THE FRAMERS OF THE CONSTITUTION.--WASHINGTON, PRESIDENT OF THE
CONVENTION.
The narrative to which the reader has thus far attended must now be
interrupted for a while, that he may pause upon the threshold of an
assembly which had been summoned to the grave task of remodelling the
constitution of this country, and here consider the names and characters
of the men to whom its responsible labors had been intrusted. The civil
deeds of statesmen and lawgivers, in establishing and forming
institutions, incorporating principles into the forms of public
administration, and setting up the defences of public security and
prosperity, are far less apt to attract and hold the attention of
mankind, than the achievements of military life. The name, indeed, may
be for ever associated with the work of the hand; but the mass of
mankind do not study, admire, or repeat the deeds of the lawgiver, as
they do those of the hero. Yet he who has framed a law, or fashioned an
institution in which some great idea is made practical to the conditions
of human existence, has exercised the highest attributes of human
reason, and is to be counted among the benefactors of his race.
The framers of the Constitution of the United States assembled for their
work amidst difficulties and embarrassments of an extraordinary nature.
No general concert of opinion had taken place as to what was best, or
even as to what was possible to be done. Whether it were wise to hold a
convention, whether it were even legal to hold it, and whether, if held,
it would be likely to result in any thing useful to the country, were
points upon which the most opposite opinions prevailed in every State of
the Union. But it was among the really fortunate, although apparently
unhappy, circumstances under which they were assembled, that the country
had experienced much trial, suffering, distress, and failure. It has
been a disagreeable duty to describe the disasters and errors of a
period during which the national character was subjected to the
discipline of adversity. We now come to the period of compensation which
such discipline inevitably brings.
There is a law of the moral government of the universe, which ordains
that all that is great and valuable and permanent in character must be
the result, not of theoretical teaching, or natural aspiration,--of
spontaneous resolve, or uninterrupted success,--but of trial, of
suffering, of the fiery furnace of temptation, of the dark hours of
disappointment and defeat. The character of the man is distinguishable
from the character of the child that he once was, chiefly by the effects
of this universal law. There are the same natural impulses, the same
mental, moral, and physical constitution, with which he was born into
the world. What is it that has given him the strength, the fortitude,
the unchanging principle, and the moral and intellectual power, which he
exhibits in after years? It has not been constant pleasure and success,
nor unmingled joy. It has been the hard discipline of pain and sorrow,
the stern teachings of experience, the struggle against the consequences
of his own errors, and the chastisement inflicted by his own faults.
This law pertains to all human things. It is as clearly traceable in its
application to the character of a people, as to that of an individual;
and as the institutions of a people, when voluntarily formed by them out
of the circumstances of their condition, are necessarily the result of
the previous discipline and the past teachings of their career, we can
trace this law also in the creation and growth of what is most valuable
in their institutions. When we have so traced it, the unalterable
relations of the moral universe entitle us to look for the elements of
greatness and strength in whatever has been the product of such
teachings, such discipline, and such trials.
The Constitution of the United States was eminently the creature of
circumstances;--not of circumstances blindly leading the blind to an
unconscious submission to an accident, but of circumstances which
offered an intelligent choice of the means of happiness, and opened,
from the experience of the past, the plain path of duty and success,
stretching onward to the future. All that has been said in the previous
chapters tends to illustrate this fact. We have seen the American
people,--divided into separate and isolated communities, without
nationality, except such as resulted from a general community of
origin,--undertaking together the work of throwing off the domination of
their parent state. We have seen them enter upon this undertaking
without forming any political bond of a national character, and without
instituting any proper national agency. We have seen, that the first
government which they created was, practically, a mere general council
for the recommendation of measures to be adopted and executed by the
several constituencies represented. We have seen no machinery instituted
for the accomplishment, by the combined authority of these separate
communities, of the great objects at which they were aiming; and
although in theory the Revolutionary Congress would have been entitled
to assume and exercise the powers necessary to accomplish the objects
for which it was assembled, we have seen that the people of the country,
from a jealous and unreasonable fear of all power, would not permit this
to be done.
The consequences of this want of power were inevitable. An army could
not be kept in the field, on a permanent footing, capable of holding the
enemy in check. The city of New York fell into the hands of that enemy,
the intermediate country between that city and the city of Philadelphia
was overrun, and from the latter capital, the seat of the general
government, the Congress was obliged to fly before the invading foe.
