representative of her sovereignty, and he felt that deference was due to him from the President of the United States when they both stood on the soil of Massachusetts. He did not meet Washington on his arrival, and Washington thereupon did not dine with the governor as he had agreed to do. It looked a little stormy. Here was evidently a man with some new views as to the sovereignty of States and the standing of the union of States. It might have done for Governor Hancock to allow the President of Congress to pass out of Massachusetts without seeing its governor, and thereby learn a valuable lesson, but it would never do to have such a thing happen in the case of George Washington, no matter what office he might hold. A little after noon on Sunday, October 26, therefore, the governor wrote a note to the President, apologiz ing for not calling before, and asking if he might call in half an hour, even though it was at the hazard of his health. Washington answered at once, expressing his pleasure at the prospect of seeing his excellency, but begging him, with a touch of irony, not to do anything to endanger his health. So in half an hour Hancock appeared. Picturesque, even if defeated, he was borne up-stairs on men's shoulders, swathed in flannels, and then and there made his call. The old house in Boston where this happened has had since then a series of successors, but the ground on which it stood has been duly remembered and commemorated. It is a more important spot than we are wont to think;

for there it was settled, on that autumn Sunday, that the idea that the States were able to own and to bully the confederacy they had formed was dead, and that the President of the new United States was henceforth to be regarded as the official superior of every governor in the land. It was a mere question of etiquette, nothing more. But how the general government would have sunk in popular estimation if the President had not asserted, with perfect dignity and yet entire firmness, its position! Men are governed very largely by impressions, and Washington knew it. Hence his settling at once and forever the question of precedence between the Union and the States. Everywhere and at all times, according to his doctrine, the nation was to be first.1

So the President travelled on to the north, and then back by another road to New York, and that excellent bit of work in familiarizing the people with their federal government was accomplished. Meantime the wheels had started, the machine was in motion, and the chief officers were at their places. The preliminary work had been done, and the next step was to determine what policies should be adopted, and to find out if the new system could really perform the task for which it had been created.

1 The most lately published contemporary account of this affair with Hancock can be found in the Magazine of American History, June, 1888, p. 508, entitled "Incidents in the Life of John Hancock, as related by Dorothy Quincy Hancock Scott (from the Diary of Gen. W. H. Sumner)"

He had seen him leave his side in a tempest of boyish rage, and he had watched him charging with splendid gallantry the Yorktown redoubts. He was familiar with Hamilton's wonderful mastery of financial and political problems, and he had found him a powerful leader in the work of forming the Constitution. He understood Hamilton's strength, and he knew where his dangers lay. Now he called him to his cabinet, and gave into his hands the department on which the immediate success of the government hinged. It was a brilliant choice. The mark in his lifetime for all the assaults of his political opponents, the leader and the victim of the schism which rent his own party, Hamilton, after his death, was made the target for attack and reprobation by his political foes who for nearly sixty years, with few intermissions, controlled the government. His work, however, could not be undone, and as passions have subsided his fame has proved to be of that highest and rarest kind, which broadens and rises with the lapse of years, until in the light of history it overtops that of any of our statesmen, except his own great chief and Abraham Lincoln.The work to which he was called was that of organizing a national government, and in the performance of this work he showed that he belonged to the highest type of constructive statesmen, and was one of the rare men who build, and whose building stands the test of time.

Last to be mentioned, but first in rank, was the

Department of State. For this high place Washington chose Thomas Jefferson, who was then our minister in Paris, and who did not return to take up his official duties until the following March. Of the four cabinet offices, this was the only one where Washington proceeded entirely on public grounds. He took Jefferson on account of his wide reputa tion, his unquestioned ability, his standing before the country, and his experience in our foreign relations. With the other three there was a strong element of personal friendship and familiarity. With the Secretary of State his intercourse had been, so far as we can judge, almost wholly of a public character, and so far as can be inferred from an expression of some years before, the selection was made by Washington in deference simply to what he believed to be the public interest. The only allusion to Jefferson in all the printed volumes of correspondence prior to 1789 occurs in a letter to Robert Livingston, of January 8, 1783. He there said: "What office is Mr. Jefferson appointed to that he has, you say, lately accepted? If it is that of commissioner of peace, I hope he will arrive too late to have any hand in it." There is no indication that their personal relations were then or afterwards other than pleasant. Yet this brief sentence is a strong expression of distrust, and especially so from the fact that Washington was not at all given to criticising other people in his letters. What he distrusted was not Jefferson's ability, for that no man could doubt, still less his patriotism.

But Washington read character well, and he felt that Jefferson might be lacking in the qualities of boldness and determination, so needful in a negotiation like that which resulted in the acknowledgment of our independence.

The truth was that the two men were radically different, and never could have been sympathetic. Washington was strong, direct, masculine, and at times fierce in anger. Jefferson was adroit, subtle, and feminine in his sensitiveness. Washington was essentially a fighting man, tamed by a stern self-control from the recklessness of his early days, but always a fighter. Jefferson was a lover of peace, given to quiet, hating quarrels and bloodshed, and at times timid in dealing with public questions. Washington was deliberate and conservative, after the fashion of his race. Jefferson was quick, impressionable, and always fascinated by new notions, even if they were somewhat fantastic. A thoroughly liberal and open-minded man, Washington never turned a deaf ear to any new suggestion, whether it was a public policy or a mechanical invention, but to all alike he gave careful consideration before he adopted them. To Jefferson, on the other hand, mere novelty had a peculiar charm, and he jumped at any device, either to govern a state or improve a plough, provided that it had the flavor of ingenuity. The two men might easily have thought the same concerning the republic, but they started from opposite poles, and no full communion of thought and feeling was pos