the rapidity of a
mushroom, and like a mushroom is withering on its rootless stalk. Are
those men _federalized_ to support the liberties of their country or to
overturn them? To add to its fair fame or riot on its spoils? The
name contains no defined idea. It is like John Adams's definition of a
Republic, in his letter to Mr. Wythe of Virginia.(2) _It is_, says he,
_an empire of laws and not of men_. But as laws may be bad as well as
good, an empire of laws may be the best of all governments or the worst
of all tyrannies. But John Adams is a man of paradoxical heresies, and
consequently of a bewildered mind. He wrote a book entitled, "_A Defence
of the American Constitutions_," and the principles of it are an attack
upon them. But the book is descended to the tomb of forgetfulness, and
the best fortune that can attend its author is quietly to follow its
fate. John was not born for immortality. But, to return to Federalism.

1 National Intelligencer, Nov. 23d, 1802.--_Editor._

2 Chancellor Wythe, 1728-1806.--_Editor._ vol m--"5

In the history of parties and the names they assume, it often happens
that they finish by the direct contrary principles with which they
profess to begin, and thus it has happened with Federalism.

During the time of the old Congress, and prior to the establishment of
the federal government, the continental belt was too loosely buckled.
The several states were united in name but not in fact, and that nominal
union had neither centre nor circle. The laws of one state frequently
interferred with, and sometimes opposed, those of another. Commerce
between state and state was without protection, and confidence without
a point to rest on. The condition the country was then in, was aptly
described by Pelatiah Webster, when he said, "_thirteen staves and ne'er
a hoop will not make a barrel_."(1)

If, then, by _Federalist_ is to be understood one who was for cementing
the Union by a general government operating equally over all the States,
in all matters that embraced the common interest, and to which the
authority of the States severally was not adequate, for no one State
can make laws to bind another; if, I say, by a _Federalist_ is meant
a person of this description, (and this is the origin of the name,) _I
ought to stand first on the list of Federalists_, for the proposition
for establishing a general government over the Union, came originally
from me in 1783, in a written Memorial to