[PREFACE]
[CONTENTS]
[ILLUSTRATIONS]
[INDEX]
[FOOTNOTES]

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON

The Struggle for Democracy
In America
BY
CLAUDE G. BOWERS
AUTHOR OF ‘THE PARTY BATTLES OF THE JACKSON PERIOD’
With Illustrations

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
The Riverside Press Cambridge
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY CLAUDE G. BOWERS
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TENTH IMPRESSION, JANUARY, 1927
The Riverside Press
CAMBRIDGE · MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

PREFACE

All American history has since run along the lines marked out by the antagonism of Jefferson and Hamilton. Our history is sometimes charged with a lack of picturesqueness because it does not deal with the belted knight and the moated grange. But to one who considers the moral import of events, it is hard to see how anything can be more picturesque than the spectacle of these two giant antagonists contending for political measures which were so profoundly to affect the lives of millions of human beings yet unborn.

John Fiske

IT is the author’s purpose, in developing the stirring story of the Plutarchian struggle of Jefferson and Hamilton, to show that without belted knights the period was picturesque and dramatic. The extraordinary men who gave and took lusty blows did not, as some would have us think, confine themselves to calm academic discussions of elemental principles. The dignified steel engravings of the participants, with which we are familiar, give no impression of the disheveled figures seen by their contemporaries on the battle-field.

This battle-field was rich in movement and color. There was tragedy and pathos, much of comedy, something of the grotesque. Here we shall meet marching mobs, witness duels and fist-fights, turbulent mass meetings, public dinners in groves and taverns, hangings in effigy, and champions of democracy in the galleries of theaters, pelting the aristocrats in the pits, and coercing the orchestras into playing ‘La Marseillaise.’ It was in the midst of such scenes as these that Jefferson and Hamilton fought the battle of the fundamentals.

The struggle of these two giants surpasses in importance any other waged in America because it related to elemental differences that reach back into the ages, and will continue to divide mankind far into the future. The surrender at Yorktown ended one phase of the Revolution, but it was not complete until, after twelve years of nationhood, it was definitively determined that this should be not only a republic, but a democratic republic. That was the real issue between Jefferson and Hamilton.

The passions of the period still persist, and much of myth has been built up by idolaters and enemies about both leaders. It has seemed possible to the author to tell the story of their struggle with complete justice to both. The part each played in the creation of the Nation was essential. It has been the purpose to depict these two men and their associates as they really were in the heat of controversy, neither sparing their weaknesses nor exaggerating their virtues; to paint them as men of flesh and blood with passions, prejudices, and human limitations; to show them at close quarters wielding their weapons, and sometimes, in the heat of the fight, stooping to conquer; and to uncover their motives as they are clearly disclosed in the correspondence of themselves and friends. This has necessitated the demolishment of some fashionable myths, when myths have obstructed the view to truth.

The facts as here set forth throw a vivid light on the causes of the collapse of the Federalist Party, which, in the average of its leadership, was, perhaps, the most brilliant, and certainly the most attractive, in American history. Men of wonderful charm they were, but they were singularly lacking in an understanding of the spirit of their times and country. They fell, as we shall find, because they neither had nor sought contact with the average man, and sternly set themselves against the overwhelming current of democracy.

Even so, we shall find an explanation of their distrust of popular government in the illiteracy of the times, the exaggerated notions of freedom that prevailed, and the levity with which so many looked on financial obligations. It is easier to understand the Hamiltonian distrust of democracy than to comprehend the faith of Jefferson—a faith of tremendous significance in history. Quite as remarkable as his faith was the ability of Jefferson to mobilize, organize, and discipline the great individualistic mass of the towns, the remote farms along the Savannah, the almost unbroken wilds of the Western wilderness. With a few notable exceptions, he was forced to rely for assistance on lieutenants pathetically inferior to the group of brilliant men who sat on the Federalist board of strategy. He won because he was a host within himself, capable of coping single-handed against the combined geniuses of the opposition in the field of practical politics.

A liberal use has been made of the newspapers of the period; not only of the descriptions of actual events, but of the false rumors and stories that entered into the creation of the prejudices that always play their part in the affairs of men. In determining why a given result was forced by public opinion, it is no more necessary to know what the truth was than to know what the people who formed that opinion thought the truth to be.

Along with the struggles in Congress, the bickerings in streets, coffee-houses, and taverns, the actions of mobs and mass meetings, it has been thought important to show the part ‘society’ played in the drama—for it was a significant part. This was inevitable in a clear-cut fight between democracy and aristocracy. The elegant home of Mrs. Bingham was scarcely less identified with the Federalists than was that of Lady Holland with the English Whigs, or that of Madame Holland with the party of the Gironde. The pettings which the Otises and Harpers there received after the battles in the House were very real rewards to men of their temperament. The part played by men and women of fashion in the politics of the time will appear in the ostracism of Democrats from their charmed circle, when even Jefferson, snubbed, was driven for solace to the solitude of the library of the Philosophical Society.

Throughout the struggle we shall find the forces well defined—aristocracy against democracy, and sometimes we shall see it illustrated with theatrical exaggeration, as when the Philadelphia aristocrats of the army that marched against the Whiskey Boys, on prancing horses and in broadcloth uniforms, paraded their ragged, weather-beaten prisoners of the frontier through the fashionable streets for the delectation of the ladies at the windows.

It is impossible to treat of this period without giving to John Adams a place apart. He was in some respects a tragic figure, and, though ludicrously vain and often all but clownish in small things, we shall have occasion to admire and respect his independence and courageous subordination of his personal fortunes to the service of humanity and country in making the peace with France. If at times the mere recitation of his personal weaknesses seems like ill-natured ridicule, it should be borne in mind that this is necessary to the explanation of why a statesman and patriot, so able and deserving, was so unfortunate in his public career.

The purpose of the author is not to make out a case for or against democracy, but to show how it came to the Republic, sometimes blundering and making a fool of itself on the way; to re-create, if possible, an heroic, picturesque, and lusty age; to make the men of the steel engravings flesh and blood; to stage the drama of a day when real giants trod the boards.

Claude G. Bowers

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

JEFFERSON AND HAMILTON
The Struggle for Democracy in America

CHAPTER I
DAYS OF COMEDY

I

WHEN Fisher Ames, exuberant over his unhorsing of Samuel Adams, and eager to try his lance on others, reached New York to take his place in the House of Representatives, he was disgusted to find few indications that a new government was about to be established. Wandering about the narrow, crooked streets he encountered few colleagues. That was the beginning of his cynicism.

A week after the date set for the opening of Congress but six Senators had appeared, and a circular letter was sent to the others urging their immediate attendance. Two weeks more and neither House nor Senate could muster a quorum.[1] Ames could see little improvement on the ‘languor of the old Confederation,’ but expected an organization of the House within a day or two. A Virginian, lingering in Philadelphia with a slight indisposition, was expected momentarily and the Representatives from New Jersey were on the way. But there was nothing definite on which to base such fair hopes of the Senate.[2] The next day Madison wrote Washington in a similar vein.[3] This seeming indolence or indifference was the subject of pessimistic conversations among the members in town as they meandered about the streets. Revenue was being lost—‘a thousand pounds a day’; credit was going; the spirit of the new experiment was sinking. ‘The people will forget the new government before it is born,’ wrote Ames. ‘The resurrection of the infant will come before its birth.’[4] Already petty jealousies and ambitions were manifesting themselves, with much intriguing for the honor of being messengers to notify the President and Vice-President of their election.[5] The little city was overrun with job-hunters. Even before the gavel fell on the first session, there were discussions of removing the capital elsewhere because of ‘the unreasonable expense of living,’ in New York.

It was not until April 2d, almost a month late, that a quorum was formed in the two houses. The following day George Washington was elected President, John Adams Vice-President, and messengers started for Mount Vernon and Braintree. Confronted by the most momentous governmental task in history, the men on whom fell the burden of creating a new nation had consulted their personal convenience about starting. It was not a promising beginning.

II

If the lawmakers had been derelict, the people of New York had not. They at least appreciated the possibilities of a capital. The task of designing Federal Hall in which Congress was to meet had been entrusted to L’Enfant—who was to win undying fame by planning the city of Washington—and he had done his work well—some thought too well. Ames was rather delighted over the fact that it had cost ‘20,000 pounds York money,’ but Ames was a lover of luxury, and the more democratic Wingate, while conceding that the city had ‘exerted itself mightily,’ was afraid it had done so ‘excessively.’[6] In truth there was dignity and beauty in the stately arches and the Doric columns, in the lofty vestibule paved with marble and lighted from an ornate dome, in the design and decorations of the chambers, with their graceful pilasters and their crimson draperies. There was richness enough to disturb the republican souls of members from the rural districts and the small towns.[7] Among the members who sat down amidst these surroundings were a number who were nationally known and brilliant, but the majority were comparatively obscure and mediocre. Looking over his colleagues, the enthusiastic and impressionable Ames found himself ‘less awed and terrified’ than he had expected; for while it was ‘quite a republican assembly’ because ‘it looks like one,’ he could see few ‘shining geniuses.’[8] To the more experienced Madison, the outlook was not so pleasing. ‘I see on the list of Representatives a very scanty proportion who will share in the drudgery of business,’ he wrote.[9]

III

After a triumphant journey, constantly interrupted by ovations and addresses, by the thunder of artillery, the clatter of cavalry, and the ringing of bells, John Adams reached the city, took his seat beneath the canopy of crimson velvet in the Senate and began his reign. The ceremony and adulation of his progress from Braintree had gone to his head. Almost immediately he began to mimic the manners and parrot the language of the Old World court circles, until even the aristocratic Ames was moved to regret his ‘long absence’ from the country because of which he had ‘not so clear an idea of the temper of the people as others who have not half his knowledge in other matters.’[10]

With the approach of Washington, the Senate, partly under the inspiration of Adams, began to grapple soberly with the problem of form and titles. Even before the arrival of Adams, when every one was ‘busy in collecting flowers and sweets ... to amuse and delight the President ... on his arrival,’ the prosaic Roger Sherman had ‘set his head to work to devise some style of address more novel and dignified than “Excellency.”’ There was an ominous growl from the skeptics who doubted the propriety, and some ribald laughter from the wits. A caricature had even appeared under the caption ‘The Entry,’ representing the President on an ass, and in the arms of his man Billy Humphreys, who was shouting hosannas and birthday odes, while the Devil looked on with the comment:

‘The glorious time has come to pass
When David shall conduct an ass.’[11]

It was to require more heroic treatment than this, however, to cool the senatorial ardor for high-sounding names. Even before Adams had been elected, he had participated in serious discussions in Boston as to whether the President should be called ‘Majesty,’ or ‘Excellency,’ or nothing at all. Of course the Senators and Representatives should be given the honest English title of ‘Most Honorable’ for Major Russell in the ‘Centinel’ had been doing that all along. But the time for decision had come. The President was approaching. It had been decided that on his arrival at the Senate Chamber for his inauguration, he was to be met at the door by Adams, conducted to a chair, and informed that both houses were ready to attend him when he took the oath. But how should he be addressed? Should it be as ‘Mr. Washington,’ ‘Mr. President,’ ‘Sir,’ ‘May it please your Excellency,’ or what? Adams took his troubles to the Senate. Should it be as ‘Excellency,’ as in the army? Adams was free to admit that he preferred it to ‘Mr. President,’ which ‘would put him on a level with the Governor of Bermuda.’

There were Senators who instantly caught the importance of the point. One proposed the appointment of a committee to determine.[12] But these troubles came, not singly, but in battalions. What was Mr. Adams to do when Washington was in the Chamber? He did not know whether the framers of the Constitution ‘had in view the two Kings of Sparta or the two Consuls of Rome when they formed it,’ He could not tell whether the architect of the building, in making his chair wide enough for two, had the Constitution before him. He was Vice-President—but he was also President of the Senate. ‘When the President comes into the Senate, what shall I be?’ he asked plaintively. ‘I cannot be President then. I wish gentlemen to think what I shall be.’

It was a solemn moment. Adams, with an air of distress, sank into his chair. The silence was depressing. The leveler from the frontier of Pennsylvania, Maclay, found ‘the profane muscles of his face in tune for laughter,’ but controlled himself. Ellsworth, a practical man, was seen feverishly turning the pages of the fundamental law. At length he rose to announce the result of his research. It was clear enough that wherever the Senate was, ‘there, sir, you must be at the head of them.’ But—‘here he looked aghast as if some tremendous gulf yawned before him’—but ‘further, sir, I shall not pretend to say.’[13]

Thus the great day arrived to find the Senate caught unawares by a new crisis. Adams had just risen to explain that Washington would probably address the Congress, and to ask instructions as to ‘how I shall behave.’ It was a congenial subject for discussion. Lee of Virginia rose to explain the ways of the Lords and the Commons. Izard of South Carolina, who had been educated abroad and wished it understood, told how often he had been in the Houses of Parliament. Lee had observed that, while the Lords sat, the Commons stood. True, admitted Izard, but there were no seats for the Commons. Adams here interrupted to tell the Senate how often he too had been in Parliament. Old Carroll of Carrollton, who lived like a lord, but did not think like one, grumblingly suggested that it did not matter what the English did.

And just then—consternation! The Clerk of the House was at the door! How should he be received? The discussion was feverishly resumed. Lee, getting his cue from the Commons again, was sure that he should be met at the door by the Sergeant-at-Arms with his mace on his shoulder. Confusion worse confounded—the Speaker and members of the House were now at the door! Members left their seats in their embarrassment, the doors were opened, the House filed in. Some one had blundered![14]

Meanwhile, with increased animation, the debate over the title for the President was resumed. Of course there should be titles, said Lee. Venice, Genoa, Greece, Rome—all had them. Ellsworth began to find virtue in kings; Izard was impressed with the antiquity of kingly government. Old Carroll, grumbling—or laughing—as usual, did not care for kings. But the President’s title—what should it be? Ellsworth thought ‘President’ common. Adams eagerly added that there were ‘presidents of fire companies and cricket clubs.’ ‘Excellency?’—suggested by Izard. ‘Highness?’—proposed by Lee. ‘Elective Highness?’[15]

At length it was settled—‘His Highness the President of the United States and Protector of the Rights of the Same.’ Adams was disgusted. ‘What will the common people of foreign countries; what will the soldiers and sailors say to “George Washington, President of the United States”? They will despise him to all eternity.’[16]

The rabid republicans began to laugh. Speaker Muhlenberg dubbed Maclay, ‘Your Highness of the Senate.’ Maclay himself, usually sardonic, grew facetious in debate, and thought the title satisfactory if the President was really high ‘and gloriously greased with a great horn of oil’ to make him conspicuous. Even Robert Morris complained that the Congress was also ‘Protector of the Rights of the People.’[17] But alas, it was a case of love’s labor lost, for when the ponderous title reached the House, James Madison quietly announced that the Constitution had given the head of the State a title—‘President of the United States’; and so it has been from that day to this.

The more thoughtful had witnessed the tempest in a teapot with some misgivings. Madison thought the success of the Senate plan would have ‘given a deep wound to our infant Government’;[18] and Ames thought it ‘a very foolish thing to risk much to secure’ and wished ‘that Mr. Adams had been less disguised.’[19] But they who continued for twelve years to refer to ‘the court’ were not content. A correspondent of Fenno’s ‘Gazette,’ the ‘court journal,’ continued to plead for ‘titles of distinction’ and to pray piously that Congress would ‘not leave the important subject to chance, to whim, caprice, or accident.’[20]

IV

In the midst of these acrimonious discussions of the flubdubbery of ceremonials, and with Adams proposing that the Sergeant-at-Arms be called ‘Usher of the Black Rod,’[21] Washington reached New York. A black mass of humanity awaited him in the rain at the water-front, peered down upon him from roofs and windows. The roaring of cannon and the pealing of bells apprized the crowd that the ornate barge the city had provided to ‘waft His Excellency across the bay’[22] had been sighted. The thirteen pilots in white uniforms who manned the barge were conspicuous as it moved on to the accompaniment of cheers to the Wall Street wharf. As it swept alongside the landing, bands on the banks joined in the noisy welcome of the cannon and the bells. When Washington, in a plain suit of blue and buff, rose to descend ‘the stairs covered with crimson trapping, the shouts of the populace drowned the combined noises of the mechanical devices.’[23]

Declining the use of carriages, he proceeded with his party and the committee on foot down Wall Street to Pearl, then Queen, and up the full length of that then fashionable thoroughfare, which boasted a sidewalk that would accommodate three walking abreast, to the house prepared for him on Cherry Street. The crowd followed, men, women, and children, masters and men. There at the house they left him; and a few moments later he returned down Pearl Street to the home of Governor George Clinton to dine. That night the houses of the city were illuminated. The monarch had entered his capital. To the masses he was the maker of a nation; to the world of fashion he was the creator of a court.[24]

The day of inauguration found the city fluttering with flags, colorful with decorations, Wall Street fairly screaming with the spirit of festivity. Wreaths and flowers hung from windows. A reverential throng packing Wall, Broad, and Nassau Streets watched the great man enter the Hall; and a few minutes later he appeared upon the balcony of the Senate Chamber—a gallant figure in deep brown, ‘with medal buttons, an eagle on them, white stockings, a bag and sword’[25]—to take the oath.

The keen eyes of Alexander Hamilton surveyed the scene from his home across the street.

Thence back to the Senate Chamber where the inaugural address, in trembling hands, was read with difficulty because of the shaking paper. The erratic but loyal Maclay was pained to find that his hero was not ‘first in everything.’[26] Thence back to the house on Cherry Street.

Never had the little city been so picturesquely and brilliantly illuminated as on that night of general rejoicing. Transparent paintings shone all over the town—that at the bottom of Broadway ‘the finest ever seen in America.’[27] It was a beautiful evening, ‘and no accident cast the smallest cloud upon the retrospect.’[28]

A few evenings later, an inaugural ball was given by the Assembly in their rooms on Broadway above Wall Street. The President ‘was pleased to honor the company with his presence,’[29] and ‘every pleasure seemed to be heightened’ as a result.[30] There, too, was ‘His Excellency the Vice-President,’ and members of Congress with their families, officers of the army, the Ministers of France and Spain. ‘Joy, satisfaction and vivacity was expressed on every countenance.’[31] Each lady, passing the ticket-taker, was presented with a fan made in Paris, with an ivory frame containing a medallion portrait of Washington in profile. ‘A numerous and brilliant collection of ladies’ it was, according to the impressionable reporter, all dressed ‘with a consummate taste and elegance.’[32]

Society awoke that night to the fact that a nation had been created and a capital established on the Hudson, and it fairly titillated at the prospect of the gayety of a ‘court.’

