170 THOMAS JEFFERSON 



dissent from them in 1793. It was thus in Washing- 

 ton's first administration that the seeds of all party 

 differences hereafter to bear fruit in America were 

 sown and sedulously nurtured. All American history 

 has since run along the lines marked out by the 

 antagonism between Jefferson and Hamilton. Our 

 history is sometimes charged with lack of picturesque- 

 ness because it does not deal with the belted knight 

 and the moated grange. But to one who considers 

 the moral import of events, it is hard to see how any- 

 thing can be more picturesque than the spectacle of 

 these two giant antagonists, contending for political 

 measures which were so profoundly to affect the lives 

 of millions of human beings yet unborn. Coleridge 

 once said, with as fair an approximation to truth as is 

 likely to be reached in such sweeping statements, that 

 in philosophy all men must be Aristotelians or Pla- 

 tonists. So it may be said that in American politics 

 all men must be disciples either of Jefferson or of 

 Hamilton. But these two statesmen represented prin- 

 ciples that go beyond the limits of American history, 

 principles that have found their application in the his- 

 tory of all countries and will continue to do so. Some- 

 times a broad comparison helps our understanding of 

 particular cases. Indeed, our understanding of par- 

 ticular cases cannot fail to be helped by a broad com- 

 parison, if it is correctly made. Suppose, then, we 

 compare for a moment the general drift of American 

 history with that of British history. We are tolerably 

 familiar with the differences between Liberals and 

 Tories in the mother country. Let us see if we can 

 compare the two great American parties with these, 

 and decide which are the Liberals and which the 



