than he
for a consolidated government; no one had shown more activity to bring
about a convention to frame a federal Constitution; and when at last
that work was done, no one, not even Hamilton himself, was more zealous
to convince his countrymen that national salvation depended upon union,
and that union was hopeless unless the Constitution should be adopted.
The disappointment and the shock were all the greater when he gradually
drew off from those who had hitherto counted him as on their side. They
could not understand how he could find so much to oppose in the
legitimate administration--as they believed it to be--of a Constitution
he had done so much to create, and the beneficent results of which he
had foreseen and foretold. Or, if they understood him, it was on the
supposition that he had thrown his convictions and his principles to the
winds, abandoned his old friends and attached himself to new ones, from
motives of personal ambition. This, of course, may not have been
absolutely just. It is quite possible that he did not deliberately
surrender his principles, but persuaded himself that he was as true as
ever to the Constitution. It is, nevertheless, certainly true that the
men with whom he was now acting were the men who, having failed to
prevent the adoption of the Constitution, now aimed, by zealous
endeavors for an assumed strict construction, to defeat the purpose for
which it was framed.[14]

Naturally his motives were suspected, and his conduct narrowly watched.
Jefferson's influence over him was known to be great, and Jefferson had
had nothing to do with the framing of the Constitution, had been
doubtful at first of its wisdom, and gave his assent to it at last with
many doubts. The Anti-Federal party was growing gradually stronger in
Virginia as in all the Southern States; most of Madison's warmest
personal friends, as well as Jefferson, were of that party. What chance
would he have in the public career he had marked out for himself if his
path and theirs led in opposite directions? How much he was influenced
by these considerations it is impossible to tell; perhaps he himself
could not have told. Perhaps they were not even considerations, but only
unconscious influences, which he would have thrown behind him had he
recognized them as possible motives. To others, however, whether justly
or not, they were quite sufficient to explain his course, and, once
accepted, no other explanation was sought for. The