d I could convert you, for your doctrines are bound
to plunge this country into civil war sooner or later. The Constitution
has given the States just four times more power than is safe in their
hands; but if we could establish a tradition at this early stage of the
country's history that it was the duty of the States always to consider
the Union first and themselves as grateful assistants to a hard-working
and paternal central power, we might do much to counteract an evil
which, if coddled, is bound to result in a trial of strength."

"That is the first time I ever heard you croak, except in a public
speech where you had a point to gain," said Livingston. "Do you mean
that?"

"What of it?" asked Clinton. "Under Mr. Hamilton's constitution--for if
it be not quite so monarchical as the one he wanted, it has been saddled
upon the United States through his agency more than through any other
influence or group of influences--I say, that under Mr. Hamilton's
constitution all individualism is lost. We are to be but the component
parts of a great machine which will grind us as it lists. Had we
remained thirteen independent and sovereign States, with a tribunal for
what little common legislation might be necessary, then we might have
built up a great and a unique nation; but under what is little better
than an absolute monarchy all but a small group of men are bound to live
and die nonentities."

"But think of the excited competition for a place in that group," said
Hamilton, laughing. The disappointed Governor's propositions were not
worthy of serious argument.

"I do not think it is as bad as that, your Excellency," said Dr.
Franklin, mildly. "I should have favoured a somewhat loose
Confederation, as you know, but the changes and the development of this
country will be so great that there will be plenty of room for
individualism; indeed, it could not be suppressed. And after a careful
study of this instrument that you are to live under--my own time is so
short that my only role now is that of the prophet--I fail to see
anything of essential danger to the liberties of the American people. I
may say that the essays of "The Federalist" would have reassured me on
this point, had I still doubted. I read them again the other week. The
proof is there, I think, that the Constitution, if rigidly interpreted
and lived up to, must prove a beneficent if stern parent to those who
dwell under it."

Clinton shrugged his shoulders. "I w