hereafter submitted, which, if any thing can prove a negative, will prove that the purpose and thought, in the particular case, were equally absent from both.

It is unnecessary to say much, in this place, about Mr. Madison's draught of a Farewell Address. It is printed at length in Mr. Sparks's edition of Washington's Writings. It is a rather curt paper, not occupying in the whole three full pages of Mr. Sparks's Appendix, even with an alternative clause, which was to be omitted, if the notification of Washington's purpose to retire, and the expression of his counsels and cautions, should make but one paper. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Mr. Madison, at that time, may have known himself to be drawn further away from the policy of Washington, than Washington was aware of. His feelings of delicacy in the transaction may have been heightened by the circumstance. The fact is historically true; and Madison's draught foreshadowed the proof of it. Madison confined himself, in his draught, mainly to a repetition of Washington's suggestions, developing them to a very moderate extent only, and not using at all the power delegated to him, to comprehend other topics. He aimed, as his reply to Washington imports, at that plainness and modesty of language which Washington had in view, to the extent, as Washington's copy of this paper in his own original draught, will show, of making him speak of his own "very fallible judg“ment,” of which Washington had not spoken in his letter, and of his "inferior qualifications for the trust”—a disclaimer of what the unprejudiced part of the world knew him to possess in a remarkable degree; and did little more, and says himself that he "had little more to do, as to the "matter, than to follow the just and comprehensive outline

"which Washington had sketched." In one particular, and it was an awakening one, Mr. Madison fell short of even this.

It may be observed, that Washington's language, in the fourth of the topics expressly suggested by him to Madison, is very explicit. In that paragraph the principle assumed is, that, “however necessary it may be to keep a watchful "eye over public servants and public measures,”—and Washington affirms nothing in regard to this necessity,he does affirm distinctly, that "there ought to be limits to "it; for unfounded suspicions and jealousies too lively, are "irritating to honest feelings, and oftentimes are more pro“ductive of evil than good.

Every one knows that Washington had been stung and irritated by the party arrows that were shot at him personally, as well as at certain members of his administration; but the breadth and depth of this irritation, and the direction in which it spread, are not so well known. Some of his papers reveal it with little disguise. He therefore meant to assert, in the paragraph referred to, that a liberal confidence in public servants was, in such a government as ours, the true principle, and a watchful eye only a qualification of that principle. Madison's draught, on the contrary, places among the vows which Washington would carry to his retirement and to his grave, "that its administration, in every department, may be stamped with wisdom and virtue, "and that this character may be insured to it, by that watch"fulness which, on one hand, will be necessary to prevent or "correct a degeneracy, and that forbearance, on the other, "from unfounded or indiscriminate jealousies, which would "deprive the public of the best services, by depriving a "conscious integrity of the noblest incitements to perform "them."

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This seems to have been rather an inversion of Washington's meaning, than even a dilution of it; for by position, as well as by force of the terms, it affirms watchfulness to be the principle, and forbearance the qualification. Though Washington may have observed this, he retained this form of statement, in so much of the paper he afterwards prepared as was taken from Madison's draught, restating, however, in the initial and final paragraphs of his own section of that paper, the vital part of the same sentiment, which he had thus emphasized in his letter to Madison. Hamilton certainly observed it, and Washington finally held to a less questionable expression of his views, as will be seen hereafter; and it will also be seen that Hamilton brings forward in his original draught, modified by himself or Washington afterwards, the substance of Washington's principle, and philosophically supports it by a distinction between "governments of a monarchical character "or bias," and governments of a merely elective and popular kind.

The proposition of Washington, in his letter to Madison, might be regarded as true in the abstract, supposing a democracy to possess virtue, the "one spring more," which Montesquieu thinks is necessary to it. But the past experience of our own institutions, compels us to regard it practically as Utopian. If it was not applied in our first and purest administration of government, it is not likely to be applied in any. Mr. Madison must have known, from the res gestæ of times then shortly past and passing before him, that he could not safely commit himself, even as a representative pen, to the plain enunciation of Washington's principle. Hamilton also, perhaps, saw that it was impracticable;

but he knew it to be Washington's pure and noble thought, and therefore clothed it in the safest terms in his draught of an Address.

As Washington surrendered his wish to retire at the end of his first term of office, the use of Madison's draught was postponed, until the subject recurred, in the course of Washington's second term, when his determination to retire became absolute, and he proceeded to the preparation of another Farewell Address.

The purpose of this Inquiry calls for some precision in the reference to proofs or authorities, to show the course of Washington in this second preparation. All of these proofs have been for several years before the public, in authentic printed volumes, with the exception of Hamilton's replies to Washington's letters, and parts of Washington's original or preparatory draught. The case might have been better understood than it seems to have been, even without the publication of these excepted parts; but, as there appears to be now but a single link of the chain wanting, and that not an indispensable one, namely, the copy of Hamilton's original draught which he sent to Washington, amending considerably the original draught, which he retained, and is now printed in his works, it may assist the reader to have before him, in one view, a statement of all the proofs I shall have occasion to refer to in the course of this Inquiry. They are as follows:

1. The Appendix to the twelfth volume of Mr. Sparks's "Writings of George Washington," No. III; "Washington's Farewell Address," pages 382 to 398, inclusive. This paper contains copies of the letters between Washington and Madison, on the subject of the Address-a copy of

Madison's draught-and two portions of Washington's preparatory draught, made before he consulted Hamilton. These portions consisted, 1st, of Madison's draught, and, 2d, of an original paper by Washington, bearing in Mr. Sparks's Appendix the title or heading of HINTS OR HEADS OF TOPICS.

2. The letters from Washington to Hamilton, on the subject of the Farewell Address, the originals of which are now in the Department of State, and the printed copies are to be found in the sixth volume of "The Works of Alexander "Hamilton, comprising his Correspondence, and his Political "and Official Writings, exclusive of the Federalist, Civil and "Military, published from the Original Manuscripts in the Department of State, by Order of the Joint Library Com"mittee of Congress. Edited by John C. Hamilton, author of a Life of Hamilton." The letters in that work are printed in the order of date, and the date of the particular letter referred to in this Inquiry, will be a guide to the volume and place where it may be found.

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3. Hamilton's letters to Washington on the same subject. An extract from the first of these in point of date (10th May, 1796), is printed in the Appendix to the twelfth volume of Washington's Writings, page 391, in the paper of Mr. Sparks, headed "Washington's Farewell Address." The originals of all the other letters of Hamilton on this subject, as well as the first, were at one time in the possession of Mr. Sparks; and copies of them, supplied by him as I understand, are now in my possession. They will be either copied at large, or quoted in every material part, if the letter refers to other matters. The originals, it is understood, were finally deposited in the Department of State. Whether they are all now there, is, I understand, uncertain.