V

Now let us take a turn around the city and familiarize ourselves with the setting of the drama. It will not take long, for the little city of thirty-five thousand was compactly built. Broadway, the most promising and pretentious of the thoroughfares, was paved only to Vesey Street—beyond that, mud. The houses, most of them modest, were surrounded by gardens. From the west side of Broadway to the west side of Greenwich, the town was well built up from Bowling Green to Reade. Beyond that, only the hospital and a few widely scattered houses. On the east side, building extended as far north as Broome. Were we on a shopping expedition we should seek Nassau and William, the heart of the retail district, passing on the former many attractive homes including that of Aaron Burr. Were we bent on a promenade, to meet the ladies and the dandies, we should betake ourselves to Wall, where, notwithstanding the auctioneers, the shoemakers, the grocers, the tailors, the confectioners, the peruke-makers, we should pass handsome homes. Perhaps we should jostle the statesmen emerging from the boarding-houses along the way.

These narrow, crooked streets we should find more tolerable by day than by night. The street lamps were at wide intervals and frequently unlighted. If we escaped a highwayman in the night, we should be lucky to escape the mud of the poorly paved sidewalks, and if we did not bruise our shins by collision with the town pumps, we should be fortunate not to stumble over a pig. Off somewhere in the darkness we should probably hear the curses of some unfortunate wanderer fallen over an obstruction, the grunting of hogs rooting in the gutters, the barking of innumerable dogs.[33] The long line of negroes bearing burdens toward the river might pique our curiosity did we not know that they were the sewage carriers of the city doing their nightly routine work.

Even by day we should find traveling not without its risks, for many of the streets were torn up for improvements.[34] Thus ‘the Hon. Mr. Huger,’ thrown from his sedan chair and painfully bruised, lays claim to immortality in the pages of Maclay[35] and in the yellowing sheets of Fenno’s journal.[36] Faring forth in search of the political celebrities, we should not have far to go, for most were herded in boarding-houses. Hamilton lived comfortably at Broad and Wall Streets, Burr around the corner on Nassau. Jefferson was soon realizing his dream of comfort on Broadway after living in a little house in Maiden Lane. Randolph, the Attorney-General, had found a modest place in the country for two hundred and fifty dollars with ‘an excellent pump of fresh water.’[37] Knox was living beyond his means on Broadway, and Adams was at Richmond Hill. But most of the lawgivers found boarding-houses more congenial to their purses. Thus, within a few steps on Great Dock Street we should find Robert Morris, Caleb Strong, Pierce Butler, Fisher Ames, and Theodore Sedgwick; in Maiden Lane, James Madison; on Smith Street, Charles Carroll, and on Water Street, Oliver Ellsworth.

Turning from the celebrities to the lowly and the base, we could visit the slave market which was then active, for there were more than two thousand negroes in bondage in the city. While the orators at Federal Hall were speaking reverently of liberty, the hammer of the auctioneer was knocking down negro girls to the highest bidder, and the local papers were running ‘rewards’ for the capture of runaway slaves.[38] Were we in the mood to walk to the end of the pavement on Broadway, we could regale ourselves, in the grove where the City Hall now stands, with a view of the gallows enshrined in a Chinese pagoda where the executioners competed successfully at times with the debaters in attracting the curious. There, too, stood the whipping-post.[39] In the midst of so much that was grim, little wonder that the statesmen resented the frequent ringing of funeral bells. ‘The gentlemen from the country complain exceedingly of this noisy, unmeaning and absurd custom,’ wrote ‘A Citizen’ to his favorite paper. ‘This is the moment to abolish it, and give an evidence of a disposition to please them.’[40] But it is not of record that the ‘gentlemen from the country’ were permitted to interfere with the privileges of the dead.

Were we to turn from these grim specters to amusement, we could get a conveyance at one of the city’s six livery stables to carry us into the country to the Florida tea-gardens on the North River; thence to Perry’s on the present site of Union Square, or to Williamson’s, near the present site of Greenwich and Harrison.[41] But were our mood of darker hue, we could find no dearth of entertainment at the taverns. When Congress quarreled and struggled at Federal Hall, and Washington dwelt on Cherry Street, one hundred and thirty-one taverns were licensed in the city to which flocked all manner of men. There, with liquor or ale, we could enjoy a cock-fight and pick the winner, or gather about the table and gamble at cards. Laborers, loafers, sailors, criminals infested these dives, and if we preferred cleaner company, we might get an invitation to the Black Friars, the one social club in the city.[42] Or, if more intellectual entertainment were desired, it could be found in the wooden building painted red on John Street, a stone’s-throw from Saint Paul’s Church where Washington had his pew, where the Old American Company regaled the people of the pit, the boxes, and galleries with the plays of Shakespeare, Sheridan, Goldsmith, Garrick, and some of indifferent merit.[43] Here ‘The Father,’ by William Dunlap, the historian of the American theater, had its first presentation—a notable event, since Washington, a spectator, was seen to laugh at the comedy.[44] Indeed, his health permitting, the President was frequently seen in his box which bore the arms of the United States, and the press was not amiss in keeping the public informed when the great man went to the play.[45] He had been in the house on Cherry Street but a few days, when, disregarding the frowns of the purists, he went to see the ‘School for Scandal.’ Two days before, the ‘Daily Advertiser’ had gayly hinted of the prospective visit. ‘It is whispered that “The School for Scandal” and “The Poor Soldier” will be acted on Monday night for the entertainment of the President,’ it said. And then it added, by way of gentle admonition to the players: ‘Mrs. Henry ought on this occasion to condescend to give passion and tenderness to Maria.... Mrs. Henry ought to act Norah and improve the delightful farce by the melody of her voice. Mrs. Henry ought to take no offense at the suggestion.’[46] We may be sure it was a festive occasion, for Fenno’s ‘court journal’ said that ‘there was a most crowded house and the ladies, who were numerous, made a most brilliant appearance.’[47] One sour Senator in the presidential party did not take kindly to the play. ‘I think it an indecent representation before ladies of character and virtue,’ he wrote—and there were ladies in the party![48] The President, however, was pleased to go again quite soon to see ‘The Clandestine Marriage,’ again subjecting ‘ladies of character and virtue’ to temptation, for Mrs. Morris and Mrs. Knox were with his party when ‘Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Morris played with their usual naïveté and uncommon animation’ due to ‘the countenance of such illustrious auditors.’[49]

Other forms of entertainment, all too few, were not neglected by the celebrities. ‘The President and his Lady and family and several other persons of distinction were pleased to honor Mr. Bowen’s wax-works exhibit with their company at 74 Water Street’—looms among the announcements of the ‘court journal.’[50]

VI

Nor were the entertainments dependent wholly upon the residents and governmental dignitaries. The little city was bravely simulating the airs of a real capital. The social climbers, hearing of the ‘court’ flocked to town from the four corners with their wives and daughters.[51] The cost of living mounted alarmingly, and the rental of suitable houses was prohibitive to many. Oliver Wolcott, hesitating about accepting a place paying fifteen hundred dollars a year, had been assured by Ellsworth that a house could be had for two hundred dollars, wood for four dollars a cord, hay for eight dollars a ton, but that marketing was twenty-five per cent higher than at Hartford.[52] But soon after his arrival, the discouraged official was writing his father that ‘the expense of living here will be greater than I had imagined.’[53] The leading tavern, on the west side of Broadway, near Cedar, was a modest establishment with immodest prices.[54] And to make matters worse, ‘society’ had set a giddy pace.

We are especially interested in this society because Jefferson, on his arrival, was shocked at its unrepublican tone. The inner or select circle did not number more than three hundred.[55] A French traveler was impressed with its tendency to luxury, its love of grandeur, and ostentatious display. ‘English luxury,’ ‘English fashions,’ the women in ‘the most brilliant silks, gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair,’ the men, more modest as to dress, but taking ‘their revenge in the luxury of the table’ and in smoking cigars from the Spanish islands.[56] The Loyalist families were forward in asserting their social prerogatives in the shadow of the Republican ‘Court.’ Did they not have money and the prestige of having wined and dined and danced with the officers of His Majesty in the days of the occupation? None more conspicuous than the Henry Whites with a fine house on Wall Street, with one son in His Majesty’s army, another a rear admiral in His Majesty’s navy. About the Misses White—‘so gay and fashionable, so charming in conversation, with such elegant figures’—the young blades gathered like moths about the flame. Giddy were the parties there, the men Beau Brummels in the extreme of fashion, and out of the few fugitive pictures we catch a glimpse of Mrs. Verplanck dancing a minuet ‘in hoop and petticoats,’ and a young beau catching cold from ‘riding home in a sedan chair with one of the glasses broken,’ after partaking too freely of hot port wine.[57]

Balls and teas there were aplenty, but ‘society’ preferred to dine and talk. Hamilton in his home on Wall Street gave frequent dinners insinuating when not boldly proclaiming his doubts of the people. Van Breckel, the Dutch Minister, entertained lavishly, making his dining-room the resort of the little foreign circle—and every one tried to keep up the pace.

It was the pace that killed—financially. The Henry Knoxes then began their journey toward bankruptcy, living elaborately on Broadway, maintaining horses and grooms, five servants, and giving two dinners a month. Almost a ninth of his salary went for wine alone. What with his own hair-dressing, and that of the expansive Lucy, who wore her hair, after the extreme fashion, ‘at least a foot high, much in the form of a churn bottom upward,’ the family account with Anthony Latour, hair-dresser, was no small matter,[58] and his annual deficit was a third of his salary.

Nor was the Secretary of War unique. The social life was a hectic swirl of calls, teas, entertainments. ‘When shall I get spirit to pay all the social debts I owe?’ wrote one lady of quiet tastes.[59] It was harvest-time for the dressmakers, the jewelers, the hair-dressers. The ball given in compliment to Washington by the French Minister called for special costumes, for there were ‘two sets of Cotillion Dancers in complete uniforms; one set in that of France and the other in Buff and Blue,’ while the ladies were ‘dressed in white with Ribbands, Bouquets and Garlands of Flowers answering to the uniforms of the Gentlemen.’[60] And so with other functions equally gay.

But after all, the ‘court’ had come to town, and if there was no Majesty on Cherry Street, it was not because the ‘court set’ did not pretend it so. The illusion of vanity was fostered by the snobbery of Fenno of the ‘court journal.’ When Madame Washington arrived, ‘conducted over the bay in the President’s barge rowed by thirteen eminent pilots in handsome white dress,’ the editor enumerated the ladies who had ‘paid their devoirs to the amiable consort of our beloved President.’ There were ‘the Lady of His Excellency the Governor, Lady Sterling, Lady Mary Watts, Lady Kitty Duer, La Marchioness de Brehan, the ladies of the Most Honorable Mr. Langdon, and the Most Honorable Mr. Dalton ... and a great many other respectable characters.’[61] This was too much for ‘A Republican’ who worked off his fury in a scornful letter to the opposition paper referring to the ‘tawdry phraseology,’ to the ‘titular folly of Europe’s courts,’ and suggesting that we ‘leave to the sons and daughters of corrupted Europe their levees, Drawing Rooms, Routs, Drums, and Tornedos.’[62] It was to require more than this, however, to jar the high-flying Fenno from the clouds, and his readers were soon informed that ‘His Excellency the Vice-President, His Excellency the Governor of the State, and many other personalities of the greatest distinction will be present at the theater this evening.’ It was not for nothing that the pedagogue pensman from Boston had launched his paper with the hope ‘that the wealthy part of the community will become patrons of this publication.’[63] The ‘inconveniency of being fashionable’ was impressed upon one Senator on finding a colleague, who, having ‘set up a coach,’ and, embarrassed in his plans by the irregular adjournments, was wont to sit alone in the Chamber ‘in a state of ennui’ as much as ‘two or three hours’ waiting for his carriage ‘to take him three or four hundred yards.’[64]

But while there was much of this ridiculous affectation, society was not without its charms; for Mrs. Hamilton had her days for receiving, and her drawing-room was brilliant, and all the more interesting because her vivacious sister, Mrs. Church, just back from London, bringing with her ‘a late abominable fashion of Ladies, like Washwomen with their sleeves above their elbows,’ was there to assist.[65] And all the men were not on stilts, for it is on record that the congressional delegation from Pennsylvania would occasionally break through the ‘court circle’ to dine from three to nine, and indulge in ‘a scene of beastial badness’ with Robert Morris proving himself ‘certainly the greatest blackguard in that way.’[66] There was the usual small gossip to bring the soarers to earth. The cream served at the table of Mrs. Washington was not the best. Mrs. Morris had been compelled to ‘rid herself of a morsel’ of spoiled food there, but ‘Mrs. Washington ate a whole heap of it.’[67] Mrs. Knox amused the Mother Grundys because so fat, and her blundering misuse of words caused much tittering behind fans and much whispering among her friends.

But it was on the Wall Street promenade that the gossips depended for their choicest morsels. The Wall Street of that day was just beginning to displace Pearl as the abode of fashion. True, there were a few business houses, a tavern, a fashionable caterer, a jeweler, but from Broadway to Pearl there was a row of substantial residences in which dwelt people of importance. It was there in the promenade that the political celebrities were encountered, but more appealing to the gentlemen of pleasure were the fine ladies who passed in their finery—gay silks and satins—walking or taking the air luxuriously in their sedan chairs. The cronies of Dan McCormick, the unsnared and lordly entertainer, who gazed out of the windows of his House of Gossip at Number 39, and from his front steps surveyed the parade with the eyes of connoisseurs, must have been trying to the modesty of the timid—but perhaps none such passed that way. If they laughed over the latest blunders of Mrs. Knox as she hove into sight like a huge ship in full sail, and made merry over the sister of the French Consul as she was borne luxuriously along in her sedan chair, we may be sure that they were appreciative of the pretty. And these crowded the narrow street for the promenade, quite as much bent on amusement and flirtation as the men about town on the steps of the House of Gossip.

For it was an age of gallantry, the men quite as vain as the women dared be, and there, in addition to political celebrities, paraded the local blades of society in their white buzz wigs, their three-cornered hats, and silver shoe buckles. Here the elegant Hamilton in banter with a blushing belle, there the courtly Burr bowing over the hand of a coquette unafraid of the fire, and yonder Dr. John Bard, who prescribed pills for the fashionable, pounding the pavement with his heavy cane as he walked along smiling a bit sardonically upon his patients. And, swinging along like a symphony, a dandy in a scarlet coat with mother-of-pearl buttons, a white silk waistcoat embroidered with colored flowers, black satin breeches, white silk stockings, and a cocked hat, an Irish miniature painter out for an airing and to give the ladies a treat. Here—on Wall Street—was Vanity Fair.[68]

Albeit the Vice-President had not then become the social head of the Nation, society liked nothing better than an invitation to Richmond Hill, the home of Adams, a mile and a half from the city. Even Abigail was delighted, for her home reminded her ‘of the valley of Honiton in Devonshire,’ with its avenue of forest trees, its shrubbery, its green fields, its pastures full of cattle, and the Hudson ‘white flecked with sails.’[69] Here at the dinner-table statesmen and their wives and the social leaders contrived to talk like ladies and gentlemen of the court, and Jefferson thought in a language foreign to a republic. But good talk it was, and good dinners, we may be sure, even though the French Consul did take his cook to Richmond Hill with the explanation that he had had experience with New York dinners.[70] There was enough elegance at Richmond Hill to encourage the Adams coachman to put on airs that offended the groundlings as he drove through the streets.

VII

But it was about the ‘court’ on Cherry Street that the interest of society centered. It was a plain brick mansion with five windows looking out on Cherry Street and as many on Franklin Square. The furniture was plain, and Madame Washington had sent by sea from Mount Vernon numerous articles of luxury and taste—pictures, vases, ornaments presented by European admirers. Here the first President in the first days of the Republic received visitors, gave dinners and receptions, consulted with his Cabinet. The following year he moved to a more commodious house on Broadway below Trinity Church.

The great man had entered upon his physical decline when he assumed the Presidency, and many found him changed—‘pale, almost cadaverous,’ his deportment ‘invariably grave,’ his sobriety barely stopping short of sadness. Even at Mrs. Washington’s drawing-rooms, when beautiful girls swarmed about him, his face never softened to a smile.[71] It is more than probable that he was not a little bored by the artificial restraints imposed upon him by his advisers on etiquette who had aristocratic notions of the dignity of his position. Both Hamilton and Adams were responsible for planning his isolation from the people. Did citizens seek a meeting? This was a matter for the chamberlain or gentleman-in-waiting. Should he give public entertainments? Not at all—only small dinners. Could he make calls? Very guardedly, and with ‘few attendants,’ but formal visits should be reserved for the rare occasions when ‘an Emperor of Germany or some other sovereign should travel in the country.’[72] Thus it came to pass that he found himself with a ‘court chamberlain’ in the flamboyant Colonel Humphreys, who reveled in ceremony, and on one occasion moved Parson Weems’s perfect man to profanity.[73] When the erstwhile host of Fraunces Tavern was selected as the presiding deity of the kitchen, he appeared in the papers as ‘Steward of the Household.’[74] He too tried the great man’s patience and outraged his sense of economy by serving a shad early in the season that had cost two dollars, and the royal fish was devoured by the ‘Steward of the Household’ in the kitchen.[75]

But on state occasions the highfaluting notions of his advisers prevailed, and he rode forth in regal magnificence in the finest coach ever seen in America, a marvelous thing in shape and color, decorated with cupids and festooned with flowers. Thus he lumbered through the streets drawn by four horses except when driving to Federal Hall, when six were necessary.

