120 ALEXANDER HAMILTON 



would overrule him. To have disputed every point 

 would simply have emphasized the fact that he did not 

 really represent his own state, and would thus have 

 impaired his usefulness. So he threw all his force into 

 one great speech. Early in the proceedings, after vari- 

 ous plans of government had been laid before the 

 convention, he took the occasion to present his own 

 view of the general subject. Only an outline of his 

 speech, which took five hours in delivery, has been 

 preserved. Gouverneur Morris said it was the most 

 impressive speech he ever heard in his life. In the 

 course of it Hamilton read his own carefully prepared 

 plan, of which we need only notice the two cardinal 

 features. First, he would have had the President and 

 senators- elected by persons possessed of a certain 

 amount of landed property, and he would have had 

 them hold office for life or during good behaviour. This 

 would have created an aristocratic republic, as near to 

 an elective monarchy with a life peerage as one could 

 very well get. Secondly, he would have aimed a death- 

 blow, not merely at state sovereignty, but at state rights, 

 by giving the President the appointment of the several 

 state governors, who were to have a veto on the acts of 

 their legislatures. If such a measure as this had been 

 adopted, the Union in all probability would not have 

 lasted a dozen years. The position of a governor ap- 

 pointed by any power outside the state would have 

 borne altogether too much likeness to the position of 

 the royal governors before the Revolution. The will 

 of the people, as expressed by the state legislature, 

 would have been liable at any moment to be overruled 

 by a governor who, whether a native of the state or not, 

 would have owed his position to considerations which 



