I call the result splendid, seeing that under this Constitution so written a nation has existed for three-quarters of a century, and has grown in numbers, power, and wealth till it has made itself the political equal of the other greatest nations of the earth. And it cannot be said that it has so grown in spite of the Constitution, or by ignoring the Constitution. Hitherto the laws there laid down for the national guidance have been found adequate for the great purpose assigned to them, and have done all that which the framers of them hoped that they might effect. We all know what has been the fate of the constitutions which were written throughout the French Revolution for the use of France. We all, here in England, have the same ludicrous conception of Utopian theories of government framed by philosophical individuals who imagine that they have learned from books a perfect system of managing nations. To produce such theories is especially the part of a Frenchman; to disbelieve in them is especially the part of an Englishman. But in the States a system of government has been produced, under a written constitution, in which no Englishman can disbelieve, and which every Frenchman must envy. It has done its work. The people have been free, well educated, and politically great. Those among us who are most inclined at the present moment to declare that the institutions of the United States have failed, can at any rate only declare that they have failed in their finality; that they have shown themselves to be insufficient to carry on the nation in its advancing strides through all times. They cannot deny that an amount of success and prosperity, much greater than the nation even expected for itself, has been achieved under this Constitution and in connection with it.
If it be so, they cannot disbelieve in it. Let those who now say that it is insufficient, consider what their prophecies regarding it would have been had they been called on to express their opinions concerning it when it was proposed in 1787. If the future as it has since come forth had then been foretold for it, would not such a prophecy have been a prophecy of success? That Constitution is now at the period of its hardest trial, and at this moment one may hardly dare to speak of it with triumph; but looking at the nation even in its present position, I think I am justified in saying that its Constitution is one in which no Englishman can disbelieve. When I also say that it is one which every Frenchman must envy, perhaps Iam improperly presuming that Frenchmen could not look at it with Englishmen's eyes.
When the Constitution came to be written, a man had arisen in the States who was peculiarly suited for the work in hand: he was one of those men to whom the world owes much, and of whom the world in general knows but little. This was Alexander Hamilton, who alone on the part of the great State of New York signed the Constitution of the United States. The other States sent two, three, four, or more delegates; New York sent Hamilton alone; but in sending him New York sent more to the Constitution than all the other States together. Ishould be hardly saying too much for Hamilton if I were to declare that all those parts of the Constitution emanated from him in which permanent political strength has abided. And yet his name has not been spread abroad widely in men's mouths. Of Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison we have all heard; our children speak of them, and they are household words in the nursery of history. Of Hamilton, however, it may, I believe, be said that he was greater than any of those.
Without going with minuteness into the early contests of democracy in the United States, I think I may say that there soon arose two parties, each probably equally anxious in the cause of freedom, one of which was conspicuous for its French predilections and the other for its English aptitudes. It was the period of the French Revolution--the time when the French Revolution had in it as yet something of promise and had not utterly disgraced itself. To many in America the French theory of democracy not unnaturally endeared itself and foremost among these was Thomas Jefferson. He was the father of those politicians in the States who have since taken the name of Democrats, and in accordance with whose theory it has come to pass that everything has been referred to the universal suffrage of the people. James Madison, who succeeded Jefferson as President, was a pupil in this school, as indeed have been most of the Presidents of the United States. At the head of the other party, from which through various denominations have sprung those who now call themselves Republicans, was Alexander Hamilton. I believe Imay say that all the political sympathies of George Washington were with the same school. Washington, however, was rather a man of feeling and of action than of theoretical policy or speculative opinion. When the Constitution was written Jefferson was in France, having been sent thither as minister from the United States, and he therefore was debarred from concerning himself personally in the matter. His views, however, were represented by Madison; and it is now generally understood that the Constitution as it stands is the joint work of Madison and Hamilton.* The democratic bias, of which it necessarily contains much, and without which it could not have obtained the consent of the people, was furnished by Madison; but the conservative elements, of which it possesses much more than superficial observers of the American form of government are wont to believe, came from Hamilton.
* It should, perhaps, be explained that the views of Madison were originally not opposed to those of Hamilton. Madison, however, gradually adopted the policy of Jefferson--his policy rather than his philosophy.