Taught by these events that a more effective union was necessary to the
deliverance of the country from a foreign yoke, the States at length
united in the establishment of a government, the leading purpose of
which was mutual defence against external attacks, and called it a
Confederation. But its powers were so restricted, and its operations so
clogged and impeded by State jealousies and State reservations of power,
that it lacked entirely the means of providing the sinews of war out of
the resources of the country, and was driven to foreign loans and
foreign arms for the means of bringing that war to a close. A vast load
of debt was thus accumulated upon the country; and, as soon as peace was
established, it became apparent, that, while the Confederation was a
government with the power of contracting debts, it was without the power
of paying them. This incapacity revealed the existence of great objects
of government, without which the people of the several States could
never prosper, and which, in their separate capacities, the States
themselves could never accomplish.
Now it is as certain as history can make any thing, that the whole
period, from the commencement of the war to the end of the
Confederation, was a period of great suffering to the people of the
United States. The trials and hardships of war were succeeded by the
greater trials and hardships of a time of peace, in which the whole
nation experienced that greatest of all social evils, the want of an
efficient and competent government. There was a gloom upon the minds of
men,--a sense of insecurity,--a consciousness that American society was
not fulfilling the ends of its being by the development of its resources
and the discharge of its obligations,--which constituted altogether a
discipline and a chastisement of the whole nation, and which we are not
at liberty to regard as the mere accidents of a world ungoverned by an
overruling Power.
It was from the midst of that discipline that the American people came
to the high undertaking of forming for themselves a constitution, by
which to work out the destiny of social life in this Western World. Had
they essayed their task after years of prosperity, and after old
institutions and old forms of government had, upon the whole, yielded a
fair amount of success and happiness, they would have wanted that power
which comes only from failure and disappointment,--the power to adapt
the best remedy to the deepest social defects, and to lay hold on the
future with the strength given by the hard teachings of the past.
Civil liberty,--American liberty,--that liberty which resides in law,
which is protected by great institutions and upheld by the machinery of
a popular government,--is not simply the product of a desire, or a
determination, to be free. Such liberty comes, if it comes at all, only
after serious mistakes,--after frightful deficiencies have taught men
that power must be lodged somewhere. It comes when a people have
learned, by adversity and disappointment, that a total negation of all
authority, and a jealousy of all restraint, can end only in leaving
society without the defences and securities which nothing but law can
raise for it. It comes when the passions are exhausted, and the
rivalries of opposing interests have worn themselves out, in the vain
endeavor to reach what reason and justice and self-sacrifice alone can
procure. Then, and then only, is the intellect of a nation sure to
operate with the fidelity and energy of its native power. Then only does
it grasp the principles of freedom with the ability to incorporate them
into the practical forms of a public administration whose strength and
energy shall give them vitality, and prevent their diffusion into the
vagueness of mere abstractions, which return to society the cold and
mocking gift of a stone for its craving demand of bread.
* * * * *
The Convention was a body of great and disinterested men, competent,
both morally and intellectually to the work assigned them. High
qualities of character are requisite to the formation of a system of
government for a wide country with different interests. Mere talent will
not do it. Intellectual power and ingenuity alone cannot compass it.
There must be a moral completeness in the characters of those who are to
achieve such a work; for it does not consist solely in devising schemes,
or creating offices, or parcelling out jurisdictions and powers. There
must be adaptation, adjustment of conflicting interests, reconciliation
of conflicting claims. There must be the recognition and admission of
great expedients, and the sacrifice, often, of darling objects of
ambition, or of local policy, to the vast central purpose of the
greatest happiness of the greatest number. Hence it is, that, wherever
this mighty work is to be successfully accomplished, there must be a
high sense of justice; a power of concession; the qualities of
magnanimity and patriotism; and that broad moral sanity of the
intellect, which is farthest removed from fanaticism, intolerance, or
selfish adhesion either to interest or to opinion.
These qualities were preëminently displayed by many of the framers of
the Constitution. There was certainly a remarkable amount of talent and
intellectual power in that body. There were men in that assembly, whom,
for genius in statesmanship, and for profound speculation in all that
relates to the science of government, the world has never seen
overmatched.