And so they who dreamed of royal pomp were pleased with the progress made, and at the dinner tables wagging tongues dwelt ecstatically on the advantages of monarchical government, and Fenno’s ‘court journal’ began the publication of ‘The Discourses of Davila,’ by the Vice-President. Thus, when Jefferson arrived the following spring to meet society at the dinner tables, he was filled with ‘wonder and mortification’ to find that ‘politics was the chief topic, and a preference for kingly over republican government ... evidently the favorite sentiment.’[76]

But we may be sure that no such sentiments were heard at the President’s dinners, which appear to have been dull, formal, and silent enough. No fault could be found with the food, drink, or service. Even the gout-pestered Maclay found one of these dinners ‘the best of the kind I was ever at,’[77] and the more easily pleased Iredell was immensely delighted with the wine.[78] But such silence, such solemnity! ‘The most solemn dinner ever I sat at,’ wrote Maclay. ‘Not a health drank, scarce a word said until the cloth was taken away.’ Then Washington filled his glass and solemnly drank to the health of each of his guests by name. Then ‘everybody imitated him, and such a buzz of “health, sir,” and “health, madame,” and “Thank you, sir,” and “Thank you, Madame,” never had I heard before.’ Then another prolonged silence—and the ladies retired—and the dinner was over.[79] Months later, Maclay dined at the President’s again. ‘The President seemed to bear in his countenance a settled aspect of melancholy,’ he wrote. ‘No cheering ray of convivial sunshine broke through the cloudy gloom of settled seriousness.’ The great man was evidently bored—much company forced upon him that he would gladly have shunned. Cold, serious to melancholy, silent, he sat and ‘played on the table with a knife and fork like a drum stick.’ So it was at the previous dinner when, retaining his fork as the cover was removed, he ‘played with the fork, striking on the edge of the table with it.’[80]

Here we may leave him playing on the table with his fork, and turn to the proceedings at Federal Hall.

VIII

Madison soon verified his fear that few members of Congress could be relied upon for constructive work. Then, as ever after, this fell to the industrious few, of whom Madison himself was by odds the most dependable and wise. Petty ceremonies and formalities continued to disturb the serenity of some. When a member took exception to the reference in the minutes to a Presidential message as a ‘most gracious speech,’ as imitative of the parliamentary references to addresses from the throne, Adams was all but shocked to suffocation. As for himself he preferred ‘a dignified and respectable government,’ but the point was pressed and the offensive words erased.[81] Receiving a letter addressed to him as ‘His Excellency,’ Adams took the sense of the Senate on the propriety of opening it. Robert Morris dryly remarked that their Majesty, the people, could write as they wished, and that crisis passed.[82] When a Bishop was mentioned in the minutes as ‘Right Reverend,’ and Maclay snorted his disapproval, Adams, in righteous wrath, informed him that ‘the government will never be properly administered until titles are adopted in the fullest manner.’[83]

But all the while James Madison, constructive, profound, was seeking to drag his colleagues of the divine afflatus from the clouds to the working of the untilled field. Money was needed—more even than titles—and precious time was being squandered. In an earnest appeal, he begged for the postponement of the consideration of a permanent fiscal system in the hope of persuading the suppliants for tariff aid to wait awhile. But it was of no avail. Privilege entered the halls of Congress in the very beginning. When, at length, a measure was framed, the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston made common cause to hold it back. They had ordered heavily in anticipation of such a law and were determined to prevent its enactment until their goods arrived. The whole thing smacked of scandal. The merchants had already added the amount of the duties to the price of the goods on their shelves, increasing their profits while depriving the Government of the necessities of life. With the Government starving for revenue, the mercantile interest, with the aid of members, held it off until July 4th, and then it was passed with the proviso that it should be inoperative until August 1st. Many, says a noted historian, thought this ‘the first instance of a series in which the action of government turned in favor of the moneyed class.’[84]

The creation of the executive departments next called forth acrimonious discussions. Should the finances be in the hands of a man or a commission? Where could be found a single man capable of such a task? The Republic would be endangered were one man to have command of three or four millions. Then, too, the Cabinet was liable to be looked upon by the President as of more consequence than the Senate. A system of favoritism would be established, and oligarchy confirmed, the liberties of the people destroyed.[85] And the power of removal—who should possess that? Some wanted to lodge the power in the President, others in the Senate. Madison favored the former.[86] But others could not see it that way. What! exclaimed one statesman, give the power to the President? Why, ‘ministers would obtrude upon us to govern and direct the measures of the legislature and support the influence of their master.’ A new Walpole would arise.[87] ‘Good God,’ cried another, ‘authorize in a free republic ... by your first act, the exertion of a dangerous royal prerogative in your Chief Magistrate!’[88] The result was the striking out of the authorization of the President to remove on the ground that it was implied in the Constitution. Madison took this view, and it was to rise against him in his later battles with Hamilton over the implied powers.

This jealousy between the executive and legislative departments soon found some justification in the action of Washington himself. It was late in the summer of the first year that he appeared in the Senate with General Knox to get ‘advice and consent’ to some propositions respecting a treaty with the Southern Indians. With cold dignity he took his place beside Adams, with Knox near at hand. The latter passed him a paper which he, in turn, gave to Adams, who began to read. The windows were up and the purport was all but lost in the rumble of carriages on Wall Street.

‘Do you advise and consent?’ asked Adams.

A Senator suggested that in a matter of importance new to the Senate, it was the duty of Senators first to inform themselves. Storm-clouds appeared on the presidential countenance. Some one moved postponement of action on the first article, then the second—and third. Finally, the motion was made that the whole be referred to a senatorial committee.

Up Washington ‘started in a violent fret.’ The motion defeated the purpose of his coming. He had brought along the Secretary of War who knew all that it was necessary for the Senate to know. The reference to the committee would mean delay and time was pressing. Then, making a virtue of necessity, he agreed to the postponement, and withdrew ‘with sullen dignity.’

‘I cannot be mistaken,’ wrote a Senator that evening in his boarding-house, ‘the President wishes to tread on the necks of the Senate. Commitment will bring the matter to discussion, at least in the committee, where he is not present. He wishes us to see with the eyes and hear with the ears of his Secretary only. The Secretary to advance the premises, the President to draw the conclusions, and to bear down our deliberations with his personal authority and presence.... This will not do with Americans.’[89]

This fear, accentuated by the incident referred to, was to grow into a conviction a little later, when a more domineering and masterful figure than Washington or Knox appeared upon the scene. By many his advent had been eagerly awaited. To the leaders his identity was known, for the genius of Alexander Hamilton as a financier had been established, and his ambition was surmised.[90] His aspirations were supported by the mercantile interests generally, and the political forces they controlled. Even they who were to become his political enemies were favorable to his selection—preferring him to John Jay, who was considered. There is something of irony in the letter written to Jefferson by Madison to the effect that Hamilton was ‘best qualified for that species of business, and on that account would be preferred by those who know him personally.’[91]

To most he promised to be a successful administrator of finance, and only the few among his intimates foresaw his rapid rise to the brilliant leadership of a powerful party. Certainly there could have been but few to take alarm on reading in the ‘Daily Advertiser’ on September 12, 1789, the simple announcement of one of the most momentous events in the political history of the country:

The President of the United States has been pleased to make the following nominations of Officers for the Department of the Treasury:

Alexander Hamilton, Esq. of this city, Secretary.

Nicholas Everleigh, Esq. of South Carolina, Comptroller.

And the Senate of the United States having taken the said nominations into consideration were pleased to advise and consent to the same.

CHAPTER II
HAMILTON: A PORTRAIT

I

THE genius for whom the Nation had been waiting, who walked briskly and with a martial air[92] into the Treasury, and sat down at the almost effeminate mahogany desk with the women’s faces carved upon the legs, to bring order out of chaos, looked the leader. Not that he was of commanding stature, for he was but five feet seven in height, with a figure of almost boyish slimness. It was rather in his soldierly erectness and the dignity of his bearing that he impressed. If his carriage suggested the camp, the meticulous care of his dress hinted of the court, for he was something of an elegant in his attire. We have one striking picture of him in a blue coat with bright buttons, the skirts unusually long, with a white waistcoat, black silk small-clothes, white silk stockings;[93] another in fine lace ruffles.[94] It is quite impossible to think of him as unfit for an instant summons to a court levee or a ladies’ drawing-room, albeit Wolcott, who saw him first in his office, thought him ‘a very amiable plain man.’[95] It was an age of frills and fancies among the men of the aristocracy and his very conservatism would have dissuaded him from the slightest departure from the conventions.

It was his head and features that denoted the commander. His well-shaped, massive, and symmetrical head, with its reddish fair hair turned back from his forehead, powdered and collected in a queue behind, was not so likely to attract attention as his pronounced features. These were unique in that rarest of all combinations of beauty and strength. He was handsome enough to be attractive to women, with his fair complexion and almost rosy cheeks, his well-moulded lips, and dark, almost violet, deep-set eyes that could smile as sweetly and seductively as any gallant’s.

And yet these lips could be firm and stern, and the soft, mirthful eyes could freeze and flash. If women were to observe the softer nature, the politicians were to note the man of relentless will disclosed in the firm, strong jaw. Graceful and debonair, elegant and courtly, seductive and ingratiating, playful or impassioned, he could have fitted into the picture at the Versailles of Louis XV, or at the dinner table at Holland House. No one born in the atmosphere of courts could have looked the part more perfectly.

And yet, such was his origin that the envious Adams could sneer at him as ‘the bastard brat of a Scotch pedlar,’[96] and it was not without reason that Gouverneur Morris, meditating his funeral oration, and his ‘illegitimate birth,’ contrived a mode ‘to pass over this handsomely.’[97] Even the sympathetic researches of Mrs. Atherton have failed to lift the mystery of his origin and family. All we know is that he was born of an irregular relation, without the intervention of the clergy,[98] between an unprosperous Scotch merchant of the West Indies and a brilliant and beautiful daughter of the French Huguenots. Even his parentage by the man named Hamilton was doubted, on circumstantial evidence, by so ardent a friend as Pickering, who thought he had found the father in a physician.[99] Whoever the father—and the Pickering Papers are not convincing—there is no doubt that Hamilton inherited his genius from his brilliant, passionate, high-strung mother.

Nor does the mystery end with his birth. Pickering was half persuaded that the mother lived into the manhood of her son, but the church records at Saint Kitts bear out the claims of the family that she died in 1768. It is not easy to account for the rather morbid relations later between Hamilton and his father and brother. Both appear to have been a worthless sort. For years Hamilton was ignorant of his father’s whereabouts, which does not appear to have bothered him much.[100] Later there was some correspondence looking to a possible reunion in America, out of which nothing came.[101] At intervals money passed from the great man in America to the indigent old man in the West Indies,[102] but at no time does it appear that Hamilton had any thought of visiting his father in the isle of his childhood. It was a long cry from the squalid life in the West Indies to Mrs. Bingham’s drawing-room, and the genius turned his back upon the past.

II

There is nothing so inexplicable in this amazing man as the precocity of his genius. There is a suggestion of it in the younger Pitt, but he had sat from infancy at the feet of Chatham. To the easy-going natives of his natal isle this passionate, fiery-tempered, supersensitive boy, dreaming of power, must have seemed an exotic. As a mere child he appeared to sense that his field of conquest lay across the sea. He was planning a career while his companions were absorbed in childish games. His early range of knowledge and reading was remarkable. In his passion for literature he was unconsciously moulding one of the weapons for his successful assault on fame; through the pages of Plutarch he was lifting himself above the drab slothful surroundings to the companionship of the great.

Sometimes fate was serving his destiny when he felt himself a captive beating against his cage. Thus, in the counting-room at Santa Cruz he was mastering business methods and absorbing the commercial spirit on which he was later to predicate his philosophy of government.[103] The business letters he wrote were preparations for the framing of his ‘Report on the Public Credit.’ Even then it was a peculiarity of his genius that he could write on business matters without clipping the wings of his fancy. He seemed born with a mastery of words, a rare gift of expression. When a hurricane swept the islands the description he wrote for a paper became the talk of the West Indies. Only a little while before he was rebelling against the ‘groveling ambition of a clerk,’ and passionately writing that he ‘would willingly risk his life but not his character to elevate his station.’ These were the aspirings of a boy not yet thirteen. ‘I shall conclude by saying, I wish there was a war.’ Here we have a vivid light upon his character.[104]

The description of the hurricane made his fortune. Dreaming of rising by the sword, it was his pen that rallied friends who raised the money to send him to America for an education. Through all his days he was to aspire to glory through the sword, little knowing that he was winning immortality with his pen.

The Little Corsican touching the soil of France, the little West Indian landing in America—there is a striking analogy: both dreaming of martial glory in the land of strangers; both obsessed with a morbid ambition sustained by the rarest powers of application.

The records of the years preceding the Revolution are but vague, though we get glimpses of the genius forging his weapons in the boy at the grammar school at Elizabethtown poring over books till midnight, to rise at dawn to continue his studies in the quiet of a near-by cemetery; practicing prose composition; writing an elegy on the death of a lady; composing the prologue and the epilogue of a play,[105] and, at Kings College (Columbia), amazing his companions by the energy of his mind, and puzzling pedestrians by talking to himself as he walked for hours each day under the great trees of Batteau (Dey) Street.[106] Here, too, an occasional display of the eloquence of maturity, enriched by the glow of genius, set him apart.

Then came the Revolution. ‘I wish there was a war!’ cried the boy of thirteen. And war came to find the lad of nineteen as eager to seize its opportunities as was the Corsican youth when ordered to clear the streets of Paris.

III

The war was to prove his genius, not as a soldier, but as a writer and constructive thinker on governmental matters. He was a natural journalist and pamphleteer—one of the fathers of the American editorial. His perspicacity, penetration, powers of condensation, and clarity of expression were those of a premier editorial writer. These same qualities made him a pamphleteer without a peer. That he would have shone with equal luster in the reportorial room of a modern paper is shown in his description of the hurricane, and in his letter to Laurens picturing vividly the closing hours of Major André.[107] From the moment he created a sensation, with ‘A Farmer Refuted,’ in his eighteenth year, until, in the closing months of his life, he was meeting Coleman surreptitiously in the night to dictate vigorous editorials for the New York ‘Evening Post’ he had established,[108] he recognized his power. No man ever complained more bitterly of the attacks of the press; none ever used the press more liberally and relentlessly to attack.

In ‘A Farmer Refuted,’ the maturity of the thought, the severity of the reasoning, the vigor of the onslaught, the familiarity with history and governmental processes displayed, denoted the hand of one seasoned in controversy. The sprightliness, wit, humor, sarcasm, suggested more than talent. The evident joy in the combat, with the air of assurance, was that of the fighter unafraid. These are the qualities that were to run through all of Hamilton’s literary work. Nowhere in the literature of invective is there anything more vitriolic than the attack on a war speculator and profiteer, under the signature of ‘Publius.’[109] This tendency to bitter invective will appear, as we proceed, in Hamilton’s attacks on Jefferson and Adams.

But usually he appealed to reason, and then he was at his best. Thus, in ‘The Continentalist,’ urging a more perfect union and a more potent government, and in his letter to James Duer,[110] we are impressed with the writer’s intimate knowledge of conditions, his constructive instinct, his vision.[111] And thus, especially do these appear in ‘The Federalist’—one of the most brilliant contributions to the literature of political science in the world’s history. It will be impossible to comprehend the genius of Hamilton, his domination of his party, and his power, despite his unpopularity with the masses, without a foreknowledge of his force with the pen. It was his scepter and his sword.

IV

His power as an orator was unsurpassed in any assembly that called it forth, but with very few exceptions he did not appear before the multitude. He swayed the leaders and won them to his leadership. There was little of fancy in his speeches, scarcely any appeal to the emotions, but he spoke with enthusiasm and an intensity of conviction. Force, clearness, fire—‘logic on fire’—and a rapid fusillade of impressively directed facts—with these he usually swept all before him. The comparatively few speeches which have come down to us fail to explain his power. The stories of audiences moved to tears are scarcely in keeping with the absence of the slightest attempts at pathos or appeals to the emotions. Kent, who heard him in court, recalled, long after Hamilton was dead, ‘the clear, elegant and fluent style, and commanding manner.’[112] Physically, he was far from imposing, but it is easy to imagine the virility of his manner, the flash of his conqueror’s eye. In the New York Convention called to pass on the Constitution, it was the force and persuasiveness of his arguments that converted a hostile majority. Later Congress was to refuse him permission to present personally his reports on the ground that he might unduly sway its judgment; and Jefferson was to resent his interminable and passionate ‘harangues’ in the Cabinet room. But these exhibitions of his eloquence advanced his political career by impressing the leaders with the brilliancy of his intellect.

V

It is significant that, while he was not vain of his power as a writer and orator, he lived and died firmly convinced of his genius as a soldier. In the earliest of his letters we have his longing for a war. His son and biographer was impressed with the fact that, ‘while arms seemed to be his predominant passion, the world was at peace.’[113] He never faced the prospect of a war without seeing an opportunity for distinction. At a time when he abhorred the French Revolution, and all associated with it, he wrote of Napoleon as ‘that unequalled conqueror, from whom it is painful to detract.’[114]

Was he a military genius? We have nothing on which to base a judgment. In the Revolution we see him attracting the attention of Washington by his military alertness on the heights of Harlem. At Monmouth we see his horse shot under him as he dashes into the fray with a recklessness that looked to the commander like a courting of death. Throughout his services in the military household of Washington, where he became all but indispensable in a secretarial capacity and in diplomacy, he chafed under the conviction that his place was in a position of command. One of his friends declared that ‘the pen of our army was held by Hamilton; and for dignity of manner, pith of matter, and elegance of style, General Washington’s letters are unrivaled in military annals,’ but the youthful Hamilton felt that he should have been the army’s sword.[115] The vision of the renown of the military conqueror was ever before him. The war was an opportunity for glory, and he was missing it. ‘I explained to you candidly my feelings in respect to military reputation,’ he wrote Washington when seeking a separate command, ‘and how much it was my object to act a conspicuous part in some enterprise that might perhaps raise my character as a soldier above mediocrity.’[116] At Yorktown he took desperate chances in an effort for renown.[117] We shall find him leaving the Treasury to command soldiers sent to put down the western insurrection, with no possible occasion for it beyond his preference for the saddle and the sword. And when war with France loomed large, we shall find him resorting to importunity and intrigue to get the command over the protest of the President.

