the organic law of the Union, and he was pecul iarly sensitive to constitutional objections to any given measure. In the case of the national bank, the objections were strongly as well as vigorously urged, and Washington paused, before signing, to the utmost limit of the time allowed. He turned

to Jefferson and Randolph, both opposed to the bill, and asked them for their objections to its constitutionality. They gave him in response two able reports. These he sent to Hamilton, who returned them with that most masterly argument, in which he not only defended the bank charter, but vindicated, in a manner never afterwards surpassed, the new doctrine of the implied powers of the Constitution. With both sides thus before him, Washington considered the question, and signed the bill.

Rives, in his "Life of Madison," intimates that Washington had doubts even after signing, but of this there is no evidence of any weight. He was not a man who indulged in doubts after he had made up his mind and rendered a decision, and it was not in his nature to fret over what had been done and was past, whether in war or peace. The story that he was worried about his action in this instance arose from his delay in signing, and from the disappointment of those who had hoped much from his hesitation. This pause, however, was both natural and characteristic. Washington had approved Morris's bank policy in the Revolution, and remembered the service it rendered. He was

familiar with Hamilton's views on the subject, and knew that they were the result of long study and careful thought. He must also have known that any financial policy devised by his Secretary of the Treasury would contain as an integral part a national bank. There can be no doubt that both the plan for the bank and the report which embodied it were submitted to him before they went in to Congress, but the violence of the objections raised there on constitutional grounds awakened his attention in a new direction. He saw at once the gravity of a question, which involved not merely the incorporation of a bank, but which opened up a new field of constitutional powers and constitutional construction. When such far-reaching results were involved he paused and reflected, and, as was always the case with him under such circumstances, listened to and examined all the arguments on both sides. This done he decided, and with his national feeling he could not have decided otherwise than he did. The doctrine of the implied powers of the Constitution was the greatest weapon possible for those whose leading thought was to develop the union of States into a great and imperial nation; and we may well believe that it was this feeling, and not merely faith in the bank as a financial engine, which led Washington to sign the bill. When he did so he assented to the charter of a national bank, but he also assented to the doctrine of the implied powers and gave to that far-reaching construction of the

Constitution the great weight of his name and character. It was, perhaps, the most important single act of his presidency.

It is impossible here, even were it necessary, to follow Washington's action in regard to all the details which went to make up and to sustain Hamilton's policy, to which, as a whole, Washington gave his hearty approval and support. The revenue system, the public lands, the arrangement of loans, the mint, all alike met with his active concurrence. He was too great a man not to value rightly Hamilton's work, and the way in which that work brought order, credit, honor, and prosperity out of a chaos of debt and bankruptcy appealed peculiarly to his own love for method, organization, and sound business principles. He met every criticism on Hamilton's policy without concession, and defended it when it was attacked. To Hamilton's genius that policy must be credited, but it gained its success and strength largely from the firm support of Washington.

There are two matters, however, connected with the Treasury Department, which cannot be passed over in this general way. One was a policy reasoned out and published by Hamilton, but never during his lifetime put into the form of law in the broad and systematic manner which he desired. The other was a consequence of his financial policy as adopted, but which reached far beyond the bounds of financial arrangements. The first was the policy set forth in Hamilton's Report on Man

The second was the enforcement of the

ufactures.
excise and its results.

The defense of our commerce against foreign discriminations was a proximate cause of the movement which resulted in the Constitution of the United States, and closely allied to it was the anxious wish to develop our internal resources and our domestic industry. This idea was not at all new. Sporadic attempts to start and carry on various industries had been made during the colonial period. They had all failed, either because the watchful mother-country took pains to stifle them, or because lack of capital and experience, in addition to foreign competition, killed them almost at their birth. The idea of developing American industries was generally diffused for the first time when the colonists strove to bring England to terms by non-intercourse acts. The Americans then thought that they could carry their points by making war upon the British pocket, and excluding English merchants from their markets. The next step, of course, was to supply their own markets themselves; and the non-intercourse agreements, which were economically prohibitory tariff acts, gave a fitful impulse to various simple industries. In the clash of arms this idea naturally dropped out of the popular mind, but it began to revive soon after the return of peace. The government of the confederation was too feeble to adopt any policy in this or any other matter, but in the first Congress the desire to develop American industries found

VOL. IL.

expression. The first tariff was laid primarily to raise the revenue so sorely needed at that moment. But the effort to do this gave rise to a debate in which the policy of protection, strongly advocated by the Pennsylvanian members, was freely discussed. Nobody, however, at that time, had any comprehensive plan or general system, so that the efforts for protection were incoherent, and resulted only in certain special protective features in the tariff bill, and not in a broad and well-rounded measure. Still the protective idea was there; it was recognized in the preamble of the act, and the constitutionality of the policy was affirmed by the framers and contemporaries of the Constitution.

Hamilton, of course, watched all these movements intently. His guiding thought in all things was the creation of a great nation. For this he strove for national unity and national sentiment, and he saw of course that one essential condition of national greatness was industrial independence, in addition to the political independence already won. One of the greatest thinkers of the time on all matters of public finance and political economy, he perceived at once that the irregular attempts of Congress to encourage home industries could have at best but partial results. He saw that a system broad, just, and continental in its scope must take the place of the isolated industries which now and again obtained an uncertain protection under the haphazard measures of Congress. With these views and purposes he wrote and sent to