regard to National and State
rights. Some of them regarded the State as the ultimate unit. Others
insisted that the Nation was sovereign. These two conflicting views
run through American history down to the Civil War, and even in
Washington's time they existed in outline. Washington himself was
a Federalist, believing that the Federation of the former Colonies
should be made as compact and strongly knit as possible. He had
had too much evidence during the Revolution of the weakness of
uncentralized government, and yet his Virginia origin and training had
planted in him a strong sympathy for State rights. In Washington's
own Cabinet dwelt side by side the leaders of the two parties: Thomas
Jefferson, the Secretary of State, though born in Virginia of high
aristocratic stock, was the most aggressive and infatuated of
Democrats. Alexander Hamilton, born in the West Indies and owing
nothing to family connections, was a natural aristocrat. He believed
that the educated and competent few must inevitably govern the
incompetent masses. His enemies suspected that he leaned strongly
towards monarchy and would have been glad to see Washington crowned
king.

President Washington, believing in Assumption, took satisfaction in
Hamilton's bargain with Jefferson which made Assumption possible. For
the President saw in the act a power making for union, and union was
one of the chief objects of his concern. The foremost of Hamilton's
measures, however, for good or for ill, was the protective tariff on
foreign imports. Experience has shown that protection has been much
more than a financial device. It has been deeply and inextricably
moral. It has caused many American citizens to seek for tariff favors
from the Government. Compared with later rates, those which Hamilton's
tariff set were moderate indeed. The highest duties it exacted on
foreign imports were fifteen per cent, while the average was only
eight and a half per cent. And yet it had not been long in force when
the Government was receiving $200,000 a month, which enabled it to
defray all the necessary public charges. Hamilton, in the words of
Daniel Webster, "smote the rock of National resources and copious
streams of wealth poured forth. He touched the dead corpse of public
credit and it stood forth erect with life." The United States of all
modern countries have been the best fitted by their natural resources
to do without artificial stimulation, in spite of which fact they