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Title: Alexander Hamilton
Date of first publication: 1952
Author: Nathan Schachner (1895-1955)
Date first posted: June 1 2012
Date last updated: June 1 2012
Faded Page eBook #20120605

This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones, Ross Cooling, Greg Weeks
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  Alexander Hamilton




  _THEY MADE AMERICA_

  A series of biographies under the editorship of

  Cecile Hulse Matschat           Allan Nevins

  Carl Carmer                     Lewis Paul Todd



  Stephen F. Austin: Father of Texas by Carleton Beals

  Charles Willson Peale: Artist and Patriot by Berta N. Briggs

  George Rogers Clark: Soldier in the West by Walter Havighurst

  Red Jacket: Last of the Seneca by Arthur C. Parker

  Alexander Hamilton: Nation Builder by Nathan Schachner

  (_Additional books in this series are being prepared._)




  Alexander Hamilton

  _NATION BUILDER_



  NATHAN SCHACHNER

  _Drawings by Gillett Griffin_


  McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc.

  NEW YORK  TORONTO  LONDON




  ALEXANDER HAMILTON: _NATION BUILDER_

Copyright, 1952, by the McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc. Printed in the
United States of America. All rights reserved. This book, or parts
thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the
publishers.

  _Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 52-9765_




  _Preface_


Alexander Hamilton is universally regarded as one of the greatest men
our country has produced. The United States would have been a different
nation had he never lived. What better reasons can there be for telling
afresh the story of his life and achievements?

The stamp of Alexander Hamilton is still unmistakably visible on our
form of government, our institutions, our finances, and our way of life.
For better or worse, it is part of our heritage and can no more be
eradicated than the traits we inherit from our parents. If we wish,
therefore, to understand our country as it is today, it is essential to
study the careers of Hamilton and his contemporaries, those more general
parents of ours.

For their story is not dead or outmoded; it is as vital to us as the
latest income tax bill or the most recent atomic explosion. The problems
with which Hamilton and his fellows wrestled are still with us; the
solutions they worked out are again under discussion; and the
controversies are as bitter as ever they were in the days of Hamilton.

The issues that Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, and Madison argued and
fought over are eternal ones: what form of government, what framework of
society, what ethical philosophy of life best suit mankind and tend most
to gain for it those rights which the Declaration of Independence
proclaimed.

The debate still rages on these great questions which, perhaps, can
never be answered conclusively. But the answers proposed by the founders
were clear-cut and were backed by able reasoning. Hamilton gave one;
Jefferson another. Each thought himself wholly right and the other
wholly wrong.

Today we are not so sure. We feel that each had something vital and
important to say, that the proper answer may be found in a combination
of their ideas. To simplify is always dangerous; but it may well be said
that the house of America in which we live follows essentially the
structure blueprinted by Hamilton, while the spirit which breathes
through it and pervades it is that of Jefferson.

The author is indebted to Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., the publisher
of his larger study of Alexander Hamilton, for permission to incorporate
here some of the material and conclusions reached in that book.

  Nathan Schachner




  _Contents_


   1 Dreams of Glory                                1
   2 Student Patriot                               17
   3 Call Colonel Hamilton                         36
   4 Benedict Arnold--Traitor                      51
   5 From Soldier to Lawyer                        66
   6 The Constitution Is Written                   80
   7 Ratification                                  94
   8 Secretary of the Treasury                    105
   9 The Bank at Home and Convulsions Abroad      123
  10 A World Aflame                               141
  11 Whisky Rebellion and Private Scandal         159
  12 Downfall of the Federalists                  175
  13 Public Defeat and Private Tragedy            194
  14 Duel and Death                               207

     _For Further Reading_                        223

     _Index_                                      225




  _1 Dreams of Glory_


The little town of Christiansted, capital and metropolis of the island
of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies, dozed in the noonday sun. Though
it was mid-November, the heat shimmered on the sandy shore and on the
white-painted buildings that straggled along King Street. Not a vehicle,
not a human being disturbed the dusty silence. Even the blue Caribbean
lay breathless under the sun, and the tall masts of the sloop tied up at
the wharf did not move against the burnished sky.

