his own principles, without swerving either to the right or to the left, alike irrespective of the movements of his associates and of the prejudices and sympathies and personal or local interests of those whom they led. While his great abilities, the value of his public services, and his personal integrity were freely recognized by all, the greater number of his fellow-citizens considered him selfish, impracticable, and aristocratic; and some portions of his earlier political action⁠—at that time remembered by many of his opponents⁠—his generally reserved manner, and his evident want of fellowship with the great body of the people, gave color to the popular opinion concerning him, and impaired his influence and his usefulness.

In the discussion of the great question which attracted the attention of the people of the State of New York, at the period referred to, Mr. Jay’s inclination does not appear to have led him to take any part whatever, nor does the people appear to have looked to him for either counsel or personal leadership. His well-known and freely acknowledged preference for a complete centralization of all political power⁠—even to the extent of dissolving the political and constituent powers of the several states, of reducing them to the grade of counties, and of making them entirely dependent, even for their nominal existence and for their local officers, on the will of a consolidated, national government⁠—having received no favorable consideration in the Federal Convention, he had found little in the proposed Constitution which he could commend, and nothing for which he could labor.

The responsibility, therefore, as well as the greater portion of the labor, which attended the organization of the friends of the new Constitution⁠—scattered throughout the state, the direction of their feeble efforts, and the general conduct of the struggle in this, the principal battlefield for “the new system,” necessarily devolved on Alexander Hamilton⁠—a gentleman whose record was one of honorable and patriotic service; whose voice had never been raised in behalf of political oppression, or in extenuation of official dishonor; in whom the people of New York had often placed confidence, and by whom it had never been betrayed; whose great abilities, indomitable energy, and never-failing tact had seldom been questioned and never surpassed.

Deeply read in that portion of the literature of ancient and modern times which pertained to his studies as one of the rising statesmen of America, and personally acquainted, in all their minutiae, with the politics and politicians of New York⁠—then as complicated as they ever have been since that period; a close observer of current events, and fertile in resources for the instantaneous seizure and improvement of passing opportunities, which promised advantage to his cause or to his party; well versed in all the intricacies of the law, and skilled beyond the greater number of his contemporaries in all the graces of elocution; distinguished in arms, in civil life without reproach⁠—he was, above all others of his party, the best qualified for a popular leader, and a champion, before the people of his adopted state, of the new, and widely abused, Constitution.

It is evident that among the subjects antagonistic to “the new system,” which had arrested the attention of Colonel Hamilton at an early day, had been the two series of essays, over the signatures of “Cato” and “Brutus” respectively, to which reference has been made; and that he had promptly determined on measures which, he supposed, would counteract the bad effects which those essays were so well calculated to produce, among the people of the State of New York , to whom they had been specifically addressed.