to make a treaty annexing foreign territory to the United States. All shades of opinion were expressed, but the two parties have been criticised as substantially reversing their positions as to the powers of the general government. The student of history is never surprised to find two political parties shifting their positions on theoretical questions. General theories, followed out to their logical consequences, invariably lead to the reductio ad absurdum. Political theories form no exception. Limitations are as necessary to theories as to all other human productions. What is sometimes mistaken for inconsistency is the necessary adaptation and amendment of opinion to new environments. Yet it does seem strange to view the Federalist party posing as the champion of strict construction and State rights, while the party of Thomas Jefferson is aggressively demanding a liberal construction of the Constitution and the extension of the powers of the general government.
By common consent and general custom the right of being inconsistent and of throwing rocks at the majority is accorded to the minority party, as a sort of political license, for which they are not held responsible until they come again into power. The party in power, however, is subject to indictment for inconsistency, and thus the Republican party has been the party on trial.
Whatever inconsistency there may have been was apparent rather than real, and was applicable to the arguments used rather than to the course pursued. The previous contests in behalf of strict construction had been directed to protecting the States, in their domestic relations and individual rights, from encroachments on the part of the general government. In the domestic relations between the general government and the several States, the Republicans regarded a strict construction as the palladium of freedom. It did not follow that the same strict construction should be applied for enfeebling the operations of the general government within its
