of conflict and went to pieces, only to be reformed on party lines.  When it was first made up, the two parties of our subsequent history, with which we are familiar, did not exist, and it was in the administration of Washington that they were developed.  Yet the cabinet of 1789 was, so far as there were parties, a partisan body.  The only political struggle that we had had was over the adoption of the Constitution.  The parties of the first Congress were the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, the friends and the enemies of the Constitution.  Among those who opposed the Constitution were many able and distinguished men, but Washington did not invite Sam Adams, or George Mason, or Patrick Henry, or George Clinton to enter his cabinet.  On the contrary, he took only friends and supporters of the Constitution.  Hamilton was its most illustrious advocate.  Randolph, after some vacillation, had done very much to turn the wavering scale in Virginia in its favor.  Knox was its devoted friend; and Jefferson, although he had carped at it and criticised it in his letters, was not known to have done so, and was considered, and rightly considered, to be friendly to the new system.  In other words, the cabinet was made up exclusively of the party of the Constitution, which was the victorious party of the moment.  This was of course wholly right, and Washington was too great and wise a leader to have done anything else.  The cabinet was formed with regard to existing divisions, and, when those divisions changed, the cabinet which gave birth to them changed too.

Outside the cabinet, the most weighty appointments were those of the Supreme Court.  No one then quite appreciated, probably, the vast importance which this branch of the government was destined to assume, or the great part it was to play in the history of the country and the development of our institutions.  At the same time no one could fail to see that much depended on the composition of the body which was to be the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution.  The safety of the entire scheme might easily have been imperiled by the selection of men as judges who were lacking in ability or character.  Washington chose with his wonted sureness.  At the head of the court he placed John Jay, one of the most distinguished of the public men of the day, who gave to the office at once the impress of his own high character and spotless reputation.  With him were associated Wilson of Pennsylvania, Cushing of Massachusetts, Blair of Virginia, Iredell of North Carolina, and Rutledge of South Carolina.  They were all able and well-known men, sound lawyers, and also, be it noted, warm friends of the Constitution.