some of the most trying periods of his vast and prolonged responsibility, the assistance that Washington most needed. They recollected his career in Congress, when his comprehensive intellect was always alert, to bear the country forward to measures and ideas, that would concentrate its powers and resources in some national system. They called to mind how he had kept their own State from wandering quite away into the paths of disunion-how he had enlightened, invigorated, and purified public opinion, by his wise and energetic counsels-how he had led them to understand the true happiness and glory of their country-how he had laboured to bring about those events, which had now produced the Constitution-how he had shown to them the harmony and success that might be predicted of its operation, and had taught them to accept what was good, without petulantly demanding what individual opinion might claim as perfect.

"What was it to them, therefore, on this day of public rejoicing, that there might be in his policy more of consolidation than in the policy of others -that he was said to have in his politics too much that was national, and too little that was localthat some had done as much as he in the actual

construction of the system which they were now to celebrate? Such controversies might be for contests of administration that

history, or for the

were soon to arise. On this day, they were driven out of men's thoughts by the glow of that public enthusiasm, which banishes the spirit of party, and touches and opens the inmost fountains of patriotism. Hamilton had rendered a series of great services to his country, which had culminated in the adoption of the Constitution by the State of New York; and they were now acknowledged from the very hearts of those who best knew his motives, and best understood his character.

They

"The people themselves, divided into their respective trades, evidently undertook the demonstrations in his honour, and gave them an emphasis which they could have derived from no other source. They bore his image aloft upon banners. placed the Constitution in his right hand, and the Confederation in his left. They depicted Fame, with her trumpet, crowning him with laurels. They emblazoned his name upon the miniature frigate, the Federal ship of state. They anticipated the administration of the first President, by uniting on the national flag the figure of Washington and the figure

of Hamilton. All that ingenuity, all that affection, all that popular pride and gratitude could do to honour a public benefactor, was repeated again and again through the long line of five thousand citizens, of all orders and conditions, which stretched away from the shores of that beautiful bay, where ocean ascends into river, and river is lost in ocean—and where commerce then wore her holiday attire, to prefigure the magnificence and power which she was to derive from the Constitution of the United States."

CHAPTER X.

PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT.

E

LEVEN States having now ratified the Consti

tution, the old Congress, which was still sitting, resolved not to wait for the tardy concurrence of Rhode Island and North Carolina, but to take at once the necessary steps for inaugurating the new government. The seat of that government, which had not been determined by the Convention, was one of the first subjects of discussion. A thousand jealousies were raised by this question, which threatened to throw the whole country once more into tumult and confusion. Hamilton again exerted himself to effect a compromise between the contending parties, and it was at length arranged that they should have recourse to a temporary settlement. Postponing to a future time the claims of Virginia and Pennsylvania, and the plan for a central capital, to be erected on neutral territory on the

banks of the Delaware or the Potomac, it was agreed that the city of New York should be for the present the seat of government. The first Wednesday in January, 1789, was fixed for the appointment of electors; the first Wednesday in February for the election of President; and the first Wednesday in March for the Constitution to come into working order.

As the time drew near, almost every eye in America was turned towards one man, as the destined choice of the nation for its highest office. It had not yet been discovered, that insignificance and obscurity are qualifications for the chief magistrate of a great empire, and so long as tried and honourable service was the test of fitness, no one could for a moment compete with the claims of Washington. He was emphatically the leader, the deliverer, foremost in peace and war-the founder of the commonwealth, the father of his country. Even faction was silenced in his presence, and envy could detect no weak place in the panoply of his virtue. To him all were willing to yield a pre-eminence, which was acknowledged by the voice of the whole civilized world; or if he still had his enemies and detractors, who had dogged his footsteps from the first, and were