remarks: "The American Constitution of 1789 was a faithful copy, so far as it was possible to make one out of the material in hand, of the contemporary constitution of England." Such an error as this is easily made by an investigator who has not studied the development of English institutions in America from 1607 to 1787. As he reads the Constitution of the United States, he may conclude that the impeachment process was copied from that in vogue in England for centuries, not knowing that a nearer precedent is found in the Constitutions of Massachusetts and New York. The privileges of Congress, bills of attainder, ex post facto laws, the writ of habeas corpus, the provision for the support of the army limited to two years, the exclusive right of the lower house to originate money bills all these provisions seem to be English, and are so remotely, but why seek a precedent for a constitutional principle in the Magna Charta of 1215, when the same precedent in a higher state of development exists in an American State constitution of 1780? Not much remains to be said in conclusion. The Constitution was made up of governmental principles which had been tested by the actual experience of the colonies, the early States, and England. The members of the Convention did not indulge themselves in fantastic experimentation. It was too serious a matter. As James Russell Lowell remarked in an address before the New York Reform Club in 1888, the Convention "was led astray by no theories of what might be good, but clave closely to what experience had demonstrated to be good." Herein lies the strength of our Constitution. If an attempt had been made to make it "original," as the first constitutions of France and the "Fundamental Constitutions" of John Locke were "original," it would have been relegated long since to the political scrap heap. There were, of course, some original features in the new form of government. The federation itself was more ambitious than anything of the kind which had ever before been attempted. There was nothing like it in all history. It impressed De Tocqueville as being a new thing under an old name. Then, too, the position and attitude of the judiciary were unique; and the "isolated position" of the president, as Professor Robinson well puts it, was original. The edifice and some of its features were new, but the material of which it was composed had been well seasoned and thoroughly tested. This view, too, instead of detracting from the fame of the Fathers of the Government, adds new lustre to it. It gives them credit for a far-sighted statesmanship which no "spontaneous creation" could possibly do. It also shows the wonderful adaptability of British institutions. CHAPTER IX THE INAUGURATION OF THE GOVERNMENT On the afternoon of March 3, 1789, the battery guns in New York fired a farewell salute to the government of the Confederation. At dawn on the following day, the same guns fired another salute to the new government and the bells of the city churches rang out the new era. There was little else, however, to mark the transition from the old order of things to the new. The old form of government was dead, but as yet the new showed few signs of life. The Congress of the Confederation had dragged on its weary existence until the 2d of March. Then, unnoticed by the public, it ceased to be. Although the 4th of March was the date set by the resolution of Congress for the inauguration of the president and the starting of the new régime, the city of New York, the chosen seat of the government, showed few indications of the new order, aside from the booming of the cannon and the ringing of the bells. Indeed, it was found that on the day appointed for the inauguration there were in the city of New York only eight senators instead of twenty-two, and thirteen representatives instead of fifty-nine. Without a quorum of the two houses, the electoral vote could not be counted and no legislation could be enacted. As noted in a previous chapter, the Constitution specified that the new form of government should go into operation as soon as ratified by nine States. New Hampshire, the |