er promulgated. If the silence of the Constitution
on the subject must, as Jefferson had maintained, be taken as forbidding
Congress and the Executive to charter a bank, how much more must a
similar silence forbid them to expend millions in acquiring vast new
territories beyond the borders of the Confederacy. In point of fact,
Jefferson himself believed the step he and Congress were taking to be
beyond their present powers, and would have preferred to have asked for
a Constitutional Amendment to authorize it. But he readily gave way on
this to those who represented that such a course would give the
malcontent minority their chance, and perhaps jeopardize the whole
scheme. The fact is, that "State Rights" were not to Jefferson a first
principle, but a weapon which he used for the single purpose of
resisting oligarchy. His first principle, in which he never wavered for
a moment, was that laid down in the "Declaration"--the sovereignty of
the General Will. To him Federalism was nothing and State Sovereignty
was nothing but the keeping of the commandments of the people. Judged by
this test, both his opposition to Hamilton's bank and his purchase of
the Louisiana territory were justified; for on both occasions the nation
was with him.

Jefferson's inconsistency, therefore, if inconsistency it were, brought
him little discredit. It was far otherwise with the inconsistency of the
Federalists. For they also changed sides, and of their case it may be
said that, like Milton's Satan, they "rode with darkness." The most
respectable part of their original political creed was their
nationalism, their desire for unity, and their support of a strong
central authority. Had this been really the dominant sentiment of their
connection, they could not but have supported Jefferson's policy, even
though they might not too unfairly have reproached him with stealing
their thunder. For not only was Jefferson's act a notable example of
their own theory of "broad construction" of the Constitution, but it was
perhaps a more fruitful piece of national statesmanship than the best of
Hamilton's measures, and it had a direct tendency to promote and
perpetuate that unity which the Federalists professed to value so
highly, for it gave to the States a new estate of vast extent and
incalculable potentialities, which they must perforce rule and develop
in common. But the Federalists forgot everything, even common prudence,
in their hatred of the man who had