On June 18 Alexander Hamilton, who agreed with no one else, addressed
the convention for the first time. He spoke for five hours and reviewed
exhaustively the Virginia and New Jersey plans, and possibly the
Pinckney draft. Even the fragment of the speech, as taken in long-hand
by Madison, shows that it was a masterly argument. He stated his belief
"that the British Government was the best in the world and that he
doubted much whether anything short of it would do in America." He
praised the British Constitution, quoting Monsieur Necker as saying that
"it was the only government in the world which unites government
strength with individual security." He analysed and explained your
Constitution as it then was and advocated an elective monarchy in form
though not in name. It is true that he called the executive a "governor"
and not a king, but the governor, so-called, was to serve for life and
was given not only "a negative on all laws about to be passed," but even
the execution of all duly enacted laws was in his discretion. The
governor, with the consent of the Senate, was to make war, conclude all
treaties, make all appointments, pardon all offences, with the full
power through his negative of saying what laws should be passed and
which enforced. Hamilton's governor would have been not dissimilar to
Louis XIV, and could have said with him, "_L'état, c'est moi_!" The
Senate also served for life, and the only concession which Hamilton made
to democracy was an elective house of representatives. Thinly veiled,
his plan contemplated an elective king with greater powers than those of
George III, an imitation House of Lords and a popular House of Commons
with a limited tenure.

Hamilton's plan was never taken seriously and, so far as the records
show, was never afterwards considered. His admirers have given great
praise to his work in the federal convention. His real contribution lay
in the fact that when the Constitution was finally drafted and offered