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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Alexander Hamilton, by Charles A. Conant
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-Title: Alexander Hamilton
-
-Author: Charles A. Conant
-
-Release Date: August 27, 2012 [EBook #40591]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ALEXANDER HAMILTON ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by Matthew Wheaton and The Online Distributed
-Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
-produced from images generously made available by The
-Internet Archive)
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-    The Riverside Biographical Series
-
-    NUMBER 10
-
-
-
-
-    ALEXANDER HAMILTON
-
-    BY
-
-    CHARLES A. CONANT
-
-
-    [Illustration: A Hamilton]
-
-
-    ALEXANDER HAMILTON
-
-    BY
-
-    CHARLES A. CONANT
-
-
-    BOSTON AND NEW YORK
-    HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
-    The Riverside Press, Cambridge
-    1901
-
-
-    COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY CHARLES A. CONANT
-    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
-
-    _Published October, 1901_
-
-
-
-
-ALEXANDER HAMILTON
-
-
-
-
-I
-
-YOUTH AND EARLY SERVICES
-
-
-The life of Alexander Hamilton is an essential chapter in the story of
-the formation of the American Union. Hamilton's work was of that
-constructive sort which is vital for laying the foundations of new
-states. Whether the Union would have been formed under the
-Constitution and would have been consolidated into a powerful nation,
-instead of a loose confederation of sovereign states, without the
-great services of Hamilton, is one of those problems about which
-speculation is futile. It is certain that the conditions of the time
-presented a rare opportunity for such a man as Hamilton, and that
-without some directing and organizing genius like his, the
-consolidation of the Union must have been delayed, and have been
-accomplished with much travail.
-
-The difference between the career of Hamilton in America and that of
-the two greatest organizing minds of other countries--Cæsar and
-Napoleon--marks the difference between Anglo-Saxon political ideals
-and capacity for self-government and those of other races. Where the
-organization of a strong government degenerated in Rome and France
-into absolutism, it tended in America, under the directing genius of
-Hamilton, to place in the hands of the people a more powerful
-instrument for executing their own will. So powerful a weapon was thus
-created that Hamilton himself became alarmed when it was seized by the
-hands of Jefferson, Madison, and other democratic leaders as the
-instrument of democratic ideas, and those long strides were taken in
-the states and under the federal government which wiped out the
-distinctions between classes, abolished the relations of church and
-state, extended the suffrage, and made the government only the servant
-of the popular will.
-
-The development of two principles marked the early history of the
-Republic,--one, the growth of sentiment for the Union under the
-inspiration of Hamilton and the Federalist party; the other, the
-growth of the power of the masses, typified by the leadership of
-Jefferson and the Democratic party. These two tendencies, seemingly
-hostile in many of their aspects, waxed in strength together until
-they became the united and guiding principles of a new political
-order,--a nation of giant strength whose power rests upon the will of
-all the people. It was the steady progress of these two principles in
-the heart of the American people which in "the fullness of time" made
-it possible for the Union to be preserved as a union of free men under
-a free constitution. To Hamilton, the creator of the machinery of the
-Union, and to John Marshall, the great Chief Justice, who interpreted
-the Constitution as Hamilton would have had him do, in favor of the
-powers of the Union, this result was largely due.
-
-If Cæsar, fighting the battles of Rome on the frontier of Germany,
-and kept from party quarrels at home, and Napoleon, born outside of
-France and free by his campaign in Egypt from the compromising
-intrigues of Parisian politics, were preëminently fitted by these
-accidents to transmute the spirit of revolution from chaos into order,
-Hamilton stood in somewhat the same position in America. Born in the
-little island of Nevis in the West Indies (January 11, 1757), he came
-to the United States when his mind was already mature, in spite of his
-fifteen years. He came without the local prejudices or state pride
-which influenced so many of the Revolutionary leaders, and was
-therefore peculiarly qualified to fasten his eyes steadfastly upon the
-single end of the creation of a nation rather than the ascendency of
-any single state. He was so free from local attachments that he even
-hesitated at first on which side he should cast his lot,--whether with
-the imperial government of Great Britain, which appealed strongly to
-his love of system and organized power, or with the struggling
-revolutionists, with their poor and undisciplined army and uncertain
-future. The possibility of winning distinction in the service of Great
-Britain must have attracted him, but the justice of the colonial cause
-spoke more strongly to his sense of right and his well-ordered mind.
-
-The great services of Hamilton were nearly all performed before he was
-forty years of age. His precocity was partly derived from his birth in
-the tropics and partly, perhaps, from the unfortunate conditions of
-his early life. A mystery hangs over his birth and parentage, which
-repeated inquiries have failed to clear away. He is believed to have
-been the son of James Hamilton, a Scottish merchant of Nevis, and a
-lady of French Hugenot descent, the divorced wife of a Dane named
-Lavine. But the history of his parents and their marriage is shrouded
-in much obscurity. The father, although reduced to poverty, lived
-nearly if not quite as long as his illustrious son, but the mother was
-reported to have died while Hamilton was only a child, leaving the
-memory of her beauty and charm in one of the chambers of his infant
-mind. Hamilton sought in his later years to establish regular
-communication with his father, and he had a brother in the West Indies
-with whom he corresponded; but the fact that all these relatives
-remained so much in the background gave some color to the slanders of
-his enemies concerning his birth.
-
-To offset the disadvantages of birth, Hamilton had neither the
-fascinating manners which go straight to the hearts of men, nor the
-imposing personal presence which in the orator often invests trifling
-platitudes with sonorous dignity. He was possessed of a light and
-well-made frame, and was erect and dignified in bearing, but was much
-below the average height. His friends were wont to call him "the
-little lion," because of the vigor and dignity of his speech. He had
-the advantage of a head finely shaped, large and symmetrical. His
-complexion was fair, his cheeks were rosy, and in spite of a rather
-large nose his face was considered handsome. His dark, deep-set eyes
-were lighted in debate with a fire which controlled great audiences
-and cowed his enemies. But it was chiefly the power of pure intellect
-which gave him control over the minds of other men. There was nothing
-mean or low in his character, but he had not a high opinion of the
-average of humanity, and therefore lacked somewhat in that ready
-sympathy with the minds of others which is so useful to politicians
-and party leaders.
-
-Hamilton was early thrown upon his own resources. His father became a
-bankrupt, and he was cared for by his mother's relatives. His
-education was aided by the Rev. Hugh Knox, a Presbyterian clergyman,
-with whom Hamilton kept up an affectionate correspondence in later
-years. The boy was only thirteen years of age when he was placed in
-the office of Nicholas Cruger, a West Indian merchant. Here his
-self-reliance and methodical habits made him master of the business
-and head of the establishment when his employer had occasion to be
-away. His remarkable capacity, and his occasional writings for the
-daily press, led to a determination by his relatives and friends to
-send him to a wider field. He was accordingly supplied with funds and
-sent to Boston, where he arrived in October, 1772, still less than
-sixteen years of age. He was fortunately provided with some strong
-letters of recommendation from Dr. Knox, and was soon at a grammar
-school at Elizabethtown, N.J., where he made rapid progress. He
-desired to enter Princeton, but his project of going through the
-courses as rapidly as he could, without regard to the regular classes,
-was in conflict with the rules. He therefore turned to King's College,
-New York, now Columbia University, where he was able, with the aid of
-a private tutor, to pursue his studies in the manner which he wished.
-
-The decision of Hamilton to take the side of the colonies in the
-conflict with England was made early in 1774, partly as the result of
-a visit to Boston. Among the well-to-do classes of New York, the
-dominant feeling was in favor of Great Britain, and the control of the
-Assembly was in the hands of the friends of the Crown. Hamilton found
-Boston the hotbed of resistance to England, and listened attentively
-to the reasoning by which the "strong prejudices on the ministerial
-side," which he himself declares he had formed, gave way to "the
-superior force of the arguments in favor of the colonial claims." The
-opportunity soon came for him to make public proclamation of his
-position. A great meeting was held in the "Fields"[1] (July 6, 1774),
-to force the hand of the Tory Assembly in the matter of joining the
-other colonies in calling a Congress. Hamilton attended, and after
-listening to the speeches was so strongly impressed with what was left
-unsaid that he worked his way to the platform and began an impassioned
-argument for the colonial side. Below the normal stature and of
-slender form, he looked even younger than his seventeen years, but was
-recognized by the crowd as a collegian and received with great
-enthusiasm.
-
-[Footnote 1: The "Fields" of that day occupied what is now City Hall
-Park, then the upper limit of New York. King's College was in the
-immediate neighborhood, the name still lingering in College Place.]
-
-Hamilton was soon at the forefront of the fight for civil liberty,
-which was carried on by means of pamphlets and newspaper addresses.
-His papers, which appeared without signature, showed so much ability
-that they were attributed to the most eminent of the patriot leaders.
-After the die was cast at Lexington for armed conflict, Hamilton early
-in 1776 received the command of a company of artillery. Its thorough
-discipline attracted the favorable notice of Greene and other leaders.
-Greene introduced Hamilton to Washington, who had early occasion, in
-the disastrous battle of Long Island, when Hamilton protected the rear
-with great coolness and courage, to measure the mettle of his young
-artillery officer.
-
-Washington on March 1, 1777, offered Hamilton the rank of
-Lieutenant-Colonel on his staff. In this position Hamilton found
-congenial occupation for his pen in the great mass of letters,
-reports, and proclamations which issued from headquarters. These
-communications, many of which still survive, while bearing the impress
-of Washington's clear, directing mind, bear also the mark of the
-skill and logic of the younger man. Hamilton rendered valuable service
-after the surrender of Burgoyne, in persuading Gates to detach a part
-of his forces to aid Washington. On this occasion, although he had in
-his pocket a positive order from Washington, he displayed a tact and
-diplomatic skill which were unusual in his dealings with men. It fell
-to the lot of Hamilton to meet André while a prisoner in the hands of
-the Americans, and his letters regarding the affair to Miss Schuyler,
-who afterwards became his wife, are among the most interesting
-contributions to this pathetic episode of Revolutionary history.
-
-Hamilton's quarrel with Washington, about which much has been written,
-came after nearly four years' service over a trivial delay in obeying
-a call from the General. Washington rebuked his aide for disrespect,
-to which Hamilton hotly retorted, "I am not conscious of it, sir; but
-since you have thought it, we part." Washington endeavored to prevent
-the execution of his project, but Hamilton would not be reconciled
-and returned to service in the line. He led his men with great
-impetuosity upon one of the British redoubts at Yorktown, and carried
-the position in ten minutes, with much more promptness than the
-French, to whom the other redoubt had been assigned.
-
-While the war was still in progress Hamilton was looking ahead with
-the constructive genius which afterwards found such wide opportunities
-in the cabinet of Washington. He addressed a letter in 1780 to Duane,
-a member of Congress, in which he made a remarkable analysis of the
-defects of the Articles of Confederation, urged that Congress should
-be clothed with complete sovereignty, and made suggestions regarding
-its powers which were afterwards embodied to a large extent in the
-Constitution. He addressed an anonymous letter to Robert Morris early
-in the same year, treating of the financial affairs of the
-confederacy. He discussed carefully the paper currency and the causes
-of its depreciation, and proposed to restore soundness to the finances
-by gradual contraction of the volume of paper, a tax in kind, and a
-foreign loan, which was to form the basis of a national bank. When the
-clumsiness and helplessness of the system of government by committees
-was finally appreciated by the Continental Congress in 1781, and
-several executive departments were established, Hamilton was suggested
-by John Sullivan to Washington for head of the Treasury Department.
-Washington replied that "few of his age have a more general knowledge,
-and no one is more firmly engaged in the cause, or exceeds him in
-probity and sterling virtue." Robert Morris was chosen for the
-Treasury, but Hamilton opened a correspondence with him regarding the
-work of the department, which established a firm friendship between
-the older and younger man.
-
-Hamilton desired the unification of the debt and the creation of a
-national bank, for the combined objects of cementing the Union and
-putting the finances of the country upon a stable basis. "A national
-debt," he wrote, "if it is not excessive, will be a national
-blessing, a powerful cement of union, a necessity for keeping up
-taxation, and a spur to industry." Whether all these benefits fall
-within the economic effects of a debt may well be doubted, but the
-second advantage assigned was undoubtedly one of the chief motives of
-Hamilton in recommending its creation. The Bank of North America was
-established by Morris upon a much more modest scale than was proposed
-by Hamilton. The younger man, looking to the future needs of the
-country and to the example of European banks, recommended an
-institution with a capital of ten or fifteen millions, with authority
-to establish branches, and with the sole right to issue paper currency
-equal to the amount of its capital. He contemplated a close relation
-between the bank and the government, and the taking up, under contract
-with the United States, of all the paper issues of the Continental
-Congress.
-
-Hamilton made a connection while still under twenty-four which fixed
-his status as a citizen of New York, and proved of value to him in
-many ways. While on his mission to Gates at Albany, he met Miss
-Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of General Philip Schuyler, one of the
-social as well as political leaders of the best element in New York.
-The acquaintance with Miss Schuyler was renewed in the spring of 1780
-and ripened into an engagement, followed by their marriage on December
-14 of that year. With the conclusion of the war, Hamilton was left
-with nothing but his title to arrears of pay in the army, and with a
-wife and child to support. He refused generous offers of assistance
-from his father-in-law, applied himself for four months to the study
-of the law, and in the summer of 1782 was admitted to the bar at
-Albany. While waiting for clients he continued his studies on
-financial and political questions and his vigorous arguments through
-the public prints for a strong federal union. He declined several
-offers of public place, but finally accepted an appointment from
-Robert Morris (June, 1782) as continental receiver of taxes for New
-York. This afforded him an opportunity of meeting the New York
-legislature, which had been summoned in extra session at Poughkeepsie,
-in July, to receive a report from a committee of Congress.
-
-Congress in May, 1782, had taken into consideration the desperate
-condition of the finances of the country, and divided among four of
-its members the duty of explaining the common danger of the states. It
-was at the request of the delegation which went north that Governor
-Clinton called an extra session, and a communication was submitted on
-the necessity of providing for a vigorous prosecution of the war.
-Hamilton went to Poughkeepsie to aid his father-in-law, General
-Schuyler, and it was upon the motion of the latter that the Senate
-resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the state of the
-nation. Two days of deliberation were sufficient to produce a series
-of resolutions, probably drafted by Hamilton, which were unanimously
-adopted by the Senate and concurred in by the House.
-
-These resolutions set forth that recent experience afforded "the
-strongest reason to apprehend from a continuance of the present
-constitution of the continental government a subversion of public
-credit" and danger to the safety and independence of the states.