Was Hamilton a Napoleon? He thought himself of the race of military masters. He had the courage, the coolness under fire, and the audacity, but nothing that he did disclosed more genius than was shown by Aaron Burr. Had the chance come, he might have justified his own high pretensions as a military genius—but it did not come. He died with his boyhood ambition to command great armies unrealized—and undimmed.[118]

VI

His association of a strong military establishment with a strong and stable government was due in large measure to his temperament. He was essentially an aristocrat. From the moment of his arrival in America, he cultivated only the élite. His most partisan biographer has painted his portrait in a sentence—‘His sympathies were always aristocratic, and he was born with a reverence for tradition.’[119] There is nothing more contradictory in his career than the lowliness of his origin and his inherent passion for the lofty. This charity student moved in mansions as to the manor born. He had lived on terms of comparative intimacy with the aristocratic Washington of the camp, with Lafayette who brought something of the flavor of Old World aristocracy, and he married into one of the proudest of the manorial families, but his love of grandeur was inherent. He luxuriated in elegant society and fine houses, loved fine laces as an adornment, and, without having ever seen the interior of a gallery, at least affected a partiality for the fine arts, collecting such prints as his purse permitted, painting some himself, and advising Mrs. Washington in the purchase of paintings.[120]

His ideal of government was the rule of ‘gentlemen’—the domination of aristocrats; on the theory that these, with a certain prestige to maintain, were more jealous of their honor and above the vulgar strivings for mere place.[121] Thus it was impossible for him to conceive of a strong and capable government over which the aristocracy did not have sway.[122] Long before the Constitutional Convention we find him writing Morris on financial matters, setting forth the importance of creating an alliance between government and men of wealth.[123] One of his most enthusiastic panegyrists has illustrated his ideal: ‘The nearest approach to it is the popular conception of the empire of Japan—a mass of intelligent humanity, reckless of their lives, yet filled with the joy of life, eager for distinction, hungry for success, alert, practical, and merry; but at the same time subordinate, humbly and piously subordinate, to a pure abstraction.’[124] But this abstraction had to be aristocracy—never democracy; for he believed that democracy could only lead to anarchy.[125] Temperamentally hostile to democracy in the beginning, maintaining that attitude to the end, he never appreciated and always despised public opinion, and in 1794 he frankly confessed to Washington that he ‘long since learned to hold public opinion of no value.’[126] This distrust of the people, contempt for democracy, and reliance on strong government supported by wealth, and, if need be, sustained by standing armies, were carried by him into the Constitutional Convention and there proclaimed with all the tremendous force of his personality.

VII

Unless we divest ourselves of the Hamiltonian myths in reference to the Constitution, an intelligent comprehension of his political character will be impossible. We must rid ourselves of the fallacious notion that he was satisfied with the Constitution or believed it adequate. No one contributed more mightily to making the Constitutional Convention possible. In the preliminary convention at Annapolis, no one did more to crystallize sentiment for it, and it was his persuasive pen that wrote the history-making address there determined upon. About his dining-table in New York he did yeoman service in coaxing skeptical and reluctant members of Congress to call a convention. There, under a simulation of gayety, his eloquence and wit and banter made converts of the most stubborn—a service of immeasurable value.[127]

But in the Convention itself he played no such part as is popularly ascribed to him. After the presentation of his own plan in the early stages, he played an inconspicuous part, and much of the time he was not only absent from the Convention, but out of the State. This was not because of indifference to the event, but to a realization that he could accomplish nothing for his plan.[128]

This plan was a direct contradiction of that which was adopted. There is nothing conjectural about that fact—the records are indisputable. We have the plan, the brilliant five-hour oration in its behalf, the brief from which he spoke. These have come down to us, not from his enemies, but from his partial biographers, his son the editor of his ‘Works,’ and the report of Madison on the authenticity of which he himself passed. This plan provided for the election of a President for life; for Senators for life or during good behavior, and by electors with a property qualification; and for the crushing of the sovereignty of States through the appointment by the President of Governors with a life tenure and the power to veto any act of the State legislatures, though passed unanimously. Not only was the President enabled under this plan to negative any law enacted, but he had the discretionary power to enforce or ignore any law existing.[129] Though his President, serving for life, was not called a king, he was to be armed with more arbitrary power than was possessed by the King of England. His English eulogist does not overstate when he says that ‘what he had in mind was the British Constitution as George III had tried hard to make it,’ and failed because the English people would not tolerate it.[130] This interpretation of Hamilton’s purpose is reënforced by another of his most brilliant disciples who asserts that ‘Hamilton’s governor [President] would have been not dissimilar to Louis XIV and could have said with him, “L’état c’est moi.” ... Thinly veiled, his plan[131] contemplated an elective king with greater powers than those of George III, an imitation House of Lords, and a popular House of Commons with a limited tenure.’[132] Even so this plan confessedly fell far short of his conception of an ideal government. In the brief for his speech[133] we are left in no doubt as to his partiality for a monarchy, in which the aristocracy should have a special power. ‘The monarch ... ought to be hereditary, and to have so much power that it would not be his interest to risk much to acquire more.’ As for the aristocracy, ‘they should be so circumstanced that they can have no interest in a change.’[134] We should be ‘rescued from the democracy.’[135] As to the republican form of government—‘Republics are liable to corruption and intrigue,’[136] and, since ‘a republican government does not admit of a vigorous execution, it is therefore bad.’[137]

Later, in one of his few discussions, he said that ‘those who mean to form a solid republican government ought to proceed to the confines of another government.’[138] His republic, and in his great speech he had conceded that no other form would be accepted by the people, ‘was to be an aristocratic as distinguished from a democratic republic, and the power of the separate States was to be effectually crippled.’[139] In one of his brief Convention talks he said of the States that ‘as States he thought they should be abolished.’[140] Even after the Constitution had been adopted, he believed that one of the objects of administration should be ‘to acquire for the federal government more consistency than the Constitution seems to promise for so great a country,’ to the end that it ‘may triumph altogether over the state governments and reduce them to an utter subordination, dividing the large States into simpler districts.’[141] Such were the ideas urged by Hamilton in the forceful five-hour speech which Gouverneur Morris thought the most brilliant intellectual exhibition he had ever witnessed. After this exhaustive exposition, he took but little part. Toward the close he explained his comparative silence: ‘He had been restrained from entering into the discussions by his dislike of the scheme of government in general.’[142] This distaste did not diminish as the Convention closed its labors, and he accepted the Constitution in the end ‘as better than nothing.’[143] His motive for joining in recommending it to the people is conclusively shown in his last Convention utterance: ‘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 one side, and the chance of good to be expected from the plan on the other?’[144]

Nor did he ever lose faith in his own plan, or gain confidence in the Constitution which was adopted.[145] Just before retiring from the Cabinet he avowed himself a monarchist who had ‘no objections to a trial being made of this thing of a republic.’[146] Two years before his death he wrote bitterly to Morris of his support of a Constitution in which he had never had faith ‘from the beginning,’ in which he described it as ‘a frail and worthless fabric.’[147] And the night of his death, when his bosom friend and confidant was meditating the funeral oration he was to deliver on the steps of Trinity Church, he wrote in his diary, ‘He was in principle opposed to republican and attached to monarchical government, but then his opinions were generally known and have been long and loudly proclaimed. His share in the forming of our Constitution must be mentioned, and his unfavorable opinion cannot therefore be concealed.’[148]

If, however, he was a tremendous factor in making any Constitutional Convention possible, he was to be even more essential in securing the ratification of the document he disliked—and it is here that he rises to the pinnacle of patriotic statesmanship, and earns the eternal gratitude of the Republic. When on that summer day, on a packet floating lazily down the Hudson, he subordinated his personal preferences to the public good, and sat down to the writing of the first number of ‘The Federalist,’ he reached the very acme of his greatness. Had he done nothing else, his fame would have been as eternal as the Nation he helped to make. Thus does he take his rightful place among the greatest nation-builders of all time.

VIII

The qualities of strength and weakness accounting for the successes and failures of his political leadership are easily found in an analysis of his character. As is true of most genius, his was three fourths hard work. From his earliest boyhood he had learned the value of system. Nothing was permitted to disturb the programme by which he regulated his days and nights. We may surmise that he was his own most relentless taskmaster from the rules he wrote for the guidance of his favorite son. This almost monastic schedule denotes the system by which he governed his own life.[149] He never completed his education, and the exactions of politics and his profession never made him a stranger to his library. Here, surrounded by his family, he ministered to an insatiable mind. Never tiring of the classics, he kept pace with the printing-press, and Mrs. Church rummaged about the book-stalls of London to supply him with all the new worth-while publications. Thus the ‘Wealth of Nations’ was in his hands as soon after its appearance as a boat could cross the sea.[150] His manner of study was intensive, absorbing, and he fairly lashed his mind and memory to their allotted tasks. Walking the floor while reading and studying, it was a comment of his friends that with equal exertion he could have walked from one end of the country to the other.[151]

Quite as remarkable as the intensity of his application was his abnormal capacity for sustained exertion. He thought nothing of sitting over a paper ‘until the dawn dimmed his candles.’[152] Talleyrand’s comment on finding lights in his office in the early morning is famous. It was not unusual for him to ponder a problem long and earnestly until he had thought it through, then to retire to sleep regardless of the hour of the night, and after a while to arise, refresh himself with a cup of strong coffee, seat himself at his table, and work on with great rapidity for six, seven, or eight hours without rest. The resulting product of his pen was so perfect, we are assured, such was his felicity of expression, that it seldom required revision.[153]

This tenacity was one of the factors in his leadership. He was never a fair-weather fighter. Opposition only whetted his appetite for battle. Nor was he easily discouraged. Explaining to a friend who wished to carry the news to New York of the situation in the Poughkeepsie Convention, that the members stood two to one against the ratification of the Constitution, he concluded with grim emphasis: ‘Tell them the Convention shall never rise until the Constitution is adopted.’[154]

Along with this tenacity, he had an illimitable moral courage which made it easy for him to fight for a cause without counting the cost. The real Hamilton is seen in his defense of the persecuted Tories at the close of the Revolution; in his fighting his way through a mob eager for the blood of the Tory president of Columbia College to hold it at bay with his indignant eloquence; in his letter to Jay against the destruction of the notorious Rivington Press by a mob.[155] This reverence for law and the constituted authority was the mainspring of his political character, and he always had the moral courage to stand for both when cowardice would have recommended compromise.

To these qualities must be added another which gave character to his leadership—he was personally honest. Called to a station where he might easily have enriched himself, as did many of his friends, he retired to private life poorer than when he entered the public service. Small wonder that Talleyrand was astounded at such disinterestedness and restraint. There was no affectation in his letter lamenting his inability to succor some immigrants from France. ‘I wish I was a Crœsus; I might then afford solid consolation to these children of adversity, and how delightful it would be to do so. But now, sympathy, kind words, and occasionally a dinner are all that I can contribute.’ And at the time he wrote great fortunes had been built on the financial system he had created. So impeccable was he in this regard that his great political protagonist, writing an estimate of his character in the calm of his closet, recorded him as ‘disinterested, honest and honorable in all private transactions.’[156] Profound as a thinker, exhaustive as a student, moving in eloquence, powerful with the pen, logical in his reasoning, constructive in his methods, tenacious in the advancement of his plans, possessed of the courage of his convictions, personally honest in public and private action, he possessed qualities of leadership that drew high-minded men about, and to, him. But he unhappily had the weakness of his strength that was to operate disastrously upon his political fortunes. It is impossible to understand his ultimate failure as a leader without a reference to his temperamental deficiencies.

IX

As a party leader he was singularly lacking in tact, offensively opinionated,[157] impatient and often insulting to well-meaning mediocrity, and dictatorial. He did not consult—he directed. He did not conciliate—he commanded. In the Cabinet he was to offend Jefferson early because Hamilton ‘could not rid himself of the idea that he was really the prime minister.’[158] It was not diplomatic to order Adams back to his post of duty in Philadelphia in the manner of one addressing a subordinate. Nor was it considerate to write to McHenry, who adored him, and was doing the best his limited ability would permit: ‘Pray take a resolution adequate to the emergency and rescue the credit of your department.’[159] These outbursts of impatience and this intolerance of weakness were forgiven by the strong, but treasured against him by smaller and more envious minds, and the time was to come when, with his field marshals loyal, he was to have few colonels and captains, and practically no privates. He was a failure in the management of men, and only his superior genius made it possible for him to dominate so long.

There was much of egotism and some vanity behind this dictatorial disposition. This was inherent and incurable. The lowliness of his origin, the phenomenal rapidity of his rise, the homage properly paid him for the brilliancy of his youthful efforts with voice, pen, and sword, all tended to convince him of his superiority. No one knew or lamented his egotism more than men who loved him. Morris went weeping from his death-bed to write his intimate opinion in his diary that he was ‘vain and opinionated.’[160] Cabot, who clung to him like a lover, wrote him frankly: ‘I am bound to tell you that you are accused by respectable men of egotism.’[161] A descendant and biographer concedes his vanity, taking issue with Hamilton’s son who had foolishly, but naturally, denied it in his biography.[162] His self-sufficiency is evident in his letter to Laurens: ‘It is my desire to preserve myself free from particular attachments, and to keep my happiness independent of the caprices of others.’[163] But were we without these confessions from his friends, we should find them in his letters. What more amazing and amusing than his letter to Schuyler explaining with gusto and some swagger his quarrel with Washington.[164] Even at the age of twenty-three and while serving in a secretarial capacity to one of the foremost figures of all time, he was placing himself on an equality at least with Washington and writing glibly of ‘what we owed to each other.’ This spirit of self-exaltation was to drive many of the minor leaders of his party from him, and to lead him, in the end, to the supreme folly of his pamphlet attack on Adams which was hopelessly to cripple, if not completely destroy, his influence.

Even more serious than his flamboyant egotism was his queer lack of judgment in the handling of men. It was an irreparable blunder to force the election of his father-in-law to the Senate from New York over Chancellor Livingston who had superior claims. It was a temporary triumph that drove one of the most powerful families in the State into the ranks of his enemies.[165] Only the most execrable taste can pardon the undignified writing of anonymous attacks on a colleague of the Cabinet.[166] His blunder in the case of the Schuyler election could be excused by his lack of political experience, but his most sympathetic biographer admits that ‘middle age instead of ripening his judgment, warped it.’[167] His was a nature of eternal youth, and in many respects the indiscretions of boyish exuberance cursed him to the end.

If these personal weaknesses were to weaken him with the leaders of the second rank, his unpopularity with the rank and file was to come from his lack of sympathy for, and understanding of, the American spirit. No one realized it more than he. In justice it must be said that he honestly tried to suppress his doubts of America; but in moments of depression he burst forth with expressions that bear the marks of long incubation. ‘Am I a fool—a romantic Quixote—or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind?’ he wrote King. ‘Were it not for yourself and a few others I would adopt the reveries of De Paux, as substantial truths, and could say with him that there is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or brute.’[168] And toward the close of his life he wrote Morris: ‘Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me. You, friend Morris, are a native of this country, but by genius an exotic. You mistake if you fancy that you are more of a favorite than myself, or that you are in any sort upon a theatre suited to you.’[169] This touch of the exotic, of which he himself was painfully conscious, was not lost upon his political enemies. ‘Thus ignorant of the character of this nation, of Pennsylvania, and of his own city and State of New York, was Alexander Hamilton,’ wrote Adams.[170] But it was left for another to ‘discover the real secret of his confusion as to the American character—he had never known the spirit, or had the training, of the New England town meeting.[171] A marvelous genius, he thought in terms of world politics at a time when America was creating a new spirit and system of her own. It was not to weaken his work as the creator of credit, but it was to dim his vision as an American leader.

X

If he possessed traits that made him thoroughly hated by some, he had other qualities that bound his friends to him with bonds of steel. He commanded affection because he was himself affectionate. His letters to his wife were uniformly tender and playful. He was idolized by his children. His comrades in the army loved him because he not only shared their hardships, but at times helped them to necessities out of his own all but empty pockets. He was sensitive to the sufferings of many refugees in Philadelphia and New York, and he would often direct his wife to send money and delicacies to the women and children.[172] We have many instances of his generosity, like his attempt to spare Andre the humiliation of the scaffold, and his letter to Knox protesting against the execution of British officers in retaliation for the murder of an American.[173] Among the young French officers he was idolized because of his merry disposition and the cleverness and brilliancy of his conversation. While prone to hold aloof from the mass, he was a ‘good fellow’ among those whom he considered his social equals. In social assemblies of both sexes he fairly sparkled with boyish enthusiasm.[174] In stag affairs, where he was immensely popular, we may be sure that he was nothing of a prude. It is not of record that he often drank to excess, but like most men of his time he loved his wine, and we have it on the best authority that he sometimes took a wee bit too much.[175] On these convivial occasions he could always be prevailed upon to sing his one and only song:

‘We’re going to war, and when we die
We’ll want a man of God near by,
So bring your Bible and follow the drum.’

His one serious weakness was an inordinate fondness for women which was to involve him in the one serious scandal of his career. It was McHenry who wrote to Pickering, another friend: ‘Far be it from me to attempt to palliate his pleasures, the indulgence in which Mr. Hamilton himself publicly lamented.’[176] It was Otis who wrote of his ‘liquorish flirtation’ with a married woman at a fashionable dinner party.[177] It was Lodge who, in touching on his overpowering passions, refers to his ‘relations, which had an unenviable notoriety.’[178] It is Oliver who says that ‘his private shortcomings cannot be denied,’[179] and that ‘in private life Hamilton was not always vigilant.’[180] It is the historian of ‘The Republican Court’ who records that ‘it is true that Hamilton was something of a roué.’[181] And it was reserved for a descendant to remind us of the story of the alleged relations with the celebrated Madame Jumel, who, in old age, made an unsuccessful attempt to live with Aaron Burr,[182] and of the gossip, which he discredits, that his relations with his sprightly sister-in-law, Mrs. Church, were more tender than they should have been.[183] This same descendant, writing with professional authority, explains these moral delinquencies on the theory that, like other men of genius and great intelligence, he was prone to ‘impulsively plunge into the underworld in obedience to some strange promptings of their lower nature.’[184]

And yet, such are the strange inconsistencies of the temperamental—nothing could have been more beautiful than his home life. His endearing traits are evident in the passionate devotion of all who knew the Hamilton of the hearth. If the ties that bound Angelica Church to him were not more tender than they should have been, her letters indicate something akin to love.[185] His wife, who must have suffered tortures over the confessions of the Reynolds pamphlet, clung to him with a faith born perhaps of an understanding of how much he must have resisted. If he sometimes broke his vows, there can be no doubt that the shrine of his heart was at his hearth.