On King Street stood the long, rambling building that housed the trading
ventures of Nicholas Cruger, perhaps the wealthiest merchant on St.
Croix. He dealt in everything--flour, apples, wheat, lumber, mules,
sugar, rum, clothing, fish, candles, cheese, tea--everything in fact
that the island planters had to sell and everything they needed to buy.
His sloops and brigantines were familiar visitors in the mainland ports
of Charleston, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and ranged as far
south as the Guianas on the coast of South America.

But at the moment his countinghouse seemed as slumberous as the rest of
the town. Its windows were shuttered against the sun, and the door was
tightly closed. Not a sound issued from within. Yet a small boy occupied
the cavernous interior. He sat before a sloping desk, his feet barely
reaching the upper rungs of the high stool on which he was perched. His
slender frame hunched over an enormous ledger, and his quill pen moved
steadily across the page. A vagrant sunbeam illuminated the reddish
brown of his hair.

Suddenly the outer door swung open and a hearty voice boomed through the
room and sent reverberations flying among the stored barrels and bales.

"Mr. Cruger! Mr. Cruger!" it bellowed. "Where are ye? It's old Cap
Newton, back from Philadelphia with a fine cargo o' mules."

The boy stuck his quill into the inkhorn, dismounted from his stool, and
faced the burly, pea-jacketed intruder. "Mr. Cruger," he said in a
clear, precise voice, "has gone to Frederiksted to visit our branch
store and left me in charge. You say you brought mules from the
mainland, Captain Newton? Let me see the manifest."

The captain stared down at the little boy. Descended from his high
perch, he seemed even smaller than before; thin, frail, with a fair,
reddish skin. The captain stared--then burst into laughter. "So Nick
Cruger left ye in charge, sonny? Ye're a mite young to fill his
breeches, ain't ye?"

The lad flushed. He drew himself erect, his taut frame quivered. "I am
not your sonny," he burst out passionately. "I am not young; I am twelve
years old and a grown man. Now let me have the ship manifest, if you
please."

His small hand extended with an imperious gesture. The sea captain
squinted sharply at the outstretched hand, the tense erectness of the
body, the snapping gray eyes. The grin disappeared from his own
weather-beaten features. He reached into the pocket of his jacket,
pulled out a sheaf of documents, and turned them over without another
word.

The grown man of twelve glanced rapidly through them. "Hmm!" he said.
"Forty-one mules. I trust they are sound of wind and body. The last
shipment we received were spavined, and nigh on a third of them died.
You have also, I notice, 40 barrels of flour. If the quality proves
good, I can get twelve pounds a barrel for them. There's a scarcity on
the island and the planters will bid high. How soon can you sail for the
mainland again, Captain Newton?"

"Day after tomorrow."

"Good! You will load on board sugar, rum, and molasses for Curaçao, pick
up a cargo of mahogany there for Philadelphia, and return here with as
much flour as you can stow on board. But remember, the quality must be
superfine. I want no mold or worms. And watch out for pirates. I
understand they're lurking off the Guarda Costas. That is all, sir."

The captain gulped. "Y----yes, sonny----I mean, mister," he stammered.
At the door, he turned. "What might your name be?"

"Mr. Hamilton----Mr. Alexander Hamilton."

A knowing look spread over the captain's face. "Ah yes, now I remember
ye. Ye're Rachel Levine's boy, from the island of Nevis."

The gray eyes blazed, the small hands clenched. A fury shook the lad.
"My mother's name was Rachel Hamilton," he cried, "and our private
affairs do not concern you. Good day, sir."

