing to the eventual success of the newly founded democracy, "the last great experiment for promoting human happiness by a reasonable compact in civil society." His aims were all his country's.1

When Washington read his inaugural speech before the members of the first Congress in Federal Hall, New York, the total government of the United States was represented there. The departments, jurisdictions, courts, and embassies which were necessary for the execution of the powers conferred on the president and Congress by the Constitution had to be created by law and manned by secretaries, judges, marshals, collectors of customs, postmasters, military officers, territorial governors, Indian commissioners, foreign ministers and consuls, and a host of minor officials and clerks. The dissolution of the old Congress had put an end to all its feeble organs of government. The requisitions on the states ceased, leaving the new government without a penny of income. The only bequest from the Confederation was a debt, which the new Constitution assumed in full.

The most imperative need of the new government was a revenue; and on the very day after the first Congress was organized, without waiting even for the inauguration of the president, the House of Representatives proceeded to the discussion of a tariff. James Madison of Virginia, the leading member of the House, brought in a bill imposing moderate duties (averaging about 8 per cent) on sugar, molasses, tea, coffee, wine, salt, glass, nails, and other imports. Although the bill was described in the preamble as "An Act for the encouragement and protection of Manufactures," the protective

1The finest delineation of Washington's character in brief compass is a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Walter Jones in January, 1814. It is the more remarkable as the tribute of a man whose political tenets were opposed to Washington's and whose personal relations during the later years of Washington's life were not the most cordial. The letter may be found in H. S. Randall's "Life of Thomas Jefferson," Vol. III, p. 641, or in P. L. Ford's edition of "Writings of Jefferson," Vol. IX, p. 446.

elements in it were only slight. It was the need of revenue which Madison urged in his speech, to meet our financial obligations and to revive among us "the dormant principles of our honor and honesty." There was no recourse in the debate on the bill to the stock arguments of the protectionist: high wages and the American standard of living. But one kind of protection the bill effected immediately. Importers of large consignments of goods from Europe secured the postponement of the operation of the act until their cargoes should have landed, and at the same time put up the prices of the goods to accord with the tariff. The consumers paid the bill. In spite of the recommendations of our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, for a high protective duty, in his Report on Manufactures, of December, 1791, the tariff remained low until the need of extraordinary revenue for war raised it to protective levels.

The three executive departments of State (foreign affairs), Treasury, and War were organized in the summer months of 1789, and Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Henry Knox were appointed as the respective incumbents. Edmund Randolph of Virginia was named Attorney-General and took part with the executive secretaries in the cabinet meetings, though the Department of Justice was not organized by Congress until 1870. The heads of departments did not form a "cabinet" in the true sense of the word. They were not, like European ministries, an executive committee, drawn from the legislature, and responsible to the legislature in the shaping of national policy, nor were they recognized in any corporate capacity by Congress or the Constitution. The president, according to the Constitution, might "require their opinion in writing. . . upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices," but he was not obliged to consult them in a body. Washington did often ask opinions of his secretaries privately and separately, but under Jefferson the habit became fixed of assembling the cabinet at stated times for joint deliberation and advice on the policies of the administration. It was not until the middle of President Roosevelt's second term