gave rise to a debate in which the policy of protection, strongly advocated by the Pennsylvanian members, was freely discussed.  Nobody, however, at that time, had any comprehensive plan or general system, so that the efforts for protection were incoherent, and resulted only in certain special protective features in the tariff bill, and not in a broad and well-rounded measure.  Still the protective idea was there; it was recognized in the preamble of the act, and the constitutionality of the policy was affirmed by the framers and contemporaries of the Constitution.

Hamilton, of course, watched all these movements intently.  His guiding thought in all things was the creation of a great nation.  For this he strove for national unity and national sentiment, and he saw of course that one essential condition of national greatness was industrial independence, in addition to the political independence already won.  One of the greatest thinkers of the time on all matters of public finance and political economy, he perceived at once that the irregular attempts of Congress to encourage home industries could have at best but partial results.  He saw that a system broad, just, and continental in its scope must take the place of the isolated industries which now and again obtained an uncertain protection under the haphazard measures of Congress.  With these views and purposes he wrote and sent to Congress his Report on Manufactures.  In that great state paper he made an argument in behalf of protection, as applied to the United States and to the development of home industries, which has never been overthrown.  The system which he proposed was imperial in its range and national in its design, like everything that proceeded from Hamilton’s mind.  He argued, of course, with reference to existing economic conditions, and in behalf only of what he then sought,—­industrial independence and the establishment and diversification of industries.  The social side of the question, which to-day overshadows all others, was not visible a hundred years ago.  The Report, however, bore no immediate fruit, and Hamilton had been in his grave for years before the country turned from this practice of accidental protection, and tried to replace it by a broad, coherent system as set forth by the great Secretary.

But although it had no result at the moment, the Report on Manufactures, which laid the foundation of the American protective system, and which has so powerfully influenced American political thought, was one of the very greatest events of Washington’s administration.  To trace its effects and history through the succeeding century would be wholly out of place here.  All that concerns us is Washington’s relation to this far-reaching policy of his Secretary.  If we had not a word or a line on the subject from his pen, we should still know that the policy of Hamilton was his policy too, for Washington was the head of his own administration, and was responsible and meant