The administration of Washington fixed the character of the Constitution of the United States, as a practical system of government, which it retains to this day.  Upon his retirement, its great antagonist, Mr. Jefferson, came into the government again, as Vice-President of the United States, and four years after succeeded to the Presidency itself.  But the funding system and the bank were established.  The peace with both the great belligerent powers of Europe was secured.  The disuniting doctrines of unlimited separate State sovereignty were laid aside.  Louisiana, by a stretch of power in Congress, far beyond the highest tone of Hamilton, was annexed to the Union—­and although dry-docks, and gun-boats, and embargoes, and commercial restrictions, still refused the protection of the national arm to commerce, and although an overweening love of peace, and a reliance upon reason as a weapon of defence against foreign aggression, eventuated in a disastrous though glorious war with the gigantic power of Britain,—­the Constitution as construed by Washington, still proved an effective government for the country.

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=_Henry Clay, 1777-1832._= (Manual, p. 486.)

From a “Speech in the United States Senate,” March 24, 1818.

=_80._= EMANCIPATION OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN STATES.

Our Revolution was mainly directed against the mere theory of tyranny.  We had suffered comparatively but little; we had, in some respects, been kindly treated; but our intrepid and intelligent forefathers saw, in the usurpation of the power to levy an inconsiderable tax, the long train of oppressive acts that were to follow.  They rose; they breasted the storm; they achieved our freedom, Spanish America for centuries has been doomed to the practical effects of an odious tyranny.  If we were justified, she is more than justified.

I am no propagandist.  I would not seek to force upon other nations our principles and our liberty if they did not want them.  I would not disturb the repose even of a detestable despotism.  But if an abused and oppressed people will their freedom; if they seek to establish it; if, in truth, they have established it,—­we have a right, as a sovereign power, to notice the fact, and to act as circumstances and our interest require.  I will say, in the language of the venerated father of my country, “born in a land of liberty, my anxious recollections, my sympathetic feelings, and my best wishes, are irresistibly excited, whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom.”

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From the “Speech in the Senate on the Compromise Bill.”

=_81._= DANGERS OF DISUNION.