-Turning to practical remedies, it was pointed out that the source of
-the public embarrassments was the want of sufficient power in
-Congress, particularly the power of providing a revenue. The
-legislature of New York, therefore, invited Congress "to recommend and
-each state to adopt the measure of assembling a general convention of
-the states especially authorized to revise and amend the
-confederation, reserving a right to the respective legislatures to
-ratify their determinations." These resolutions the government was
-requested to transmit to Congress and to the executives of the other
-states. Hamilton appeared before the legislature and discussed the
-subject of revenue, and one of the results of his manifest interest in
-the subject and his knowledge of finance was his selection by the
-legislature as one of the members of Congress from New York.
-
-The impress of the organizing mind and far-sighted purposes of
-Hamilton was felt during his brief service in Congress. He took his
-seat from New York in November, 1782, and resigned in August, 1783. He
-cast his influence from the beginning in favor of a strong executive
-organization, and did his best to strengthen the heads of the recently
-created departments of finance and foreign affairs. He was of great
-service to Robert Morris, and almost carried the project of a general
-duty on importations, which was finally defeated by the obstinacy of
-Rhode Island. Such a measure, if carried out, would have afforded the
-central government a permanent revenue. It would have greatly
-mitigated the evils of the time, but would perhaps by that very fact
-have postponed the more complete union of the states which was to come
-under the Constitution of 1789. This was only one of the many projects
-germinating in the fertile mind of Hamilton. In a letter to Washington
-(March 17, 1783) he wrote:--
-
-"We have made considerable progress in a plan to be recommended to
-the several states for funding all the public debts, including those
-of the army, which is certainly the only way to restore public credit
-and enable us to continue the war by borrowing abroad, if it should be
-necessary to continue it."
-
-That it might be necessary to continue the war Hamilton seriously
-feared, in spite of the fact that the provisional treaty of peace with
-Great Britain was then before Congress. A grave question had arisen
-whether faith had been kept with France in the negotiation of this
-treaty. Congress had resolved unanimously (October 4, 1782) that "they
-will not enter into any discussion of overtures of pacification but in
-_confidence_ and in _concert_ with His Most Christian Majesty," the
-King of France. Adams and Jay, against the advice of Franklin,
-negotiated secretly with Great Britain, and only the moderation of
-Vergennes, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, prevented serious
-friction between the allies.
-
-Hamilton, though far from being a partisan of France, believed in
-acting towards her with the most scrupulous good faith. He advocated a
-middle course between subserviency to Great Britain and implicit
-confidence in the disinterestedness of France. He declared (March 18,
-1783), when the peace preliminaries were considered, that it was "not
-improbable that it had been the policy of France to procrastinate the
-definite acknowledgment of our independence on the part of Great
-Britain, in order to keep us more knit to herself, and until her own
-interests could be negotiated." Notwithstanding this caution regarding
-French purposes, he "disapproved highly of the conduct of our
-ministers in not showing the preliminary articles to our ally before
-they signed them, and still more so of their agreeing to the separate
-article." His own view was expressed in some resolutions which he
-offered, and which Congress adopted (May 2, 1783), asking a further
-loan from the French King, "and that His Majesty might be informed
-that Congress will consider his compliance in this instance as a new
-and valuable proof of his friendship, peculiarly interesting in the
-present conjuncture of the affairs of the United States."
-
-
-
-
-II
-
-THE FIGHT FOR THE CONSTITUTION
-
-
-Hamilton was not a conspicuous national figure during the four years
-which elapsed between the termination of his term in Congress and his
-appearance in the Federal Convention of 1787. He was working none the
-less earnestly and persistently, however, in favor of a stronger
-union. Movements towards this union took form almost simultaneously in
-different parts of the country under the impulse of a common need. The
-wise and thoughtful words of Washington, in his circular letter to the
-governor of each state on surrendering the command of the army (June
-8, 1783), sank into many hearts, and did much to soften local
-prejudices against giving more power to the central government. The
-State of Virginia in December, 1783, ceded her northwestern territory
-to Congress, and granted a general impost. Significance was given to
-the act by the policy of the governor in communicating it to the
-executive authority of the other states, with the suggestion that they
-do likewise.
-
-Jefferson was as cordial a supporter as Madison at that time of the
-project of a federal union. As a member of Congress, he prepared a
-plan for intercourse with the powers of Europe and the Barbary States,
-in which he described "the United States as one nation upon the
-principles of the federal constitution." Only two states--Rhode Island
-and Connecticut--voted to substitute weaker words in describing the
-union. It was voted by eight states to two (March 26, 1784) that in
-treaties and in all cases arising under them, the United States formed
-"one nation." The need for uniform rules for the regulation of
-commerce on the Potomac and the creation of roads and canals led to a
-number of conferences during the next two years between Virginia and
-Maryland, in one of which Washington played the part of referee. The
-legislature of Maryland finally took a step which shot a bright ray
-of light through the darkness surrounding the prospects of a permanent
-union. In a letter to the legislature of Virginia (December, 1785), it
-proposed that commissioners from all the states should be invited to
-meet and regulate the restrictions on commerce for the whole. Madison
-in Virginia gave cordial welcome to the invitation. He had already
-gone beyond the sentiment of his state in his zeal for union, but at
-his instigation a meeting of delegates from the states was called by
-Virginia at Annapolis, Md., for September, 1786.
-
-Hamilton snatched at the opportunity which this invitation presented.
-Several of his friends were elected to the legislature of New York,
-and made the appointment of delegates to Annapolis their paramount
-object. In spite of much hostility, they succeeded in wresting
-authority from the legislature for a commission of five. Hamilton and
-Benson were the only two of these delegates who appeared at Annapolis.
-They found only four other states represented there. It was
-determined that the best that could be done by the little gathering
-was to urge upon the states a general convention, to meet at
-Philadelphia on the second Monday of the next May, "to consider the
-situation of the United States, and devise such further provisions as
-should appear necessary to render the constitution of the federal
-government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." Hamilton was not
-a member of the committee appointed to prepare the report, but it was
-his draft which, with some modifications to meet the sensibilities of
-the Virginians, was accepted and adopted.
-
-A path was now blazed in which those who favored a stronger union
-could walk in harmony. Hamilton returned to New York with the
-intention of exerting his whole strength in behalf of the convention.
-He secured an election to the legislature, and at once took the lead
-of the members opposed to the separatist policy of Governor Clinton.
-He assailed the governor on the question of granting an impost to
-Congress in a practicable form, but was beaten by the solid vote of
-the party in power. He succeeded better with his resolution for the
-appointment of five delegates to the convention at Philadelphia. The
-Senate cut down the number to three, and two of them--Chief Justice
-Robert Yates and John Lansing, Jr.--were resolute supporters of the
-governor; but Hamilton carried the vital point that New York should be
-represented in the Federal Convention, and he was himself one of the
-delegates. It was not until late in February, 1787, that this action
-was taken,--little more than three months before the meeting of the
-convention,--and it was a few days later when formal approval was
-given to the project by the Federal Congress.
-
-Hamilton, although one of the three delegates from New York to the
-convention, was embarrassed throughout the proceedings by the open
-hostility of his associates to any vigorous steps towards a strong
-union. He had definite ideas and strong feelings, however, and could
-not restrain himself from setting forth his views of what the new
-government should be. When Dickinson proposed that the convention
-should seek union through a revision of the old Articles of
-Confederation, Hamilton took the floor (June 18, 1787) to show how
-inadequate such a measure would be, and to set forth his own long
-matured views. He spoke for six hours, reviewing the history of the
-colonies before the Revolution, during its progress, and afterwards,
-the steps which had been taken towards union, and the imperative
-necessity which had been disclosed for a government possessing
-complete powers within its fields of action. He urged that the
-convention "adopt a solid plan without regard to temporary opinions."
-He laid bare unsparingly the defects of the confederacy, and insisted
-that the Articles of Confederation could not be amended with benefit
-except in the most radical manner. He opposed strongly the creation of
-a general government through a single body like Congress, because it
-would be without checks. He continued:--
-
-"The general government must not only have a strong soul, but strong
-organs by which that soul is to operate. I despair that a republican
-form of government can remove the difficulties; I would hold it,
-however, unwise to change it. The best form of government, not
-attainable by us, but the model to which we should approach as near as
-possible, is the British constitution, praised by Necker as 'the only
-government which unites public strength with individual security.' Its
-house of lords is a most noble institution. It forms a permanent
-barrier against every pernicious innovation, whether attempted on the
-part of the crown or of the commons."
-
-Hamilton made little concealment of his belief that the new government
-should not be exclusively republican. He said on June 26, 1787:--
-
-"I acknowledge I do not think favorably of republican government; but
-I address my remarks to those who do, in order to prevail on them to
-tone their government as high as possible. I profess myself as zealous
-an advocate for liberty as any man whatever; and trust I shall be as
-willing a martyr to it, though I differ as to the form in which it is
-most eligible. Real liberty is neither found in despotism nor in the
-extremes of democracy, but in moderate governments. Those who mean to
-form a solid republic ought to proceed to the confines of another
-government. If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot
-into a monarchy."
-
-In pursuance of these views, Hamilton urged that all branches of the
-new government should originate in the action of the people rather
-than of the states. In this respect he came closer to democracy than
-some of his opponents, but he proposed to give strength and permanence
-to the government by providing that the Senators and the executive
-should hold office during good behavior. He contended that by making
-the chief executive subject to impeachment, the term monarchy would
-not be applicable to his office. Another step differing radically from
-the Constitution as adopted, and showing the unswerving purpose of
-Hamilton to give supremacy to the central government, was the proposal
-that the executive of each state should be appointed by the general
-government and have a negative on all state legislation.
-
-Hamilton had no expectation that his plan would be adopted. What he
-sought was to key the temper of the delegates up to a pitch which
-would bring them as nearly to his ideal of what the new government
-should be as was possible under the circumstances of the times. His
-long speech was attentively listened to, and even Yates reported that
-it "was praised by everybody, but supported by none." Notwithstanding
-these criticisms, the Constitution, as it was finally adopted,
-embodied many of the features of the project which was outlined by
-Hamilton. A legislative body of two houses, the choice of the
-executive by electors, a veto for the executive over legislative acts,
-the grant of the treaty-making power to the executive and the Senate,
-the confirmation of appointments by the Senate, the creation of a
-federal judiciary, and the provision that state laws in conflict with
-the Constitution should be void; these and many other features of the
-existing Constitution were parts of the plan of Hamilton.
-
-It was not the open preference which Hamilton expressed for the
-British form of government which caused distrust of his plan. This was
-neither startling nor offensive to the great majority of those who
-heard him. Representative government under a republican head had not
-then been tried upon a large scale in any part of the world. Such
-small republics as existed in ancient times and in Italy had been
-confined within narrow areas, and had in many cases presented examples
-of factional strife which were far from encouraging to the friends of
-liberty. The Americans, in revolting against Great Britain, revolted
-only against what they considered the false interpretation given by
-King George to the guarantees of the English constitution, wrested by
-their ancestors from King John and his successors and consecrated by
-the Revolution of 1688. It was far from the thoughts of the most
-extreme, with perhaps an occasional personal exception, to cut loose
-from the traditions of English liberty, tear down the ancient
-structure, and build from the ground up, as was done a few years
-later in France by the maddened victims of the oppression of the
-nobles.
-
-The sentiment most strongly opposed to the views of Hamilton was not
-democratic sentiment, in the strictest sense of the word, but devotion
-to local self-government. Hamilton was democratic enough to insist, in
-the discussion of the manner of choosing members of the House of
-Representatives, "It is essential to the democratic rights of the
-community that the first branch be directly elected by the people."
-What he desired was strength at the centre of authority, from whatever
-source that authority was derived. Coming from a little West Indian
-island where the traditions of parliamentary government had little
-footing, he attached no such importance as most of his associates to
-the reserved rights of the states. He was the man for the hour as the
-champion of a strong government, but it would not have been fortunate
-in some respects if his views had been adopted in their extreme form.
-There never was the slightest chance, as he doubtless knew, that they
-would be adopted by the descendants of English freemen who had founded
-self-governing states in accord with their own principles on the
-western shores of the Atlantic.
-
-Having delivered a single strong speech, which pointed the way towards
-a strong union, Hamilton remained comparatively in the background
-during the remainder of the convention. It was inevitable, however,
-that he should make himself heard upon the proposal that the new
-government should have power "to emit bills on the credit of the
-United States." The power to issue unfunded paper had received his
-censure four years before, as one of the defects of the existing
-Articles of Confederation. He now opposed in the most emphatic manner
-the grant of authority to the new government to issue paper money in
-the form of its own notes, and to force them into circulation as a
-substitute for gold and silver coin. When Gouverneur Morris moved to
-strike out the power to issue bills on the credit of the United States
-and was supported by Madison, it was supposed that, if the motion
-prevailed, the power to issue government paper money and make it a
-legal tender for debts was guarded against for all time. The power was
-stricken out of the Constitution by a vote of nine states against two.
-Madison decided the vote of Virginia, and declared that "the pretext
-for a paper currency, and particularly for making the bills a tender,
-either for public or private debts, was cut off." It is not surprising
-that Mr. Bancroft, the jealous friend of the Constitution, in spite of
-the opening of the door at a later period by the Supreme Court of the
-United States, declared:
-
-"This is the interpretation of the clause, made at the time of its
-adoption alike by its authors and by its opponents, accepted by all
-the statesmen of that age, not open to dispute because too clear for
-argument, and never disputed so long as any one man who took part in
-framing the Constitution remained alive."
-
-Hamilton spoke on a few other occasions on subsidiary points connected
-with the draft of the Constitution, but it was only at the close of
-the convention that he again came resolutely to the front to exert a
-strong influence over his associates. When the final draft of the new
-frame of government had been completed, several delegates showed
-symptoms of refusing to affix their signatures. The great weight of
-Franklin was thrown into the scale to urge that the delegates go back
-to the people presenting the semblance of harmony instead of
-divisions. "I consent to this Constitution," he declared, "because I
-expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best."
-Washington sought also to secure unanimity, and Hamilton declared:--
-
-"I am anxious that every member should sign. A few by refusing may do
-infinite mischief. No man's ideas are more remote from the plan than
-my own are known to be; but is it possible to deliberate between
-anarchy and convulsion on the one side, and the chance of good to be
-expected from the plan on the other?"
