But the planters of the South, unlike the farmers of the North, were an educated class, and fully competent to compete with the great leaders of the Northern oligarchy. Their ideas were widely advanced beyond those of the Northern farmer, but their _interests_ were identical—those of agriculture, of production, of labor, of democracy, of manhood against privilege, and therefore they naturally fought the battle against strong government and class distinctions. The government actually adopted was, with the exception of a life tenure in its judicial department, substantially that which was originally advised by the leading minds of the South, and which, instead of being supreme and absolute over the States, as desired by the Northern leaders, was, with certain well-defined exceptions, as utterly powerless and indeed disconnected with the States as the government of England, or any other foreign power. And perhaps no higher or more patriotic example can be found in all history than that of the graceful assent and acceptance of the Northern leaders, when they consented to adopt the present system. As has been said, it was no selfish or base spirit that prompted their desire for a strong government. They saw that the great body of the people were ignorant; all history and all experience warranted them, as they believed, in retaining power in the hands of the few who then possessed it—in a word, they could not rise above the circumstances that surrounded them, or act otherwise than in conformity with their mental habits. But when fairly beaten in the convention and the great forum of popular discussion—for when the ideas of Jefferson and other Southern leaders were brought before the Northern masses, thousands of earnest and enthusiastic apostles of these new and glorious truths sprung up in every direction—then Hamilton and his associates generously assented to the adoption of the present system, and became its warmest advocates. They in no respect changed their views of government, but they became convinced that these views were then impracticable, and however unquestioned their ascendency at the North, that the Southern States would never consent to any union on such basis, and as a federal union on almost any terms was essential to the maritime States, they had the magnanimity to accede to the Southern or democratic view embodied in the present government, and to become, as has been said, the warmest advocates for its adoption before the people. But if this patriotic and high-minded course of Hamilton and the great leaders of Northern opinion, which thus, it may be said, secured to the country and to the world the noblest government ever known in human annals, is worthy of the esteem and admiration of posterity, what a stupendous and boundless benefit Jefferson, Madison, George Mason, and their associates, who not alone assented to, but who originated this government, have conferred upon posterity, and indeed the race itself!