statesmen of our Revolutionary era, of whom Talleyrand said that he
"had never known his equal," whom Guizot classed with "the men who have
best known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of a
government worthy of its name and mission." Hamilton's speech _On the
Expediency of Adopting the Federal Constitution_, delivered in the
Convention of New York, June 24, 1788, was a masterly statement of the
necessity and advantages of the Union. But the most complete
exposition of the constitutional philosophy of the Federal party was
the series of eighty-five papers entitled the _Federalist_, printed
during the years 1787-88, and mostly in the _Independent Journal_ of
New York, over the signature "Publius." These were the work of
Hamilton, of John Jay, afterward, chief-justice, and of James Madison,
afterward president of the United States. The _Federalist_ papers,
though written in a somewhat ponderous diction, are among the great
landmarks of American history, and were in themselves a political
education to the generation that read them. Hamilton was a brilliant
and versatile figure, a persuasive orator, a forcible writer, and as
secretary of the treasury under Washington the foremost of American
financiers. He was killed in a duel by Aaron Burr, at Weehawken, in
1804.

The Federalists were victorious, and under the provisions of the new
Constitution George Washington was inaugurated first President of the
United States, on March 4, 1789. Washington's writings have been
collected by Jared Sparks. They consist of journals, letters,
messages, addresses, and public documents, for the most part plain and
business-like in manner, and without any literary pretensions. The
most elaborate and the best known of them is his _Farewell Address_,
issued on his retirement from the presidency in 1796. In the
composition of this he was assisted by Madison, Hamilton, and Jay. It