So I turn to consider the administrations of President Washington, the policy of which, in the main, was the rule of the succeeding presidents,—­of Adams and “the Virginia dynasty.”

The cabinet which he selected was able and illustrious; especially so were its brightest stars,—­Jefferson as Secretary of State, and Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, to whose opinions the President generally yielded.  It was unfortunate that these two great men liked each other so little, and were so jealous of each other’s ascendency.  But their political ideas diverged in many important points.  Hamilton was the champion of Federalism, and Jefferson of States’ Rights; the one, politically, was an aristocrat, and the other, though born on a plantation, was a democrat.  Washington had to use all his tact to keep these statesmen from an open rupture.  Their mutual hostility saddened and perplexed him.  He had selected them as the best men for their respective posts, and in this had made no mistake; but their opposing opinions prevented that cabinet unity so essential in government, and possibly crippled Washington himself.  This great country has produced no administration comprising four greater men than President Washington, the general who had led its armies in a desperate war; Vice-President John Adams, the orator who most eloquently defined national rights; Jefferson, the diplomatist who managed foreign relations on the basis of perpetual peace; and Hamilton, the financier who “struck the rock from which flowed the abundant streams of national credit.”  General Knox, Secretary of War, had not the intellectual calibre of Hamilton and Jefferson, but had proved himself an able soldier and was devoted to his chief.  Edmund Randolph, the Attorney-General, was a leading lawyer in Virginia, and belonged to one of its prominent families.

Outside the cabinet, the judiciary had to be filled, and Washington made choice of John Jay as chief-justice of the Supreme Court,—­a most admirable appointment,—­and associated with him the great lawyers, Wilson of Pennsylvania, Cushing of Massachusetts, Blair of Virginia, Iredell of North Carolina, and Rutledge of South Carolina,—­all of whom were distinguished, and all selected for their abilities, without regard to their political opinions.

It is singular that, as this country has advanced in culture and population, the men who have occupied the highest positions have been inferior in genius and fame,—­selected, not because they were great, but because they were “available,” that is, because they had few enemies, and were supposed to be willing to become the tools of ambitious and scheming politicians, intriguing for party interests and greedy for the spoils of office.  Fortunately, or providentially, some of these men have disappointed those who elevated them, and have unexpectedly developed in office both uncommon executive power and still rarer integrity,—­reminding us of those popes who have reigned more like foxes and lions than like the asses that before their elevation sometimes they were thought to be.