THE CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMAN 187 



personally they were less picturesque figures than the 

 other three. Especially is this true of Madison. 

 There are many people who do not realize the impor- 

 tance of his career or the greatness of his powers. 

 Mr. Goldwin Smith, some time ago, in an article in the 

 Nineteenth Century spoke of Madison as a respecta- 

 ble gentleman of moderate ability, whose most memo- 

 rable act was allowing himself to be bullied and badgered 

 into making war against Great Britain contrary to his 

 own better judgment. This is very much as if one 

 should say of Sir Isaac Newton that he was a corpu- 

 lent old gentleman, remembered chiefly for having been 

 master of the mint and author of a rather absurd book 

 on the prophecies of the Old Testament. Mr. Smith 

 evidently did not realize that he was speaking of a 

 political philosopher worthy to be ranked with Montes- 

 quieu and Locke. 



Some of the reasons for this partial eclipse of 

 Madison's reputation will appear as we proceed. At 

 present we may call attention to the prevailing tendency 

 to associate historic events with some one command- 

 ing personality, and to forget all the rest. This is a 

 labour-saving process, but it distorts our view of his- 

 tory. Hamilton was a much more picturesque person- 

 age than Madison, and so there has been an unconscious 

 disposition to accredit him with Madison's work as well 

 as his own. There are people who know enough about 

 some things to write respectable books, and still know 

 so little about American history as to suppose that our 

 federal Constitution was substantially the work of 

 Hamilton. One often sees remarks in print in which 

 this gross error is implied, if not asserted. In point 

 of fact Hamilton had almost nothing to do with the 