-
-Such words had some weight, but not enough to secure unanimity. All
-the states voted for the Constitution, but several delegates went on
-record against it, and Hamilton's two associates from New York were
-absent. It was this alone which saved New York from being recorded
-against the Constitution. Hamilton did not shrink from putting down
-his signature as the representative of his state. It was he who, in a
-bold, plain hand, inscribed on the great sheet of parchment the name
-of each state, as the delegations came forward, one after another, in
-geographical order and affixed their signatures to the precious
-document which was to found the government of the United States.
-
-Hamilton returned to New York determined to use his utmost powers to
-secure the ratification of the Constitution as the best attainable
-means of averting the dangers of disunion. Although cordially
-supported by John Jay and Edward Livingston, Hamilton, in the fight
-for ratification in New York, was the natural leader. He found arrayed
-against him the whole influence of Governor Clinton and the dominant
-party in New York politics. Clinton was not absolutely opposed to
-union, but he attached to it so many reservations that for practical
-purposes he was an opponent of the new Constitution. The battle over
-ratification began on the question of the choice of delegates to the
-state convention. It was in this field that Hamilton fought the great
-fight with his pen which has left to posterity the fine exposition of
-the Constitution known as "The Federalist." A society was formed in
-the city of New York to resist the adoption of the Constitution, and
-articles soon began to appear in the local press criticising and
-opposing it.
-
-Preparing a vigorous letter, while gliding down the Hudson, in reply
-to some of the first points of the opposition, Hamilton soon extended
-the project into a series of strong papers, which appeared twice a
-week for twenty weeks over the signature of "Publius." He secured the
-aid of Madison and Jay, who wrote some of the papers, but the project
-was Hamilton's, the majority of the papers were written by him, and
-to him has been justly given the credit of the well-knit and powerful
-arguments afterwards printed under the title of "The Federalist."
-
-Taking up point by point the provisions of the new Constitution,
-Hamilton, by skillful argument, drawn from the closest abstract
-reasoning, the recent experience of the states, and the history of
-foreign countries, sought to show that the new Constitution was based
-upon sound principles of government, that it was well calculated to
-carry out these principles, and that its acceptance was practically
-the only course open to the American people to insure for themselves
-the benefits of liberty, prosperity, and peace. "The Federalist,"
-although a purely political argument, has survived the occasion which
-called it forth, as one of the master documents of political writing.
-That it has a distinct place in literature is admitted by so severe a
-critic as Professor Barrett Wendell in his recent "Literary History of
-America." It is worth while quoting his acute literary judgment of its
-merits:--
-
-"As a series of formal essays, the 'Federalist' groups itself roughly
-with the 'Tatler,' the 'Spectator,' and those numerous descendants of
-theirs which fill the literary records of eighteenth century England.
-It differs, however, from all these, in both substance and purpose.
-The 'Tatler,' the 'Spectator,' and their successors dealt with
-superficial matters in a spirit of literary amenity: the 'Federalist'
-deals in an argumentative spirit as earnest as that of any Puritan
-divine with political principles paramount in our history; and it is
-so wisely thoughtful that one may almost declare it the permanent
-basis of sound thinking concerning American constitutional law. Like
-all the educated writing of the eighteenth century, too, it is phrased
-with a rhythmical balance and urbane polish which give it claim to
-literary distinction."
-
-While the written arguments of Hamilton in "The Federalist" have
-survived for a hundred years and been consulted by foreign students in
-the formation of new constitutions, a more severe task was imposed
-upon him at the meeting of the state convention called to consider the
-report of the convention at Philadelphia. It was in some respects the
-hardest task ever set with any hope of success before a parliamentary
-leader. Indeed, to the superficial observer there would have seemed to
-be no hope of success, when in the elections to the state convention
-the supporters of Governor Clinton chose forty-six delegates and left
-on the side of Hamilton only nineteen of the sixty-five members. But
-this statement of the case gives a somewhat darker color to the
-situation than the real facts. There was a strong and growing body of
-public sentiment for the Constitution in New York city and the
-counties along the Hudson, which even led to the suggestion that they
-should join the Union in any event and leave the northern counties to
-shift for themselves. It was generally recognized, moreover, that
-however strong the objections were to the Constitution, the choice lay
-practically between this Constitution and none,--between the proposed
-government and anarchy.
-
-So strong was the sentiment that the Constitution must be accepted in
-some form, that its opponents in the state convention did not venture
-upon immediate rejection. Fortunately, their course in fighting for
-delay only tended to make it clearer that New York would stand alone
-if she failed to ratify. While the dream of independent sovereignty,
-or the leadership in a federation which should dictate terms to the
-surrounding states, was not without its attractions to the more
-ambitious of the opposition leaders, there was a darker side to the
-proposition which was much less attractive. Independence for New York
-meant a heavy burden of taxation for a separate army and navy, for
-guarding long frontiers on the east, north, and south, for supporting
-an extensive customs service along the same frontiers, for maintaining
-ministers at foreign courts and consuls in the leading cities of the
-world, and for meeting all the other expenses of a sovereign nation.
-
-It was fortunate for the state and the country that the leader of the
-opposition to the Constitution in the New York convention was a man of
-a high order of ability, whose mind was open in an unusual degree to
-the influence of logical reasoning. This man was Melancthon Smith, who
-is accorded by Chancellor Kent, the great authority on American law,
-the credit of being noted "for his love of reading, tenacious memory,
-powerful intellect, and for the metaphysical and logical discussions
-of which he was a master." It is as much to his credit as that of
-Hamilton that he finally admitted that he had been convinced by
-Hamilton, and that he should vote for the Constitution. This result
-was only reached, however, after a long and sometimes acrimonious
-struggle, in which Hamilton was on his feet day after day explaining
-and defending each separate clause of the Constitution,--not only in
-its real meaning, but against all the distorted constructions put upon
-it by the most acute and jealous of critics.
-
-But events had been fighting with Hamilton. State after state had
-ratified the new document, and news of their action had reached New
-York. Nine states, the number necessary to put the Constitution in
-force, were made up by the ratification of New Hampshire (June 21,
-1788). Still New York hesitated, and Hamilton wrote to Madison: "Our
-chance of success depends upon you. Symptoms of relaxation in some of
-the leaders authorize a gleam of hope if you do well, but certainly I
-think not otherwise." Virginia justified his hopes by a majority of 89
-against 79 for ratification (June 25, 1788). The news reached New York
-on July 3. The opposition there, though showing signs of relenting,
-was still stubborn. Conditional ratification, with a long string of
-amendments, was first proposed. Jay firmly insisted that the word
-"conditional" must be erased. Finally, on July 11, he proposed
-unconditional ratification. Melancthon Smith then proposed
-ratification with the right to withdraw if the amendments should not
-be accepted. Hamilton exposed the folly of such a project in a
-brilliant speech, which led Smith to admit that conditional
-ratification was an absurdity. Other similar proposals were brought
-forward, but they were evidently equivalent to rejection by
-indirection, which would have left New York out of the new Union.
-
-Finally, Samuel Jones, another broad-minded member of the opposition,
-proposed ratification without conditions, but "in full confidence"
-that Congress would adopt all needed amendments. With the support of
-Smith, this form of ratification was carried by the slender majority
-of three votes (July 26, 1788). By this narrow margin it was decided
-that New York should form a part of the Union, and that the great
-experiment in representative government should not begin with the two
-halves of the country separated by a hostile power, commanding the
-greatest seaport of the colonies.
-
-Hamilton thus played an important part in winning the first great
-battle for the Constitution. Ratification was only one of many steps
-which remained to be taken before the new government was in working
-order. Hamilton hurried back to the Federal Congress, and carried an
-ordinance fixing the dates and the place for putting the new
-government in operation. When he returned to New York, he was beaten
-for reëlection to Congress, and Governor Clinton and his party
-retained such a firm grip upon the legislature that a deadlock
-occurred between the Federalist House and the opposition Senate. New
-York was unrepresented in the first electoral college, and had no
-senators at the meeting of the First Congress. The state elections
-which followed resulted in defeat for the Federalists in the election
-of the governor, but they carried the legislature and elected two
-senators,--General Schuyler and Rufus King. King had recently come
-from Massachusetts, and Hamilton's insistence that he should be chosen
-caused a breach with the Livingstons, which contributed to the defeat
-of Schuyler two years later and the election of Aaron Burr. Hamilton's
-course in this matter was one of many cases in which he showed that
-he was not an astute politician, nor an adept at dealing with men. His
-highest qualities were those more distinctly intellectual, which led
-him to drive straight towards a desired object, with little patience
-for smaller men or the obstacles which stood in his way.
-
-
-
-
-III
-
-ESTABLISHING THE PUBLIC CREDIT
-
-
-The great work of Hamilton, which was to stamp his name forever upon
-American history and our frame of government, was yet before him.
-Washington was inaugurated in April, 1789, but it was not until
-September 2 that an act passed Congress establishing the Treasury
-Department. Hamilton was the selection of Washington for the new post.
-It was a selection so well approved by all who were familiar with
-Hamilton's great abilities as an organizer and financier that the
-nomination was confirmed on the day that it reached the Senate. The
-studies of many years, the programme which had been outlined in
-letters to Morris and in the newspapers, were now to bear fruit under
-the directing genius of Hamilton. Only ten days passed after his
-appointment before Congress requested him to prepare a report upon
-the public credit. Then came calls for reports on the collection and
-management of the revenue; estimates of receipts and expenditures; the
-regulation of the currency; the navigation laws; the post-office, and
-the public lands. Money had to be found at once for the pressing needs
-of the new government before the more elaborate projects of the young
-minister of finance could be put in operation. But Hamilton did not
-delay long even for the more important and permanent work. When
-Congress met in January, he submitted his celebrated report "On Public
-Credit," which laid the corner-stone of American finance under the
-Constitution.
-
-This report of Hamilton's on the public credit has long stood out as
-one of the master state papers of American history. Read to-day in the
-light of the economic progress of more than a century, its conclusions
-are not entirely novel, but are in the main clear and sound. To obtain
-a proper perspective regarding their value, the mind should be
-projected back to the beginning of 1790, when political economy as a
-science had barely been born, and the work of Adam Smith, although
-about fourteen years old, was probably known to but few in America.
-Many public men of to-day with the proper preliminary training might
-evolve as sound a report as that of Hamilton, but no ordinary man
-could have done it a hundred and ten years ago, and few men could do
-it to-day with the force of diction, precision and directness of
-statement, the grasp of principles, and the mastery of detail which
-marked the work of Hamilton.
-
-He seemed to gather in his hands all the tangled threads of the
-disordered finances of the Continental Congress and of the states and
-show how they could be woven into a band of strength and symmetry,
-holding together by the motive of enlightened self-interest all the
-parts of the new Union. He proposed to plant the public credit upon a
-firm foundation, satisfy the public creditors, and put the nation on
-the high road to industrial and financial progress. The difficulties
-which Hamilton confronted were not merely a bankrupt Treasury and a
-loose system of finance under the federal government, but large
-expenditures by the states for carrying on the Revolutionary War, for
-which reimbursement was demanded by the states which had spent the
-most and was opposed by those which had spent the least. Hamilton
-endeavored to show that all would gain by the assumption of these
-debts by the federal government. Although a thinker rather than a
-tactician, he was shrewd enough to make an appeal early in his report
-to all men engaged in industry by pointing out the importance of
-public credit upon the volume and profits of private business. He
-endeavored first to make clear the benefit to any government of a
-sound fiscal system. He said upon this point:--
-
-"As, on the one hand, the necessity for borrowing in particular
-emergencies cannot be doubted, so, on the other, it is equally evident
-that to be able to borrow upon good terms, it is essential that the
-credit of a nation should be well established. For, when the credit of
-a country is in any degree questionable, it never fails to give an
-extravagant premium, in one shape or another, upon all the loans it
-has occasion to make. Nor does the evil end here; the same
-disadvantage must be sustained upon whatever is to be bought on terms
-of future payment. From this constant necessity of borrowing and
-buying dear, it is easy to conceive how immensely the expenses of a
-nation, in the course of time, will be augmented by an unsound state
-of the public credit."
-
-Taking up the demonstration how closely the public credit is linked
-with the fortune of the individual, Hamilton points out that public
-securities are a part of the medium of exchange, that sound credit
-will extend trade by preventing the export of money, and that
-agriculture and manufactures will be promoted because "more capital
-can be commanded to be employed in both," and that the interest of
-money will be lowered.
-
-Hamilton took up and punctured in his report several fallacies
-regarding the treatment of the debt which had obtained lodgment in the
-public mind and threatened to influence the action of Congress. One
-of these was that a distinction should be made between those holders
-of the debt to whom it was originally issued and those who had
-acquired it by purchase. As the latter holders had bought the debt in
-some cases at a mere fraction of its face value and for speculative
-purposes, the specious argument was made that they were entitled in
-the settlement with the government only to what they had paid the
-original holders. Hamilton set himself to dissipate this prejudice by
-showing that the man who had been willing to purchase the public debt
-might be quite as patriotic as the man who had parted with it for a
-price. He suggested that if the debt was thus purchased in the
-confidence that it would rise to par, the act was a proof of the
-patriotism of the purchaser, and it would be a sorry return for this
-confidence to make it a reason for discrimination against him.
-
-But much more important from the public point of view, he pointed out,
-was the sanctity of contracts guaranteed by the new Constitution, and
-absolutely required to give a stable character to the securities of
-the government. If the government were to discriminate between the
-original holders of the debt and other holders, he made it clear that
-a degree of discredit would be cast on all the obligations of the
-United States, no matter in whose hands they were found, which would
-tend to defeat the end and aim of all his measures,--the restoration
-of public credit. Upon this point he said:--
-
-"The nature of the contract, in its origin, is, that the public will
-pay the sum expressed in the security, to the first holder or his
-assignee. The intent in making the security assignable is, that the
-proprietor may be able to make use of his property, by selling it for
-as much as it may be worth in the market, and that the buyer may be
-safe in the purchase.
-
-"Every buyer, therefore, stands exactly in the place of the seller,
-has the same right with him to the identical sum expressed in the
-security, and having acquired that right, by fair purchase, and in
-conformity to the original agreement and intention of the government,
-his claim cannot be disputed without manifest injustice.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-"The impolicy of a discrimination results from two considerations:
-one, that it proceeds upon a principle destructive of that quality of
-the public debt, or the stock of the nation, which is essential to its
-capacity for answering the purposes of money, that is, the security of
-transfer; the other, that, as well on this account as because it
-includes a breach of faith, it renders property in the funds less
-valuable, consequently induces lenders to demand a higher premium for
-what they lend, and produces every other inconvenience of a bad state
-of public credit."
