states the power to
negative acts of Congress, there would have been no room for doubt that
the general government was the final and exclusive judge in all cases of
conflict between Federal and state authority.

Such a provision would have left no room for the doctrine of state
rights, or its corollary--the power of a state to nullify a Federal law.
It would have settled the question of Federal supremacy beyond the
possibility of controversy by relegating the states to a strictly
subordinate place in our political system. But inasmuch as the
Constitution contained no provision of this character it left the states
in a position to defend their claim to coordinate rank with the general
government.

The adoption of the Constitution was merely the first step in this
program of political reconstruction. To carry through to a successful
issue the work undertaken by the Federal Convention, it was necessary
that the same influences that dominated the latter should also control
the new government by which the Constitution was to be interpreted and
applied. How well they succeeded may be seen in the impress left upon
our system by the twelve years of Federalist rule which followed its
adoption. During this period the Constitution was in the hands of those
who were in full sympathy with the purpose of its framers, and who
sought to complete the work which they had begun.

In shaping the policy of the government during this period the influence
of Hamilton was even more pronounced than it had been in the Federal
Convention. As Secretary of the Treasury he proposed and brought about
the adoption of a financial policy in harmony with his political views.
Believing that the government must have the confidence of the
conservative and well-to-do classes, he framed a policy which was
calculated to gain their support by appealing to their material
interests. The assumption by the general government of the state debts
incurred during the Revolutionary war was designed and had the effect
of detaching the creditor class from dependence upon the governments of
the various states and allying them to the general government. The
protective tariff system also had far-reaching political significance.
It was expected to develop an influential manufacturing class who would
look to the general government as the source of their prosperity, and
who would therefore support its authority as against that of the states.
To unite the moneyed interests an