The Fathers of the Constitution

Book Excerptt the dregs of humiliation have been reached when the rights of foreigners are not considered safe in a particular country, so that another state insists upon establishing therein its own tribunal for the trial of its citizens or subjects. Yet that is what the French insisted upon in the United States, and they were supposed to be especially friendly. They had had their own experience in America. First the native Indian had appealed to their imagination. Then, at an appropriate moment, they seemed to see in the Americans a living embodiment of the philosophical theories of the time: they thought that they had at last found "the natural man" of Rousseau and Voltaire; they believed that they saw the social contract theory being worked out before their very eyes. Nevertheless, in spite of this interest in Americans, the French looked upon them as an inferior people over whom they would have liked to exercise a sort of protectorate. To them the Americans seemed to lack a proper knowledge of the amenities of life.