As the door shut on the startled captain, young Alexander Hamilton
marched back to his desk, mounted his stool again. But he did not pick
up his quill. Instead, hands still clenched, chest heaving, he stared
blindly at the ledger. Would people never stop smirking over that
ancient story? True, the people of Nevis and St. Christopher, where it
all had happened, and here on St. Croix, had been wonderful to both his
mother and himself. But every so often someone, like this old sea
captain, would rake it up and the wound would ache again.

His beautiful, warmhearted, passionately devoted mother! Divorced by her
first husband, the elderly John Michael Levine, the wealthy Danish
planter whom she had lovelessly married, she then was deserted by the
dashing young Scot cadet, James Hamilton, with whom she had eloped when
the marriage grew unbearable. Broken by her misfortunes, Rachel had gone
to her grave.

It went back to 1685, when a French Huguenot named John Faucette fled
his country to escape the savage persecutions directed against the
Protestants of France. Glowing tales of the new life, the social and
religious freedom to be had across the sea, determined him, as it did
many another, to seek his fortune in the New World. The islands in the
Caribbean Sea particularly beckoned. For there could be found a warm,
soft climate, a fertile soil, strange and wonderful fruits, an ample
supply of slaves, and an abundance of plantations from which came the
sugar, molasses, and rum that all the world desired.

John Faucette--or Fawcett, as he later spelled his name--landed on the
English island of Nevis. He soon discovered that the travelers' tales
had not been exaggerated. After some medical study--a simple matter in
those days--he set up his shingle and proved almost immediately
successful. Within a few years he was able to purchase an extensive
plantation in the interior and maintain a town house in the capital city
of Charlestown. And there were sufficient excess funds to invest a
substantial sum in London ventures.

Thus amply endowed with worldly goods, and by now well into middle age,
he married a girl twenty years younger than himself. We know practically
nothing of her except that her first name was Mary. She bore him three
daughters; the first also named Mary, the second Ann, while the third,
born in 1736, was called Rachel.

Shortly after Rachel's birth, however, Dr. Fawcett and his wife
quarreled. Mary packed up her belongings and moved over to the
neighboring island of St. Christopher or, as it was more familiarly
known, St. Kitts. There little Rachel grew to young womanhood. By the
time she was sixteen, her beauty and accomplishments had become the
toast of the islands, and an elderly planter named John Michael Levine,
from the nearby Danish island of St. Croix, proposed marriage.

There was no question of love on the part of the high-spirited and
rather willful young beauty; but Rachel was poor and Levine was rich.
The wedding took place in 1752 and, after a honeymoon voyage to
Copenhagen, Levine's birthplace, the couple settled down in St. Croix.
In due time a son, Peter, was born.

But the marriage between the old man and the girl bride proved no more
successful than the one between Rachel's father and mother. One day in
1756 Rachel followed in her mother's footsteps: she packed her clothes,
quit her husband and infant son, and went back to mother and St. Kitts.
Eventually the deserted husband obtained a divorce.

One of her mother's friends on the island was a doctor named Will
Hamilton. His family in Scotland boasted a proud lineage but, like so
many ancient Scottish families, it had fallen on evil times. When
reports reached them of Dr. Hamilton's prosperity in the West Indies,
they shipped another of their number--a young man named James
Hamilton--to his elder relative to gain a like fortune.

James probably landed in St. Kitts in 1756, where he was introduced by
the doctor to his friends on the island--including Rachel Levine. The
inevitable happened. Rachel was twenty now and her beauty had fully
matured. James was in his twenties, handsome, easygoing, and--what was
not yet evident--decidedly shiftless.

Almost immediately, however, after they had set up house together, James
Hamilton ran into financial difficulties. He and Rachel moved to Nevis,
an English island, where Rachel had inherited a house from her father.
James tried his hand at trading, but he was not cut out for a merchant
or indeed for anything else. All his ventures failed, and the aid which
he received from Dr. Will Hamilton and Mary Fawcett eventually ceased.

In the midst of these troubles, a boy was born to them on January 11,
1757, who later became known to fame as Alexander Hamilton. In 1762
another son was born, named James after his father.

