anything in the Constitution to indicate that such a power was intended to be conferred. These facts disclose the true motive for Hamilton's untiring efforts in behalf of the Constitution. He desired its adoption, not because he believed that it would make the will of the people supreme, as his above quoted references to _principal_ and _agent_ and _master_ and _servant_ would seem to imply, but for the opposite reason that it would make the government largely independent of public opinion. As a matter of fact, Hamilton had no use whatever for a political system which assumed that the people were a _master_ or _principal_ and the government merely their _servant_ or _agent_. The chief merit of the Constitution from his point of view was not its acceptance, but its repudiation of this principle. Had it been framed on the theory that the will of the people is the supreme law of the land, no one would have been more bitterly opposed to its adoption than Hamilton himself. That he gave it his unqualified support is the best evidence that he did not believe that it would make the will of the people supreme. No intelligent man who carefully reads Hamilton's argument in defence of the Federal judiciary could be misled as to his real views. His dread of democracy is clearly seen in his desire to exalt the Supreme Court and subordinate Congress, the only branch of the government in which the people were directly represented. His seeming anxiety lest the legislative body should disregard the will of the people was a mere demagogic attempt to conceal his real motive. Had this been what he really feared, the obvious remedy would have been the complete responsibility of Congress to the people. In fact, this was necessarily implied in the doctrine of principal and agent which he professed to accept, but which found no recognition either in the constitution which he himself had suggested, or in the one finally adopted. To this theory of government the system which he defended was in reality diametrically opposed. Under the guise of protecting the people against misrepresentation at the hands of Congress, it effectually limited the power of the people themselves by tying the hands of their responsible agents. It deprived the people of the power to compel the enactment of law by making the consent of the Supreme Court necessary to the enforcement of all legislation, federal and state. This was a substantial compliance with Hamilton's proposal to give an absolute veto to an independent and permanent executive. It was a matter of but little consequence whether this power was conferred on a single person, as the President, or on a body, as the Supreme Court, provided the manner of appointment and tenure of those in whose hands it was placed, were such as to ensure an independent exercise of the power thus conferred. The result would be the same in either case: the law-making power would be placed beyond the reach of popular control.