nce in American political life of the men who had
the energy and the insight to discriminate between those ideas and
tendencies which promoted the national welfare, and those ideas and
tendencies whereby it was imperiled. It implied, in fine, the
perpetuation of the same kind of leadership which had guided the country
safely through the dangers of the critical period, and the perpetuation
of the purposes which inspired that leadership.

So far I, at least, have no fault to find with implications of
Hamilton's Federalism, but unfortunately his policy was in certain other
respects tainted with a more doubtful tendency. On the persistent
vitality of Hamilton's national principle depends the safety of the
American republic and the fertility of the American idea, but he did not
seek a sufficiently broad, popular basis for the realization of those
ideas. He was betrayed by his fears and by his lack of faith. Believing
as he did, and far more than he had any right to believe, that he was
still fighting for the cause of social stability and political order
against the seven devils of anarchy and dissolution, he thought it
necessary to bestow upon the central government the support of a strong
special interest. During the Constitutional Convention he had failed to
secure the adoption of certain institutions which in his opinion would
have established as the guardian of the Constitution an aristocracy of
ability; and he now insisted all the more upon the plan of attaching to
the Federal government the support of well-to-do people. As we have
seen, the Constitution had been framed and its adoption secured chiefly
by citizens of education and means; and the way had been prepared,
consequently, for the attempt of Hamilton to rally this class as a class
more than ever to the support of the Federal government. They were the
people who had most to lose by political instability or inefficiency,
and they must be brought to lend their influence to the perpetuation of
a centralized political authority. Hence he believed a considerable
national debt to be a good thing for the Federal national interest, and
he insisted strenuously upon the assumption by the Federal government of
the state war-debts. He conceived the Constitution and the Union as a
valley of peace and plenty which had to be fortified against the
marauders by the heavy ramparts of borrowed money and the big guns of a
propertied interest.

In so doing Hamilton believed that he