‘Colonel Beckwith tells me that our dear Hamilton writes too much and takes no exercise, and grows fat,’ wrote Angelica Church to Mrs. Hamilton from London. ‘I hate both the word and the thing, and I desire you to take care of his health, and his good looks.’[186] Here we have the suggestion of another frailty which makes all the more notable the intensity of his sustained efforts and the magnitude of his achievements—the delicacy of his health. The first, and possibly the last, medical service rendered by McHenry on becoming a member of Washington’s military family was to prescribe for Hamilton and make suggestions as to his diet. Early in the war he who was never robust contracted a malarial infection from which he suffered every summer throughout his life.[187] His correspondence is sprinkled throughout with references to his health.[188] While in no sense an invalid, the magnitude and multiplicity of his labors despite a chronic physical disability measure the power of mind over matter and indicate something of his unyielding will.

XI

In view of the sincere or simulated interest in religion shown by Hamilton where political interests were involved, it would be interesting to know just what he thought and felt. The records here are slight. During his youth he passed through the period of religious exaltation not uncommon in the average life. Not only was he attentive to public worship, but he prayed fervently and with eloquence in the seclusion of his room.[189] About this time he wrote a hymn, ‘A Soul Entering into Bliss,’ which is said to have had some literary merit.[190] We hear no more concerning his religious fervor for many years until he pretended, if he did not feel, an intense indignation against the revolutionary reaction aimed at the church establishment in France. He was shocked that ‘equal pains have been taken to deprave the morals as to extinguish the religion of the country.’[191]

A few years more, and, with the fall of his party, he outlined to Bayard a ‘Plan of Conduct’ for Federalists with a view to its rehabilitation, and proposed an association to be denominated ‘The Christian Constitutional Society,’ having for its objects ‘the support of the Christian Religion’ and ‘the support of the Constitution.’[192] This hints strongly of the Old World idea of the union of Church and State. In Connecticut the clergy had been the shock troops of Federalism, and it is quite possible that the political advantage of an alliance between the Church and his party appealed to Hamilton.

At any rate, he was a member of no church. One of his descendants assures us that ‘he was a man of earnest, simple faith, quite unemotional in this respect, so far as display was concerned, but his belief was very strong.’[193] Strong as it was, it never led him to the altar.

Leaving his idol’s death-bed, Oliver Wolcott wrote his wife that ‘Colonel H. in late years expressed his conviction of the truths of the Christian Religion, and his desire to receive the Sacrament—but no one of the clergy who have yet been consulted will administer it.’[194] At length, life ebbing away, a bishop consented after being earnestly solicited the second time. Thus in his dying hour, Hamilton declared: ‘It has for some time past been the wish of my heart, and it was my intention to take an early opportunity of uniting myself to the church.’ The natural deduction from the meager information we have is that his intensive political and professional activities and consuming ambitions gave him little time to meditate on religion. He certainly never gave it the consideration of his greatest political opponent whom his party attacked as an enemy of Christianity. But he used the Church, whenever possible, to advance his political views—and with effect.

Quite as problematical as his religious feeling was his attitude toward Washington. It was the policy of the Federalists to capitalize politically the popularity of the man of Mount Vernon, and they succeeded, as we shall find, to a marked degree. Even so, some of Hamilton’s most partial biographers[195] have commented on the absence of any deep affection between the two, and Dr. Hamilton is not convincing with his observation that his ancestor signed his letters to Washington, ‘Very affectionately.’[196] As a matter of fact none of his letters to Washington denote real affection. This would be more impressive, however, but for the singular absence of the note of affection in all his political correspondence. But in one of his letters we find the very opposite of either affection or admiration. This was his letter to General Schuyler on the occasion of Hamilton’s withdrawal from Washington’s military family, and it does not speak well for the reliability of his son’s biography that he deliberately mutilated the letter. It was in this that he wrote that he had found his chief ‘neither remarkable for delicacy or good temper’ and complained of his ‘self love.’ Here we have the confession that ‘for three years past I have felt no friendship for him and have professed none.’[197]

In his letter to Lear, the secretary, when Washington died he probably came perilously near to summing up his attitude in a sentence: ‘I have been much indebted to the kindness of the General, and he was an Aegis very essential to me.’ And then, the significant postscript: ‘In whose hands are his papers gone? Our very confidential situation will not permit this to be a point of indifference to me.’[198]

Such a man was Hamilton, a Colossus, brilliant, fascinating, daring, and audacious—a constructive statesman of the highest order, a genius of the first rank, with all the strength and the weaknesses of genius. Such the man who sat down at the mahogany desk to write the documents that were to give credit to a nation and a programme to a party.

CHAPTER III
HAMILTON IN THE SADDLE

I

THERE was quite enough in the picture of the handsome, penniless Hamilton, at the age of thirty-two, striding upon the national scene with the air of a conqueror to undertake the solution of the problem on which the existence of the young Republic depended, to appeal to the popular imagination. The mystery and romance of his history, the dash in his manner, the shimmer of his genius, interested all and fascinated many of his contemporaries. The audacious gayety with which he faced his task imparted a feeling of confidence to those who did not know, as many did, just what was in his mind. He set to work with an enthusiasm that smacked of inspiration, for it was a task to his taste.

With the startling effect of a magician at his tricks he created the machinery of his complicated department, selected his assistants with discrimination, trained them with meticulous care in their duties, outlined his plans for revenue immediately required, and sat down with joy to the preparation of his ‘Report on the Public Credit,’ which was to proclaim the public faith and establish the Nation’s credit.

The mere presence of this youthful figure at the mahogany desk commanded confidence. Here was a man who was primarily interested in the rights of property, who believed in the sanctity of contracts and had the courage of his convictions. Even as he was writing his ‘Report,’ he loomed large as the man of the hour. His close associates foresaw the nature of his recommendations. The mercantile and financial interests plumed themselves upon a triumph. Within a month after his appointment a contemporary rhymester put in verse the counting-room conception of the man:

’...young Hamilton’s unshaken soul
The wayward hosts of anarchy control—
And while the Senate with his accents rung
A full conviction followed from his tongue.’[199]

His plans, given in confidence to some, were soon whispered among the politicians and the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and the market price of public securities in the cities rose fifty per cent two months before Congress convened.

It was not until in early January that the ‘Report’ was read in House and Senate. His wish to present it personally was denied, not by his political enemies as his partial biographers contend, but by the supporters of his plan.[200] In the galleries of the House eager speculators were closely packed. They overflowed and filled the lobbies. Some were drawn by mere curiosity, some were the original creditors who had waited long for their reward, but the greater number were speculators, who, in anticipation of such a recommendation, had bought freely of the skeptical holders at ridiculously low prices. Not a few of these poured forth into Wall Street at the conclusion with the exhilarating knowledge that a fortune was within their grasp.

In the Senate the ‘Report’ was heard in secret and in ‘awful silence,’ for the elder statesmen met behind doors closed and locked. Most of these listened with approval, but the rheumatic Maclay, who had been puzzled for some time with ‘the extraordinary rise in public securities,’ wrote that night in his journal that Hamilton ‘recommends indiscriminate funding, and, in the style of the British Minister, has sent down his bill.’ There were some complaints that ‘a committee of speculators in certificates could not have formed it more to their advantage.’ In truth, ‘it occasioned many serious faces,’ and Maclay himself was ‘struck of a heap.’[201] But the prevalent note was one of jubilation. In New York, enthusiasm in the coffee-houses; in Boston, ‘great applause’;[202] in other commercial cities, Philadelphia, Charleston, Baltimore, approbation, with reprobation for objections.[203]

All men of honor sympathized with the purpose of discharging the debt. The repudiationists were among the ignorant and the vicious. Few at the moment found fault with the funding system, though some would have preferred a speedy liquidation through the sale of the public lands. Then—suddenly—a low murmur of protest, followed by acrimonious attacks. Thousands of the original creditors had been ‘swindled’ out of their certificates for a song—were these, who rendered Revolutionary services, to be taxed to ensure exorbitant profits to the speculators? Why should the Federal Government assume the debts contracted by the separate States—debts unevenly distributed? And what was the purpose of the proposal that the Government should be prohibited from paying more than two per cent of the principal a year? The indignation of the insurgents, at first a glimmer, became a flame. The greater part of the certificates were in the hands of the prosperous who had taken advantage of the necessities of the original holders—Revolutionary soldiers, small farmers, hard-pressed country merchants. The funding system would tax all the people to pay to the rich a hundred cents on the dollar for evidence of debts that had cost them fifteen and twenty. With the people taxed to pay the interest—it was proposed to perpetuate the debt. Thus, for generations, perhaps, as many reasoned, the Government would operate for the enrichment of the few already rich, and the masses would pay the piper.

Had Hamilton been disposed to frankness, he would have smiled his acknowledgment of the charge. One of his biographers has conceded that through this system he hoped to ‘array property on the side of the Government,’ by giving it a financial interest in the Government, and ‘to assure to the property of the country a powerful influence upon the Government.’[204] Having ‘been unable to introduce a class influence into the Constitution by limiting the suffrage ... with a property qualification,’ he hoped through his financial system to accomplish his purpose in another way.[205]

There was nothing diabolical in the plan—coming from one who looked upon the masses as lawless and unfit for self-government. His obsession was a strong, stable government—and to sustain it he required the interested devotion of the propertied class. The astonishing thing is that the comparatively crude Maclay from the wilds of Pennsylvania and the leather-lunged James Jackson from sparsely settled Georgia should have caught the full significance of it all before it dawned on Jefferson and Madison. The latter thought the ‘Report’ ‘well digested and illustrated,’ and ‘supported by very able reasoning,’ but after a while he, too, was depressed with the injustice to the original creditors who ‘were most instrumental in saving their country,’ and concluded there was something ‘radically wrong in suffering those who rendered a bona fide consideration to lose seven eighths of their dues, and those who had no particular merit toward their country to gain seven or eight times as much as they advanced.’[206]

II

Meanwhile, speculation was manifesting itself with incredible audacity and mendacity. The greater part of the securities in the hands of original creditors were in the hands of soldiers, farmers, and merchants in the remote interior. To most of these, they had come to mean so much worthless paper. No telegraph could flash the news into the back country of Georgia and North Carolina that Congress was about to legislate to par the promises to pay. Weeks or months would pass before the proceedings in New York could be known and comprehended by holders of the paper living in the woods of the Carolinas or on the banks of the Savannah. Poor, and mostly ignorant, they had no correspondents in the coffee-houses to write them of the activities at Federal Hall; and even if they had, it required weeks for a letter to reach them.

But members of Congress knew what to expect—for they were the actors in the drama; and their friends, the capitalists and merchants of the cities, knew—for they had been informed. The unscrupulous and adventurous soldiers of fortune on the scene comprehended the opportunity at a glance. The day after the ‘Report’ was read, the city buzzed with the gossip of the speculators. One Senator, making calls in the congressional circle, found it almost the sole topic of conversation. He heard that Robert Morris of the Senate, who had been consulted by Hamilton, ‘must be deep in it, for his partner ... had one contract for $40,000 worth.’ It was whispered that ‘General Heister had brought over a sum of money for Mr. Morris for this business.’ Senator Langdon, it was noted, was living with a Mr. Hazard ‘who is an old and intimate friend of Mr. Morris,’ and he admitted that he had followed buying certificates for some time past.’ ‘Ah,’ said the visiting Senator, ‘so you are one of the happy few who have been let in on the secret’—and Mr. Hazard seemed abashed. It was understood that Representative Fitzsimons of Philadelphia was likewise concerned in the business.

Four days after the ‘Report’ was read, ‘expresses with very large sums of money on their way to North Carolina for purposes of speculation in certificates’ splashed and bumped over the wretched winter roads, the drivers lashing the straining horses. Two fast-sailing vessels, chartered by a member of Congress who had been an officer in the war, were ploughing the waters southward on a similar mission—and this scandalous proceeding was to be mentioned frequently in the subsequent debates. ‘I really fear,’ wrote Maclay, ‘the members of Congress are deeper in this business than any others.’[207] Whether they were deeper or not, they were deep enough, and numerous enough to hold the balance of power in the body that legislated the certificates to par. These ranged from Robert Morris, the chief legislative agent of Hamilton in the Senate, to Fisher Ames, who was his most eloquent defender in the House.[208] In later years Jefferson was to record in justice to Ames that his speculative activities had been greatly exaggerated and that he had acted as an agent in the enterprises of his Boston friends, Gore and Mason.[209]

So thoroughly did this money-madness take possession of the minds of men that even the puritanic John Quincy Adams was to write his father, without a homily, that by September of 1790, Christopher Gore, the richest lawyer in Massachusetts, and one of the strongest Bay State members of Hamilton’s machine, had ‘made an independent fortune in speculation in the public funds’; and that other leaders of the bar[210] had ‘successfully engaged in speculation’ by playing at ‘that hazardous game with moneys deposited in their hands’ by clients at a distance. They took the chance of becoming ‘masters of sums to an equal amount before they have been called upon for payment.’[211] Maclay thought ‘there is no room to doubt but that a connection is spread over the whole continent on this villainous business.’[212] Everywhere men with capital—and a hint—were feverishly pushing their advantage by preying on the ignorance of the poor. Thus, paper held for years by the private soldiers was coaxed from them for five, and even as low as two, shillings on the pound by speculators, including leading members of Congress, who knew that provision for the redemption of the paper had been made.

In all this, Hamilton had no part and no responsibility beyond having made indiscreet disclosures of which his friends availed themselves, and through buying and selling through his agents in New York and Philadelphia for his brother-in-law.[213] Just how he viewed the scandalous proceedings in the earlier stages we do not know. They were not without defense from his supporters. The obsequious John Fenno took notice of the gossip with a defense of speculation in the ‘Gazette.’ Were not moneyed men ‘the props of the infant credit of the United States?’[214] The dark insinuations of the gossips, the criticism of the ‘rabble,’ we may be sure caused Hamilton no concern. Surveying the field at the beginning of the battle, he must have been content. He saw the financiers, the commercial interests of the large centers, including the speculators, enlisted under his banner. The influential Society of the Cincinnati, composed of Revolutionary officers, men of means who had been able to hold on to their paper, gave dignity to his cause. With its compact organization in every State, and its system of correspondence, it was an engine of tremendous power. The social and intellectual circles were flying his flag. He looked upon his work and called it good.

III

With the first discussion in the House, it was apparent that speculation was to play a conspicuous part in the debates. The speculators packed the galleries, overflowed into the lobby, causing the complacent Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, himself a speculator, to insist that the ‘ardent expectations of the people on this subject want no other demonstration than the numerous body of citizens assembled within these walls.’ The effect was different on the pugnacious Jackson of Georgia. ‘Since this Report has been read,’ he shouted, with a contemptuous glance at the eager gallery, ‘the spirit of speculation ... has arisen and been cherished by people who had access to information the Report contained, that would have made a Hastings blush to have been connected with, though long inured to preying on the vitals of his fellow man. Three vessels, sir, have sailed within a fortnight from this port freighted for speculation.’[215]

The unctuous Sedgwick was melting suavity. Speculation within reasonable bounds was not bad, but action should be taken with all possible speed to stop it; and the troublesome Jackson returned to the attack—this time on New York City. He wished to God Congress had met in the woods and out of the neighborhood of a populous town. The gallant veterans, driven by economic necessity to the wilderness, were being robbed by these speculators of the pittance a grateful country had bestowed. Since the assumption of State debts was proposed, why not postpone action until the various legislatures could express the sentiment of the States? ‘Then these men may send out other vessels to countermand their former orders; and perhaps we may yet save the distant inhabitants from being plundered by these harpies.’[216]

This line of attack had not been anticipated, and Hamilton was not the man to take anything for granted. His well-groomed figure was seen moving nervously about the lobbies of Federal Hall, within a few days after the commencement of the debate. One of his enemies observed that he ‘spent most of his time running from place to place among the members.’[217] In the evenings he gathered his more influential supporters about him at his home. At his table he brought his most seductive charms to bear upon the doubting. Time was all-important and indefinite delay might be fatal.

With the thunder of Jackson’s ugly charges reverberating through the streets, taverns, coffee-houses, Hamilton was ‘moving heaven and earth for his funding system.’ The commercial interests and the members of the Cincinnati hastened to join the lobby, which began to seek out the wavering or the doubtful in their lodging-houses. A fashionable minister found his way to the quarters of Speaker Muhlenberg and Senator Maclay to extol the policies of the dynamic young Secretary, and ‘argued as if he had been in the pulpit.’ Time, too, for a redoubling of effort, for there were rumors that Madison, the strongest man in the House, had been unpleasantly impressed with the fast-sailing vessels and the expresses jolting over the roads southward. A bitter attack had appeared in one of the papers which gossip ascribed to the popular George Clinton.[218]

In the House—still harping were the foes on speculation, when with a benevolent expression Sedgwick rose with saccharine urbanity to regret the vice of speculation, and declare himself ‘totally disinterested,’ albeit he was financially concerned. It was only his distress over speculation that admonished him to speedy action to minimize the evil. It was really unfortunate that so much heat had been engendered. After all, were not ‘a great and respectable body of our citizens creditors of the United States?’ It would be tragic were these animosities to create ‘factions among the people.’

‘A danger there?’ bellowed Jackson, the incorrigible infant terrible. ‘Do not gentlemen think there is some danger on the other side? Will there not be grounds for uneasiness when the soldier and the meritorious citizen are called upon to pay the speculator more than ten times the amount they ever received from him for their securities?’[219]

Meanwhile the fight was spreading from Federal Hall to the newspapers where congressional courtesy imposed no restrictions on the temper. Sinister stories were finding their way into print. ‘Several officials in conjunction with Robert Morris and wealthy contractors “were” at the bottom of this new arrangement.’ If it succeeded, Robert Morris would benefit $18,000,000, Jeremiah Wadsworth would profit $9,000,000 and Governor George Clinton would make $5,000,000.[220]

It was under these conditions, with the speculators packing the galleries, with the lobbyists, legitimate and illegitimate, buzzing through the corridors, with the most amazing rumors floating about the streets, that James Madison, who had remained silent heretofore, rose in a crowded House to fire the first fun in the Jeffersonian war on the financial policies of Alexander Hamilton.

