But, like most of the speakers of that day, he was trenchant and unadorned, so that his speeches are as easy reading as they must have been agreeable to hear.  It is a curious fact that the best speakers of to-day resemble our forefathers in this respect of trenchant simplicity.  Mediocrity for half a century has ranted on the stump, and given foreigners a false impression of American oratory.  Those who indulge in what may be called the open-air metaphor, so intoxicating is our climate, may find consolation in this flight of Mr. Gilbert Livingston, who had not their excuse; for the Court-house of Poughkeepsie was hot and crowded.  He is declaiming against the senatorial aristocrats lurking in the proposed Constitution.  “What,” he cries, “what will be their situation in a Federal town?  Hallowed ground!  Nothing so unclean as State laws to enter there, surrounded as they will be by an impenetrable wall of adamant and gold, the wealth of the whole country flowing into it!” “What?  What WALL?” cried a Federal.  “A wall of gold, of adamant, which will flow in from all parts of the continent.”  The joyous roar of our ancestors comes down to us.

Hamilton’s speech, in which he as effectually disposed of every argument against the Senate as Roger Sherman had done in the Great Convention, is too long to be quoted; but it is as well to give the precise words in which he defines the vital difference between republics and democracies.

It has been observed by an honourable gentleman [he said] that a pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect government.  Experience has proved that no position in politics is more false than this.  The ancient democracies, in which the people themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good government.  Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.  When they assembled, the field of debate presented an ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared for every enormity.  In these assemblies the enemies of the people brought forward their plans of ambition systematically.  They were opposed by their enemies of another party; and it became a matter of contingency, whether the people subjected themselves to be led blindly by one tyrant or another.

Again he says, in reply to Melancthon Smith:—­

It is a harsh doctrine that men grow wicked as they improve and enlighten their minds.  Experience has by no means justified us in the supposition that there is more virtue in one class of men than in another.  Look through the rich and the poor of this community, the learned and the ignorant—­Where does virtue predominate?  The difference indeed consists not in the quantity, but kind of vices which are incident to various classes; and here the advantage of character belongs to the wealthy.  Their vices are probably more favourable to the prosperity of the State than those of the indigent; and partake less