interpretation of the Constitution or the forms of administration with
which Mr. Gallatin interested himself. From the day of his first
appearance he commanded the attention and the respect of his fellows.
The leadership of his party fell to him as of course. It was not grasped
by him. He was never a partisan. He never waived his entire
independence of judgment. His ingenuity and adroitness never tempted him
to untenable positions. Hence his party followed him with implicit
confidence. Yet while the debates of Congress, imperfectly reported as
they seem to be in its annals, show the deference paid to him by the
Republican leaders, and display the great share he took in the
definition of powers and of administration as now understood, his name
is hardly mentioned in history. Jefferson and Madison became presidents
of the United States. They, with Gallatin, formed the triumvirate which
ruled the country for sixteen years. Gallatin was the youngest of the
three.[9] To this political combination Gallatin brought a knowledge of
constitutional law equal to their own, a knowledge of international law
superior to that of either, and a habit of practical administration of
which they had no conception. The Republican party lost its chief when
Gallatin left the House; from that day it floundered to its close.

In the balance of opinion there are no certain weights and measures. The
preponderance of causes cannot be precisely ascertained. The freedom
which the people of the United States enjoy to-day is not the work of
any one party. Those who are descended from its original stock, and
those whom its free institutions have since invited to full membership,
owe that freedom to two causes: the one, formulated by Hamilton, a
strong, central power, which, deriving its force from the people,
maintains its authority at home and secures respect abroad; the other,
the spirit of liberty which found expression in the famous declaration
of the rights of man. This influence Jefferson represented. It taught
the equality of man; not equality before the law alone, nor yet
political equality, but that absolute freedom from class distinction
which is true social equality; in a word, mutual respect. But for
Hamilton we might be a handful of petty States, in discordant
confederation or perpetual war; but for Jefferson, a prey to the class
jealousy which unsettles the social relations and threatens the
political existence of European States.

FOOTN