easury and obliged to lend it, through good and evil repute, a
perennial and corrupt support. The two versions are really only
different ways of stating the same thing. To a democrat such a standing
alliance between the Government and the rich will always seem a corrupt
thing--nay, the worst and least remediable form of corruption. To a man
of Hamilton's temper it seemed merely the necessary foundation of a
stable political equilibrium. Thus the question of the Bank really
brought the two parties which were growing up in the Cabinet and in the
nation to an issue which revealed the irreconcilable antagonism of their
principles.

The majority in Congress was with Hamilton; but his opponents appealed
to the Constitution. They denied the competency of Congress under that
instrument to establish a National Bank. When the Bill was in due course
sent to Washington for signature he asked the opinions of his Cabinet on
the constitutional question, and both Hamilton and Jefferson wrote very
able State Papers in defence of their respective views. After some
hesitation Washington decided to sign the Bill and to leave the question
of constitutional law to the Supreme Court. In due course it was
challenged there, but Marshal, the Chief Justice, was a decided
Federalist, and gave judgment in favour of the legality of the Bank.

The Federalists had won the first round. Meanwhile the party which
looked to Jefferson as leader was organizing itself. It took the name of
"Republican," as signifying its opposition to the alleged monarchical
designs of Hamilton and his supporters. Later, when it appeared that
such a title was really too universal to be descriptive, the
Jeffersonians began to call themselves by the more genuinely
characteristic title of "Democratic Republicans," subsequently
abbreviated into "Democrats." That name the party which, alone among
American parties, can boast an unbroken historic continuity of more than
a century, retains to this day.

At the end of his original term of four years, Washington was prevailed
upon to give way to the universal feeling of the nation and to accept a
second term. No party thought of opposing him, but a significant
division appeared over the Vice-Presidency. The Democrats ran Clinton
against John Adams of Massachusetts, and though they failed there
appeared in the voting a significant alliance, which was to determine
the politics of a generation. New York State, breaking away from her
No