-
-One of the most serious obstacles which confronted Hamilton in
-carrying out his financial policy was the opposition to the assumption
-by the new federal government of the debts of the several states
-incurred in the prosecution of the war. The states which had been
-remiss in paying their quota for the general expenses and those which
-had not been called upon to pay much for local defense did not see
-why a burden should be imposed upon them, even in equitable proportion
-with the other states, for the purpose of relieving those states which
-had been prompt with their payments or had been compelled to spend
-freely for the protection of their own boundaries and people. This
-prejudice Hamilton faced with the same clear vision and resolute
-purpose as that against providing for the debt of the Union. He set
-forth at the outset that if these debts were to be paid at all,
-whether by the states or by the Union, "it will follow that no greater
-revenues will be required, whether that provision be made wholly by
-the United States, or partly by the states separately." He pointed out
-that the control of the entire matter by the federal government would
-secure uniformity of treatment for the public creditors, would prevent
-competition between the Union and the states for the sources of the
-revenue, which otherwise might cause collision and confusion, and
-would secure a distribution of taxation more just to industry in all
-the states. The assumption of the state debts, moreover, he insisted
-was vital to the credit of the Union. Upon this head, and upon the
-equity of charging to the Union of the states the debts which had been
-incurred for the benefit of all, Hamilton observed:--
-
-"Should the state creditors stand upon a less eligible footing than
-the others, it is unnatural to expect they would see with pleasure a
-provision for them. The influence which their dissatisfaction might
-have could not but operate injuriously, both for the creditors and the
-credit of the United States. Hence it is even the interest of the
-creditors of the Union, that those of the individual states should be
-comprehended in a general provision. Any attempt to secure to the
-former either exclusive or peculiar advantages would materially hazard
-their interests. Neither would it be just that one class of the public
-creditors should be more favored than the other. The objects for which
-both descriptions of the debt were contracted are in the main the
-same. Indeed, a great part of the particular debts of the states has
-arisen from assumptions by them on account of the Union. And it is
-most equitable, that there should be the same measure of retribution
-for all.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-"The general principle of it seems to be equitable, for it appears
-difficult to conceive a good reason why the expenses for the
-particular defense of a part, in a common war, should not be a common
-charge, as well as those incurred professedly for the general defense.
-The defense of each part is that of the whole, and unless all the
-expenditures are brought into a common mass, the tendency must be to
-add to the calamities suffered by being the most exposed to the
-ravages of war, an increase of burthens."
-
-Hamilton found the public debt of the Union to be $54,124,464.56. This
-would not be a formidable debt to-day, even with full allowance for
-the difference in population, but it was formidable for that time
-because of the comparative poverty of the country, and the scanty
-resources for paying it. The great increase in the productive power
-of man in our time, by means of machinery, improved means of
-communication, and other devices for saving labor and increasing its
-efficiency, makes it easy for prosperous nations to bear taxation
-without feeling the burden which would have paralyzed industry and
-arrested national progress a century ago. The United States in 1790
-were not far beyond the primitive condition in which the entire sum of
-production is required for the necessaries of existence, and little is
-left for the luxuries of life and of state enterprise.
-
-The total of the debt, as computed by Hamilton, was made up by adding
-the foreign debt, $10,070,307, with arrears of interest amounting to
-$1,640,071.62, to the principal of the domestic debt, $27,383,917.74,
-with arrears of interest amounting to $13,030,168.20, and estimating
-the unliquidated debt at $2,000,000. The amount of the state debts he
-was not able to ascertain with precision, but estimated at about
-$25,000,000. This made the total debt to be dealt with something more
-than $75,000,000. The annual interest required at the rates provided
-in the contract would amount to $542,599.66 on the foreign debt, and
-$4,044,845.15 on the domestic debt, including that of the states,
-making a total of $4,587,444.81. While urging the most conscientious
-fulfillment of obligations, Hamilton admitted that this demand would
-require the extension of taxation to a degree and to objects which the
-true interests of the public creditors themselves forbade. "It is
-therefore to be hoped," he said, "and even to be expected, that they
-will cheerfully concur in such modifications of their claims, on fair
-and equitable principles, as will facilitate to the government an
-arrangement substantial, durable, and satisfactory to the community."
-
-This arrangement he did not propose to reach by repudiating any
-portion of the debt. He proposed to reduce the rate of interest, in
-course of time, in accordance with the decline in the rate for the
-rental of capital abroad, but to those holders of the debt who
-desired settlement in full at the old rates of interest, he made
-liberal offers. A number of optional plans for accepting funds at
-different rates of interest for different terms were presented, which
-it is not necessary to set forth in detail. The statement of the first
-two will give an idea of their general character:--
-
-"First, That, for every hundred dollars subscribed, payable in the
-debt, (as well interest as principal,) the subscriber be entitled, at
-his option, either to have two-thirds funded at an annuity or yearly
-interest of six per cent., redeemable at the pleasure of the
-government, by payment of the principal, and to receive the other
-third in lands in the western territory, at the rate of twenty cents
-per acre. Or, to have the whole sum funded at an annuity or yearly
-interest of four per cent, irredeemable by any payment exceeding five
-dollars per annum, on account both of principal and interest, and to
-receive, as a compensation for the reduction of interest, fifteen
-dollars and eighty cents, payable in lands, as in the preceding
-case."
-
-Hamilton thus reserved the right to redeem the debt at the pleasure of
-the government, when new securities could be floated at reduced rates.
-This was in accordance with the enlightened policy of governments
-before and since in availing themselves of the increase of capital and
-the improved condition of the public credit. The holder of the public
-funds could find no fault if he received back his principal, while an
-attractive investment at current rates of return upon capital would be
-offered to new investors in the form of funds at a reduced rate of
-interest, if such new funds were not acceptable to the old holders of
-the debt.
-
-The proposal for using the public lands in part settlement of the debt
-was a happy device for employing a resource of immense value to the
-country, and promoting early settlement of the great areas of
-uncultivated land which became the property of the Union. It was in
-pursuance of this comprehensive policy that Connecticut, Virginia,
-and other states had ceded to Congress, even before the adoption of
-the Constitution, their indefinite claims to the great stretches of
-country between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi.
-
-
-
-
-IV
-
-CONGRESS SUSTAINS HAMILTON
-
-
-The plans of Hamilton having been formulated, it remained to be
-determined whether they should be adopted by the lawmaking power or
-should remain a splendid but abortive monument to the constructive
-skill of their author. Vigorous opposition was expected by Hamilton to
-the measures which he proposed. He had endeavored to meet and disarm
-such opposition as far as possible in the careful and illuminating
-language of his report, but it soon became evident that against nearly
-all parts of it a bitter and persistent battle would be waged. The
-owners of capital and the commercial element were represented in the
-Northern and Eastern States rather than in the South, and the
-representatives of the former states strongly supported from the first
-the entire policy of the Secretary of the Treasury. Rumors were
-already abroad that something was to be done to restore the national
-credit, but it was not until the reading of Hamilton's report in the
-House (January 14, 1790) that the full scope of his plans was made
-manifest.
-
-The effect of the report was so favorable upon the public credit as to
-forge weapons for its enemies. This came about through the sudden rise
-in the public funds, and the promptness with which speculators bought
-them up from holders who were ignorant of their value. Funds which
-would have been gladly disposed of at three shillings to the pound, or
-fifteen per cent. of their face value, at any time within the previous
-three years, rose before noon the next day fifty per cent. of their
-quoted price. It was not yet certain that the project would be adopted
-by Congress, but shrewd men were willing to discount the future in
-much the same manner that brokers in Wall Street do at the present
-time. The absence of a well-organized stock market, with the
-ramifications of telegraphic quotations throughout the Union, put in
-the hands of the more daring of these speculators an opportunity to
-avail themselves of the ignorance of others to an extent which would
-not be possible to-day. Agents were soon scouring the country, buying
-up the certificates of the debt in all its varied forms, before the
-news of Hamilton's great report had reached the humble holders, some
-of whom were old soldiers or quiet farmers who had been compelled to
-furnish supplies for the army. Jefferson says in his Anas:--
-
-"Couriers and relay horses by land, and swift-sailing pilot-boats by
-sea, were flying in all directions. Active partners and agents were
-associated and employed in every state, town, and county, and the
-paper bought up at five shillings, and even as low as two shillings in
-the pound, before the holder knew that Congress had already provided
-for its redemption at par."
-
-This sudden and remarkable effect of Hamilton's recommendations put
-weapons in the hands of the enemies of the project, because it seemed
-to give force to their argument that a distinction should be made
-between those to whom the debt was originally issued at par and the
-new holders who had obtained it at a discount. Long and bitter were
-the debates in the House over this and other branches of Hamilton's
-project. But it was so obvious that a distinction between the holders
-of the debt would run directly counter to its character as negotiable
-paper, and would be almost impossible of just execution, that the
-friends of the funding project easily had the best of the argument.
-Madison, although inclined to oppose Hamilton, was forced to admit
-that the debt must be funded at par without discrimination. He brought
-forward a project to pay the original holders the difference between
-par and the price at which they had sold, and to pay to the present
-holders only what they had paid for the securities. This was shown to
-be so impracticable that only thirteen votes were given for it in a
-House of forty-nine members voting. The advocates of the entire
-funding project carried it in committee of the whole (March 9, 1790)
-by a vote of 31 to 26.
-
-The debates had so strengthened the position of Hamilton that the
-wisdom of funding the debt of the Union at par was now generally
-admitted. His opponents and those who feared too great a concentration
-of power in the capitalist class and the central government made their
-stand on the proposal to assume the state debts. When the resolution
-reported by the committee of the whole was taken up in the House on
-March 29, several representatives from North Carolina appeared in the
-House and swelled the ranks of the opposition. North Carolina had been
-late in accepting the Constitution, and her members had not been
-present on previous votes. When, therefore, a motion to recommit the
-financial projects was made, it was carried by a vote of 29 to 27. The
-advocates of assumption were so indignant, and so convinced that one
-part of the project was as vital as the other, that they voted to
-recommit the original funding resolution. Further debate took place,
-but without shaking the firmness of the opposition to the assumption
-of the state debts. The project was rejected in committee (April 12)
-by a vote of 31 to 29.
-
-The situation was a grave one. Hamilton felt that the future of the
-Union was at stake. If his projects were not adopted substantially as
-a whole, the new government would be without credit and the work of
-the Convention of 1789 would be in vain. The government at Washington
-would be as helpless as the Continental Congress and its committees
-had been. This opinion was shared by all those who favored a vigorous
-central government, and practically by all the members of the party in
-Congress which was forming in support of the measures of Hamilton and
-looking to him as their leader. While casting about for some means for
-meeting the emergency, Hamilton fell upon a plan which represents one
-of the few cases in which he had recourse to diplomacy in his public
-career. The question of the location of the national capital had been
-for some time pending in Congress. It had already become involved with
-the assumption of the state debts. A strong bid had been made by the
-opponents of assumption for the five votes of Pennsylvania by the
-offer to locate the capital for fifteen years at Philadelphia.
-
-The importance of having Congress and its officials in a given city
-represented more at that time, in spite of the small size of the body
-and the relative insignificance of the interests before it, than would
-be the case to-day with either of the great commercial cities of New
-York, Boston, or Philadelphia. Local interests played the same part
-then as now in political man[oe]uvring, and possession of the capital
-looked larger in the eyes of some members than the financial policy of
-the Union. In the sarcastic language of Professor McMaster, "The state
-debts might remain unpaid, the credit of the nation might fall, but
-come what might, the patronage of Congress must be drawn from New York
-and distributed among the grog-shops and taverns of Philadelphia."
-
-Hamilton took advantage of this situation to save assumption and to
-fix the financial policy of the United States. The Senate had
-rejected the proposal to establish the capital at Philadelphia, and
-when the project came back to the House, Baltimore was substituted by
-a majority of two. The Pennsylvanians and their friends in the Senate
-retaliated by mutilating the funding bill and daring the
-assumptionists to reject it. The latter held to their position and
-rejected the bill, 35 to 23. It was while matters were in this acute
-stage, while threats were made on behalf of the North that the Union
-would be broken up if assumption were not carried, that Hamilton one
-day in front of the President's house met Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson
-had recently returned from France to assume the position of Secretary
-of State. What followed is best told in Jefferson's own words, because
-he afterwards claimed that he had been "duped" by Hamilton and acted
-without knowledge of the effect of what he was doing. Jefferson's
-account of the matter is as follows:--
-
-"As I was going to the President's one day, I met him (Hamilton) in
-the street. He walked me backwards and forwards before the
-President's door for half an hour. He painted pathetically the temper
-into which the legislature had been wrought; the disgust of those who
-were called the creditor states: the danger of the _secession_ of
-their members, and the separation of the states. He observed that the
-members of the administration ought to act in concert; that though
-this question was not of my department, yet a common duty should make
-it a common concern; that the President was the centre on which all
-administrative questions ultimately rested, and that all of us should
-rally around him, and support, with joint efforts, measures approved
-by him; and that the question having been lost by a small majority
-only, it was probable that an appeal from me to the judgment and
-discretion of some of my friends might effect a change in the vote,
-and the machine of government, now suspended, might be again set into
-motion. I told him that I was really a stranger to the whole subject;
-that not having yet informed myself of the system of finance adopted,
-I knew not how far this was a necessary sequence; that undoubtedly, if
-its rejection endangered a dissolution of our Union at this incipient
-stage, I should deem that the most unfortunate of all consequences, to
-avert which all partial and temporary evils should be yielded. I
-proposed to him, however, to dine with me the next day, and I would
-invite another friend or two, bring them into conference together, and
-I thought it impossible that reasonable men, consulting together
-coolly, could fail, by some mutual sacrifices of opinion, to form a
-compromise which was to save the Union. The discussion took place. I
-could take no part in it but an exhortatory one, because I was a
-stranger to the circumstances which should govern it. But it was
-finally agreed, that whatever importance had been attached to the
-rejection of this proposition, the preservation of the Union and of
-concord among the states was more important, and that, therefore, it
-would be better that the vote of rejection should be rescinded, to
-effect which some members should change their votes. But it was
-observed that this pill would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern
-States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten
-it a little to them. There had been projects to fix the seat of
-government either at Philadelphia or at Georgetown on the Potomac; and
-it was thought that by giving it to Philadelphia for ten years, and to
-Georgetown permanently afterwards, this might, as an anodyne, calm in
-some degree the ferment which might be excited by the other measure
-alone. Some two of the Potomac members (White and Lee, but White with
-a revulsion of stomach almost convulsive) agreed to change their
-votes, and Hamilton undertook to carry the other point. In doing this,
-the influence he had established over the eastern members, with the
-agency of Robert Morris with those of the Middle States, effected his
-side of the engagement."
