satisfied Hamilton, who had actually at one
time withdrawn from the Convention in protest against its refusal to
accept his views. Jefferson's criticisms, such as they were, related
mostly to matters of detail: some of them were just and some were
subsequently incorporated in amendments. But there is ample evidence
that for none of them was he prepared to go the length of opposing or
even delaying the settlement. It is also worth noting that none of them
related to the balance of power between the Federal and State
Governments, upon which Jefferson is often loosely accused of holding
extreme particularist views. As a fact he never held such views. His
formula that "the States are independent as to everything within
themselves and united as to everything respecting foreign nations" is
really a very good summary of the principles upon which the
Constitution is based, and states substantially the policy which all the
truest friends of the Union have upheld. But he was committed out and
out to the principle of popular government, and when it became obvious
that the Federalists under Hamilton's leadership were trying to make the
central government oligarchical, and that they were very near success,
Jefferson quite legitimately invoked and sought to confirm the large
powers secured by the Constitution itself to the States for the purpose
of obstructing their programme.

It was some time, however, before the antagonism between the two
Secretaries became acute, and meanwhile the financial genius of Hamilton
was reducing the economic chaos bequeathed by the war to order and
solvency. All of his measures showed fertility of invention and a
thorough grasp of his subject; some of them were unquestionably
beneficial to the country. But a careful examination will show how
closely and deliberately he was imitating the English model which we
know to have been present to his mind. He established a true National
Debt similar to that which Montague had created for the benefit of
William of Orange. In this debt he proposed to merge the debts of the
individual States contracted during the War of Independence. Jefferson
saw no objection to this at the time, and indeed it was largely through
his favour that a settlement was made which overcame the opposition of
certain States.

This settlement had another interest as being one of the perennial
geographical compromises by means of which the Union was for so long
preserved. The support of Ham