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over which he had no ultimate control, many of his plans failed of fruition during his lifetime, and he "fell in the traces" overburdened, laboring for the country he loved and for the advancement of the great principles of civil liberty to which he had devoted his marvelous talents and the best portions of his time, energies, and life. Such are the landmarks of James Wil son's wondrous career, of activity, and they also mark great crisal points in the early history of the American people. As the years go on, his name will be asso ciated more and more with that of Wash ington, as it often was during their lifetime. Jefferson relates in his Ana that in 1793, at a cabinet meeting, General Knox, the Secretary of War, introduced a cartoon recently printed, entitled "The Funeral of George W and James W , King and Judge," in which the President was represented as placed on a guillotine, and Jefferson records this interesting sidelight on Washington: "The President was much inflamed; and got into one of those passions when he cannot command himself; ran on much on the personal abuse which had been bestowed on him; defied any man on earth to pro duce one single act of his since he had been in the government which was not done on the purest motives; [declared] that he had never repented but once on having slipped the moment of resigning his office — and that was every moment since; that by God he had rather be in his grave than in his present situation; that he had rather be on his farm than to be made Emperor of the World; and yet that they were charging him with wanting to be,a King." Wilson was a truer Democrat than Jeffer son and a better Federalist than Hamilton, for he founded his entire theory of govern ment on the people, absolutely and irrev ocably, and while ardently advocating the upbuilding of the nation, stood like a rock
against the abolition of the states, all of which represents not inconsistency but a broad, comprehensive grasp of fundamental principles. His faith in the people was real and sincere, — in his last analysis they were the sole and only hope in a republic. He asserted that under such a government : "There is a remedy, therefore, for every distemper of government, if the people are not wanting to themselves. For the people wanting to themselves there is no remedy." Our nation is yet in its infancy, and it is probable that a hundred, three hundred, or five hundred years hence, when the per spective of time shall have adjusted the proportions, two great figures will loom from the Revolutionary period, the one, Wilson's, whose brain conceived and cre ated the nation; the other, Washington's, who wielded the physical forces that made it. While doubtless the affections of Ameri cans will always be centered in Washington as "the father of his country," the world at large will be apt to place one above the other, and as to which will receive the laurel wreath of highest fame will probably depend upon whether at that distant day a man who wielded the physical forces will be deemed equal to the man who swayed the intellectual forces of his time. But however this may be, James Wilson's fame is secure as the greatest intellectual power dominating the nation at its birth, and his services to our people, his doctrines and governmental theories are destined, in the oncoming years, more and more to receive popular recognition; for we live in an age of research, and they cannot escape the attention they deserve. "Melius est petere fontes, quam sectari rivulos;" it is better to seek the fountains than to follow the rivulets. Philadelphia, Pa., April, 1007.
