itution.

But, like most of the speakers of that day, he was trenchant and
unadorned, so that his speeches are as easy reading as they must have
been agreeable to hear. It is a curious fact that the best speakers of
to-day resemble our forefathers in this respect of trenchant simplicity.
Mediocrity for half a century has ranted on the stump, and given
foreigners a false impression of American oratory. Those who indulge in
what may be called the open-air metaphor, so intoxicating is our
climate, may find consolation in this flight of Mr. Gilbert Livingston,
who had not their excuse; for the Court-house of Poughkeepsie was hot
and crowded. He is declaiming against the senatorial aristocrats lurking
in the proposed Constitution. "What," he cries, "what will be their
situation in a Federal town? Hallowed ground! Nothing so unclean as
State laws to enter there, surrounded as they will be by an impenetrable
wall of adamant and gold, the wealth of the whole country flowing into
it!" "_What_? What WALL?" cried a Federal. "A wall of gold, of adamant,
which will flow in from all parts of the continent." The joyous roar of
our ancestors comes down to us.

Hamilton's speech, in which he as effectually disposed of every argument
against the Senate as Roger Sherman had done in the Great Convention, is
too long to be quoted; but it is as well to give the precise words in
which he defines the vital difference between republics and democracies.

It has been observed by an honourable gentleman [he said] that a
pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect
government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is
more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people
themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good
government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure
deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an
ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared
for every enormity. In these assemblies the enemies of the people
brought forward their plans of ambition systematically. They were
opposed by their enemies of another party; and it became a matter
of contingency, whether the people subjected themselves to be led
blindly by one tyrant or another.

Again he says, in reply to Melancthon Smith:--

It is a harsh doctrine that men grow wicked as they improve and
enli