But the same men, who were most conspicuous for these brilliant gifts
and acquirements, for their profound theories and their acute perception
of principles, were happily the most marked, in that assembly, for their
comprehensive patriotism, their justice, their unselfishness and
magnanimity. Take, for instance, Hamilton. Where, among all the
speculative philosophers in political science whom the world has seen,
shall we find a man of greater acuteness of intellect, or more capable
of devising a scheme of government which should appear theoretically
perfect? Yet Hamilton's unquestionable genius for political disquisition
and construction was directed and restrained by a noble generosity, and
an unerring perception of the practicable and the expedient, which
enabled him to serve mankind without attempting to force them to his own
plans, and without compelling them into his own views. Take Washington,
whose peculiar greatness was a moral elevation, which secured the wisest
and best use of all his powers in either civil or military life. Take
Madison, who certainly lacked neither ability nor inclination for
speculative inquiries, and who had a mind capable of enforcing the
application of whatever principles he espoused. Yet his calm good sense,
and the tact with which he could adapt theory to practice, were no less
among his prominent characteristics. Take Franklin, who sometimes held
extreme opinions, and occasionally pushed his peculiar fancies,
springing from an excess of worldly wisdom, to the utmost verge of
truth, but whose intellect was tempered, and whose whole character was
softened, by the wide and varied experience of a life that had been
commenced in obscurity, and was now closing with the honors of a
reputation that filled the Eastern as well as the Western hemisphere.
Take Gouverneur Morris, who was ardent, impulsive, and not disinclined
to tenacity of opinion; but he rose above all local and narrow objects,
and embraced, in the scope of his clear and penetrating vision, the
happiness and welfare of this whole continent.
It was a most fortunate thing for America, that the Revolutionary age,
with its hardships, its trials, and its mistakes, had formed a body of
statesmen capable of framing for it a durable constitution. The leading
persons in the Convention which formed the Constitution had been actors,
either in civil or military life, in the scenes of the Revolution. In
those scenes their characters as American statesmen had been formed.
When the condition of the country had fully revealed the incapacity of
its government to provide for its wants, these men were naturally looked
to, to construct a system which should save it from anarchy. And their
great capacities, their high, disinterested purposes, their freedom from
all fanaticism and illiberality, and their earnest, unconquerable faith
in the destiny of their country, enabled them to found that government,
which now upholds and protects the whole fabric of liberty in the States
of this Union.
Of course no such assembly, in that or in any other age, in this or in
any other country, could be called together for such a purpose, without
exhibiting a great diversity of opinions, wishes, and views. The very
object for which they were assembled was of a nature to develop, to the
fullest extent, the most conflicting opinions and the most opposite
theories. That object was to devise a system which should best secure
the permanent liberty and happiness of a vast country. What subject, in
the whole range of human thought and human endeavor, could be more
complex than this? What occasion, among all the diversities of human
affairs, could present a wider field for honest differences of opinion,
and for severe conflicts of mind with mind? Yet it should never be
forgotten, as the merit of this assembly, that, collectively and
individually, they were animated by the most pure and exclusive devotion
to the object for which they were called together. It was this high
patriotism, this deep and never-ceasing consciousness that the great
experiment of republican liberty turned on the result of their labors,
as on the hazard of a die, that brought at last all conflicts of
interest, all diversities of opinion and feeling, into a focus of
conciliation and unanimity. More than once the reader will find them on
the point of separating without having accomplished any thing; and more
than once he will see them recalled to their mighty task by the
eloquence of some master-spirit, who knew how to touch the key-note of
that patriotic feeling, which was never wholly lost in the jarring
discords of debate and intellectual strife. For four months the
laborious effort went on. The serene and unchanging presence of
Washington presided over all. The chivalrous sincerity and
disinterestedness of Hamilton pervaded the assembly with all the power
of his fascinating manners. The flashing eloquence of Gouverneur Morris
recalled the dangers of anarchy, which must be accepted as the
alternative of an abortive experiment. The calm, clear, statesmanlike
views of Madison, the searching and profound expositions of King, the
prudent influence of Franklin, at length ruled the hour.
