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Rh upon Hamilton's financial measures as secretary of the treasury, and in this division we see Madison acting as leader of the opposition. By many writers this has been regarded as indicating a radical change of attitude on his part, and sundry explana- tions have been offered to account for the presumed inconsistency. lie has been supposed to have suc- cumbed to the personal influence of Jefferson, and to have yielded his own convictions to the desires and prejudices of his constituents. Such explana- tions are hardly borne out by what we know of jMr. Madison's career up to this point ; and, moreover, they are uncalled for. If we consider carefully the circumstances of the time, the presumed inconsist- ency in his conduct disappears. The new Repub- lican party, of which he soon became one of the leaders, was something quite different in its atti- tude from the anti-Federalist party of 1787-'90. There was ample room in it for men who in these critical years had been stanch Federalists, and as time passed this came to be more and more the case, until after a quarter of a century the entire Federalist party, with the exception of a few in- flexible men in New England, had been absorbed by the Republican party. In 1790, since the Fed- eral constitution had been actually adopted, and was going into operation, and since the extent of power that it granted to the general government must be gradually tested by the discussion of specific meas- ures, it followed that the only natural and healthful division of parties must be the division between strict and loose constructionists. It was to be ex- pected that anti-Federalists would become strict constructionists, and so most of them did, though examples were not wanting of such men swinging to the opposite extreme of polities, and advocating an extension of the powers of the Federal govern- ment. But there was no reason in the world why a Federalist of 1787-'90 must thereafter, in order to preserve his consistency, become a loose con- structionist. It was entirely consistent for a states- man to advocate the adoption of the constitution, while convinced that the powers specifically granted therein to the general government were ample, and that great care should be taken not to add indefi- nitely to such powers through rash and loose methods of interpretation. Not only is such an attitude perfectly reasonable in itself, but it is, in particular, the one that a principal author of the constitution would have been very likely to take ; and no doubt it was just this attitude that Mr. Madison took in the early sessions of congress. The occasions on which he assumed it were, more- over, eminently proper, and afford an admirable illustration of the difference in temper and mental habit between himself and Hamilton. The latter had always more faith in the heroic treatment of political questions than Madison. The restoration of American credit in 1790 was a task that de- manded heroic measures, and it was fortunate that we had such a man as Hamilton to undertake it. But undoubtedly the assumption of state debts by the Federal government, however admirably it met the emergency of the moment, was such a measure as might easily create a dangerous precedent, and there was certainly nothing strange or inconsistent in Madison's opposition to it. A similar explana- tion will cover his opposition to Hamilton's national bank; and indeed, with the considerations here given as a clew, there is little or nothing in Mr. Madison's career in congress that is not thoroughly intelligible. At the time, however, the Federalists, disappointed at losing a man of so much power, misunderstood his acts and misrepresented his motives, and the old friendship between him and Hamilton gave way to mutual distrust and dislike. Mr. Madison sympathized with the French revolu- tionists, though he did not go so far in this direc- tion as Jefferson. In the debates upon Jay's treaty with Great Britain he led the opposition, and sup- ported the resolution asking President Washington to submit to the house of representatives copies of the papers relating to the negotiation. The reso- lution was passed, but Washington refused on the ground that the making of treaties was intrusted by the constitution to the president and the senate, and that the lower house was not entitled to med- dle with their work.

At the close of Washington's second administra- tion Mr. Madison retired for a brief season from public life. During this difficult period the coun- try had been fortunate in having, as leader of the opposition in congress, a man so wise in counsel, so temperate in spirit, and so courteous in demeanor. Whatever else might be said of Madison's conduct in opposition, it could never be called factious ; it was calm, generous, and disinterested. About two years before the close of his career in congress he married Mrs. Dolly Payne Todd, a beautiful widow, much younger than himself : and about this time he seems to have built the house at Montpelier. which was to be his home during his later years. But retirement from public life, in any real sense of the phrase, was not yet possible for such a man. The wrath of the French government over Jay's treaty led to depredations upon American shipping, to the sending of commissioners to Paj'is, and to the blackmailing attempts of Talleyrand, as shown up in the X. Y. Z. despatches. (See Adams. John.)

In the fierce outburst of indignation that in Ameri- ca greeted these disclosures, in the sudden desire for war with France, which went so far as to vent itself in actual fighting on the sea, though war was never declared, the Federalist party believed itself to be so strong that it proceeded at once to make one of the greatest blunders ever made by a politi- cal party, in passing the alien and sedition acts. This high-handed legislation caused a sudden rex'ulsion of feeling in favor of the Republicans, and called forth vigorous remonstrance. Party feeling has, perhaps, never in this country been so bitter, except just before the civil war. A series of resolutions, drawn up by Mr. Madison, was adopted in 1798 by the legislature of Virginia, while a similar series, still more pronounced, drawTi up by Mr. Jefferson, was adopted in the same year by the legislature of Kentucky. The Virginia resolutions asserted with truth that, in adopting the Federal constitution, the states had surren- dered only a limited portion of their powers : and went on to declare that, whenever the Federal government should exceed its constitutional au- thority, it was the business of the state govern- ments to interfere and pronounce such action un- constitutional. Accordinglv, Virginia declared the