What this country would have been without him, or rather, what it must forever have failed to be, may be inferred from the things which it became that were owed to him. He was the inventor of American protection. American industry was founded upon his "report on manufactures." As the first and greatest of Federalists, he saved the confederation from disruption by supplying the idea of central authority. Others might labor for freedom--he labored for security. He put reason at the bottom of our commonwealth. Without his principles, the republic would have lacked a balance wheel. The States' rights would have been everything--the nation's rights nothing. All our national expansion was wrapped up in Hamilton's views. McKinley and Roosevelt have been his continuators. The sentiment which governs our republic to-day is Hamiltonian; and the war and discord that have afflicted us, as the result of the looseness of our confederation, must long since have wrecked the nation but for the balance wheel with which he supplied us. CHAPTER XIII IF LA FAYETTE HAD HELD THE FRENCH REIGN OF TERROR IN CHECK In every age of the world, and in every place, one voice has always commanded in the affairs of nations, peoples and communities. If oligarchies, legislatures, groups or cabals have seemed to bear sway, it has nevertheless been true that in each of these groups, from time to time, the influence of some individual has been preponderant. The freest republics are an organization of this principle--a willing submission of the many to the leadership of chosen men. In times of stress and strife and change it is impossible that strong men should not seize the reins of power, no matter what political system exists, no matter what anarchy tends to prevail. Change, indeed, makes the opportunity of the strong; and the fate of nations and continents depends upon the character of the strong man who is brought forth. If he is good, as Washington was good, his fellow-countrymen derive lasting and unmeasured benefit from his grasping of his opportunity. If he is bad, as Napoleon Bonaparte was bad, the evil harvest of his vices may be reaped through generations and centuries, as France has reaped, and is now reaping, an inheritance of strife and national decline.