IV

Here was a man at whom the Federalist leaders dare not sneer. A stranger, looking down from the gallery, would have been at a loss to understand the deference with which members hung upon his words. His personal appearance was disappointing. The short little man dressed in sober black, with a bald head, and a little protuberant in front, whose lower limbs were slight and weak,[221] was surely not meant to ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm. The impression of physical weakness he conveyed did belie the fact. In the mild blue eyes there was much to suggest the meditative philosopher, nothing to hint of the fighter. His voice was so weak that even in the cozy little chamber he could scarcely be heard.[222] He spoke in low tones, without gesture or excitement, almost like a man communing with himself in the seclusion of his closet. And yet he commanded a hearing vouchsafed to few. It was the triumph of character.

Here, too, was a man with a background second to none in the infant Republic. An ailing body had obsessed him in youth with the premonition of an early death, and, feeling the futility of entering on any pursuit, he had sought consolation in his books. He not only consumed, he assimilated. He not only read, he thought. Thus he became something more than a learned man—he developed into a political philosopher ‘worthy to rank with Montesquieu and Locke.’[223] At the time he rose to propose an amendment to Hamilton’s plan there was not a man in America who was his peer in the knowledge of constitutional law or history. Nor was there a man, either, whose support Hamilton more eagerly coveted. Even the jealous Ames conceded him to be ‘our first man,’ consoling himself for the concession with the comment that ‘I think him too much of a book politician and too timid in his politics,’ and that ‘he speaks decently as to manner and no more.’[224]

But the ill-natured jealousy of the more ornamental Ames failed to take account, as most of his colleagues did, of the important practical use to which he had put his knowledge of the battles he had fought and the victories he had won. No one in either branch of Congress or at the head of any of the departments had approached his services in the framing of the Constitution. It was his genius that conceived the Virginia plan which became the basis of the agreement. At many critical junctures his speeches had dissipated the gathering darkness with their light. His pen, unknown to many at the time, had recorded the story of the Convention. His contributions to ‘The Federalist’ had been quite as important, if not so numerous, as those of Hamilton; and the fight he waged in the Virginia Convention for ratification was quite as Titanic and conclusive as that of Hamilton in New York, but with this difference—Hamilton was confronted by Melancthon Smith, while Madison had to cross swords with Patrick Henry, with the powerful George Mason and the accomplished Pendleton.

He was not an orator of frills and fancies, magnetic and dramatic, appealing to the passions and emotions, but he was formidable in debate. In the speeches of none of his contemporaries is found such erudition, more driving logic, such tact and moderation of statement, or greater nobility of sentiment, fairness, justice. If they are a bit heavy in their sobriety, the occasion called for something remote from theatrical frivolity. His grace was in his reasoning, not his rhetoric—and yet his style would have given him a foremost place at Saint Stephen’s.

It is not surprising that such a man should not have been a favorite with the crowd. There was a diffidence in his manner, a formality and precision in his method, a quiet dignity in his bearing that discouraged familiarity. He was too absorbed in his work to fit in with the social festivity of his time. Only at his own table and among his intimates did he appear in the rôle of ‘an incessant humorist’ and ‘keep the table in roars of laughter over his stories and his whimsical way of telling them.’[225] Even his letters read like state papers. But there were a few, greater than Ames, who appreciated him. These were the three most important personages of his time—Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson.

Washington consulted him and made use of his pen. Hamilton cultivated him. Jefferson loved him as a son. His relations with the latter were no less than beautiful. Through many years they constantly interchanged visits, corresponded regularly, and traveled together whenever possible. A strikingly incongruous pair they must have seemed as they plodded along country roads together, or rode to and from Philadelphia together in Jefferson’s carriage—the tall, thin, loose-jointed, and powerful master of Monticello, and the short, frail, bald-headed Madison. But the incongruity was in their physical appearance only, for they had much in common—a common sweetness of disposition, a common code of political principles and morals, a common liberality of views, and a common passion for knowledge. The older man paid tribute to his protégé’s qualities long after both had passed from active public life: his ‘habits of self-possession which placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and discriminating mind’; his language ‘soothing always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness of expression’; his ‘pure and spotless virtue which no calumny has ever attempted to sully’—all qualities that made him a congenial companion for the philosopher who shared them in a large degree.[226] Observing Jefferson’s happiness at the inauguration of his successor, a lady who knew them both intimately wrote what all who knew them felt: ‘I do believe father never loved a son more than he loves Mr. Madison.’[227] But when Madison rose that cold February day to make his first attack on Hamilton’s programme, he acted on his own volition and without consultation with the man who was to be his chief.

V

The character of Madison’s speech in favor of discrimination between the original holders and the purchasers of securities was not so open to attack as that of the impulsive and loose-thinking Jackson. He began in a manner to conciliate his hearers, matching Hamilton in his insistence on the sanctity of the debt and the necessity for its discharge. The question is—to whom is the money due? There could be no doubt in the case of the original holders who had not alienated their securities. The only rival pretensions were those of the original holders who had assigned and the present holders of the assignments.

‘The former may appeal to justice,’ he said, ‘because the value of the money, the service or the property advanced by them has never been really paid to them. They may appeal to good faith, because the value stipulated and expected is not satisfied by the steps taken by the Government. The certificates put in the hands of the creditors, on closing their settlements with the public, were of less value than was acknowledged to be due; they may be considered as having been forced on the receivers. They cannot therefore be adjudged an extinguishment of the debt. They may appeal to the motives for establishing public credit, for which justice and faith form the natural foundation. They may appeal to humanity for the sufferings of the military part of the creditors who never can be forgotten while sympathy is an American virtue.’

Admitting that the purchaser also had a claim, he proposed a plan designed, as he thought, to do justice to both—to pay the original holder in full, and, where there had been an assignment, the assignee to receive the highest market value and the original holder whatever remained over.[228] The plan spread consternation. At the Knoxes’ dinner table that night, where members of Congress and diplomats were gathered, it was almost the sole topic of conversation. In the coffee-houses, where the speculators gathered about their mugs, Madison was denounced as a dreamer and an enemy of public faith. The more cautious regretted the insurmountable difficulties of the scheme. This was felt by Madison as the one legitimate argument in opposition, and writing Jefferson three days later he made the admission with the suggestion that ‘they might be removed by one half the exertions that will be used to collect and color them.’[229] It was not until four days later that the Hamiltonian leaders attacked the plan with their heavy artillery. One by one they rushed to the assault. ‘It is not pretended,’ cried Sedgwick, ‘that any fraud or imposition has been practiced’—which is precisely what was charged. If the original holders lost, it was their own fault. It was too bad. He really sympathized with their misfortunes. But business was business. There was ‘no fraud on the part of the holder,’ echoed Laurance of New York—who knew that the town was humming with the charge. At any rate, ‘the general opinion of men of property is in favor of it.’ No public bodies like Chambers of Commerce were against the Hamilton plan. As for ‘the people’—newspapers and pamphlets could not be taken as expressive of public opinion. William Smith of Charleston had heard few advocates of discrimination ‘in society.’ As for the newspapers, they appeared on both sides. And why so much sympathy with the original holders?

It was reserved for Ames, whose friend Gore was getting rich on speculation, to take a stouter stand. Why should not ‘the seller who sold for a trifle be taxed to pay the purchaser?’ he asked. ‘He certainly ought to fare as other citizens do. If he has property, then the plea of necessity is destroyed; if he has none, then his taxes will be a mere trifle.’ And public opinion against it? Then ‘all the more duty on Government to protect right when it may happen to be unpopular; that is what Government is framed to do.’ Away with maudlin sentiment—it was not the function of the State to ‘rob on the highway to exercise charity.’[230]

Meanwhile the commercial organizations of the larger towns were summoned to the field against discrimination, and they responded—even in Richmond. ‘It is the natural language of the towns,’ wrote Madison, ‘and decides nothing.’[231] As the debate proceeded, Wall Street swarmed with the curious who could not get into the House where the speculators packed the galleries, and lined up deep behind the railing in the rear of the chamber. Petitions began to pour in. Passions rose. ‘I do not believe the crowd in the gallery consists of original holders,’ shouted one speaker with a contemptuous glance at the covetous group bending over the railing.[232] Soldiers! ‘Poor soldiers!’ sneered Wadsworth—he who had sent the two fast-sailing vessels to the South—‘I am tired of hearing about the poor soldiers. Perhaps soldiers were never better paid in any part of the country.’[233]

Two days later, Madison returned to the attack in a speech unusually spirited for him. Only when he had parted with his self-respect ‘could he admit that America ought to erect the monuments of her gratitude, not to those who saved her liberties, but to those who had enriched themselves on her funds.’ It was his last effort. He had spent himself to the utmost. A spectator entering the House late in the day found him ‘rather jaded.’[234] He had incurred the hate of the Hamiltonians without having consolidated all the opposition in favor of his plan.

Three days later—it was Sunday—that extreme democrat Senator Maclay, who was indifferent to Madison’s plan because opposed to funding altogether, sat down in his boarding-house and framed a plan of his own looking to the extinguishment of the debt through the sale of public lands. Having satisfied himself, he went forth in search of Thomas Scott, his colleague. But ‘shame to tell it—he a man in years and burdened with complaints—had lodged out and was not home yet.’ Pity that ‘a good head should be led astray by the inordinate lust of its concomitant parts.’ At length the old ‘roué’ was found, and he urged that it be submitted to Madison at once.

The next day found Maclay indignantly chafing at Madison’s lodging-house because it was ‘a long time’ before he appeared. As the radical from Pennsylvania read his plan, it seemed to him that Madison ‘attended to no one word, being so much absorbed in his own ideas.’ Maclay handed him the paper, and Madison handed it back without glancing at it. Alas, thought the radical, ‘his pride seems of the kind that repels all communications.’[235] It was not an easy task to organize the forces of Democracy.

The next day Madison’s plan was voted down. It was found long afterward that of the sixty-four members of the House, twenty-nine were security-holders.

VI

One thing, however, had been accomplished—the public interest had been awakened. The tongue of criticism had been loosened. The man in the street began to hold forth. It was all beyond him—as problems of finance were beyond Madison himself; but he could understand that a policy had been adopted that would be advantageous to the rich, profitable to the speculator, and mean loss to the common soldier. In the commercial centers of the cities Madison became anathema. Young Adams reported to his father that in Boston ‘Mr. Madison’s reputation has suffered from his conduct,’ albeit so respectable a character as Judge Dana had adopted Madison’s views.[236] The immediate reaction through letters to the papers was so bitter that Fenno was moved to a homily under the caption, ‘Honor Your Rulers,’ in which he pointed to such outrageous derelictions as expressions of doubt concerning the propriety of the proceedings of Congress.[237] These expressions had gone far beyond a mere questioning of the wisdom of Congress. ‘A War Worn Soldier’ thought it ‘happy there is a Madison who fearless of the blood suckers will step forward and boldly vindicate the rights of the widows and orphans, the original creditors and the war worn soldier.’[238] Another ‘Real Soldier’ described ‘the poor emaciated soldier, hungry and naked, in many instances now wandering from one extreme part of the country to another.... But thank God there lives a Madison to propose justice....’[239] An uglier and more pointed note was struck by ‘A Farmer’ in Pennsylvania. ‘Would it not be a good regulation,’ he wrote, ‘to oblige every member of Congress ... to lay his hand on his heart and to declare that he is no speculator; and that he did not come forward to claim for himself the price of the blood or the limb or the life of the poor soldier?’[240] Another wrote to ‘gentlemen who by superior wealth have monopolized the public securities’ that if honor and public faith called for the maintenance of the paper at par then, there was more occasion for it ‘when they were in the hands of those poor people to whom they were justly due, who had implicitly pinned their faith on your sheaves.’[241] ‘An Old Soldier’ recalled Washington’s pledge to see justice done the common soldier. ‘Ample means are said to be now about to be provided, not for their relief, but to enable eight or nine hundred per cent gain on the purchase money of the speculator.’[242] ‘Ah well,’ wrote ‘A Citizen’ of Boston, ‘Madison, Jackson and others in favor of discrimination in funding the public debt have probably immortalized their memories.’[243]

Their letters probably reflect the talk among the workers on the wharves, the pioneers on the fringe of the forests, the gossips of the taverns. Rightly or wrongly, a spirit of resentment had been aroused—a feeling in the breast of many that their interests were being subordinated by the Government. This sentiment was to grow and to increase the trouble of Hamilton in the next step toward the adoption of his funding system.

VII

With the easy victory, however, the Hamiltonians entered with gayety upon the next step—the Assumption of the State debts—determined to rush it through. On the very night of the day discrimination was defeated, the Pennsylvania delegation, on the suggestion of Robert Morris, met at the lodgings of Representative Fitzsimons of Philadelphia to ‘consider’ the matter of Assumption. One glance convinced the keen-eyed Maclay that the meeting was for ratification, not for consideration purposes. ‘By God,’ swore Morris, ‘it must be done!’ George Clymer, another of the Hamilton Reliables, bubbled with enthusiasm over the advantage that would accrue to Pennsylvania. Maclay was embarrassed by the almost affectionate comradery of some of his colleagues. Why should the delegation not hold weekly social sessions and work in harmony? Fitzsimons’s lodgings would be the very place to meet. Yes, agreed Morris, and they could have wine and oysters.[244]

A few days later Muhlenberg, returning to Maclay’s lodgings from a levee at the presidential mansion, declared with intense emphasis that the State debts must be assumed—which impressed the suspicious Senator as ‘the language of the Court.’[245]

But it was not to be so simple as all that. Assumption, argued many, would but extend the scope of the operations of the hated speculators. It was another move to mortgage the Government to the capitalists. The greater part of the speculating gentry were in the North; they would soon accumulate all the State certificates of the South into their own hands and one section would be paying taxes to increase the fortunes of a favored class in another.

There was another reason for the revolt of the Southerners—which, reversed, would have operated quite as powerfully on the Northerners. The States with the largest unpaid debts were in the North, Massachusetts with the greatest debt of all. Virginia, which led the opposition, had liquidated most of her debt. There is nothing inexplicable in the objections of the Virginians, who had paid their debt, to being taxed to help pay the debt of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

This was appreciated by many in the North, and a citizen of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, writing for a New York paper, thought it unfair. If the ‘leveling system’ was vicious as applied to men, it was quite as bad when applied to States. Then, too, ‘the public creditors, the most opulent part, of the community, would, by this means, be detached from the interest of the State Governments and united to that of the general Government.’ This aimed at the annihilation of the State Governments and the perpetuation of the debt.[246] Thus an attack began on the general policy of funding, taking an ugly form, appealing to class prejudices. ‘A number of drones are brought into society and the industrious bee is forced to furnish them with all the honey of its search.’[247]

But this opposition from the unimportant meant nothing to Hamilton. In those days, and for many days to come, it was only necessary to know what Oliver Wolcott[248] said or wrote to know what his master thought. Writing his father about this time, Wolcott gives us sketchily the operations of Hamilton’s mind. This matter of assumption was connected with ‘the engine of government.’ Since ‘the influence of the clergy, the nobility and the army’ was impossible, ‘some active principle of the human mind can be interested in the support of the Government.’ It would never do to have ‘civil establishments,’ but there was an influential class in existence—the moneyed class. They could and should be bound by interest to the general Government. What more ‘active principle’ of the human mind than the desire for wealth? And if the capitalists looked to the Federal rather than to the State Governments for their money, what better ‘engine of government’ than that? ‘For these reasons,’ wrote Wolcott, ‘I think the State debts should be assumed.’ True, it would make the debt of the United States ‘inconvenient,’ the taxes would be ‘burdensome,’ and ‘will appear to be just only to those who believe that the good attained is more important than the evil which is suffered.’[249]

It was fear of the effect of these ‘burdensome taxes’ on the popularity of the Federal Government that led some men, including Madison, into opposition.[250] Some of the Hamiltonians were alarmed, fearing that ‘such bold politics are unfitted to ... the infant resources’ of the young Republic.[251] Every enemy of Assumption was not hostile to the central Government, but all who were jealous of the sovereignty of the States were in opposition. Rufus King, the brilliant and virile Hamiltonian leader in the Senate, was convinced that in New York ‘the anti-federalists think that the advantages to be derived to the State from the retention of that debt are so great and important that they stand ready to accede to any terms which the creditors may propose.’[252] About the same time the unreconciled Patrick Henry was writing James Monroe that ‘it seems to be a consistent part of a system I have ever dreaded,’ and that the ‘subserviency of Southern to Northern interests are written in Capitals on its very front.’[253]

Such was the atmosphere in which the second battle began.

VIII

On the opening of the debate one champion of Assumption[254] let the cat out of the bag with the statement that ‘if the general Government has the payment of all the debts, it must of course have all the revenue, and if it possesses the whole revenue, it is equal, in other words, to the whole power.’ ‘Yes,’ cried the irrepressible Jackson in stentorian tones, ‘if it lulls the Shays of the North it will rouse the Sullivans of the South’—and the fight was on.

Almost immediately Assumption became confused with the whole system of funding, and a week after Madison had made his argument against the former, he was compelled to return to a defense of the latter, not as something he desired, but as a necessity imposed by unescapable conditions. Madison was too much of a statesman to be a demagogue.

Very soon, Maclay, watching the proceedings in the House with ferret eyes, thought he observed ‘the rendezvousing of the crew of the Hamilton galley.’ He found that ‘all hands are piped to quarters.’ The plan to force a vote on March 8th was abandoned toward evening, and that night he heard it was to await the arrival of Representative Vining of Delaware, and to give Hamilton time ‘to prepare him properly.’[255]

There was some mystery about Vining, and wild rumors were afloat that some one had said that he would give the new arrival a thousand guineas for his vote. ‘A thousand guineas,’ snorted Maclay, with a twinge in his gouty knee, ‘they could get him for a tenth that sum.’