In examining their work, and in reading all that is left to us of
their discussions, we are to consider the materials out of which they
had to frame a system of republican liberty, and the point of view,
in reference to the whole subject, at which they stood. We are to
remember how little the world had then seen of real liberty united
with personal safety and public security; and how entirely novel the
undertaking was, to form a complete system of government, wholly
independent on tradition, exactly defined in a written constitution,
to be created at once, and at once set in motion, for the
accomplishment of the great objects of human liberty and social
progress. The examples of Greece and Rome, the modern republics of
Italy, the federal relations of the Swiss Cantons, and the distant
approach to republicanism that had been seen in Holland, might be
resorted to for occasional and meagre illustrations of a few general
principles. But, unquestionably, the country which, up to that moment,
had exhibited, by the working of its government, the greatest amount
of liberty combined with the greatest public security, was England.
England, however, was a monarchy; and monarchy was the system which
they both desired, and were obliged, to avoid. If it was within the
range of human possibility to establish a system of republican
government, which would fulfil its appropriate duties, over this vast
and rapidly extending country, _that_ they felt, one and all, to be
their great task. On the other hand, they knew that, if to that form
they could not succeed in giving due stability and wisdom, it would
be, in the words of Hamilton, "disgraced and lost among ourselves,
disgraced and lost to mankind for ever."[389] Here was their
trial,--the difficulty of all their difficulties; and it was here that
they exhibited a wisdom, a courage, and a capacity, which have been
surpassed by no other body of lawgivers ever assembled in the world.
Their country had, a few years before, passed through a long and
distressing war with its parent state. The yoke of her domination had
been thrown off, and its removal was naturally followed by a loosening
of the bands of all authority, and an indisposition to all new
restraints. The American Colonies had become independent States; and as
the spirit of liberty which pervaded them made individuals impatient of
control in their political relations, so the States reflected the same
spirit in their corporate conduct, and looked with jealousy and distrust
upon all powers which were not to be exercised by themselves. Yet it was
clear that there were powers and functions of government, which, for the
absolute safety of the country, must be withdrawn from the States, and
vested in some national head, which should hold and exercise them in the
name of the whole, for the good of the whole. The great question was,
what that national head was to be; and the great service performed by
the framers of the Constitution consisted in devising a system by which
a national sovereignty might be endowed with energy, dignity, and power,
and the forms and substance of popular liberty still be preserved; a
system by which a supreme authority in all the matters which it touched
might be created, resting directly on the popular will, and to be
exercised, in all coming time, through forms and institutions under
which that will should have a direct and perpetual and perpetually
renewed expression. This they accomplished. They accomplished it, too,
without abolishing the State governments, and without impairing a single
personal right which existed before they began their work. They
accomplished it without violence; without the disruption of a single
fibre in that whole delicate tissue of which society is made up. No drop
of blood was shed to establish this government, the work of their hands;
and no moment of interruption occurred to the calm, even tenor of the
pursuits of men,--the daily on-goings of society, in which the stream of
human life and happiness and progress flows on in beneficence and peace.
* * * * *
First upon the list of those who had been called together for this great
purpose, we are to mention him, without whose presence and countenance
all men felt that no attempt to meliorate the political condition of the
country could succeed.
I have already given an account of the proceedings which led directly to
the calling of the Convention; and have mentioned the interesting fact,
that the impulse to those proceedings was given at Mount Vernon. Thither
General Washington had retired, at the close of the war, with no thought
of ever engaging again in public affairs. He supposed that for him the
scene was closed. "The noontide of life," said he, in a letter to the
Marchioness de Lafayette, "is now past, with Mrs. Washington and
myself; and all we have to do is to glide gently down a stream which no
human effort can ascend."[390]
But wise and far-seeing as he was, he did not foresee how soon he was to
be called from that grave and sweet tranquillity. He was busy with the
concerns of his farm; he was tasting the happiness of home, from which
he had been absent nine long years; he was "cultivating the affections
of good men, and practising the domestic virtues." But it was not in his
nature to be inattentive to the concerns of that country for whose
welfare he had labored and suffered so much. He maintained an active
correspondence with several of the most eminent and virtuous of his
compatriots in different parts of the Union; and in that correspondence,
running through the years 1784, 1785, and 1786, there exists the most
ample evidence of the downward tendency of things, and of the fears it
excited.