-
-Hamilton had little of the state pride which influenced the men of
-Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, or of any other state who had
-grown up on the soil won by their English ancestors by their blood or
-the sweat of their brows. To him the question of the location of the
-capital seemed insignificant in comparison with the foundation of the
-Union upon the rock of a comprehensive financial policy. It is
-significant of the commanding influence which the young secretary had
-acquired, and the well-knit party which was gathering around him, that
-he had no difficulty in carrying his part of the programme for seating
-the capital eventually on the banks of the Potomac. The bill to remove
-the capital was passed on July 9, 1790, by a majority of three, and
-the assumption of the state debts was carried soon after. The form of
-the assumption differed somewhat from the proposal of Hamilton, but it
-accomplished the result at which he aimed. A specific sum,
-$21,500,000, was assumed by the government and distributed among the
-states in set proportions. The project passed the Senate July 22, by a
-vote of 14 to 12, and the House on July 24, by a vote of 34 to 28. A
-great step was thus taken in the consolidation of the Union, and
-notice was given to the world that the United States proposed to pay
-their debts and fulfill with scrupulous honor their financial
-obligations.
-
-
-
-
-V
-
-STRENGTHENING THE BONDS OF UNION
-
-
-The funding of the debt was only one of several parts of the policy of
-Hamilton for putting the new government upon a solvent and firm basis.
-The session of Congress which began in December, 1790, witnessed the
-presentation of his report in favor of a national bank. This report,
-like that on the debt, showed careful study of the subject in its
-theoretical as well as practical aspects. Hamilton referred in opening
-to the successful operation of public banks in Italy, Germany,
-Holland, England, and France. He then went on to point out some of
-their specific advantages in concentrating capital and permitting the
-easy transfer of credit. He declared that such a bank would afford
-"greater facility to the government, in obtaining pecuniary aid,
-especially in sudden emergencies." It would also facilitate the
-payment of taxes, by enabling tax-payers to borrow from the bank and
-by the aid which it would give in the transfer of funds. He did not
-shrink from declaring that the country would benefit if foreigners
-invested in the bank shares, since this would bring so much additional
-capital into the United States. Hamilton then pointed out the vital
-distinction between government paper issues and bank paper. He laid
-down thus the fundamental principle of a well-regulated bank-note
-currency:--
-
-"Among other material differences between a paper currency, issued by
-the mere authority of government, and one issued by a bank, payable in
-coin, is this: That, in the first case, there is no standard to which
-an appeal can be made, as to the quantity which will only satisfy, or
-which will surcharge the circulation: in the last, that standard
-results from the demand. If more should be issued than is necessary,
-it will return upon the bank. Its emissions, as elsewhere intimated,
-must always be in a compound ratio to the fund and the demand: whence
-it is evident, that there is a limitation in the nature of the thing;
-while the discretion of the government is the only measure of the
-extent of the emissions, by its own authority."
-
-The bank which Hamilton proposed was private in its ownership, but the
-United States were to pledge themselves not to authorize any similar
-institution during its continuance. The capital of the bank was not to
-exceed $10,000,000, for which the President of the United States might
-subscribe $2,000,000 on behalf of the government. It was further
-provided that three fourths of the amount of each share might be paid
-in the public debt instead of gold and silver.
-
-It was the purpose of Hamilton not merely to create a useful financial
-institution, in which the government would be able to keep its
-deposits, but to weld the monetary system of the country into an
-harmonious whole. The result of this, which he foresaw and intended,
-was to bind the property-owning classes to the interests of the new
-government. The effect was much the same as the creation of the Bank
-of England by the loan of its capital to the government, which bound
-the moneyed classes firmly to King William, through the knowledge that
-the debt and the solvency of the bank depended on the perpetuation of
-his government and the exclusion of the Stuart Pretender. The tendency
-of Hamilton's project was clearly seen by Jefferson and other
-democratic leaders, and did not fail to arouse their hostility. It was
-not long before they promptly took sides against the national bank.
-Jefferson wrote regarding the meetings of the cabinet at this time
-that "Hamilton and myself were daily pitted in the cabinet like two
-cocks."
-
-There was something deeper involved, from the standpoint of Jefferson,
-than the mere question of bringing the moneyed class to the side of
-the government. The latter object was sufficiently distasteful to him,
-but the extension of the powers granted by the Constitution beyond
-those which were directly enumerated in the document involved a
-question of public policy and constitutional law which afforded the
-basis for the creation of two great national parties. The Constitution
-did not anywhere grant in terms to the government the power to
-establish a national bank. Even Hamilton did not pretend to put his
-finger on the specific authority for his new project. He advanced a
-doctrine which was eagerly embraced by the party which was growing up
-around him, but which was as resolutely opposed by the other party.
-This was the doctrine of the implied powers granted to the new
-government by the Constitution. It is doubtful whether the
-Constitution would have been ratified by Virginia and other states if
-this doctrine had been set forth and defended in the state conventions
-by the friends of the Constitution. This by no means implies that the
-policy and doctrine of Hamilton were not wise and far-sighted.
-Hamilton had definite aims before him, and it was his legitimate
-mission to educate public sentiment up to the point of accepting those
-aims and of granting him the means for carrying them out.
-
-The doctrine of the "implied powers" rested upon the theory that
-unless they were directly prohibited by the Constitution, all powers
-were granted to the government by implication which were found
-necessary and proper for carrying out the powers specifically granted.
-Jefferson came to believe, if he did not believe at the outset, that
-the government was one of delegated powers which were strictly limited
-to those enumerated in the Constitution. The doctrine of Hamilton,
-from this point of view, was revolutionary. It meant the conversion of
-a government holding limited delegations of power from the people and
-the states into a government having supreme power, capable of taking
-an infinite variety of measures whenever Congress, in the exercise of
-its discretion, believed that such measures would contribute to the
-well-being of the Union. The state governments, coming closer to the
-people than the federal government, were most directly threatened by
-this assumption of power, and it was as the champions of state rights
-as well as democratic ideas that Jefferson and his friends took their
-ground as the advocates of the strict construction of the
-Constitution.
-
-It is not surprising, therefore, that the proposal to create the Bank
-of the United States called forth in Congress prolonged and heated
-debates. But the policy of Hamilton had been so far successful in
-restoring the public credit that he carried the project for the
-national bank through both houses, and it was laid before the
-President for his approval. Washington had watched with interest the
-struggle in the two houses, and was somewhat impressed by the weight
-of the argument against the constitutional power of Congress to
-establish the bank. The cabinet was divided. Jefferson and Randolph
-were against the constitutionality of the bill. Hamilton and Knox were
-in favor of it. Washington asked each of them to give him in writing
-the reasons for his opinion. He weighed them carefully and then
-affixed his signature to the bill (February 25, 1791). The new project
-realized all the benefits which Hamilton expected. Washington, in his
-tour of the Southern States in the spring of 1791, found the sentiment
-for union strengthening and the country recovering from the
-prostration of the era of bad money and political uncertainty which
-had followed the Revolution. He declared in a letter written after his
-return:
-
-"Our public credit stands on that ground, which, three years ago, it
-would have been madness to have foretold. The astonishing rapidity
-with which the newly instituted bank was filled, gives an unexampled
-proof of the resources of our countrymen and their confidence in
-public measures. On the first day of opening the subscription, the
-whole number of shares (twenty thousand) were taken up in one hour,
-and application made for upwards of four thousand shares more than
-were granted by the institution, besides many others that were coming
-in from various quarters."
-
-How much was likely to be done by a national bank to bind together the
-commercial interests of different sections of the country can hardly
-be appreciated to-day. At that time there were only four banks in the
-country; none of these was ten years old, and their combined capital
-was only $1,950,000. The Bank of the United States was authorized to
-establish offices of discount and deposit in all the states and to
-distribute parts of its capital among eight branches in the chief
-cities of the country. It was the drafts of these branches upon each
-other, and their means for reducing to a uniform and reasonable rate
-the cost of transferring funds, which contributed to knit all parts of
-the country together in commercial matters and so strengthened the
-bond of political union. The bank did not make regular reports to the
-Treasury Department, but its success is indicated by a special report
-communicated to Congress by Secretary Gallatin (January 24, 1811),
-which showed resources of $24,183,046. The average annual dividends
-paid upon the stock up to March, 1809, were over eight per cent.
-
-So invaluable were the operations of the Bank of the United States to
-the public treasury that Jefferson himself when President came to its
-support. His support was perhaps never very hearty, and was due to
-Albert Gallatin, his Secretary of the Treasury, whose foresight and
-ability give him a rank next to Hamilton among the able men who have
-presided over the national finances. Gallatin made a strong report in
-1809, recommending that the charter of the bank be renewed upon its
-expiration in 1811, with an increase of capital and wider powers. A
-new charter was voted in the House, but the bill was not acted on in
-the Senate, and before the next session the opposition of the state
-bankers had rallied sufficient strength to defeat the recharter. The
-second United States Bank was authorized in 1816, under the
-administration of Madison and with his approval, but its career was
-terminated in 1836, as the result of the political hostility of
-President Jackson.
-
-It was not until after the grant of this second charter that the
-question of the power of Congress to establish a bank came directly
-before the Supreme Court in 1819. At the head of this court sat John
-Marshall, who next to Hamilton, perhaps, did more than any other man
-to strengthen and extend the powers of the general government. The
-jealousy of the state banks had led the State of Maryland to impose a
-discriminating tax on the Bank of the United States. If the right to
-levy such a tax had been admitted, the Bank would have been completely
-at the mercy of the states, and one of the chief purposes of its
-creation would have been defeated. In order to sustain the right of
-the bank to exemption from taxation, it was necessary to prove that it
-was a constitutional instrument of federal power. Hence the question
-of the power of Congress to create such a corporation came directly
-before the court.
-
-Hamilton found the power to create a bank partly in the preamble to
-the Constitution, which declares that the people of the United States
-have adopted it in order to "promote the general welfare," but more
-particularly in that concluding phrase of the clause defining the
-powers of Congress, which declares that that body shall have
-authority "to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for
-carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers
-vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States or
-in any department or officer thereof." Marshall, in the series of
-great decisions by which he strengthened the power of the Union, often
-made use of these provisions to justify his reasoning. In one of the
-most famous of these decisions (McCulloch _vs._ Maryland), he
-sustained the constitutionality of the bank as an instrument of
-federal power and denied the right of the states to levy upon its
-property. He declared that the power to tax involved the power to
-destroy, and that if the federal government had not the power to
-withdraw its creations from discriminating legislation by the states,
-the latter might tax the mail or the mints, the papers of the
-custom-houses, or the forms of judicial process.
-
-The view of Hamilton regarding the power of the federal government to
-create a bank was thus sustained in emphatic terms by the highest
-court in the land. It was partly his policy in providing for the bank
-and demonstrating its usefulness, with his other measures to develop
-the powers of the central government, which made possible the
-decisions of Marshall. If the question of the right to incorporate a
-bank could have been brought before the court at the beginning, before
-the institution had proved its value, and if men like Jefferson and
-Madison had been upon the bench, there is at least room for doubt
-whether a decision would have been rendered in favor of a power which
-is not granted directly to the government by the Constitution. But by
-the resolute executive policy of Hamilton and the broad judicial
-constructions of Marshall, the functions of the new government were
-extended to all those great objects necessary to create a vigorous and
-united nation.
-
-The many other measures of Hamilton were directed by the same
-singleness of purpose to strengthen the hands of the government and
-consolidate the Union. The report on the mint followed the previous
-reports of Jefferson in recommending the adoption of the dollar as the
-unit of value. Hamilton observed that "upon the whole, it seems to be
-most advisable, as has been observed, not to attach the unit
-exclusively to either of the metals; because this cannot be done
-effectually, without destroying the office and character of one of
-them as money, and reducing it to the situation of a mere
-merchandise." He believed, however, that care should be taken to
-regulate the proportion between the metals with an eye to their
-average commercial value. He pointed out the danger of undervaluing
-either metal, and the inevitable result, in case of a difference of
-ratio in two countries, "if other things were equal, that the greatest
-part of the gold would be collected in one, and the greatest part of
-the silver in the other."
-
-This discussion of the subject took place at a time when monetary
-principles were not very well fixed, when the standard and the state
-of the currency had hardly been settled on an orderly basis in any
-country, and when the means of transportation for the precious metals
-were much slower and less efficient than under modern conditions, and
-the cost was much greater. Hamilton endeavored to find the true
-commercial relation between gold and silver as a basis for the coinage
-values, in the hope that this would not change sufficiently to upset a
-bimetallic system founded upon such a basis. He was not a victim of
-the delusion that government can arbitrarily give value by law to
-money, but declared, "There can hardly be a better rule in any country
-for the legal, than the market proportion; if this can be supposed to
-have been produced by the free and steady course of commercial
-principles."
-
-The report on manufactures and the bill providing for an excise were
-parts of the project of Hamilton for building up a vigorous and
-self-supporting nation. The report on manufactures was not presented
-to Congress until the beginning of the long session at the close of
-1791, and was not carried out in legislation. It consisted chiefly of
-an argument for the encouragement of young industries in an
-undeveloped country. Hamilton strongly favored the diversification of
-the industries of the country between agriculture and various forms of
-manufacture, because he believed it would contribute to the solidity
-of the industrial system and to the financial independence of the
-United States. His conception of the best method for promoting
-American industries differed materially, however, from more recent
-developments of the protective system. He recommended bounties and
-premiums in many cases in preference to protectionist customs duties,
-in order to avoid the rise in the price of articles to the consumer
-which often results from such duties. The customs duties which he
-proposed, moreover, ranged only from seven and a half to fifteen per
-cent., and the latter rate was to be levied on only a few articles.
-
-The country was not yet ripe for extensive industrial enterprises. The
-manufactures then existing were chiefly for supplying local needs,
-the factory system had not been introduced, and the capital had not
-been accumulated for the creation of large establishments. The country
-needed many foreign manufactured articles to put it upon the highroad
-to industrial development, and it was at a much later period that the
-manufacturing interests acquired the power which enabled them to
-increase the scale of duties. When this time came, they turned to the
-arsenal of Hamilton's report for weapons in support of the policy of
-diversifying industries; but they used these weapons in behalf of a
-scale of duties which was not recommended by him and they ignored his
-arguments for premiums and bounties for the protection of the consumer
-against excessive prices.