Meanwhile, there was feverish activity among Hamilton’s supporters in Congress and out. Government officials left their desks to become lobbyists. The clergy turned politicians and solicited. The speculators were active. The members of the Cincinnati were mobilized and marched. Two Congressmen, one lame, the other sick, were carried to the House to meet a possible emergency. Another, planning to leave town, was ordered to his post.[256] The friends of Assumption were becoming uneasy. Letters in opposition were pouring in from men like Doctors Rush and Logan of Philadelphia and were being peddled about by Maclay to members of the Pennsylvania delegation. Alas, that he should have found ‘a woman in the room’ with old man Scott again.[257]

These activities so wrought upon the nerves of Robert Morris that he sought a new avenue of approach to his erratic colleague. Would Maclay join Morris in some land speculations? The former was suspicious, but interested.[258] For several days Morris talked land—the play continuing for eleven days. The debate was becoming bitter. The able, bitter-tongued Ædanus Burke of South Carolina made a ferocious attack on Hamilton, and the lobbies, coffee-houses, streets, buzzed with talk of a duel.[259]

The distress among Hamilton’s friends increased. In the Senate, shut off from the curious eyes of the public, feelings could be manifested with some abandon. Ellsworth and Izard ‘walked all the morning back and forward.’ Strong of Massachusetts and Paterson of New Jersey ‘seemed moved but not so much agitated.’ King ‘looked like a boy who had been whipped.’ And the hair on Schuyler, a heavy speculator and father-in-law of Hamilton, ‘stood on end as if the Indians had fired at him.’[260]

But courage was revived, and there was unwonted activity. Most of Washington’s household joined the lobby—Humphreys, Jackson, and Nelson, his secretaries—and were particularly attentive to Vining. This was the result of a caucus of Hamilton’s supporters the night before when the decision was reached to risk a vote.

Three days later, the chance was taken, and Hamilton lost by two votes. The scene was dramatic. Sedgwick made an ominous speech and, on being called to order, took his hat and left. ‘A funeral oration,’ sneered Maclay. When he returned he seemed to have been weeping. Even the eyes of the self-contained Fitzsimons ‘were brimming full’ as he went about ‘reddened like scarlet.’ Clymer, ‘always pale,’ was ‘deadly white,’ his lips quivering. But ‘happy impudence sat on Laurance’s brow.’ Wadsworth, who was financially interested, ‘hid his grief under the rim of a round hat,’ and Boudinot,[261] another speculator, left his distress naked to his enemies—‘his wrinkles rose in ridges and the angles of his mouth were depressed and assumed a curve resembling a horse shoe.’[262]

The speculators poured out of the galleries and into the coffee-houses and taverns to relieve their feelings with oaths over a mug. The air was electric—and cause enough. Many speculators or their agents had been scouring the back country of the Carolinas and Georgia for months buying up State securities on the assumption that they would be funded. They had bet on a sure thing—and lost.

IX

For a moment the friends of Assumption appeared to lose interest in the new Government. Some acted as though the experiment launched by the Constitution had failed and was not worth a ceremonious burial. The interest of Congress lagged, and in the Senate, where the Assumptionists were strongest, business was practically abandoned. In less than an hour after it was called to order, Rufus King would move an adjournment.[263] It was a gloomy and cold April—the distant hills and even the house-tops covered with snow.[264] ‘The Eastern members talk a strange language,’ wrote Madison to Monroe. ‘They avow, some of them at least, a determination to oppose all provisions for the public debt which does not include this, and intimate danger to the Union from a failure to assume.’[265] Senator Johnson of North Carolina found ‘the gentlemen who are in favor of assumption ... very sore and impatient under their defeat.’[266] Not a few of the Federalists began to speak and write pessimistically of the doubtful value of the Government. From his library at Beverly, George Cabot could see the danger of ‘division, anarchy and wretchedness,’[267] and if the States seized the opportunity to ‘provide honestly for their creditors ... the general government would be ruined irrevocably.’ But the thing that pained Cabot most was the attitude of Madison. Had he changed his principles?[268]

In the Hamiltonian press the comments were funereal. Fenno’s paper teemed with indignant protests and savage attacks on the State ‘demagogues’ who were ‘hankering after popularity at home.’[269] ‘Americanus,’ paying tribute to Hamilton and his funding plan, found it ‘wantonly destroyed’ and ‘in broken pieces at the several shrines of ambition, avarice and vanity.’[270]

Yet all the scribes were not similarly depressed. A writer in the ‘New York Journal,’ describing the birth and death of Assumption, worked the advocates of the measure into a frenzy. He pictured it as ‘the bastard of Eastern speculators who have lost their puritanic manners’—the ‘brat’ having been brought into the world ‘by the dexterous application of the forceps.’ Thus it was injured by the ‘violence of the delivery,’ but ‘Dr. Slop’ had hoped to save it by having it bathed ‘in Yankee rum.’ ‘The unfortunate child was presented to the baptismal font by Granny Fitzsimmons; and Mr. Sedgwick, who is gifted with canting talents, officiated as priest, baptized the infant, and his name stands on the parish books as Al—ex—der Assumption.’ But alas, ‘the child of promise who would have redeemed the Eastern States from poverty and despair is now no more.’[271]

But Hamilton was not despairing—he had just begun to fight.

X

It was under these conditions that an event of tremendous import occurred. On Sunday a stage-coach lumbered up to the tavern on Broadway, and a tall, travel-worn man emerged and entered the hostelry. Momentous as was the meaning of his arrival, it claimed but scant notice in the papers of the city.

‘On Sunday last, arrived in this city, Thomas Jefferson, Esq., Secretary of State for the United States of America.’[272]

There is nothing in the press or the correspondence of the time to indicate the slightest appreciation of the significance of this accession to governmental circles. No doubt Madison was among the first to greet him, but of this we have no evidence. For two weeks Jefferson had been upon the road from Richmond, resting a day at Alexandria where an eighteen-inch snow caused him to send his carriage on by water and take the public stage. The roads were wretched and there was little opportunity for restful sleep. Occasionally the long-legged traveler left the stage to mount his horse for exercise. Thus he rode to the field of battle.

XI

As Hamilton surveyed the wreckage of the field, he saw an opportunity. There was another bitter battle pending over the selection of the site of the permanent capital. Might he not bargain a bit and trade enough votes for Assumption? The site of the capital was a matter of indifference to him. No sentimental ties bound him to any State or community. No dust sacred to him rested anywhere in American soil. He was ready to go with any group that could contribute enough votes to make Assumption sure. Philadelphia—New York—the Susquehanna—Baltimore—the Potomac—a mere bagatelle to him. In the fact that it was more than that to others he saw his chance. Could the Virginians or the Marylanders who had opposed Assumption pay him in votes for a capital at Georgetown, or even Baltimore? Could Robert Morris whip the stubborn Pennsylvanians into line for a capital in Philadelphia or on the Susquehanna? True, Washington favored Georgetown, but that meant nothing to Hamilton if Georgetown could not bring Assumption. It is a myth of history that he was tenderly considerate of the wishes of his chief: the facts to sustain it do not appear. Far more important to him was the fact that Madison and Carroll favored Georgetown. They had votes.

The intense bitterness over the struggle called for infinite diplomacy and sagacity in negotiation. The papers of the country were filled with ill-natured letters on the fight which was no more in evidence in Congress than in the bar-rooms of the competing cities. Ames, like Hamilton, cared little about the site if he could but get Assumption, and was disgusted with the ‘despicable grogshop contest, whether the taverns in New York or Philadelphia shall get the custom of Congress.’ Sedgwick had become a ‘perfect slave to the business,’ and ‘Goodhue frowned all day long and swears as much as a good Christian can....’[273]

By early June the bargaining stage had been reached. One day Tench Coxe, of the Treasury, and Jackson, one of Washington’s secretaries, called at the lodgings of Fitzsimons and Clymer with the bald proposition to trade the permanent residence to Philadelphia for enough Pennsylvania votes to pass Assumption. Taking this as a hint from Hamilton, Robert Morris wrote him that early the next morning he should be taking a walk on the Battery, and if any propositions were open he would be very glad to have the Secretary of the Treasury join him in his constitutional. Thus, long before many of the statesmen had enjoyed their coffee, Hamilton and Morris paced up and down at the deserted Battery. With Walpolean directness, Hamilton went to the point. He needed one vote in the Senate and five in the House. If Morris could assure him these, he could give assurance, in return, that the permanent residence would be given to Germantown or the Falls of the Delaware. Morris promised to consult his colleagues—but how about the temporary residence for Philadelphia? After thinking it over, Hamilton sent word that he would not think of bargaining on the temporary residence.[274] For several days these negotiations continued. The Pennsylvanians moved with a deliberation that tried Hamilton’s patience. A few days later he threatened his Philadelphia friends with the possibility of the New-Englanders going to Baltimore or the Potomac.[275]

Meanwhile, Hamilton had been thinking seriously of Jefferson. They met as strangers, knowing one another well by reputation. Their feelings were friendly. There were innumerable reasons why they should ultimately fly at each other’s throats, but that was in the future. One June day they met at the presidential mansion on Broadway, and, leaving at the same time, Hamilton saw his opportunity.

There was a picture for an artist to paint—Hamilton and Jefferson, arm in arm, walking along Broadway discussing the possibilities of a bargain. With all the persuasiveness of his eloquence, Hamilton dwelt on the very real danger of disunion if Assumption failed. With subtle diplomacy he seemed to throw himself trustfully on Jefferson’s mercy. A great struggle for independence—a promising young nation—and was all to be lost? The South wanted the capital, the North wanted Assumption—could there not be a common meeting-ground? Jefferson would see.

A dinner at Jefferson’s table in the house on Broadway. Men from the South about the board. The topic—the pending bargain. A little later, Hamilton was informed that an agreement could be reached. The word was passed along the line. Even Madison satisfied himself that, since Assumption could not be prevented, the bargain might as well be made—but if there had been no bargain there would have been no Assumption. A few nights later the Pennsylvania delegation entertained both Hamilton and Jefferson at dinner. The latter impressed one guest with his ‘dignity of presence and gravity,’ Hamilton with his ‘boyish giddy manner.’ Whatever may have been the cause of the gravity of Jefferson, there was reason for the giddiness of Hamilton—he had won![276]

XII

The attempt of Jefferson in later life to explain his part in the bargain over Assumption, with the assertion that he had been deceived by Hamilton, is in the nature of an alibi created after the crime. He was not a simple-minded rustic, and his correspondence previous to the bargain shows that he had given serious consideration to Assumption. He had been in daily contact with Madison who had led the fight against it. A meticulously careful student of the press, he unquestionably was familiar with every objection to Assumption and funding which he afterward offered. He had undoubtedly read Madison’s argument which had been published a month after he reached New York. As late as June 20th, he was writing Monroe that, unless the quarrel over Assumption and the residence was settled, ‘there will be no funding bill agreed to, our credit will burst and vanish, and the States separate, to take care, every one of itself.’ Much as he would prefer that the States pay their own debts, he could see ‘the necessity of yielding to the cries of the creditors ... for the sake of the Union, and to save it from the greatest of all calamities, the total extinction of our credit in Europe.’[277] Here was justification enough for his action without resorting to the fanciful story of his deception by Hamilton. ‘The question of assuming the State debts has created greater animosities than I ever yet saw,’ he wrote Dr. Gilmer a week after his letter to Monroe.[278] Thus he knew precisely how the lines were drawn. Perhaps he did not appreciate at the moment the political advantage of appearing on the side of the opposition,—but he was not deceived. Nor was Madison imposed upon. He accepted the bargain because ‘the crisis demands the spirit of accommodation,’ albeit he wished it ‘considered as an unavoidable evil and possibly not the worse side of the dilemma.’[279]

With many, however, the triumph of Assumption meant placing Hamilton and his followers in an impregnable position; this, too, was the idea of the Hamiltonians and great was their rejoicing. When the measure passed the Senate, members of the lower House were packed behind the iron railing, the smiling faces of Ames and Sedgwick conspicuous among them. To the extremists in the opposition it seemed the end. ‘I do not see that I can do any good here and I think I had better go home,’ wrote Maclay. ‘Everything, even to the naming of a committee is prearranged by Hamilton and his group of speculators.’[280] And the Hamiltonians, who had raged over the satirical article on the birth of Assumption, made merry over a verse in Fenno’s journal:

‘The wit who bastardized thy name
And croaked a funeral dirge
Knew not how spotless was thy fame
How soon thou would’st emerge.’[281]

When Congress adjourned, Hamilton, rejoicing in his triumphs, turned gayly to the next step in his programme, with more powerful influences behind him than he had ever had before.

CHAPTER IV
PREMONITIONS OF BATTLE

I

HAMILTON was at the high tide of his popularity and power when Congress next convened in Philadelphia. His funding system had established the Nation’s credit, and the genius and daring of the brilliant young man of thirty-three were on every tongue. The ‘Maryland Journal’ claimed ‘respectable authority’ for the assertion that in Quebec he was ‘supposed equal to the celebrated Mr. Pitt, and superior to the Prime Minister of any other court in Europe.’[282] Among the merchants and people of wealth and property he was acclaimed the savior of the State. Everywhere he was the idol of the aristocracy.

And, in the saddle, he was riding hard. Although his was the second position in the Cabinet, he thought of himself as the Prime Minister. Washington was a constitutional monarch. The other members of the President’s official family were his subordinates. His policies were the policies of the Government, and to question them was hostility to the State. In the Cabinet meetings his manner was masterful to a degree. Considering himself Prime Minister, he felt no delicacy about interfering in the departments of his colleagues. Even Knox, who adored him, resented his determination to make all the purchases for the Department of War. When the War Secretary resisted, Hamilton had a compliant Congress pass a law giving him that privilege—an absurdity that continued as long as he was in the Cabinet.[283] The soft-spoken, mild, and courteous Jefferson, who preferred the ways of conciliation and persuasion, observed the dictatorial airs of his masterful young associate with a surprise that hardened to distaste.

But the feeling awakened among the masses by the failure to discriminate in the matter of the securities, and by Assumption, was increasing in intensity. The common soldier had not profited by these policies. The farmer and the mechanic could see no benefit to themselves, but among speculators, some of them members of Congress, they observed evidence of new-found wealth. These were building finer houses, riding in coaches where they had previously walked, and there was an ominous rumbling and grumbling beneath the surface, to which the Hamiltonians were oblivious or indifferent. After all, this was merely the whining of the ne’er-do-wells of the taverns and the illiterates of the farms.

The work was only begun, and there could be no turning back now. The assumption of the State debts called for the tapping of new sources of revenue. This would increase the burdens of the people, but what would they have? They could not eat their cake and have it too—could not have a strong government without paying the price. Utterly unmindful of the complaining of the people of no importance, Hamilton turned resolutely to his task and prepared his excise tax for the consideration of Congress.

II

In raising money to meet the obligations of Assumption, it was the purpose of Hamilton to resort to direct taxation as little as possible, and to make luxuries bear the burden. This directed his attention to the domestic manufacture of spirits—luxury to some, but a very real necessity to others. This was particularly true in the States where distilleries were plentiful. That it would call forth a protest from some quarters, he had no doubt, and he rejoiced in the certainty of combat. Strong man that he was, he went forth in shining armor to establish the right of the Government to an internal revenue. He knew that excise taxes were obnoxious, albeit necessary, and he sought the chance to vindicate the right of the Government to do the necessary, unpopular thing.

Instantly the challenge was accepted in Pennsylvania where whiskey stills abounded in the Alleghanies. Some of the State’s representatives in Congress were instantly on their toes, denouncing the plan as arbitrary and despotic. In the Legislature, Albert Gallatin, a remarkable young man, soon to prove himself the only member of the opposition capable of coping with Hamilton in the field of finance, framed a reply, denouncing the plan as ‘subversive of the rights, liberty and peace of the people.’ In the midst of excitement—for the Legislature sat in Philadelphia—the reply was debated and adopted by an overwhelming majority.

But the opposition was comparatively weak. Jefferson and Madison were hostile to the principle, but there had been a bargain on Assumption to which they were parties. They could not deceive themselves as to the necessity. If Jefferson raised a finger to prevent the passage of the bill, he covered his tracks. Even Giles, soon to become the most vehement leader of the Jeffersonian party, at first looked upon it with some favor. Madison could see no escape.

Among the masses throughout the country, however, the obscure orators were busy in the bar-rooms, on the streets, and at the crossroads. The character of the discussion among the people is indicated in imaginary conversations by a writer in a Baltimore paper. A friend of the excise fares forth into the streets and meets its enemies. ‘An outrage!’ cried one. ‘Had we not gone to war with England on a tax?’ ‘Ah,’ but, says the defender, ‘then we were taxed by another country and without representation, while here we tax ourselves through our chosen representatives.’ ‘Yes,’ but, says Rumor, ‘under the excise act men can break into the people’s houses.’ ‘Wrong,’ says the defender; ‘the law provides no such arbitrary power.’ ‘But,’ persists the enemy, ‘we shall be eaten up by excise officers.’ ‘Silly,’ says the defender; ‘numerically these officials will be unimportant.’ Then the defender encounters one candid enemy of the measure. ‘I hate the excise,’ he cries, ‘because it strengthens the Government by providing effectually for its necessities; and the Government which lays it because it is a Government of vigor.’ Whereupon the defender praises him as an honest man.[284]

The moment the Excise Bill was presented in the House, the ever alert Jackson was ready with a motion to strike out the essential part of the first clause. ‘The mode of taxation was odious, unequal, unpopular, and oppressive, more particularly in the Southern States,’ where under the hot Southern skies spirituous liquors were more than salutary—they were necessary. Why deprive the masses of ‘the only luxury they enjoy’? Why impose upon the American people an excise that had been odious in England from the days of Cromwell, and which had been reprobated by Blackstone?

Yes, added an indignant Virginian,[285] ‘it will convulse the Government; it will let loose a swarm of harpies, who, under the domination of revenue officers, will range through the country, prying into every man’s house and affairs, and like a Macedonian phalanx bear down all before them.’ The mercantile interests were paying their duties with promptitude? He was tired of these encomiums. ‘The increase in the revenue has served to enhance the value of the public securities, of which it is well known they hold a very considerable portion.’[286]

On the second day, Madison went on record as opposed to the principle and in favor of the measure. The only question to be considered was the necessity for the revenue—and that was indisputable. He personally would prefer direct taxes, but the majority of the people were against them. Of all forms of the excise, that on ardent spirits impressed him as the least objectionable.