It had become evident to him that we never should establish a national
character, nor be justly considered and respected by the nations of
Europe, without enlarging the powers of the federal government for the
regulation of commerce. The objection which had been hitherto urged,
that some States might be more benefited than others by a commercial
regulation, seemed to him to apply to every matter of general utility.
"We are," said he, writing in the summer of 1785, "either a united
people under one head, and for federal purposes, or we are thirteen
independent sovereignties eternally counteracting each other. If the
former, whatever such a majority of the States as the constitution
points out conceives to be for the benefit of the whole, should, in my
humble opinion, be submitted to by the minority. Let the Southern States
always be represented; let them act more in union; let them declare
freely and boldly what is for the interest of, and what is prejudicial
to, their constituents; and there will, there must be, an accommodating
spirit. In the establishment of a navigation act, this, in a particular
manner, ought and will doubtless be attended to. If the assent of nine
States, or, as some propose, of eleven, is necessary to give validity to
a commercial system, it insures this measure, or it cannot be obtained.
"Wherein, then, lies the danger? But if your fears are in danger of
being realized, cannot certain provisos in the ordinance guard against
the evil? I see no difficulty in this, if the Southern delegates would
give their attendance in Congress, and follow the example, if it should
be set them, of adhering together to counteract combination. I confess
to you candidly, that I can foresee no evil greater than disunion; than
those unreasonable jealousies (I say _unreasonable_, because I would
have a _proper_ jealousy always awake, and the United States on the
watch to prevent individual States from infracting the constitution with
impunity) which are continually poisoning our minds and filling them
with imaginary evils for the prevention of real ones."[391]
But, while he desired to see the ninth article of the Confederation so
amended and extended as to give adequate commercial powers, he feared
that it would be of little avail to give them to the existing Congress.
The members of that body seemed to him to be so much afraid of exerting
the powers which they already possessed, that they lost no opportunity
of surrendering them, or of referring their exercise to the individual
States. The speculative question, whether foreign commerce is of any
real advantage to a country, he regarded as of no importance, convinced
that the spirit of trade which pervaded these States was not to be
restrained. It behooved us, therefore, to establish just principles of
commercial regulation, and this could not, any more than other matters
of national concern, be done by thirteen heads differently constructed
and organized. The necessity, in fact, of a controlling power was
obvious, and why it should be withheld was, he declared, beyond his
comprehension. With these views, he looked to the Convention at
Annapolis as likely to result in a plan which would give to the federal
government efficient powers for all commercial purposes, although he
regretted that more objects had not been embraced in the project for the
meeting.
The failure of this attempt to enlarge the commercial powers of
Congress, and the recommendation of a general convention made by the
Annapolis commissioners, placed the country in an extremely delicate
situation. Washington thought, when this recommendation was announced,
that the people were not then sufficiently misled to retract their
error, and entertained some doubt as to the consequences of an attempt
to revise and amend the Articles of Confederation. Something, however,
must be done, he said, or the fabric which was certainly tottering,
would inevitably fall. "I think," said he, "often of our situation, and
view it with concern. From the high ground we stood upon, from the plain
path which invited our footsteps, to be so fallen, so lost, is really
mortifying; but virtue, I fear, has in a great degree taken its
departure from our land, and the want of a disposition to do justice is
the source of the national embarrassments; for, whatever guise or color
is given to them, this I apprehend is the origin of the evils we now
feel, and probably shall labor under for some time yet."[392]
At this time the legislature of Virginia were acting upon the subject of
a delegation to the Federal Convention, and a general wish was felt to
place Washington at the head of it. No opposition had been made in that
body to the bill introduced for the purpose of organizing and
instructing such a delegation, and it was thought advisable to give the
proceeding all the weight which could be derived from a single State. To
a private intimation of this desire of the legislature he returned a
decided refusal. Several obstacles appeared to him to put his attendance
out of the question. The principal reason that he assigned was, that he
had already declined a re-election as President of the Society of the
Cincinnati, and had signified that he should not attend their triennial
general meeting, to be held in Philadelphia in the same month with the
Convention.[393] He felt a great reluctance to do any thing which might
give offence to those patriotic men, the officers of the army who had
shared with him the labors and dangers of the war. He had declined to
act longer with that Society, because the motives and objects of its
founders had been misconceived and misrepresented. Originally a
charitable institution, it had come to be regarded as anti-republican in
its spirit and tendencies. Desiring, on the one hand, to avoid the
charge of deserting the officers who had nobly supported him, and had
always treated him with the greatest attention and attachment; and
wishing, on the other hand, not to be thought willing to give his
support to an institution generally believed incompatible with
republican principles,--he had excused his attendance upon the ground of
the necessity of attending to his private concerns. He had, in truth, a
great reluctance to appear again upon any public theatre. His health was
far from being firm; he felt the need and coveted the blessing of
retirement for the remainder of his days; and although some
modifications of the Society whose first President he had been, were
then allaying the jealousies it had excited, he withdrew from this, the
last relation which had kept him in a conspicuous public position.