-
-Whether Hamilton would have favored the policy of protection in its
-later developments, it is useless to inquire. It is idle to claim for
-any thinker of the past that he anticipated all future discoveries and
-reasoning in the fields of politics or economics. It is not
-necessary, in order to give a statesman a high place in history, to
-worship blindly all that he did or said or to make such deeds and
-words an authority for later generations. What can be said of Hamilton
-without reasonable ground of denial is that he did not recommend in
-any of his writings the high scale of duties advocated by some
-protectionists in recent years. On the contrary, he urged a scale of
-duties which would be treated by the protectionist of to-day as below
-even the level of a "tariff for revenue only." That his ideas were far
-from extreme is indicated by the project which he drew up in 1794 for
-a reciprocity treaty with Great Britain, which proposed to limit
-American import duties on the leading textiles and manufactured
-articles of metal to ten per cent. of their value. He even criticised
-Jefferson's message of 1801 for recommending the repeal of the
-internal revenue taxes, upon the ground that the duties on imports
-were high and that if any taxes were to be repealed, they should be
-those which weighed on commerce and navigation.
-
-A measure which led to more immediate results than the report on
-manufactures was the report on the excise. Hamilton found it
-necessary, in order to obtain sufficient funds to meet the interest on
-the debt and other charges, to recommend an excise tax upon distilled
-liquors produced in the United States. The bill passed Congress in
-January, 1791, and was soon put in force. Violent resistance was made
-in western Pennsylvania, where the manufacture of whiskey was more
-extensively carried on than in any other part of the Union. The
-federal collector for Washington and Allegheny was tarred and
-feathered, and deputy marshals did not dare serve writs against those
-guilty of the outrage. Washington's journey through the South had a
-good effect in softening the opposition to the law, which first showed
-itself in Virginia and North Carolina; but in Pennsylvania conditions
-went from bad to worse, until it became necessary to give the federal
-government additional powers for collecting the tax and putting down
-insurrection. Masked mobs terrorized those who were inclined to obey
-the law, and forced them to publish the injury done to their stills.
-In order to protect themselves by embroiling the whole community, some
-of the insurgent leaders had the mail stopped, the militia called out
-on their side, and threatened to lay Pittsburg in ashes (July, 1794).
-
-The opportunity had come for testing the question whether the Union
-was strong enough to put down rebellion by force. It was an
-opportunity which Hamilton did not shirk. At his earnest solicitation,
-an army was dispatched to the disturbed districts. Washington showed
-no hesitation in supporting the authority of the federal government.
-He obtained a certificate from a judge of the Supreme Court, setting
-forth that the laws of the United States were set at naught and that
-the courts were unable to enforce them. He then issued a proclamation
-commanding the insurgents to submit to the laws, and made a
-requisition for 12,950 militia from Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia,
-and New Jersey, to move on September 1, 1794, towards the disaffected
-districts.
-
-The firmness of Washington put an end to the insurrection. Governor
-Mifflin of Pennsylvania, who had hesitated to put down the
-disturbances by the strong hand of the state, recovered his courage,
-and aided the federal government by proclamations and by his full
-quota of troops. Hamilton accompanied the army as it moved towards the
-West, and remained with it after Washington turned back to attend the
-opening of Congress. The strong display of force made by the
-government overawed the insurgents and finally compelled their
-submission. Albert Gallatin, although a citizen of the disaffected
-section and an opponent of the party in power, exerted his influence
-on behalf of order. Negotiations were set on foot between
-commissioners of the President, and a committee of citizens, of which
-Gallatin was a member. When this committee met to decide whether they
-would recommend compliance with the law, they were surrounded by
-riflemen who were ready to shoot if their leaders showed signs of
-yielding. But they adopted the clever device of a ballot upon which
-both yea and nay were written, with the option of destroying either
-word. A small majority voted to submit. Some of the obstinate spirits
-held out, but as the people fell away from them, they were arrested
-and put on trial, and the authority of the federal government was no
-longer disputed.
-
-This suppression of the "Whiskey Rebellion," as it was called, was one
-of the most important steps in the consolidation of the Union. Many
-who had observed the aggressive and comprehensive projects of
-Hamilton, and seen them daily binding closer the bonds of union, did
-not believe that they would stand the test of armed conflict. They
-feared that the power of the government would wither and the people
-split into warring factions when men were called upon to march in arms
-against their fellow-citizens. The event proved that the new
-government had vindicated its right to exist, and that the sentiment
-of union was daily gaining a stronger hold upon the hearts of the
-people. That this new power had not only built up a cohesive financial
-system, but had shown its capacity to put down resistance to its
-lawful authority with a strong hand, was largely the work of Hamilton.
-It may be said that it was wholly his work, so far as any great
-national policy can be projected and carried out by a single man,
-independently of the support of his associates in the government and
-of the body of public opinion which make possible the execution of his
-plans.
-
-The time had come when Hamilton felt that his constructive work was
-done. He withdrew from the cabinet (January 31, 1795), and Oliver
-Wolcott of Connecticut was appointed his successor. Hamilton chose the
-moment for retiring from office with a tact and judgment unusual with
-public men. He was moved partly by the desire to provide for his
-family upon a more liberal scale than his modest salary under the
-government permitted. He was too patriotic, however, to have
-abandoned his post until he felt that his constructive work was
-complete. It was with conscious satisfaction that in his report on the
-public credit at the beginning of 1795 he was able to marshal the
-measures already taken towards restoring order to the national
-finances and point out their results. The credit of the country had
-been raised from the lowest abyss of dishonor to that of the most
-enlightened nations of the old world; an adequate system of taxation
-had been provided for meeting the public obligations; the business
-interests had been knit together in support of the government by a
-national bank; a monetary system had been established; the Treasury
-had been organized in its various branches upon a basis which has
-survived to our day; and finally the strength of the fabric of the
-Union and of the financial system had been subjected to the test of a
-rebellion which, without serious bloodshed, but with a strong display
-of force, had been fully and firmly subdued.
-
-
-
-
-VI
-
-FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND NEUTRALITY
-
-
-The comprehensive measures of Hamilton for strengthening the Union
-gave a definite character and policy to the Federalist party. The
-foundations of this party had been laid by the struggle over the
-question whether the Constitution should be accepted by the states;
-but the measures of Hamilton were too strong for some of the friends
-of the Constitution, and many changes occurred in the temporary
-groupings of political leaders before a definite dividing line was
-established between the Federalism of Hamilton on the one side and the
-Democracy of Jefferson and Madison on the other. These two eminent
-Democratic leaders had, indeed, been among the most earnest supporters
-of the Constitution. Madison went farther than Jefferson in the
-direction of Federalism, and encountered the distrust of the
-states-rights element at home; but Jefferson, as has been already
-seen, made several reports in the Continental Congress in favor of
-declaring the United States a nation, and was the cordial promoter of
-those important steps towards union,--the transfer of the Western
-territory to Congress and the adoption of a common monetary system.
-
-The plans of Hamilton in regard to the finances, however, and his
-resolute policy of neutrality between France and Great Britain, ran
-counter to the views of Jefferson. It is not surprising, therefore,
-that the latter found himself pitted against the great Federalist
-leader upon nearly every question of importance which came before the
-cabinet. The feeling that he had been duped in regard to the
-assumption of the state debts found vent in many complaints, which
-finally bore fruit in open attacks upon Hamilton, at first made
-indirectly through a clerk in the government service, and then
-directly in a long letter to Washington. Jefferson gave the post of
-translating clerk in the State Department to a Frenchman, Philip
-Freneau, who published a journal known as the "National Gazette." In
-this journal Freneau began a series of bitter and sometimes
-well-directed attacks upon the measures of the administration, and
-particularly those of Hamilton. A friend of Jefferson in Virginia,
-Colonel Mason, approached Washington in the summer of 1791, and made a
-long and severe criticism upon the Treasury measures and their effect
-upon the people.
-
-Washington continued to stand above party, and sought to mitigate the
-friction between his cabinet officers. Where the judgments of Hamilton
-and Jefferson differed on constructive measures, however, Washington
-in nearly every case became convinced of the wisdom of the
-recommendations of Hamilton. He therefore had the appearance of
-leaning to his side, although he often mitigated the sharpness of the
-arguments of his vigorous young minister of finance and endeavored to
-temper his excess of zeal. After listening to Mason, Washington felt
-that the time had come to interpose in the growing hostility between
-his cabinet ministers. He submitted a brief summary to Hamilton of
-the criticisms which had been made upon his projects and asked him to
-submit a statement in reply. The charges were directed not only
-against the substance of the financial measures, but declared that
-they fostered speculation, corrupted Congress through the ownership of
-the public debt by members of that body, and that Hamilton was
-laboring secretly to introduce aristocracy and monarchy.
-
-It was not difficult for Hamilton to brush away most of these
-criticisms. This he did in the cool, logical manner of which he was a
-master by numbering each objection to his policy and measures and
-showing that it was not founded upon solid reasoning or fact. Hamilton
-would have done well to have rested his case upon his letter to
-Washington, but he was now convinced that Jefferson was behind the
-attacks upon him, and he determined to strike back. He began a series
-of anonymous communications through the Federalist organ, "Fenno's
-Gazette," which showed all his usual vigor and force of reasoning, but
-which only intensified the bitterness in the cabinet. President
-Washington was deeply disturbed by this open outbreak of hostilities,
-and remonstrated by letter with both Hamilton and Jefferson. Hamilton
-suspended his attacks, while Jefferson confined his hostility to less
-open methods.
-
-When Congress met at the close of 1791, Giles of Virginia, a
-loud-spoken, hot-headed member of the House, called for accounts of
-the various foreign loans made by the government. An attempt was made
-to prove corruption in the management of the Treasury. Hamilton could
-not have found a better opportunity for defending himself, if he had
-sought it. He was no longer shut up to the unsatisfactory methods of
-unsigned communications through newspapers, but was in a position to
-speak openly and boldly in exposition and defense of his measures.
-Report after report was sent to Congress, setting forth the operations
-of the Treasury with a lucidity and power which silenced the
-opposition and almost overwhelmed Madison, who had been forced as a
-party leader to accept the responsibility for the attacks. The
-reports, to any one who understood the subject, were absolutely
-convincing of the soundness and wisdom of Hamilton's measures.
-
-Jefferson, perhaps, had some right to complain of the influence which
-Hamilton exerted over that department of the government which properly
-belonged under his exclusive jurisdiction. This was the management of
-foreign relations. Hamilton had such definite and well-considered
-views on foreign policy as well as finance that he could not forbear
-presenting them in the cabinet. His superiority in definiteness of aim
-and energy no doubt led him to believe that he was fitted for the
-functions of prime minister and that he was justified in exercising
-them as far as he could. The course of Washington encouraged him to
-the extent that the President often gave the preference to his views
-over those of Jefferson, but it was far from the purpose of the
-President to make any distinction in rank or in his confidence between
-his ministers. Hamilton, although an admirer of the British political
-system, permitted himself few prejudices in his theory of the foreign
-policy of the United States. Though often charged with British
-sympathies, he leaned much less towards Great Britain than Jefferson,
-through his admiration of the spirit of the French Revolution, leaned
-towards France.
-
-The foreign relations of the country began to become acute with the
-outbreak of war between England and France in 1793. France had already
-abolished royalty, expelled the nobles, sent Louis XVI. to the
-scaffold, and was on the eve of the terrible massacres which did so
-much to revolt even her best friends outside the country. The news of
-war reached the United States early in April, 1793. News came also
-that a minister from the French Republic had landed at Charleston and
-would soon present his credentials at Philadelphia. Hamilton sent post
-haste for Washington, who was at Mount Vernon. The outbreak of war
-meant danger to American commerce on the ocean and the risk of trouble
-with both powers over the neutrality laws. The serious question
-confronting the American government was whether they should maintain
-strict neutrality between the belligerents or should side with France,
-to whom they were bound by the treaties made with her when she came to
-the rescue of the colonies. When Washington reached Philadelphia, he
-found both Jefferson and Hamilton ready with suggestions for meeting
-the crisis, but these suggestions differed widely. Jefferson, although
-not an advocate of war against England, believed that Congress should
-be called together in extra session to deal with the emergency.
-
-A stronger programme was urged upon the President by Hamilton. He
-regarded the question of neutrality and the reception of the French
-envoy as one for the executive rather than for Congress. He believed
-also that these subjects would be safer in the hands of Washington
-than midst the passions of a legislative body. He drew up a statement,
-embodying a series of questions regarding the policy of the United
-States, which was laid by Washington before the cabinet. The first
-question was whether a declaration of neutrality should be issued.
-This was decided in the affirmative, and the proclamation was soon
-issued by Washington. It was decided that the French minister, Genet,
-should be received, but that early occasion should be taken to explain
-to him that the United States did not consider themselves bound by the
-treaties to plunge into war in behalf of France. While it was admitted
-by Hamilton that it would not be the province of the United States
-under ordinary circumstances to cavil over the character of the
-government in France, but would be their duty to accept the government
-which existed, nevertheless, the extraordinary events which had taken
-place at Paris justified a certain reserve towards the revolutionary
-powers.
-
-Entirely apart from the changes in the character of the French
-government, it was felt by Hamilton that the time had come to give an
-interpretation to the early treaties in harmony with a more
-unchallenged independence for the United States, and a more
-complete separation from the intrigues of European politics. The
-radical character of the Revolution in France, and the action of the
-French government itself, gave an excuse for an interpretation of the
-treaties which otherwise might not have been found without blushing.
-The treaties provided for a defensive alliance with France, and it was
-promptly decided by the cabinet that the war of France against Great
-Britain was not defensive. Hamilton proposed not only to revise the
-treaties, but to resist by the utmost efforts of the federal
-government the enlistment of men and the fitting out of privateers in
-America in aid of the French. He did not propose, as some of the
-friends of France would have desired, that the proclamation of
-neutrality should be only a mask for underhanded aid to that country.
-
-The situation was made as difficult as possible for the government by
-the hot temper and indiscretions of the new French minister. These
-qualities in him were encouraged by the reception which he received
-on the way from Charleston to Philadelphia. He was everywhere welcomed
-with such enthusiastic demonstrations of sympathy for France as tended
-to make him believe that he was something more than the diplomatic
-representative of a foreign country, and could safely interfere in the
-politics of the United States. As he approached Philadelphia (May 16,
-1793) he found Captain Bompard of the French frigate L'Ambuscade ready
-to fire a salute of three guns, and men on swift horses posted along
-the road to give notice to the citizens of his coming.
