and give to its popular branch equality of
representation, and it would be the most perfect constitution ever
devised by the wit of man.' Hamilton paused and said, 'Purge it of its
corruption, and give to its popular branch equality of representation,
and it would become an impracticable government: as it stands at
present, with all its supposed defects, it is the most perfect
government which ever existed.' And this was assuredly the exact line
which separated the political creeds of these two gentlemen. The one was
for two hereditary branches and an honest elective one: the other, for
an hereditary King, with a House of Lords and Commons corrupted to his
will, and standing between him and the people. Hamilton was, indeed, a
singular character. Of acute understanding, disinterested, honest, and
honorable in all private transactions, amiable in society, and duly
valuing virtue in private life, yet so bewitched and perverted by the
British example, as to be under thorough conviction that corruption was
essential to the government of a nation. Mr. Adams had originally been
a republican. The glare of royalty and nobility, during his mission to
England, had made him believe their fascination a necessary ingredient
in government; and Shays's rebellion, not sufficiently understood where
he then was, seemed to prove that the absence of want and oppression,
was not a sufficient guarantee of order. His book on the American
Constitutions having made known his political bias, he was taken up by
the monarchical federalists in his absence, and, on his return to
the United States, he was by them made to believe that the general
disposition of our citizens was favorable to monarchy. He here wrote
his Davila, as a supplement to the former work, and his election to
the Presidency confirmed him in his errors. Innumerable addresses too,
artfully and industriously poured in upon him, deceived him into a
confidence that he was on the pinnacle of popularity, when the gulph was
yawning at his feet, which was to swallow up him and his deceivers. For
when General Washington was withdrawn, these _energumeni_ of royalism,
kept in check hitherto by the dread of his honesty, his firmness, his
patriotism, and the authority of his name, now mounted on the car of
State and free from control, like Phaeton on that of the sun, drove
headlong and wild, looking neither to right nor left, nor regarding
any thing but the objects they were driving at; until, d