By this time the elder James had had enough. There had been financial
and other quarrels with Rachel. One day he took a boat from St. Croix,
to which the couple had gone after the birth of Alexander, and left
Rachel and the two little boys behind. History was repeating itself.

Thereafter he vanished into obscurity, dragging out a shadowy existence
in the Caribbean islands and emerging only many years later to seek aid
from his son Alexander, when the latter had become famous. Alexander
promptly furnished the aid and even invited his long-lost father to the
United States to finish his life in comfort. But the old man refused to
quit the islands, where he died in 1799, helped to the end by the son he
had deserted so many years before.

Poor Rachel did not long survive this great blow. In spite of the
shelter and kindly attention of her relatives, her health rapidly failed
and, on February 26, 1768, at the age of thirty-two, she died. Thus, for
all practical purposes, were left orphaned Alexander, aged eleven, and
James, aged six.

    *    *    *    *    *

Young Alexander's boyhood had not been unhappy, in spite of his mother's
misfortunes. His maternal aunts and their families--the Mitchells and
the Lyttons--did their best for him. So did Dr. Will Hamilton, no doubt
humiliated by James's irresponsible conduct.

Among young Alexander's closest boyhood companions was a cousin on his
mother's side, Edward Stevens, with whom he played and went to school.
At first they received private instruction; then, as they grew older, it
was decided to send them to Christiansted, the island capital, for more
formal schooling.

There Alexander displayed that quickness of intelligence and keenness of
mind which was to mark him throughout life. He learned rapidly and
easily, and absorbed Latin, French, arithmetic, and even, it seems, a
little Hebrew. He was a voracious reader, devouring every book on which
he could lay hands--history, government, sermons. It did not matter as
long as it was print.

At the time of his mother's death, Alexander's father had long ago
disappeared, and no help could be expected from him. His mother's small
estate was seized in behalf of her first son, young Peter Levine. Her
family, too, had met with misfortunes and were unable to be of much
assistance. There was, therefore, only one thing left for the two
orphans--to go to work and make their own way in life.

At the age of twelve, Alexander accordingly found himself an apprentice
clerk in the trading house of Nicholas Cruger, located in Christiansted
on St. Croix. He entered upon his duties in the fall of 1769 and was
given correspondence to copy into the huge copybooks, ledger entries to
make, and orders to fill out.

It was confining work, to perch all day on his stool in the dim, stuffy
warehouse, hardly knowing whether the sun shone outside or that nature
was clad in warm, tropical beauty. Occasionally the sound of children at
play would penetrate his cloistered retreat; but far more exciting--and
more infuriating--came the news of the great world outside from the
weathered sea captains and rough sailors whose business brought them at
intervals into the Cruger store and whose talk breathed of far-off
places, of teeming cities, and distant wars.

War! The word clanged like a great bell in the boy's mind. He had read
in history of the great conquerors--Alexander of Macedon, Julius Caesar,
Hannibal, Frederick the Great--and of the battles like Marathon that had
changed the face of the world. Only a few years before, the world-wide
war of England, France, and Spain--known in America as the French and
Indian War--had come to an end. Many of the sailors who came into the
warehouse had been privateersmen during the long struggle, and their
tales of chases, sea fights, and rich booty were calculated to quicken
the pulse of an ardent, ambitious youngster discontented with pushing a
pen eternally over dreary books.

    *    *    *    *    *

All these thoughts raced through the lad's mind as he sat on his high
stool. The little thrill of his victory over Captain Newton faded, and a
distaste took its place as he stared at the pile of letters that
required copying. If only his playmate Ned Stevens were here now to
share his private griefs and ambitions. But Ned had gone away to New
York and King's College (later known as Columbia) to study medicine.

The thoughts swelled and almost burst in the boy's mind. Abruptly he
seized a sheet of paper, dipped quill in the ink-horn, and raced the pen
in bold, clear script across the white expanse.