But Washington at Mount Vernon, cultivating his estate, and rarely
leaving his own farms, was as conspicuous to the country as if he were
still placed in the most active and important public stations. All eyes
were turned to him in this emergency; all thoughts were employed in
considering whether his countenance and his influence would be given to
this attempt to create a national government for the States whose
liberties he had won. And his friends represented to him, that the
posture of public affairs would prevent any criticism on the situation
in which the contemporary meeting of the Cincinnati would place him, if
he were to accept a seat in the Convention. Still, when the official
notice of his appointment came, in December, he formally declined, but
was requested by the Governor of the State to reserve his decision.[394]
At this moment, the insurrection in Massachusetts broke upon him like a
thunderbolt. "What, gracious God!" he exclaimed, "is man, that there
should be such inconsistency and perfidiousness in his conduct! It was
but the other day that we were shedding our blood to obtain the
constitutions under which we now live,--constitutions of our own choice
and making,--and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them! The
thing is so unaccountable, that I hardly know how to realize it, or to
persuade myself that I am not under the illusion of a dream."[395]
It was clear that, in case of civil discord and open confusion extending
through any considerable part of the country, he would be obliged to
take part on one side or the other, or to withdraw from the continent;
and he, as well as other reflecting men, were not without fears that the
disturbances in the Eastern States might extend throughout the Union. He
consulted with his friends in distant parts of the country, and
requested their advice, but still, as late as February, hesitated
whether he should attend the Convention. In that month, he heard of the
suppression of the rebellion in Massachusetts; but the developments
which it had made of the state of society, the necessity which it had
revealed for more coercive power in the institutions of the country, and
the fear which it had excited that this want might lead men's minds to
entertain the idea of monarchical government, finally decided him to
accept the appointment. The possibility that his absence at such a
juncture might be construed into what he called "a dereliction of
republicanism," seems to have influenced his decision more than all
other reasons. Congress, it is true, had now sanctioned the Convention,
and this had removed one obstacle which had weighed with him and with
others. He entertained great doubts as to the result of the experiment,
but was entirely satisfied that it ought to be tried.[396]
He left Mount Vernon in the latter part of April. Public honors attended
him everywhere on his route. At Chester, fifteen miles from the city of
Philadelphia, he was met by the Speaker of the Assembly of Pennsylvania
and several officers and gentlemen of distinction, who accompanied him
to Gray's Ferry, where a military escort was in waiting to receive him
and conduct him into the city. On his arrival, he immediately paid a
visit to Dr. Franklin, at that time President of the State of
Pennsylvania.[397]
On the assembling of the Convention, Robert Morris, by the instruction
and in behalf of the deputation of Pennsylvania, proposed that General
Washington should be elected President. John Rutledge of South Carolina
seconded this suggestion, observing that the presence of General
Washington forbade any observations on the occasion which might
otherwise be proper.[398] His opinions, at the time when he took the
chair of the Convention, as to what was proper to be done, and what was
practicable, can only be gathered from his correspondence. He had formed
some general views of the principles on which a national government
should be framed, but he had not proceeded at all to the consideration
of details. The first and most important object he held to be, to
establish such a constitution as would secure and perpetuate the
republican form of government, by satisfying the wants of the country
and the time, and thus checking all tendency to monarchical ideas. He
had come to the Convention, as we have seen, in order that the great
experiment of self-government, on which this country had entered at the
Revolution, might have a further trial beyond the hazards of the hour.
