When The Constitution Was Written Jefferson Was In France,
Having Been Sent Thither As Minister From The United States, And He
Therefore Was Debarred From Concerning Himself Personally In The
Matter.
His views, however, were represented by Madison; and it is
now generally understood that the Constitution as it stands
Is the
joint work of Madison and Hamilton.* The democratic bias, of which
it necessarily contains much, and without which it could not have
obtained the consent of the people, was furnished by Madison; but
the conservative elements, of which it possesses much more than
superficial observers of the American form of government are wont to
believe, came from Hamilton.
* It should, perhaps, be explained that the views of Madison were
originally not opposed to those of Hamilton. Madison, however,
gradually adopted the policy of Jefferson - his policy rather than
his philosophy.
The very preamble of the Constitution at once declares that the
people of the different States do hereby join themselves together
with the view of forming themselves into one nation. "We, the
people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union,
establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Here
a great step was made toward centralization, toward one national
government, and the binding together of the States into one nation.
But from that time down to the present the contest has been going
on, sometimes openly and sometimes only within the minds of men,
between the still alleged sovereignty of the individual States and
the acknowledged sovereignty of the central Congress and central
government. The disciples of Jefferson, even though they have not
known themselves to be his disciples, have been carrying on that
fight for State rights which has ended in secession; and the
disciples of Hamilton, certainly not knowing themselves to be his
disciples, have been making that stand for central government, and
for the one acknowledged republic, which is now at work in opposing
secession, and which, even though secession should to some extent be
accomplished, will, we may hope, nevertheless, and not the less on
account of such secession, conquer and put down the spirit of
democracy.
The political contest of parties which is being waged now, and which
has been waged throughout the history of the United States, has been
pursued on one side in support of that idea of an undivided
nationality of which I have spoken - of a nationality in which the
interests of a part should be esteemed as the interests of the
whole; and on the other side it has been pursued in opposition to
that idea. I will not here go into the interminable question of
slavery - though it is on that question that the Southern or
democratic States have most loudly declared their own sovereign
rights and their aversion to national interference. Were I to do so
I should fail in my present object of explaining the nature of the
Constitution of the United States.
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