"To confess my weakness, Ned," he wrote, "my ambition is prevalent, so
that I condemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to
which my fortune, etc., condemns me, and would willingly risk my life,
though not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, Ned, that
my youth excludes me from any hopes of immediate preferment; nor do I
desire it; but I mean to prepare the way for futurity. . . . I shall
conclude by saying, I wish there was a war."

What a strange, precocious letter for a boy of twelve to write! Like
many another small boy in those times (though perhaps not today), he
panted for war and dreamed of glory; unlike most others, however, his
ambition eventually found fulfillment.

In the meantime, the world was at peace; and no signs as yet appeared on
the horizon of war or glamorous deeds of derring-do. With a sigh he
picked up his pen again, and copied from Captain Newton's manifest into
the ledger: "40 bbls. of flour at 11½. . . ."

    *    *    *    *    *

War did not come, but the boy Alexander began to find compensations in
his work. He was a strange mixture of two contradictory principles that
continued to clash within him all through life. On the one hand, he was
a romantic visionary, thirsting for glory and honor; on the other, a
clearheaded, practical businessman, filled with contempt for all
idealists who thought that human nature could be bettered. But perhaps
it was this curious combination that sparked his genius and enabled him
later to make such a tremendous contribution to America.

In any event, he sensibly thrust these longings into the background and
devoted himself wholly to the business of his employer. So well did he
labor that Cruger put him in full charge of the branch at Frederiksted.
Then opportunity knocked loudly. Cruger became seriously ill and was
compelled to voyage to New York for adequate medical treatment.
Alexander was fourteen now, and such was Cruger's confidence in his
business ability and judgment that he turned over to him complete
control of all his affairs during his absence.

It was a heavy responsibility; for Nicholas Cruger's business extended
over the Caribbean islands and the mainlands of North and South America
and reached even to England and the continent of Europe. Ships sailed
into port and departed, their crews had to be handled properly, and
cargoes had to be loaded and unloaded. The proud and touchy planters of
the islands required special attention. Foreign merchants must be dealt
with. Cruger's partners in specific business ventures must be placated.
Then, too, it was essential to be familiar with the needs of the market,
the quality and prices of merchandise, and where it could best be
obtained.

Young Hamilton had no assistants. He wrote each letter himself and made
a clear copy for the files. He computed all bills, interviewed planters,
sailors, and merchants, bargained, and sold--all on his own. And he had
to keep his ailing employer on the mainland informed of every move he
made.

The staggering load would have daunted a much older and more experienced
man. But the boy of fourteen, going on fifteen, plunged into the mass of
details with energy. "Your flour," he would write to a Philadelphia
merchant, "is really very bad--being of a most swarthy complexion--&
withal very untractable; the Bakers complain that they cannot by any
means get it to rise." Or, Captain Gibbs had sailed with his cargo
"stowed very Hicheldy-picheldy" and left behind him a mass of debts so
complicated that young Hamilton was at his wit's end how to straighten
them out. Then Cruger's new sloop, the _Thunderbolt_, came into the
harbor with a cargo of mules and news of pirates roaming the high seas.
The boy's military ardor kindled at once. "Arm yourselves," he
commanded, "place cannon on board, and defend yourselves against the
cutthroats."

So well did he attend to business that Cruger, returning in health again
in March, 1772, found his affairs in a most flourishing condition. He
could not have done better himself.

That August young Hamilton was sent on a business trip through the
islands. He returned to Christiansted by the end of the month. It was
late afternoon of the thirty-first when he finished his last report,
entered the final order, locked up the countinghouse, closed the
shutters, and retired to his tiny bedroom for a frugal meal and some
reading in his beloved history books. Actual life in Christiansted might
be dull; but on the printed page he found excitement galore: battles and
sudden death, the tramp of armies, convulsions of nature, world-shaking
events.

