Page:History of Freedom.djvu/626

 582

ESSAYS ON LIBERTY

who was as strong as Hamilton on the side of federalism, testifies heavily against him as a leader: "More a theoretic than a practical man, he was not sufficiently convinced that a system may be good in itself, and bad in relation to particular circumstances. He well knew that his favourite form was inadmissible, unless as the result of civil war; and I suspect that his belief in that which he called an approaching crisis arose from a convic- tion that the kind of government most suitable, in his opinion, to this extensive country, could be established in no other way. . . . He trusted, moreover, that in the changes and chances of time we should be involved in some war, which might strengthen our union and nerve the executive. He was of all men the most indiscreet. He knew that a limited monarchy, even if established, . could not preserve itself in this country. . . . He never failed, on every occasion, to advocate the excellence of L and avow his attachment to, monarchical government. . . . Thus, meaning very well, he acted very ill, and ap- proached the evils he apprehended by his very solicitude to keep them at a distance." The language of Adams is more severe; but Adams was an enemy. It has been justly said that" he wished good men, as he termed them, to rule; meaning the wealthy, the well-born, the socially eminent." The federalists have suffered somewhat from this imputation; for a prejudice against any group claiming to serve under that flag is among the bequests of the French Revolution. "Les honnêtes gens ont toujours peur: c'est leur nature," is a maxim of Chateau- briand. A man most divergent and unlike him, Mcnou, had drawn the same conclusion: "En révolution i1 ne faut jamais se mettre du côté des honnêtes gens: ils sont toujours balayés." And Royer Collard, with the candour one shows in describing friends, said: "C'est Ie parti des honnêtes gens qui est Ie moins honnête de tous les partis. Tout Ie monde, même dans ses erreurs, était honnête à l'assemblée constituante, excepté Ie côté droit." Hamilton stands higher as a political philosopher than as an America partisan. Europeans are generally liberal for