Excerpt from The Political Mission of the United States The first question which met the young con federacy, torn by the jealousies of its stronger and weaker colonies, was the necessity of a central power strong enough to deal with foreign nations and to protect commerce between the States. At this period Alexander Hamilton became the savior of the Republic. If Shake speare is the commanding originating genius of England, and Goethe of Germany, Hamiltonmust occupy that place among Americans. At seventeen he had formulated the principles of government by the people so clearly that no succeeding publicist has improved them. Before he was twenty-five he had made suggestions to the hopeless financiers of the Revolution which revived credit and carried through the war. With few precedents to guide him, he created a fiscal system for the United States which was so elastic and comprehensive that it still controls the vast operations of the treasury and the cus toms. Though but a few years at the bar after his retirement from public life, his briefs are embodied in constitutions and statutes, and to his masterly address the press owes its freedom. This superb intelligence, which was at once philosophic and practical, and with unrivaled lucidity could instruct the dullest mind on the bearing of the action of the present on the des tiny of the future, so impressed upon his contem poraries the necessity of a central government with large powers that the Constitution, now one hundred and one years old, was adopted, and the United States began their life as a nation. At this period, in every part of the world, the doctrine that the Government is the source of power, and that the people have only suchrights as the Government had given, was prac tically unquestioned, and the young Republic began its em'stence with the new and dynamic principle that the people are the sole source of authority, and that the Government has such powers as they grant to it, and no others. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.