pre-eminent services had entitled him to the first place in his country's love, and had destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong thro' defect of judgment: when right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional: and your support against the errors of others who may condemn what they would not if seen in all its parts. The approbation implied by your suffrage, is a great consolation to me for the past; and my future solicitude will be to retain the good opinion of those who have bestowed it in advance, to conciliate that of others, by doing them all the good in my power, and to be instrumental to the happiness and freedom of all. Relying then on the patronage of your good will, I advance with obedience to the work, ready to retire from it whenever you become sensible how much better choice it is in your power to make. And may that infinite power which rules the destinies of the universe lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable issue for your peace and prosperity.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

[Alexander Hamilton was born in the West India Islands in 1757. At the age of thirteen he was performing important duties as clerk in a countinghouse; at the age of fifteen he was sent by friends and relatives to New York, where he entered King's College, now Columbia; and at the age of seventeen he wrote "A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress from the calumnies of their enemies, in answer to a letter under the signature of a Westchester Farmer." This pamphlet and its immediate successor, "The Farmer Refuted,” replied so effectively to the powerful loyalist writings of "The Westchester Farmer" that they brought the young college student into general notice, and from this time until his death in 1804, Hamilton was a public man. During the war he served as an officer, and for a considerable time was a member of Washington's staff, and had charge of Washington's official correspondence. Later he was member of Congress, member of the constitutional convention, and Secretary of the Treasury under Washington. His achievements in establishing the financial system of the nation are matters of political history. After he left the cabinet he remained a real and continually active leader of the Federalist party. The duel in which he was fatally wounded by Aaron Burr was the result of political disagreements.

In his political writings, which constitute practically all his works, Hamilton shows a literary style unsurpassed for its purpose by that of any Revolutionary statesman. As might be expected from his age and the circumstances under which he wrote, his earliest pamphlets show a certain speciousness of argument, and an occasional appeal to popular feeling. His later writings are equally notable for clearness of statement and logical accuracy of thought. The greatest work of his pen was "The Federalist." This series of letters to the people of the State of New York was the joint work of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay; but Hamilton originated the plan, and wrote the great majority of the numbers. It was probably the most powerful single influence in securing the adoption of the Federal constitution, and it has since become established as one of our greatest political classics. It is a remarkable tribute to Hamilton's mastery of expression that this work was effective as a popular campaign document in 1788, and is still recognized by the courts and by students of constitutional law as one of the ablest and most exact expositions of the theory of our government. Many of Hamilton's later state papers, especially those dealing with finance, are models of their kind.

The selections here given follow the best edition of Hamilton's works, that prepared by Henry Cabot Lodge. The text of the "Federalist" is that of the original publication.]

THE ISSUE STATED

[From "A Full Vindication"]

The only distinction between freedom and slavery consists in this: In the former state a man is governed by the laws to which he has given his consent, either in person or by his representative; in the latter, he is governed by the will of another. In the one case, his life and property are his own; in the other, they depend upon the pleasure of his master. It is easy to discern which of these two states is preferable. No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.

That Americans are entitled to freedom is incontestable on every rational principle. All men have one common original: they participate in one common nature, and consequently have one common right. No reason can be assigned why one man should exercise any power or pre-eminence over his fellow-creatures more than another; unless they have voluntarily vested him with it. Since, then, Americans have not, by any act of theirs, empowered the British Parliament to make laws for them, it follows they can have no just authority to do it.

Besides the clear voice of natural justice in this respect, the fundamental principles of the English constitution are in our favor. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the idea of legislation or taxation, when the subject is not represented, is inconsistent with that. Nor is this all; our charters, the express conditions on which our progenitors relinquished their native countries, and came to settle in this, preclude every claim of ruling and taxing us without our assent.

Every subterfuge that sophistry has been able to invent, to evade or obscure this truth, has been refuted by the most conclusive reasonings; so that we may pronounce it a matter of undeniable certainty, that the pretensions of Parliament are contradictory to the law of nature, subversive of the British constitution, and destructive of the faith of the most solemn compacts. What, then, is the subject of our controversy with the mother country? It is this: Whether we shall preserve that security to our lives and properties, which the law of nature, the genius of the British constitution, and our charters, afford us; or whether

we shall resign them into the hands of the British House of Commons, which is no more privileged to dispose of them than the Great Mogul? What can actuate those men who labor to delude any of us into an opinion that the object of contention between the parent state and the colonies is only three pence duty upon tea? or that the commotions in America originate in a plan, formed by some turbulent men, to erect it into a republican government? The Parliament claims a right to tax us in all cases whatsoever; its late acts are in virtue of that claim. How ridiculous, then, is it to affirm that we are quarrelling for the trifling sum of three pence a pound on tea, when it is evidently the principle against which we contend.

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.

It has indeed been brought forward in the most vague and general form, supported only by bold assertions, without the appearance of argument; without even the sanction of theoretical opinions; in contradiction to the practice of other free nations, and to the general sense of America, as expressed in most of the existing constitutions. The propriety of this remark will appear, the moment it is recollected that 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 afterwards 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 them1 contained an interdiction of standing

This statement of the matter is taken from the printed collection of State constitutions. Pennsylvania and North Carolina are the two which contain the interdiction in these words: "As standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, THEY OUGHT NOT to be kept up." This is, in truth, rather a CAUTION than a PROHIBITION. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Maryland have, in each of their bills of rights, a clause to "this effect: "Standing armies are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be raised or kept up WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF THE LEGISLATURE;" which is a formal admission of the authority of the Legislature. New York has no bills of rights, and her constitution says not a word about the matter. No bills of rights appear annexed to the constitutions of the other States, except the foregoing, and their constitu