-
-Genet had no sooner landed at Charleston than he began to fit out
-privateers to prey upon British commerce. The Ambuscade herself, which
-brought Genet to Charleston, seized several English merchant vessels
-on her way to Philadelphia, and crowned her insolence to the United
-States by seizing an English vessel, the Grange, within the Delaware
-capes, in the jurisdiction of the United States. The Grange was
-restored to her owners, but her seizure was only one of many flagrant
-violations of international law which were systematically carried out
-by the French, and which were defended and often planned by Genet.
-When the Polly was stopped from leaving New York fitted out for a
-French privateer, Hauterive, the French consul, addressed a note to
-Governor Clinton, telling him it was not in a land where Frenchmen had
-spilled their blood that they were to be thus harassed. When the
-Little Sarah was fitted out as a privateer in Philadelphia, Hamilton
-and Knox urged that a battery be placed on one of the islands and that
-the vessel be fired upon if she attempted to leave the harbor.
-Jefferson was hoodwinked by assurances from Genet that the vessel
-would not sail, and himself indulged in some glittering talk against
-the United States joining in "the combination of kings against
-France." The vessel at once put to sea, and Washington was so
-indignant that Jefferson was almost driven to resignation.
-
-Hamilton had a more direct interest officially in the demands of Genet
-for money which was owed to France. Genet not only asked for the
-anticipation of payments soon to mature, but insisted that he should
-receive the whole amount of the debt. He threw a bait to American
-sentiment by the suggestion that the money would be spent in the
-United States for provisions and supplies. Hamilton treated his rude
-demands just as he would those of any other creditor. He was willing
-to anticipate certain payments when the Treasury resources justified
-it, but absolutely refused to do more. Genet then threatened to pay
-for what he bought with drafts upon the Treasury. Hamilton coolly
-retorted that the drafts would not be honored. The Frenchman was
-compelled to consume his wrath, not exactly in silence, but without
-result upon the government.
-
-Genet, encouraged by some of the enemies of the administration,
-succeeded in working up a strong pro-French sentiment in various parts
-of the country. At a dinner in Philadelphia, following his arrival,
-songs were sung to France and America, and the red cap of liberty,
-which had been forced upon the reluctant head of Louis XVI. in the
-great demonstration of the preceding August at the Tuileries, was
-passed around the table and successively worn by each of the American
-guests. Hamilton, who never had much confidence in pure democracy,
-went close to the other extreme in his alarm over these signs of
-public opinion. He felt compelled in the summer of 1793 to publish a
-series of essays signed "Pacificus," defending the policy of the
-administration. These papers, in the language of Mr, Lodge, "served
-their purpose of awakening the better part of the community to the
-gravity of the situation, and began the work of rallying the friends
-of the government to its active support." Genet addressed such
-offensive letters to the Department of State, and his conduct became
-so intolerable, that the cabinet agreed to send the correspondence to
-Paris and ask for his recall. Genet himself published a letter which
-revealed his insolence to the public, and caused a revulsion of
-sentiment which brought the more sober men of all parties to the side
-of Washington. Genet's course was run, and in February, 1794, his
-successor came out from France.
-
-Hamilton soon had opportunities for proving that his policy of
-neutrality was directed as much against English as against French
-aggression. When Great Britain issued the first Orders in Council,
-directing the seizure of all vessels loaded with French produce,
-Hamilton declared the British order an outrage, and urged the
-fortification of the seaports and the raising of troops. He exerted
-himself, however, to restrain popular passion and preserve peace. He
-suggested to Washington that a special mission be sent to London to
-treat with the British government. The idea was cordially accepted by
-Washington. He desired to send Hamilton, but the Virginia party,
-headed by Madison and Monroe, strongly opposed the appointment. They
-were embittered by recent party conflicts, and regarded Hamilton as
-too friendly to British interests. Chief Justice John Jay of New York
-was then recommended by Hamilton for the mission. Opposition was made
-even to Jay, but the nomination was confirmed (April 19, 1794), and
-Hamilton himself drew the outline of the instructions with which Jay
-sailed from New York.
-
-The conflict over the treaty which Jay brought back in the following
-winter was one of the most bitter ever waged in American politics. The
-contracting parties to the treaty--the United States and Great
-Britain--looked at the situation from widely different points of view.
-Jay secured the promise of the withdrawal of the British troops from
-the frontier posts and an agreement to compensate Americans for losses
-through British privateering. The last was an important concession,
-because it covertly admitted the British position in regard to
-privateering to be in conflict with international law. Some important
-commercial concessions were also made by Great Britain, which were
-regarded at London as purely gratuitous. But the treaty failed to
-secure any compensation for the claims of American citizens for
-negroes and other property carried away by the British troops, and
-American vessels were forbidden carrying to Europe from English ports
-or even from the United States coffee and the other chief colonial
-products. Among the latter was named cotton, which was then just
-becoming a large element in the production of the South.
-
-Hamilton himself is said to have characterized the treaty as "an old
-woman's treaty," when he first read it, but it soon became evident
-that it must be accepted substantially as presented, if war was to be
-avoided. Washington called the Senate in extra session in June, 1795,
-and after two weeks' debate in secret session the treaty was ratified
-by exactly the necessary two thirds vote,--twenty to ten. It was not
-until the adjournment of the Senate that the contents of the document
-reached the public through Senator Mason of Virginia. The news was
-followed by town meetings all over the country demanding that
-President Washington refuse to exchange ratifications. So intense was
-the feeling that a vessel suspected of being a British privateer was
-seized and burned at Boston, a great meeting in Faneuil Hall ordered
-a committee to take a protest to Philadelphia, and Hamilton himself
-was stoned and refused a hearing at a meeting in New York. But
-Washington remained calm. Hamilton, as the responsible leader of the
-party, took up the cudgels for ratification. He submitted an elaborate
-argument to the cabinet (July 9, 1795), and with an amendment which
-the Senate recommended and Great Britain accepted, the treaty went
-into operation.
-
-
-
-
-VII
-
-HAMILTON AS A PARTY LEADER
-
-
-The ratification of the Jay treaty did much to shake the power of the
-Federalists, and for a moment seemed to threaten their ruin. It was
-divisions in their own ranks, however, which contributed as much to
-this event as any real blunders in public policy. Hamilton was not at
-his best in conciliating those who differed from him, and he did not
-encounter a more yielding or tactful associate in John Adams. Hamilton
-had gone out of his way with little reason at the first presidential
-election, in 1788, to secure votes against Adams. His avowed object
-was to insure the election of Washington by preventing a tie vote
-between Washington and Adams. The original Constitution authorized
-each elector to vote for two persons for President and Vice-President,
-without designating the office for which either was voted for. This
-led to complications which were corrected by an amendment after the
-election of 1800. In the case of the first election, however, few sane
-men doubted that Washington would have the majority of the votes, and
-the only effect of the intrigue of Hamilton was to reduce the vote for
-Adams to a point which almost caused his defeat. Hamilton supported
-Adams in the second election, in 1792, and the relations between the
-two men were reasonably cordial.
-
-When Washington retired from the presidency, in 1797, the commanding
-men in the Federalist party were Hamilton, John Jay, Thomas Pinckney,
-and John Adams. Hamilton was the controlling mind in the consultations
-of the leaders rather than the sort of man who appealed to the people.
-He was not seriously thought of by himself or others as a candidate
-for President. Jay was barred by the odium attaching to the treaty
-with Great Britain. The choice was therefore reduced to Pinckney and
-Adams. Most of the leaders were for Adams, who was superior to
-Pinckney in Revolutionary services and ability. It was determined
-that the Federalist electors should vote for both Adams and Pinckney,
-with the purpose of choosing the former for President and the latter
-for Vice-President. Hamilton on this occasion urged that all the
-Federalist electors should vote for both Adams and Pinckney. If each
-had received an equal number of votes, the choice would have been
-thrown into the House and Adams would probably have been elected.
-Hamilton erred in letting it be known that he was indifferent whether
-the outcome was favorable to Adams or Pinckney, especially when there
-was a strong suspicion that he was really for Pinckney. Party
-discipline had not then reached its modern development, and votes were
-thrown away by Federalist electors,--in the North to prevent a
-majority for Pinckney over Adams and in the South to prevent the same
-chance in favor of Adams.
-
-The result of these jealousies was that Adams barely escaped defeat.
-He was chosen by a plurality of three, but Pinckney was beaten, and
-Jefferson, having the next highest vote, was elected Vice-President.
-Adams became firmly convinced that Hamilton was his personal enemy and
-would stop at nothing to injure him. That Hamilton was recognized by
-all the party leaders as the master mind and the guiding spirit of the
-party made no difference to a man of the hot temper and resolute
-spirit of John Adams. Tact and conciliation were as far removed from
-his nature as from that of any American public man. The indifference
-of Hamilton whether he was beaten by Pinckney, in connection with
-Hamilton's intrigue in 1788, had convinced Adams that Hamilton did not
-feel proper respect for him, and that he was seeking to dictate the
-policy of the administration and to thwart and degrade him. Adams
-resented any sort of suggestion or consultation, and took delight in
-disregarding the suggestions of Hamilton, while the latter struck back
-through several members of the cabinet, who were more in sympathy with
-him than with the President.
-
-The country having escaped the danger of immediate war with England by
-the Jay treaty, was soon threatened with war with France. Monroe had
-been recalled as American Minister at Paris and Charles Pinckney, who
-was sent in his place, had been refused a reception. Some of the
-Federalists were so incensed against France that they were eager for
-war. Hamilton was opposed to war if it could be avoided, but was in
-favor of a resolute policy. Adams, although as far as possible from
-sympathy with France, believed every reasonable effort should be made
-to preserve peace. It was decided, with the approval of both Adams and
-Hamilton, to send a commission of three to Paris, to negotiate. Over
-the appointment of this commission new differences broke out between
-Hamilton and the President. Hamilton favored the appointment of a
-Northern and a Southern Federalist and of a Democrat of the highest
-standing, like Madison or even Jefferson. Adams was at first disposed
-to make these appointments, but finally took both the Federalists from
-the South,--Pinckney of South Carolina and John Marshall of
-Virginia,--and selected as the third member a Democrat of
-comparatively minor standing, Gerry of Massachusetts.
-
-The commissioners accomplished little good at Paris. They were
-insulted and browbeaten and told that only bribery would secure what
-they desired. When their treatment became known in the United States,
-in the spring of 1798, there was a popular outburst which restored the
-Federalists to power in Congress in the following autumn, with a
-larger majority than ever before since party divisions became fixed.
-Enthusiastic addresses poured in upon President Adams, war vessels
-were fitted out by private subscription, and bills were carried at
-once for a provisional army, for fortifications, and for the increase
-of the navy. Even under this stress of excitement, however, Hamilton
-opposed alliance with Great Britain, and persuaded Pickering, the
-Secretary of State, to abandon the advocacy of it.
-
-It was over the organization of the new army that the hostility of
-Adams to Hamilton became open and bitter. Washington was selected as
-commander-in-chief, but only consented to serve upon the condition
-that he should have the choice of the officers who were to rank next
-him, and should not be called upon to take an active part until the
-army took the field. He recommended to the President that rank in the
-Revolutionary army be disregarded and that the three major-generals to
-be appointed should be Hamilton, Charles Pinckney, and Knox. This gave
-the practical command and the work of the organization to Hamilton.
-Adams sent the names to the Senate, in the order suggested by
-Washington, and they were promptly confirmed. When he came to signing
-the commissions, however, he took the ground that Knox was the senior
-officer on account of his rank during the Revolution. Hamilton would
-not consent to this arrangement, and all the Federalist leaders,
-including members of the cabinet, remonstrated with the President
-against it. One of the saddest results of the quarrel was the
-alienation from Hamilton of Knox, who had been a friend of many years
-and when Secretary of War in Washington's first cabinet had stood
-loyally by Hamilton against Jefferson in the controversy over the
-financial projects.
-
-Adams at first seemed to grow more stubborn with the protests which
-were made against his action. The leaders finally turned to
-Washington. The latter informed the President that if the original
-agreement as to the rank of the officers was not kept, he should
-resign. Adams, with all his stubbornness and bravery, did not dare
-defy the country by forcing Washington from the service. He gave way,
-and appointed Hamilton to the first place, but the good feeling which
-might have been promoted if he had done so at first was replaced on
-both sides by bitterness which was never softened.
-
-Hamilton, as the practical head of the army, showed the same abounding
-energy and capacity for organization which he had shown at the head of
-the Treasury. He drafted a plan for the fortification of New York
-harbor, made an apportionment of officers and men among the states,
-and drew up projects for the organization of the new army, dealing
-with the questions of pay, uniforms, rations, promotions, police in
-garrisons and camps, and the many other branches of the service. All
-these projects received the cordial approval of Washington. When
-Congress met, Hamilton was ready with a bill putting the army upon a
-basis which would permit its increase or diminution in future without
-changing the form of the organization. In the spring of 1799 he was
-providing for the defense of the frontiers and planning the invasion
-of Louisiana and the Floridas.
-
-The projects of these invasions of Spanish territory justify a
-reference to the continental policy of Hamilton. He was among the
-first to maintain that the United States should have complete control
-of the valley of the Mississippi, and even during his short term in
-the Congress of the Confederation the last resolution which he
-presented declared the "navigation of the Mississippi to be a clear
-and essential right and to be supported as such." It was left for
-Jefferson, Hamilton's great opponent, to carry out his conception of
-the acquisition of the Mississippi valley by the purchase of
-Louisiana. The admirers of Hamilton credit him with a still wider
-vision of the future power of the United States, which was eventually
-to bear fruit in the Monroe doctrine and in the celebrated declaration
-of Secretary Olney in 1895, that "to-day the United States is
-practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the
-subjects to which it confines its interposition." Hamilton wrote in
-"The Federalist," before the adoption of the Constitution, that "our
-situation invites and our situation prompts us to aim at an ascendant
-in American affairs."
-
-The firm attitude of the United States towards France had its effect
-at Paris. Talleyrand sent an intimation indirectly to President Adams
-that the French government would be glad to receive an American envoy.
-Again the impetuosity of Adams divided his party and intensified his
-quarrel with the leaders who stood around Hamilton. The name of Vans
-Murray was sent to the Senate by the President for Minister to
-France, without even consulting the cabinet. Many doubted the wisdom
-of snapping up so promptly the offer made by Talleyrand, and more were
-incensed at the President's method of doing it. There was at first a
-strong disposition among the Federalist leaders to defeat the
-nomination in the Senate. Hamilton, however, checked the indignation
-of his friends and suggested a way out of the difficulty by appointing
-a strong commission.