He knew--he had had occasion to know--that the thought of a monarchy, as
being necessary to the safety of the country, had been to some extent
entertained. There had been those in a former day, in the darkest period
of the war, who had proposed to him to assume a crown,--men who could
possibly have bestowed it upon him, or have assisted him to acquire
it,--but who met a rebuke which the nature of their proposition and his
character should have taught them to expect. There were those in that
day who sincerely despaired of republican liberty, and who had allowed
themselves to think that some of the royal families of Europe might
possibly furnish a sovereign fitted to govern and control the turbulent
elements of our political condition. Washington understood the genius
and character of the people of this country so well, that he held it to
be impossible ever to establish that form of government over them
without the deepest social convulsions. It was the form of the
government against which they had waged a seven years' war; and it was
certain that, apart from all questions of theoretical fitness or value,
nothing but the most frightful civil disorders, menacing the very
existence of society itself, could ever bring them again under its sway.
He was also satisfied, that, whatever particular system was to be
adopted, it must be one that would create a national sovereignty and
give it the means of coercion. What the nature of that coercion ought to
be, he had not considered; but that obedience to the ordinances of a
general government could not be expected, unless it was clothed with the
power of enforcing them, all his experience during the war, and all his
observation since, had fully satisfied him. He was convinced, also, that
powers of a more extensive nature, and which would comprehend other
objects, ought to be given to the general government; that Congress
should be so placed as to enable and compel them to exert their
constitutional authority with a firm and steady hand, instead of
referring it back to the States. He proposed to adopt no temporizing
expedients, but to have the defects of the Confederation thoroughly
examined and displayed, and a radical cure provided, whether it were
accepted or not. A course of this kind, he said, would stamp wisdom and
dignity on their proceedings, and hold up a light which sooner or later
would have its influence.[399]
Persuaded that the primary cause of all the public disorders lay in the
different State governments, and in the tenacity with which they adhered
to their State powers, he saw that incompatibility in the laws of
different States and disrespect to the authority of the Union must
continue to render the situation of the country weak, inefficient, and
disgraceful. The principle with which he entered the Convention, and on
which he acted throughout to the end, was, "with a due consideration of
circumstances and habits, to form such a government as will bear the
scrutinizing eye of criticism, and trust it to the good sense and
patriotism of the people to carry it into effect."[400]
The character of Washington as a statesman has, perhaps, been somewhat
undervalued, from two causes; one of them being his military greatness,
and the other, the extraordinary balance of his mind, which presented no
brilliant and few salient qualities. Undoubtedly, as a statesman he was
not constructive, like Hamilton, nor did he possess the same abundant
and ever-ready resources. He was eminently cautious, but he was also
eminently sagacious. He had had a wide field of observation during the
war, the theatre of which, commencing in New England, had extended
through the Middle and into the Southern States. He had, of course, been
brought in contact with the men and the institutions of all the States,
and had been concerned in their conflicts with the federal authority, to
a greater extent than any other public man of the time. This experience
had not prepared him--as the character of his mind had not prepared
him--to suggest plans or frame institutions fitted to remedy the evils
he had observed, and to apply the principles which he had discovered.
But it had revealed to him the dangers and difficulties of our
situation, and had made him a national statesman, as incapable of
confining his politics to the narrow scale of local interests and
attachments, as he had been of confining his exertions to the object of
achieving the liberties of a single state.
He would have been fitly placed in the chair of any deliberative
assembly into which he might have been called at any period of his life;
but it was preëminently suitable that he should occupy that of the
Convention for forming the Constitution. He had no talent for debate,
and upon the floor of this body he would have exerted less influence,
and have been far less the central object towards which the opinions and
views of the members were directed, than he was in the high and becoming
position to which he was now called.
FOOTNOTES:
[389] Madison's Debates in the Federal Convention. Elliot, V. 244.
[390] Washington's Writings, IX. 166.
[391] Washington's Writings, IX. 121.
[392] Washington's Writings, IX. 167.
[393] Washington's Writings, IX. 212.
[394] Washington's Writings, IX. 219.
[395] Washington's Writings, IX. 221.
[396] Washington's Writings, IX. 236.
[397] Sparks's Life of Washington, p. 435.
[398] Madison's Debates, Elliot, V. 123.
[399] Washington's Writings, IX. 250.
[400] Washington's Writings, IX. 258.