Night came with the usual swiftness of the tropics. He lit his candle
and continued reading. It was almost midnight when he finally closed his
book, blew out the candle, and went to bed. For a while he tossed
restlessly. The night was hot and sticky. Not a breath stirred and there
was a strange, leaden weight to the air. But at last the tired boy fell
asleep.

Just how long he slept he never knew; but he awoke suddenly to the
sound of a tremendous crash and a world of howling fury. His room was a
shambles; a solid wall of water gushed through the open window; outside,
the wind shrieked like a thousand devils; lightning flashed in
continuous dazzlement and huge thunderbolts ripped the heavens.

As the drenched and frightened boy started up from his cot, new and more
ominous sounds pierced the screaming din: the roar of the sea, the crash
of collapsing houses, and the cries of the wounded and dying. It seemed
to the startled lad as though the elements of nature itself were in
their final dissolution and that the end of the world had come.

Gathering all his strength, Alec struggled against the wall of wind and
water to the window, pulled the shutters tight. Then, for the remainder
of that awful night, he crouched at the farther end of the room,
whispering the prayers his new friend, the Reverend Dr. Hugh Knox, a
recent arrival on the island, had taught him. Each moment he expected to
hear the timbers rending underneath his feet and find himself
precipitated to oblivion.

Fortunately, the solidly built structure remained intact. In the morning
the wind died down, the sun came out, and the hurricane, the most
disastrous in the island's history, had roared out to sea.

When Alec ventured out, it was to look upon a scene of unutterable
destruction. King Street, Queen Street, Strand Street--the three main
thoroughfares--were masses of twisted wreckage. The sea was still a
foaming fury, and the beach was thick with debris. Not a ship of those
that had been anchored in the harbor the evening before was visible.
All trees were uprooted, houses were down, and white-faced people hauled
frantically at the fallen timbers in search of the missing and the dead.

The sights and sounds, the memory of that dreadful night, moved young
Hamilton to the depths. There was a strain of religious feeling in him
that Dr. Knox had helped draw to the surface. That enthusiastic and
devoted Presbyterian minister, a graduate of the College of New Jersey
(later renamed Princeton), had taken a liking to the lad. He encouraged
him in his reading, gave him books, and tutored him in the classics. He
also prophesied great things for his protégé.

Alec's fingers had always itched for the pen; but so far he had written
only business letters. Now, he felt, he had a subject worthy of his
talents.

"I take up my pen," he commenced that night, "just to give you an
imperfect account of the most dreadful hurricane that memory or any
records whatever can trace, which happened here on the 31st ultimo last
night."

In graphic phrases he described the horrors of that night. Then,
remembering Dr. Knox, he launched into a series of religious
apostrophes: "Where now, Oh vile worm, is all thy boasted fortitude and
resolution? What is become of thy arrogance and self-sufficiency? Why
dost thou tremble and stand aghast?"

When the composition was finished, he sent it to the _Royal
Danish-American Gazette_, the leading English-language newspaper in the
Danish islands. To his infinite joy it was accepted, and the "Hurricane
Letter" appeared in the issue of October 3, 1772.

It made an immediate sensation. Actually, it was no great shakes as a
literary effort, although the Danish governor thought it a masterpiece.
Dr. Knox delightedly agreed, and so did the citizenry of the islands.
Obviously, such talents should not be allowed to go to waste; the author
must be given an opportunity to prepare himself for the splendid career
that seemed to lie ahead.

That meant going for an education either to the American colonies on the
mainland or to England. But the latter would have entailed considerable
expense; and the merchants of the West Indies were accustomed to sending
their sons to places like King's College in New York, Yale College at
New Haven, and the College of New Jersey at Princeton.

Once the matter was broached, it was swiftly settled. Dr. Knox, the
boy's aunts, and a public subscription provided the funds, and within a
week, before the dazed youngster quite knew what had happened, he found
himself on board a ship and land already out of sight. All his worldly
goods were in an ironbound trunk, and in his pocket were letters of
introduction from Dr. Knox and Cruger to important people in New York.

