has already done so, almost to the
final dissolution of it. Weak at home, and disregarded abroad, is our
present condition, and contemptible enough it is."

"Thirteen governments," he wrote on the fifteenth of August, "pulling
against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring
ruin on the whole; whereas, a liberal and energetic constitution, well
checked and well watched, to prevent encroachments, might restore us to
that degree of respectability and consequence to which we had the
fairest prospect of attaining." And again: "I confess that my opinion of
public virtue is so far changed, that I have my doubts whether any
system, without means of coercion in the sovereign, will enforce due
obedience to the ordinances of a general government, without which
everything else fails."

Although Washington took no part in the debates of the convention, his
opinions, concurrent with those of Hamilton, were firmly and strongly
expressed, and had great influence. The constitution as finally framed
and adopted did not receive his unqualified approval. He had decided
objections to several of its features; but he accepted it as a whole, as
the best that could be obtained under the circumstances, firmly
persuaded that it was a great step in advance of the confederation, and
that experience in its workings would suggest necessary amendments, for
which ample provision was made. In fact, the instrument did not wholly
please a single member of the convention. It was, to a considerable
extent, a patchwork of compromises, and many doubted its being ratified
by a majority of the states.

Hamilton regarded the constitution as adopted with feelings of
disappointment. It lacked the strength that he desired it to possess;
but, like Washington, he yielded his private sentiments and impulses to
the consideration of the public good. His own plan, which he had urged
with all his eloquence and energy, differed radically from the one
adopted; yet, with a nobleness of spirit which challenges our highest
admiration, he sacrificed the pride of opinion, and when the
constitution had passed the ordeal of severest criticism and amendment
by the convention, he avowed himself ready to sign it, and urged others,
who hesitated, to do the same "No man's ideas are more remote from the
plan than my own," he said; "but is it possible to deliberate between
anarchy and confusion on one side, and the chance of good on the other."

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