Page:Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.djvu/21

Rh subserve the purposes of securing a permanent union of the States, and of rendering that union secure against foreign interference; and earnestly desired the widest latitude for the exercise of State and personal liberty in domestic affairs; and these natural proclivities had been confirmed and strengthened by his residence in France. Madison was by nature very moderate in his views. In early life his position leaned rather towards the conservative and centralizing party, and in the last years of his life he returned to the same position, but under the influence of his great chief and the irresistible current of opinion in Virginia he assumed from the time of the first Congress forth a position not to be distinguished from that of Mr. Jefferson so long as the latter lived.

It is safe to say that a large part of those who became known after the adoption of the Constitution as Anti-Federalists, were old Federalists who considered the end they had labored to secure as attained when the Constitution was put into effect. They had regarded a strong central government as only a less evil than dismemberment, and when the latter fate was averted they winced at every act that carried the system they had helped to inaugurate into efficient action. The period of Washington's administration was almost entirely consumed in the work of organizing the new government and carrying out the provisions of the Constitution. The aspect of affairs when a vigorous nation, fully equipped, with all the insignia of power, had supplanted the weak and visionary federation was not