-
-The downfall of the Federal party and the retirement of Hamilton from
-the active control of national policy were at hand. The passage of the
-alien and sedition laws, arrogating to the federal government
-intolerable powers of interference with the rights of the press and of
-free speech, was one of the causes contributing to the revulsion of
-feeling in favor of the party of Jefferson. Hamilton opposed the first
-drafts of these laws as cruel, violent, and tyrannical, but he did not
-disapprove their final form. The Federalists carried the congressional
-elections of 1798, under the impulse of the feeling against France,
-but began to lose ground soon after. As the presidential election of
-1800 approached, a desperate struggle was made to hold New York for
-Federalism as the only hope of defeating Jefferson and reëlecting
-Adams. The New York election went against the administration, and
-Hamilton pleaded in vain with Governor Jay to defeat the will of the
-people by calling the old legislature together and giving the choice
-of presidential electors to the congressional districts. It was
-perhaps the most discreditable proposal which ever came from Hamilton,
-and was promptly rejected by Jay.
-
-Hamilton's motive was a sincere fear that the country would go to ruin
-and the Constitution be endangered by the triumph of the political
-school of Jefferson. This might have been the case if it had been the
-first election under the Constitution, but Hamilton himself had
-builded better than he knew. The financial projects, the national
-bank, the suppression of the "Whiskey Insurrection," and the other
-measures taken under Washington and Adams had built up a Federal
-Union, whose strength could not be seriously shaken by the transfer of
-power from one party to another.
-
-With the shadow of defeat hanging over them, the course of the
-Federalist leaders seemed to justify the maxim, "Whom the gods destroy
-they first make mad." With the utmost need for harmony and unity,
-quarrels broke out which would have wrecked the party even if there
-had been otherwise some prospect of its success. Adams drove McHenry
-and Pickering from his cabinet because they had betrayed his secrets
-to Hamilton, and denounced Hamilton and his friends as a British
-faction. Hamilton asked in writing for a denial or explanation of the
-charge, but was treated with contemptuous silence. As the presidential
-election approached, Hamilton scarcely concealed his preference for
-Pinckney, who was again to be voted for by the electors along with
-Adams. Hamilton had been so badly treated by the President that he
-announced his purpose to prepare a pamphlet, exposing the failings of
-Adams and vindicating his own position.
-
-His best friends stood aghast at the project and labored with him to
-abandon it. Hamilton persevered, however, in the preparation of the
-pamphlet. He denounced Adams as a man of disgusting egotism, intense
-jealousy, and ungovernable temper, and reviewed in a scathing manner
-his entire public career, and especially the recent dismissal of the
-secretaries who were friendly to Hamilton. After all this criticism,
-Hamilton wound up with the lame conclusion that the electors should
-vote equally for Adams and Pinckney, in order to preserve Federal
-ascendency. He yielded to the protests of his friends so far as to
-keep the circulation of the pamphlet within a small circle, but it was
-hardly off the press before a copy was in the hands of Aaron Burr, the
-Democratic leader in New York, and was used with effect against the
-Federalist President.
-
-The downfall of Federalism came with the presidential election of
-1800. Jefferson and Burr were the Democratic candidates for President
-and Vice-President. Each was voted for by all the Democratic
-electors, giving them an equal number of votes and a majority of the
-electoral college. This threw the election into the House of
-Representatives, which was Federalist but was compelled by the
-provisions of the Constitution to decide between the two leading
-candidates, Jefferson and Burr. Some of the Federalists were ready to
-stoop to any means for striking at Jefferson, the great representative
-of Democratic ideals. If the Federalists in Congress could have
-effected a combination with the Democrats from states where Burr was
-influential, they might have been able to elect Burr President instead
-of Jefferson. But the Democrats, even from New York, voted for
-Jefferson, and it was evident that he must be chosen or there would be
-no election. Feeling in the country ran high, and there were threats
-of violence if the election of Jefferson should be defeated by
-intrigue.
-
-Hamilton behaved on this occasion with the high sense of public duty
-which marked most of his acts. Familiar as he was with the
-unscrupulous methods and doubtful character of Burr in New York
-politics, he felt that it would be criminal to put him in office. He
-had little reason to love Jefferson, who had filled the ears of
-Washington with slurs against himself, but he felt that the election
-belonged to Jefferson and that his defeat by a political intrigue
-would be a greater menace than his election to the system established
-by the Constitution. With Bayard of Delaware, the Federalist leader in
-the House, Hamilton threw himself strongly into the contest against
-Burr. His advice was not at first followed. The House ballotted from
-the eleventh to the sixteenth of February without reaching a choice. A
-caucus of the Federalists was then held; it appeared that Jefferson
-had given some assurances of a conservative policy in office, the
-views of Hamilton and Bayard prevailed, and on February 17, 1801, the
-Federalist members from several states withheld their votes, and
-Jefferson was elected.
-
-The retirement of the Federalists from power substantially ended the
-public services of Hamilton. He continued to watch public events with
-interest during the remaining five years of his life, and to be
-regarded as the leader of the Federalist party, but the party had
-shrunk to a corporal's guard in Congress and the long reign of the
-Democratic party had begun, which was to be interrupted during only
-two presidential terms until the election of Lincoln in 1860.
-Hamilton, therefore, at the age of forty-three, had completed his
-constructive work and ceased to influence public affairs except by his
-writings and speeches. It might almost be said that this work was done
-with the close of the administration of Washington in 1797, and that
-his great fame would have shone with brighter lustre if he had not
-lived to take part in the later differences and quarrels of the Adams
-administration. His life was not without service, however, under
-Adams, since his influence over members of the cabinet several times
-restrained rash policies, and between the conflicting passions of the
-champions of France and of the friends of Great Britain, kept the ship
-of state steady upon a safe course.
-
-
-
-
-VIII
-
-HAMILTON'S DEATH AND CHARACTER
-
-
-The death of Hamilton was in a peculiar sense a part of his public
-career. He had never hesitated to denounce in strong terms the public
-career and some of the private acts of Aaron Burr. The latter, after
-losing the presidency, sought the governorship of New York, and
-entered into correspondence with the Federalist leaders in New England
-with a view to the formation of a Northern confederacy. Hamilton
-succeeded in dividing the Federalist vote in New York so as to give
-the election to Lewis, Burr's democratic rival. Burr then determined
-to force a personal quarrel upon Hamilton in order to obtain revenge
-upon the man who had so often thwarted him. Hamilton had no desire to
-fight, but he did not feel able to repudiate the code of the duelist
-as it was then accepted among gentlemen.
-
-It was on June 17, 1804, that Colonel Burr, through his intimate
-friend Judge Van Ness, demanded an apology for a criticism by Hamilton
-which had reached Burr's ears. Several letters were exchanged before
-it became plain that Burr was bound to force a quarrel or to humiliate
-Hamilton to a point which he knew would not be endured. When Burr's
-true purpose became plain to Hamilton, he requested a short time to
-close up several important cases for his clients, which were then
-pending in the circuit court. The circuit having terminated, Colonel
-Burr was informed (Friday, July 6, 1804) that Hamilton would be ready
-to meet him at any time after the following Sunday. Both men realized
-that the meeting might be fatal, and prepared for it in a
-characteristic way. Burr, who because of his fascinating manners was a
-great favorite with women, destroyed the compromising letters which he
-had received and devoted his spare hours to pistol practice. Hamilton
-had fewer such letters to destroy, and was determined not to kill Burr
-if it could be avoided. He drew up his will, and prepared a statement
-of his reasons for fighting. This statement set forth that he was
-opposed to the practice of dueling and had done all that was
-practicable, even beyond the demands of a punctilious delicacy, to
-secure an accommodation. He then said:--
-
-"I have resolved, if our interview is conducted in the usual manner,
-and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw
-away my first fire; and I have thought even of reserving my second,
-and thus giving a double opportunity to Colonel Burr to pause and
-repent."
-
-The arrangements for the duel were made on Monday, and on the
-following Wednesday (July 11) the meeting took place at seven o'clock
-in the morning at Weehawken, three miles above Hoboken, on the west
-shore of the Hudson. Burr and Hamilton exchanged salutations, the
-seconds measured the distance, which was ten paces, and the parties
-took their respective stations. At the first word, Burr fired.
-Hamilton's weapon was discharged in the air, and he almost instantly
-fell, mortally wounded. The ball struck the second or third false rib,
-fractured it about the middle, passed through the liver and diaphragm,
-and lodged in the first or second lumbar vertebra. Hamilton was at
-first thought to be dead, but he revived when put on board the boat
-which was in waiting, and was able to utter a few words as he was
-borne towards his home. He died on the day after the meeting at two
-o'clock in the afternoon. Even in his death he rendered a parting
-service to his countrymen, by the revulsion of feeling which was
-everywhere aroused against the practice of dueling. The news of his
-premature taking off caused a wave of grief and indignation to spread
-over the country, differing from the chastened sorrow felt over the
-death of Washington, because Washington had met his end full of years
-and honors, and in the natural order of nature.
-
-The concluding statement made by Hamilton in the paper which he left
-regarding his meeting with Burr gives some clue to his reasons for
-fighting. This paragraph ran as follows:--
-
-"To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of dueling, may think
-that I ought on no account to have added to the number of bad
-examples, I answer that my relative situation, as well in public as
-private, enforcing all the considerations which constitute what men of
-the world denominate honor, imposed on me (as I thought) a peculiar
-necessity not to decline the call. The ability to be in future useful,
-whether in resisting mischief or effecting good, in those crises of
-our public affairs which seem likely to happen would probably be
-inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this
-particular."
-
-This statement has been construed to mean that Hamilton looked forward
-to the time when the Constitution would be assailed by extremists and
-he would be called by events to put himself at the head of a movement
-for a stronger government, and perhaps even to lead an army. Several
-passages in his writings, especially after the downfall of the
-Federalists, gave color to the view that he feared an outbreak of
-Jacobin violence in America, and the failure of the Constitution in
-such an event to resist the strain which would be put upon it. In a
-letter to Gouverneur Morris (February 27, 1802), he drops into the
-following gloomy forebodings:--
-
-"Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United States has
-sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself; and,
-contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know, from the
-very beginning, I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless
-fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses
-of its foes for my reward. What can I do better than withdraw from the
-scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world
-was not made for me."
-
-This mood of despondency was not the usual mood of Hamilton. Much as
-he abhorred the sympathy with France shown by the Democrats and the
-tendency towards French ideas, his habitual temper was for combination
-and action rather than surrender. During the three years which
-followed the inauguration of Jefferson, he continued, though busy with
-his law practice, to keep up in private life an active correspondence
-with Federalist leaders throughout the country, and to advise earnest
-efforts to defeat Democratic policies. Only the day before the duel,
-in a letter to Sedgwick of Massachusetts, he indirectly condemned a
-project which was on foot for a combination of the Northern States
-into a separate confederacy. He said that "dismemberment of our empire
-will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages without any
-counterbalancing good, administering no relief to our real disease,
-which is Democracy."
-
-Hamilton had fears for the future of the Union under the Constitution
-which were much exaggerated by his leanings towards a strong,
-self-centred government like that of Great Britain. It is not
-unreasonable to believe that he felt that he might again be called
-upon to play a great part in politics as the leader of his party, and
-that under the prejudices then prevailing he would weaken his
-personal influence if he refused a challenge. The public man of that
-day who could be charged with cowardice or lack of regard for his
-personal honor would suffer much with the masses, if not with the
-party leaders, who understood his character and abilities. Hamilton
-hardly needed to prove his personal courage to any reasonable man
-after his services in the Revolution, including his reckless charge
-upon the redoubt at Yorktown, but political foes might forget these
-evidences of his character if he should tamely submit to insult from a
-political opponent. It is doubtful whether his purpose in meeting Burr
-went beyond this submission to the general prejudice in favor of
-dueling and the belief on his part that his position as a gentleman
-and a political leader required him to accept the challenge.
-
-The high abilities and great services of Hamilton to the new Union
-have been sufficiently set forth in these pages to make unnecessary
-any elaborate estimate of his character and attainments. His essential
-merit was that of a constructive and organizing mind, which saw the
-opportunity for action and was equal to the opportunity. Hamilton was
-governed to a large extent by his intellect, but having reasoned out a
-proposition to be sound and wise, he rode resolutely to its
-accomplishment, taking little account of the obstacles in the way. He
-was not a closet philosopher, pursuing abstract propositions to their
-sources, and searching, through the discordant threads of human
-destiny, the ultimate principles of all things; but his mind was keen
-and alert in seizing upon reasoning which seemed obviously sound,
-laboring in behalf of his convictions, and presenting them with force
-and simplicity to others. He found the career for which he was
-preëminently fitted in the organization of the financial system and
-the consolidation of the Union, under the first administration of
-Washington. He was less fitted for the career of a politician in times
-less strenuous, or when tact and finesse were more useful in securing
-results than clear reasoning and strong argument.
-
-Hamilton was cut off when he had only recently resumed his
-professional career, but was making a distinguished record at the bar.
-Always a great lawyer, he would soon have accumulated a fortune if he
-had lived amid the tempting opportunities of to-day. As it was, his
-legal fees were modest and his sudden death left large debts. He
-bequeathed the request to his sons that they should assume these debts
-if his estate was insufficient, but the gratitude of some of the
-wealthy Federalists relieved them of this filial obligation. Hamilton
-had six sons, but most of them were already approaching a
-self-supporting age when he died. His oldest son had fallen a victim
-to the barbarous practice of dueling in a petty quarrel at a theatre
-three years before the father's death. The fourth son, Mr. John C.
-Hamilton, gave much time to the study of his father's career, and
-prepared the Life of Hamilton which has been the source of the later
-work of historians. Hamilton's widow, the daughter of General
-Schuyler, survived until 1854, when she died at the age of
-ninety-seven years and three months.
-
-As a man in private life, Hamilton was loved and respected by those
-who came closest to him, but it was as much by the qualities of his
-mind as by the special fascinations of his manner. He commanded the
-respect and support of most of the leaders of his party, because they
-were great enough to grasp and appreciate his reasoning, but he was
-never the idol of the people to the same extent as many other leaders.
-He would probably have made a great career in whatever direction he
-might have turned his high abilities, but he was fortunate in finding
-an opportunity for their exercise in a crisis which enabled him to
-render greater services to the country than have been rendered by
-almost any man in her history, with the exception of Washington and
-Lincoln.
-
-    The Riverside Press
-
-    _Electrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton & Co._
-    _Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A._
-
-
-
-
-
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