CHAPTER III.

A

LIFE IN BALTIMORE.

A. D. 1823-1836.

S Mr. Taney will be seen occupying high posts in

the Federal Government at important political crises, it is necessary, before sketching his life in Baltimore, to take a view of the nature and the working of the Federal Government, in order to judge of the wisdom and the patriotism of his conduct in those positions. Unless we have before our minds the nature of the Federal Government, and the tendency of its working disclosed in our political history, we cannot judge of the acts of the functionaries who are employed in its administration. It is by the nature of the Government that the legitimate policy of its administration must be determined. The two great parties which have striven for the control of the Government, were formed, as we shall see, because of their opposite views of the powers of Government granted by the Constitution, and of the opposite policy upon which they respectively sought to administer the GovMr. Taney's conduct, as an officer of the Federal Government, must be judged by his view of the Federal Constitution and his judgment of the ten

ernment.

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And

dency in the working of the Government. whether his view of the Constitution, and his judgment of the tendency in the working of the Government, be true or not, can only be tested by the history of the country down to the present time.

In order to judge of the nature of the Federal Government, we must recur to its origin.

So little inclined were the American colonies to form a political union, that it was only to defend their respective liberties against a common enemy that they formed a confederation. As soon as the pressure of the war with England was withdrawn by peace, the colonies, then independent States, were dissatisfied with the confederation, because of its inefficiency, and determined to form a more perfect union. Accordingly, a convention of delegates, appointed by the several States, each acting for itself, met in Philadelphia, in 1787, and framed a Federal Constitution, which was submitted to the several States for ratification, on condition, when ratified by nine States, it should be binding between the nine. After a thorough discussion of its merits and demerits, the Constitution was adopted by eleven States; and the other two finally came into the Union, and the Federal Constitution became a constitutional compact between the thirteen States.

It was in accordance with the laws that regulate the progress of society, that the Federal Government then

formed was one of only delegated powers. When independent States form a common government, it is always federative in its character. The individuality of the States is never merged; even though, in the working of the Government, the States finally become absorbed by the irresistible forces of centralization.

Of all the great Governments which have appeared in the progress of society, our Federal Government is the only one which has been framed by political architects. The leagues of States in ancient times were not Governments. Neither were those in modern times. They answered a temporary purpose. The most memorable Government of ancient times, the Roman, rather grew than was built. The organizing hands of statesmen, from time to time, only adapted it to the changes in society by incorporating into it new provisions. And the most celebrated Government of modern times, and the most glorious in achieving the great ends of political institutions, that of England, — though from Magna Charta downwards it shows, from time to time, the hands of master-builders, -is, nevertheless, rather a growth than a product of human wisdom. But the Government of the United States, from its very foundations, is the work of political architects. The State Governments were framed first by the statesmen of the several States. Then came the great work of forming a common Government for all the States. And never before, in the history of

nations, as if ordered by Providence to meet the experiment of a great republic, did such an assembly of wise statesmen meet for any purpose. The great men were the sons of the separate colonies, educated to the great work by their separate fostering care. Νο monarchy, no empire, no great centralized State, in the long history of man striving after security for person and property, has ever nurtured at her bosom such sons. Their profound and comprehensive views of government, their transcendent powers as writers, their surpassing eloquence, constitute them the greatest assembly that, in the order of Providence, has ever been called together for the accomplishment of a great purpose in the in the progress of society. The great statesmen, born of the separate colonies, conscious of their own greatness, though reared in such small, isolated, communities, felt that the separate States must be preserved to rear up, by their separate special influences, great men in after times to administer the general Government which they had ordained and established. And the political instincts of the peoples of the several States, serving them in the stead of a well-reasoned political creed, would have rejected any constitution that abolished the sovereignty of the States.

The polity, accordingly, established by the Constitution of the United States, while it embraces all the powers relating to foreign relations, has the grant of only general powers relating to the internal interests

of the country, leaving to the several States large reserved political rights.

It was inevitable, in the working of such a Government, that two great political parties should spring up -one construing the Constitution so as to claim the largest powers for the Government, and the other construing it so as to limit the powers to those expressly granted. In the Federal convention that framed the Constitution, and in the separate conventions of the several States that ratified and adopted it, there were two great opposing parties-the Federal and the antiFederal. The first was for establishing a centralized Government, and the latter was for reserving the sovereignty of the States. The same parties, as we shall see, appeared as soon as the Government went into operation, each striving, by construction, to make the Government what each wished to make it in the convention which framed it. One retains its name, Federal, while the other assumes the name Republican.

It was on the 4th of March, 1789, that the Government of the United States went into operation, though General Washington was not inaugurated as President until the 30th of April.

General Washington appointed to his Cabinet the two leading minds of the country-Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, and Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State. These two statesmen