In an interest-ridden society the secret of good government was to enlarge and elevate the national government, in the manner projected by the new federal Constitution of 1787, and thus screen out the kind of interested men who had dominated the state legislatures in the 1780s—“men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs”—and replace them with classically educated gentlemen “whose enlightened views and virtuous sentiments render them superior to local prejudices, and to schemes of injustice.”
