manners were coming on the
scene, and among them the opposition to Hamilton had found a new leader--
William Branch Giles of Virginia. He was a Princeton graduate of the class
of 1781, had studied for the bar, and had been admitted to practice in
1786. To the full legal equipment of the period he added an energy and an
audacity that speedily brought him legal and political distinction. He was
active and outspoken in advocating the adoption of the new Constitution,
at a time when popular sentiment in Virginia was strongly inclined to be
adverse. He had no hesitation about undertaking unpopular causes, and
hence British debt cases became a marked feature of his practice. Virginia
State law had suspended the recovery of debts due British subjects until
reparation had been made for the loss of negro slaves taken away by the
British during the war, and until the western posts had been surrendered.
But the peace treaty of 1783 stipulated that creditors on neither side
should meet with lawful impediment in the recovery of debts, and by the
new Constitution treaties had become part of the law of the land. On the
basis of a national jurisdiction in conflict with the Virginia statutes,
Giles acted so energetically, that he himself related that by 1792 he had
been employed in at least one hundred British debt cases, and was "as
successful in collecting monies under judgments as is usually the case
with citizens."

Comprehension of the true nature of the struggle in which Giles became
conspicuous must start with the fact that the Constitution was reluctantly
accepted and with great uneasiness as to possible consequences. In the
Virginia convention of 1788, it was declared that the new Constitution was
essentially a scheme of the military men to subject the people to their
rule. This argument was not so much met as avoided by the declaration that
there could be no tyranny while Washington lived. The rejoinder was
obvious: what if he should not be able to withstand military influence?
What if, in spite of him, the government should be given a dangerous
character that would develop after he passed away? Jefferson had felt
misgivings on this score from the first, and Madison experienced them as
soon as differences on practical measures arose between himself and
Hamilton. Jefferson and Madison wanted the government to be made
respectable but not strong. Hamilton saw what they could not see--and
indeed what few at that time could see--th