stances.
He well knew that his favourite form was inadmissible, unless as the
result of civil war; and I suspect that his belief in that which he
called an approaching crisis arose from a conviction that the kind of
government most suitable, in his opinion, to this extensive country,
could be established in no other way.... He trusted, moreover, that in
the changes and chances of time we should be involved in some war, which
might strengthen our union and nerve the executive. He was of all men
the most indiscreet. He knew that a limited monarchy, even if
established, could not preserve itself in this country.... He never
failed, on every occasion, to advocate the excellence of, and avow his
attachment to, monarchical government.... Thus, meaning very well, he
acted very ill, and approached the evils he apprehended by his very
solicitude to keep them at a distance." The language of Adams is more
severe; but Adams was an enemy. It has been justly said that "he wished
good men, as he termed them, to rule; meaning the wealthy, the
well-born, the socially eminent." The federalists have suffered somewhat
from this imputation; for a prejudice against any group claiming to
serve under that flag is among the bequests of the French Revolution.
"Les honnetes gens ont toujours peur: c'est leur nature," is a maxim of
Chateaubriand. A man most divergent and unlike him, Menou, had drawn the
same conclusion: "En revolution il ne faut jamais se mettre du cote des
honnetes gens: ils sont toujours balayes." And Royer Collard, with the
candour one shows in describing friends, said: "C'est le parti des
honnetes gens qui est le moins honnete de tous les partis. Tout le
monde, meme dans ses erreurs, etait honnete a l'assemblee constituante,
excepte le cote droit." Hamilton stands higher as a political
philosopher than as an American partisan. Europeans are generally
liberal for the sake of something that is not liberty, and conservative
for an object to be conserved; and in a jungle of other motives besides
the reason of state we cannot often eliminate unadulterated or
disinterested conservatism. We think of land and capital, tradition and
custom, the aristocracy and the services, the crown and the altar. It is
the singular superiority of Hamilton that he is really anxious about
nothing but the exceeding difficulty of quelling the centrifugal forces,
and that no kindred and coequal powers divide his attachment or
intercept his view. Therefore