I doubt whether, in the history of the world, another occasion can be found when any two men were as successful as were Jefferson and Hamilton in impressing such great numbers of intelligent people with their own opinions and views upon the subjects of government and its proper administration. Acts and avowed opinions speak for themselves, but to determine the motives of parties in the adoption of their measures no safer tests perhaps can be employed than the characters and dispositions of those by whom the parties themselves were founded and, in their early stages, guided. Hamilton's character, qualifications, and views have already occupied a large space in these pages. If they have been spoken of in any other than a faithful and liberal spirit, I have certainly failed to do justice to my own feelings. Of Thomas Jefferson, the founder as well as leader of the old Republican, now Democratic, party, comparatively little has been said. Opposed as they were in their opinions upon almost every public question that arose after the adoption of the Federal Constitution, there were yet occasional coincidences of sentiment which served to illustrate the elevated character of their minds, as there were also many features of their respective careers which, while broadly contrasted, furnished the strongest evidence of the sincerity and integrity of both. Not the least striking among the latter may be found in the circumstances and conditions of life in which they respectively started in the "race set before them," as connected with the ideas and opinions at which they arrived, so variant from those commonly impressed upon men by similar accidents. Descended from a highly honored stock, it was yet Hamilton's lot to be born poor and to be left solely dependent upon his own exertions for his success in life. After a service of three years as clerk in a counting-house he was sent to this country for the completion of his education, at the expense of relatives on his mother's side. Here he made himself acquainted with the character of our dispute with the mother country, and took sides with the colonists in a manner and under circumstances highly creditable to him, and after five years' military service, in which he acquired great reputation in comparatively subordinate stations, he retired to private life, adopting the legal profession as his only resource for the support of his family.