national principles, and should they attend (contrary to my expectations) to the general interests of the Union, yet the dangerous exclusive powers given to the Senate will, in my opinion, counterbalance their exertions. Consider the connection of the Senate with the Executive. Has it not an authority over all the acts of the Executive? What are the acts which the President can do without them? What number is requisite to make treaties? A very small number. Two-thirds of those who may happen to be present, may, with the President, make treaties that shall sacrifice the dearest interests of the Southern States, which may relinquish part of our territories, which may dismember the Union.

"Upon reviewing this government, I must say, under my present impression, I think it a dangerous government, and calculated to secure neither the interests nor the rights of our countrymen. Under such a one, I shall be averse to embark the best hopes and prospects of a free people. We have struggled long to bring about this revolution, by which we enjoy our present freedom and security. Why then this haste, this wild. precipitation."

Although Mr. Monroe only spoke two or three times, and in these briefly, after this, he held unalterably to his position, and said that "the arguments of gentlemen had no weight on his mind." He supported the bill of rights proposed by his friends in the convention, and insisted on their adoption, holding that it would be beneficial to the whole country, while taking nothing from the Federal Constitution. While opposing most features of the Constitution, he expressed a willingness to waive all other objections if the feature of taxation were taken from the instrument. On this point he appeared greatly alarmed. In fact, this was the theme on which most of his countrymen had been extravagant, or wild, or deranged for years, and now their baseless fears on the subject, in many cases, towered above their sense of impending

anarchy from the absence of a stable, reliable form of government.

With few exceptions the views of this speech were not in the least realized in the future; nor does there appear to be any thing in them on which to base a probable conjecture as to Mr. Monroe's own remarkable public advancement. In them there is little food for thought, and to attempt to hold them up as a study would be trifling with an intelligent people who have profited by both the errors and the wisdom of the past. Still, however contracted, boyish, and ridiculous these views of Mr. Monroe's may appear in the light of the present, they serve their purpose here in illustrating the early mental scope of a man whose long and successful public career was somewhat phenomenal in the ease of its various steps to himself.

Not satisfied with what he had done in the ratification convention, Mr. Monroe subsequently published an extensive address to the people of the State, setting forth more fully his objections to the Constitution, and defending his own course in the case. This address was printed in a double-column pamphlet of twenty-three pages, the only copy of which now in existence, perhaps, is to be found among what is facetiously termed the "Monroe Papers" in the Department of State at Washington.

The following is a digest of this remarkable paper :

It reviews, at length, the vastness of the questions involved, and the great obligations of the people to decide them correctly; refers in detail to the colonial independence of the States before the Revolution; various steps passed through to the present state of

the Union (1788); the necessities leading to the Union; the radical change proposed by the Constitution; the control of the National Government over the States; the nature of the powers of the General Government as eclipsing the States; recites the supposed bearing and effect of each article of the Constitution; and asks if the enormous powers of the Government could be extended.

It argues that the Constitution provided for a form of government which contained the seeds of its own ruin; the stronger the powers of government are, the more repellant will its qualities be; and the sooner its dissolution; at least, the conflict between the general and state governments would be more violent, and the ruin of one or all sooner follow; "a confederacy of principalities can not last;" the interests of the States. would make a sytem of bargaining in Congress; the old Confederation was inadequate and powerless, its foreign influence without effect; but all its defects. must exist in a league of independent States; and all these evils which are certain are to be compared with the probabilities of the proposed government. Is State Sovereignty a vain and illusory hope? Is there an alternative? There are two species of remedy. An annihilation of States, or a reduction of their powers. The removal of State governments would remove all objections to ineffectual and contentious government, a thing to be desired; to arrange all the people with undivided interests under one government and make them one people is an idea not only elevated and sublime, but equally benevolent and humane; eulogizes this sublime idea; and says that were it practicable, he would embrace the new government, and consider

the abolition of the State Legislatures as a most fortunate event for America; but could such a government be formed in such a vast territory and with such various interests, and all be protected justly; examines the character and results of ancient forms of government, approaching republican freedom and simplicity; finds the liberties of the people departing as the strength of the executive increased; the centering of great power in Congress would lead to fatal consequences, the extremes of liberty and individualism, and State conflicts. would lead to the same end; a middle course is the safe one, if it could be found; a general government over all the territory, with a qualified government in each State for local objects; but the difficulty of providing such a system was great; equitable terms without conflict were not possible; the new government was theoretically correct; rotation in office should never be abandoned; the electors of the people should control the executive choices, the legislative should be made of the representatives of the people, in regular rotation; approves the division of Congress into two branches; approves the financial powers accorded to the General Government, the impeachment, and other matters in the organization of the House; approves placing the executive power in the hands of one person, thus freeing it from State taint, but objects to the uncertain possibilities of the elections; objects to the term of service and organization of the Senate; fears the judiciary establishment, as likely to become immense in its powers; and above all things objects to the power of direct taxation in the hands of the General Government, and strangely thinks this provision would lead to universal anarchy.

However youthful was this whole performance, it was at that date Mr. Monroe's most considerable undertaking and is marked by his characteristic dispassionate style, and signified his disposition to put no further obstacle in the way of the act of the people.

In a letter to Mr. Jefferson in the summer of 1788, Mr. Monroe thus spoke of Washington:

"The conduct of General Washington on this occasion has no doubt been right and meritorious; all parties had acknowledged defects in the federal system, and been sensible of the propriety of some material change. To forsake the honorable retreat to which he had retired and risk the reputation he had so deservedly acquired, manifested a zeal for the public interest that could, after so many and illustrious services, and at this stage of life, scarcely have been expected from him. Having, however, commenced again on the public theater, the course which he takes becomes not only highly interesting to him, but likewise so to us; the human character is not perfect, and if he partakes of those qualities which we have too much reason to believe are almost inseparable from the frail nature of our being, the people of America will perhaps be lost. Be assured his influence carried this Government. For my own part, I have a boundless confidence in him, nor have I any reason to believe he will ever furnish occasion for withdrawing it. More is to be apprehended if he takes a part in the public counsels again, as he advances in age, from the designs of those around him than from any disposition of his own."

John Quincy Adams says in his Eulogy on Mr. Monroe:

"That Mr. Monroe, then, was one of those enlightened, faithful, and virtuous patriots, who opposed the adoption of the Contution, can no more detract from the eminence of his talents, or the soundness of his principles, than the project for the temporary abandonment of the right to navigate the Mississippi, can impair those of the eminent citizens of New York and Massachusetts, by whom that measure was proposed. During a statesman's life, an estimate of his motives will necessarily mingle itself with every judgment upon his conduct, and that judgment will often be