But, demanded Jackson, disappointed at Madison’s failure to join in the assault, why not other taxes—taxes on salaries, pensions, lawyers? Because, answered Laurance, the Assumption calls for revenue, and this is the best way to raise it. True, added another,[287] and he had ‘not found a single person against it’—and this in Philadelphia where the Legislature was sitting! What! exclaimed Timothy Blood worth of North Carolina, why ‘people to the southward universally condemn the tax.’ Yes, indeed, contributed another, especially in North Carolina, ‘where the consumption of ardent spirits is ten times greater than in Connecticut.’

Up rose Sedgwick in conciliatory mood. He was not impressed with ‘the considerations of morality,’ and could not think that the tax ‘would be attended with any sensible inconvenience.’ There certainly was no thought of using military force in its collection. And then it was that Giles, who, next to Madison, was the most fervent and able of the Jeffersonians, astonished many by giving his hearty approval to the tax as necessary ‘to the honor, peace and security’ of the country.[288]

Thus for days the debate continued with its reiterations, until a new note was struck with a proposed amendment, aimed at Hamilton whose audacious methods and successive successes were causing grave concern in some quarters, to prohibit revenue agents from interfering in elections. These officers in their work, said Samuel Livermore, ‘will acquire such a knowledge of persons and characters as will give them great advantage and enable them to influence elections to a great degree.’ ‘Impolitic in respect to law, repugnant to the Constitution, and degrading to human nature,’ protested Ames. It would prevent self-respecting men from taking the places, added Sedgwick. When the vote was taken, the amendment was defeated with both Madison and Giles voting against it.

It was not until the House took up the duration of the tax that the great battle began, and under the leadership of Giles, who had hitherto given it his support.[289] But Madison was not impressed, and in the vote on placing a limitation on the operation of the bill he was found with the Hamiltonians—and there he stood on the final vote.

Even in the Senate the attempt to defeat the measure was continued, and while Hamilton was strongest in that body, the energetic young Secretary took nothing for granted. It was not enough that the committee considering the bill had been packed with his supporters; he took personal charge. For several days he walked briskly into the room and took his place at the table, after which the doors were closed and locked. The worried Maclay, who was preparing the case against the measure on behalf of the distillers, sensed a conspiracy. When Adams hastened an adjournment of the Senate while the committee was sitting, the victim of the gout put him down as ‘deep in the cabals of the Secretary.’[290] Preparing a list of distillers who would be affected, on which to base an argument, Maclay knocked at the committee room. The door opened and the eager eye of the Senator caught a glimpse of Hamilton at the table before Robert Morris closed it, as he stepped outside. With his suspicions confirmed, the gruff old Democrat left his papers with his colleague and turned away. ‘I suppose no further use was made of it,’ he commented.[291] When the bill passed four days later, he thought ‘war and bloodshed ... the most likely consequence’; and concluded that ‘Congress may go home’ since ‘Mr. Hamilton is all-powerful and fails in nothing he attempts.’[292]

The same conclusion had been reached by Jefferson before. Just after the passage of the bill, he was writing a friend of his fears of the effect of the policies of the Treasury upon the people. Even though they were right, ‘more attention should be paid to the general opinion.’ The excise had passed—the Bank Bill would pass. Perhaps the only corrective for ‘what is corrupt in our present form of government’ would be an increase in the membership of the House ‘so as to grant a more agricultural representation which may put that interest above that of the stock jobbers.’[293]

Jefferson had reached the end of his patience, and was preparing to challenge the pretensions, policies, and power of his ardent and dictatorial young colleague.

III

It was inevitable that a national bank should be a feature of Hamilton’s financial system. Long before a national government loomed large as a probability, he had conceived the plan, and with the temerity of youthful audacity had solemnly outlined it in letters to Robert Morris.[294] With the opportunity before him, he moved with confident strides to his purpose, and the day after his recommendation of an excise reached Congress, his ‘Report on the Bank’ was read. His rare familiarity with the principles of finance, the history of banking, and the banking experiences of nations made his ‘Report’ a persuasive document.[295] Its adoption was as inevitable as its submission. He was on the very peak of his power. Commerce and wealth in all the cities were saluting him, for his policies were in their interest, and the professional and intellectual class had been won by the dazzling success of his daring undertakings. In House and Senate he numbered among the registers of his will the greater part of the strong and the brilliant. Somehow, too, the impression was prevalent that he was the favorite instrument through which Washington wrought his plans. If the small farmers and the mechanics seemed acquiescent, it only meant that they were inarticulate—but inarticulate they were as this dashing figure moved on from triumph to triumph with a shouting multitude of merchants, lawyers, politicians, and speculators in his wake.

Thus, when the Bank Bill reached the Senate, Maclay expressed the general feeling in the comment that ‘it is totally in vain to oppose this bill.’[296] Ten days later, he was all the more convinced at a dinner where he met Morris and sat between two ‘merchants of considerable note,’ and observed, on mentioning the Bank, that they were ‘magnetically drawn to the contemplation of the moneyed interest.’[297]

If the bill passed the Senate without a conflict, it was not to get through the House without a skirmish which was to mark, as some historians think, the definite commencement of party warfare.

The House debate was brief but sharp, though pitched upon a higher plane than some preceding discussions. There was some questioning of the necessity of a bank; some criticism of the monopolistic features of the bank proposed; but Madison, who spoke at the beginning, furnished the dominant theme in his challenge to the constitutionality of such an institution. There was certainly no specific authorization of congressional power in the Constitution. This was conceded by Hamilton, who boldly evoked the doctrine of implied powers. It required no abnormal perspicacity to foresee the unlimited possibilities of these. Here was something read into the Constitution that would, rightly or wrongly, have made its ratification impossible had it provided a specific grant of such power. Hamilton and many of his lieutenants had been frankly dissatisfied with the powers that had been conceded by the people; and here was an opening for the acquisition of power that the people would have refused. This to-day—what to-morrow?

When Madison rose to oppose the Bank, we may be sure that it was after many intimate conversations with Jefferson. He spoke in low tones and with his customary dignity and precision and without abuse, and his argument was not susceptible to an easy assault. After all, ‘the Father of the Constitution’ knew something about his child.

‘The doctrine of implication is always a tender one,’ he said. ‘The danger of it has been felt by other governments. The delicacy was felt in the adoption of our own; the danger may also be felt if we do not keep close to our chartered authorities.... If implications thus remote and thus multiplied may be linked together, a chain may be formed that will reach every object of legislation, every object within the whole compass of political economy.’ More than that—‘It takes from our constituents the opportunity of deliberating on the untried measure, although their hands are also to be tied by the same terms.’ More still—‘it involves a monopoly which affects the equal rights of every citizen.’[298]

On the next day Fisher Ames made his defense of the doctrine of implied powers. The argument of Madison had impressed him as ‘a great speech,’ but steeped in ‘casuistry and sophistry.’ He thought Madison had wasted his time, however, in reading the debates on constitutional powers in the various State ratifying conventions—not at all to the purpose. ‘No man would pretend to give Congress the power,’ he wrote, ‘against a fair construction of the Constitution.’[299]

But the clever Ames had no intention of making such a frank admission on the floor. He was a practical man and he defended the Hamiltonian doctrine with eloquence and vigor.[300] With these two speeches, the debate might as well have closed, but it continued long enough to permit the Hamiltonian Old Guard to say their pieces. Giles argued and Jackson raved in opposition, and the measure passed with a margin of nineteen votes.

It is significant that nineteen of the twenty votes in opposition were those of Southern members, the only Northerner in the list being Jonathan Grout of Massachusetts, a Democrat, who did not return to the next Congress. Like preceding Hamiltonian measures, this meant the concentration of the financial resources of the country in the commercial North to the disadvantage of the agricultural South. But this was not the only reason. With the Southerners, among whom banks were a rarity, and the Westerners, to whom they were as meaningless as the canals on Mars, the advantage of such an institution was not felt. In both sections anything that hinted of monopoly was abhorrent. Thus, in addition to the constitutional difference, there was an economic conflict that was sectional in its nature.

IV

But the battle was not yet won. The conflict was transferred to the Cabinet, for Washington was not at all convinced that there was no constitutional prohibition. Not only did he withhold his signature till the last minute, but there are reasons to believe that he had a veto in mind almost to the end. For Madison, with whose part in the framing of the Constitution he was familiar, he had a profound respect. Having discussed the bill with Jefferson informally, Washington requested written opinions from both Jefferson and Randolph, the Attorney-General. Both were in complete accord with the conclusions of Madison. The opinion of Jefferson, expressed with all his force of reasoning, was a powerful challenge to the doctrine of implied powers.[301]

It was at about this time that Washington summoned Madison to the Morris house, which served as the Executive Mansion in Philadelphia, to invite a fuller expression of his views. The great man listened in silence, and Madison thought with sympathy, while the little giant of the Constitutional Convention, out of the wealth of his learning and experience, poured forth his reasons for opposition. Not once, but several times, the little figure of Madison must have been seen entering the Morris house in those days of suppressed excitement, for there were numerous conferences. As the ten-day period followed for the affixing of the presidential signature was drawing to an end, and Washington requested his friend to reduce his objections to writing, Madison assumed that it was a veto message he was asked to frame. Nor was it a far-fetched assumption, for on more than one occasion the President had made use of Madison’s pen.[302]

Meanwhile the Hamiltonians, at first puzzled, became alarmed. From the temper of their talk in Philadelphia, Madison was convinced that in the event of a veto they were ready for open opposition to Washington, backed by the wealth and influence of the powerful.[303] Ugly, silly stories, reflecting upon the great personage on whom the Hamiltonians found it profitable to claim a monopoly, were set afloat. Fisher Ames gave currency in Boston to the theory that Washington was influenced by the fear that the establishment of a financial capital in Philadelphia would prevent the removal of the political capital to the banks of the stream that washed the boundary of Mount Vernon.[304] If some discretion was used in Philadelphia, where the grumbling was confined to the fashionable drawing-rooms, no such circumspection was observed in New York, where the meanest motives were ascribed to the President, and among the speculators and Tory sympathizers open threats were made. Madison heard, while there a little later, that ‘the licentiousness of [these] tongues exceeded anything that was conceived.’[305] This struggle marked a definitive break in the relations of Hamilton and Jefferson. The dictatorial disposition of the former would brook no opposition, and he was temperamentally incapable of a differentiation between political opposition and personal hostility. The fact that Jefferson, in response to a command from Washington, had written an opinion against the Bank could bear only one interpretation—‘asperity and ill humor toward me.’[306] The fact that Washington accepted Hamilton’s view, did not, however, shake Jefferson’s faith in the President, and in defeat nothing so ill-tempered escaped him as flowed in a stream from the Federalists when threatened with defeat. Within a month after Hamilton had won his fight, Jefferson, in commenting to a friend on what he conceived to be a dangerous trend, wrote that ‘it is fortunate that our first executive magistrate is purely and zealously republican’—the highest praise he could bestow.[307]

The press was not verbose in its comments on the bill, albeit Freneau fought it in the ‘Federal Gazette.’[308] The ‘Pennsylvania Gazette’ was ungraceful in defeat. Denouncing the Bank as ‘a proposition made to the moneyed interest,’ it commented on its ‘preparations to subscribe,’ and found ‘the terms ... so advantageous that no equal object of speculation is perhaps presented in any quarter of the globe.’[309] Fenno offered his best in a verse:

‘The States as one agree that this is right
Let pigmy politicians rave and write.’[310]

Thus the First Congress closed its labors with no little rhapsodizing in the press over the results. A New York paper offered an epitaph of glorification,[311] which a Boston paper condensed into the simple comment that it had ‘established public confidence and credit, reconciled the jarring interests of discontented States, and cemented the people in the bonds of harmony, peace and love.’[312]

One man, at least, had cause for jubilation. In two years Hamilton had risen to a position of commanding power, proved his genius in constructive statesmanship, accomplished everything he had set out to do, made himself the idol of the wealthy and the powerful, the recognized leader of the influential commercial class, the acknowledged head of a brilliant and militant party. His friends were comparing him to Pitt, then in the heyday of his power—and he was only on the threshold. So great was the enthusiasm in commercial circles that he made a special trip to New York to accept the homage of the Chamber of Commerce at a reception, to linger a week among his worshipers, and to return to Philadelphia reinvigorated by the wine of idolatry pressed to his lips.[313] At that moment he was on the top of the world.

V

Meanwhile, Jefferson and Madison drove out of Philadelphia together on one of those journeys of recreation during which politicians so often plan the strategy of war. Historians have found more in this journey than is to be discovered in the record. The trip through New England probably had no other object than that of pleasure and enlightenment. The relations of these two men were beautiful and went far beyond a mere congeniality in political opinions. There was a marked similarity in their characters. Both scholarly in their tastes, the books that interested one were certain to appeal to the other. Here were two men whose spirits were in accord. It is easy to think of them as sitting the candle out in converse about the winter fire, or as sitting far into the night in silence, each finding pleasure in the mere presence of the other. Such a relationship had grown up through the years. They thought alike, found similar enjoyment in agricultural pursuits, and in the many little things of common life.

‘What say you,’ wrote Jefferson just before the beginning of the much-discussed journey, ‘to taking a wade into the country at noon? It will be pleasant above head at least, and the party will finish by dining here. Information that Colonel Beckwith[314] is coming to be an intimate with you, and I presume not a desirable one, encourages me to make a proposition which I did not venture as long as you had your agreeable congressional society about you; that is to come and take a bed and plate with me.... To me it will be a relief from the solitude of which I have too much; and it will lessen your repugnance to be assured that it will not increase my expenses an atom.... The approaching season will render this situation more agreeable than Fifth Street, and even in the winter you will not find it disagreeable.’[315] It required no assiduous and cunning cultivation by Jefferson to wean Madison away from Hamilton. The relations of the first two far antedated those of the last. Madison had agreed with Hamilton on the necessity for a more permanent and substantial union. They had fought together for the ratification of the Constitution, but such were their temperamental differences that the breach which quickly appeared was inevitable when it came to the determination of the policies of that union. While Jefferson was still in Paris, Madison, without consulting his friend, was foreshadowing the policy of the future Jeffersonian party in his fight for discrimination against England in the revenue measure of the first congressional session. He proposed discrimination between the original creditors and the speculators before he had the opportunity to discuss the subject with Jefferson. If there was an accord with the latter, it was due less to the influence of one upon the other than to the similarity of their thinking. The little man with the mild, almost shy expression, who rode out of Philadelphia with Jefferson that spring of 1791, was much too big to have been led around by the nose by any of his contemporaries.

As early as the spring of 1791, the names of the two were associated in the minds of many as the prospective leaders of a party that would challenge the purposes of the Federalists. Answering a series of articles in the ‘Maryland Journal,’ some one advised the author of how to make his opinions worth while. ‘Keep always before your eyes the steps by which Jefferson and Madison have gradually ascended to their present preëminence of fame. Like them you must devote your whole leisure to the most useful reading. Like them you must dive into the depths of philosophy and government.’[316] Thus they were already associated in the public mind, and there was some whispering among the Federalist leaders when they set forth in their carriage.

Bumping and splashing over the rough tree-lined roads those spring days, they unquestionably discussed the political situation, but these discussions were only the continuation of others that had been proceeding throughout the previous fall and winter. If politics was the object of the journey, they were both remarkably successful in covering their tracks. There is nothing in the letter Jefferson wrote his daughter Mary to indicate anything more than a pleasure jaunt.[317] In a letter to his other daughter, Martha, we hear much of fishing for speckled trout, salmon, and bass, of the strawberries in bloom, of vegetation and agricultural conditions—but nothing of politics.[318] To his son-in-law he wrote descriptions of historic places, of botanical objects and scenery, and of running foul of the blue law in Vermont prohibiting traveling on Sunday.[319] The one reference to the journey in the correspondence of Madison merely says that ‘it was a very agreeable one, and carried us through an interesting country, new to us both.’[320] In none of these letters do we find a single reference to politics or politicians.

Something is made of the call of the travelers on Burr and Livingston when in New York, and on Governor Clinton at Albany; but their conduct would have been suspicious only if they had failed to observe the ordinary amenities of social life in calling upon the leading public characters in the towns through which they passed. Still we may safely surmise that they found time while waiting for the fish to bite to exchange views on the necessity of organizing an opposition to the Federalists. It is even possible that out of these conversations on country roads actually sprang the Democratic Party, but there is no evidence.

VI

On his return to Philadelphia, Jefferson found himself the center of a remarkable newspaper controversy. Fascinated by the beauty of Marie Antoinette, Edmund Burke of England had written his bitter attack, not only on the excesses of the French Revolution, but upon its democratic principles as well. It was the fashion in those days to conceal a hate of democracy under the cloak of a simulated horror over the crimes of the Terrorists. Thomas Paine had replied to Burke with his brilliant and eloquent defense of democracy, ‘The Rights of Man.’ In American circles where democracy was anathema, and even republicanism was discussed with cynicism, the Burke pamphlet was received with enthusiasm. It was not until some time later that ‘The Rights of Man’ reached New York, albeit its nature was known and there had been a keen curiosity to see it. Early in May, Madison had promised Jefferson to secure a copy as soon as possible. He understood that the pamphlet had been suppressed in England, and that Paine had found it convenient to retire to Paris. ‘This,’ he wrote, ‘may account for his not sending copies to friends in this country.’[321] At length a single copy arrived and was loaned by its owner to Madison, who passed it on to Jefferson. He read it with enthusiasm. Here was a spirited defense of democracy, and of the fight the French were waging for their liberties; here an excoriation of the prattle in high social and governmental circles of the advantage, if not necessity, for titles of nobility. Here was not only an answer to Burke, but to John Adams, whose ‘Discourses of Davilla’ had been running for weeks in Fenno’s paper, and had been copied extensively in other journals with a similar slant. Jefferson was immensely pleased.

Before he had finished with it, the owner had called upon Madison for its return, as arrangements had been made for its publication by a Philadelphia printer. It was agreed that Jefferson should send it directly to the print shop, and in the transmission he wrote a brief explanation of the delay, and added: ‘I am extremely pleased to find it will be reprinted here, and that something is at length to be publicly said against the political heresies which have sprung up among us. I have no doubt our citizens will rally a second time round the standard of “Common Sense.”’

To this note he attached so little importance that he kept no copy. With astonishment he found that the printer had used his note as the preface, with his name and official title as Secretary of State. The general conviction that the word ‘heresies’ was meant to apply to the Adams papers sufficiently indicates the popular interpretation of their trend. The storm broke.