forgetfulness of the
political concerns of his own country, or any indifference to those
mighty events which, during those years, were taking place in Europe,
and were reacting with tremendous effect upon the thought, the
emotion, and even the material interests of America. Neither did he
succeed in thus preserving the retirement which he had resolved upon,
without having to resist the attempts of both political parties to
draw him forth again into official life. All these matters, indeed,
are involved in the story of his political attitude from the close of
his struggle for amending the Constitution down to the very close of
his life,--a story which used to be told with angry vituperation on
one side, perhaps with some meek apologies on the other. Certainly,
the day for such comment is long past. In the disinterestedness which
the lapse of time has now made an easy virtue for us, we may see,
plainly enough, that such ungentle words as "apostate" and "turncoat,"
with which his name used to be plentifully assaulted, were but the
missiles of partisan excitement; and that by his act of intellectual
readjustment with respect to the new conditions forced upon human
society, on both sides of the Atlantic, by the French Revolution, he
developed no occasion for apologies, since he therein did nothing that
was unusual at that time among honest and thoughtful men everywhere,
and nothing that was inconsistent with the professions or the
tendencies of his own previous life. It becomes our duty, however, to
trace this story over again, as concisely as possible, but in the
light of much historical evidence that has never hitherto been
presented in connection with it.

Upon the adoption, in 1791, of the first ten amendments to the
Constitution, every essential objection which he had formerly urged
against that instrument was satisfied; and there then remained no
good reason why he should any longer hold himself aloof from the
cordial support of the new government, especially as directed, first
by Washington, and afterward by John Adams,--two men with whom, both
personally and politically, he had always been in great harmony,
excepting only upon this single matter of the Constitution in its
original form. Undoubtedly, the contest which he had waged on that
question had been so hot and so bitter that, even after it was ended,
some time would be required for his recovery from the soreness of
spirit, from the tone of suspicion and even o