New York was his final destination. However, since no ship was clearing
for there within the near future, it had been decided not to waste time
in getting the budding genius directly to New York but to take advantage
of a boat heading for Boston. From that New England port he could
journey by stagecoach to New York.

As the vessel sailed slowly to the north, Alec had to pinch himself to
make certain that he was actually awake. Because of a single literary
effort all his hopes, his dreams, and ambitions were on the verge of
realization. The great world lay before him, an oyster to be opened.
Behind him, forever cast aside, was the dreary drudgery of the
countinghouse--the endless details of boxes and bales, butter and flour,
lumber and mules, pounds and shillings and pence. Adventure loomed
ahead, adventure limited only by his capacity to dare and to master. Yet
he had no fears or qualms as to the future. Alexander Hamilton was
always to be blessed with an abounding confidence in his own powers and
in his star.

The journey provided its own adventures. Midway to the mainland, fire
broke out in the hold. All on board turned out to battle the flames and,
with great effort, managed to put them out before they ate below the
water line. Blackened and half-burned, the disabled vessel limped into
Boston Harbor. It was near the end of October, 1772.




  _2 Student Patriot_


Boston did not detain the fifteen-year-old immigrant long. He was eager
to meet his future as soon as possible. With barely a glance at the busy
port he mounted the stagecoach and jolted over the old Post Road to the
city on the Hudson.

New York could, however, be hardly called a city in the sense that we
know it today. Even for its own time it was surpassed by Philadelphia
and Boston both in number of inhabitants and volume of trade. It
stretched only a short distance up the island of Manhattan from the
Battery on the water front, and Canal Street, a scant mile and a half to
the north, represented the dividing line where the farms began. The
streets were narrow and crooked, the houses small and unpretentious, and
water had to be carried by cart from a few insufficient wells. Filth lay
uncollected in the streets, and cows and even pigs could occasionally be
seen sauntering unconcernedly along Broadway. No wonder that epidemics
made their appearance with deplorable frequency.

But to young Hamilton it was a shining metropolis, to which the towns in
the West Indies were mere backwater villages. Here lay opportunity--the
opportunity to mingle with learned men and make his mark in the great
world of ideas.

Nicholas Cruger had given him letters to the mercantile firm of
Kartwright & Company, which was to take care of the financial details of
the boy's board and schooling. Here he met Hercules Mulligan, brother of
one of the partners. This Irishman with the classical first name was a
fantastic character. He ran a fashionable tailor shop with a strictly
upper-class clientele. When the Revolution came, these customers took
the Tory side and hobnobbed with the British when General Howe captured
the town and Sir Henry Clinton ruled it. Mulligan, a fiery though secret
patriot, bridled his sometimes too ready tongue, listened attentively to
the casual conversation of his highly placed customers, and smuggled
valuable information to General Washington on impending British military
movements. Like everyone else who came in contact with him, Mulligan
took an immediate liking to the attractive West Indian youth.

Dr. Knox's letters of introduction were addressed to prominent figures
like William Livingston, the Governor of New Jersey, Elias Boudinot of
the same state, and several ministers who had been his classmates
during his college years at Princeton. These influential people promptly
took the young stranger under their wing and helped him with advice as
well as more substantial aid.

The boy was headed for college, but his formal schooling had been so
sketchy that it was decided to have him first attend a good preparatory
school. Such a one, presided over by Francis Barber at Elizabethtown in
New Jersey, was chosen.

He spent a year at this school--an impatient year; for he seemed only to
be marking time. But he applied himself to his studies with a fierce
concentration, stuffing himself with knowledge at a rapid rate, anxious
to get through as fast as possible. Governor Livingston and Boudinot,
however, did not permit their protégé to become a mere bookworm. They
invited him regularly to their homes, and readily succumbed to the charm
and brilliance of the precocious youth.

At the end of the year he considered himself ready for college. His
first choice naturally was Princeton, where Dr. Knox had studied.
Hercules Mulligan went with him to an interview with the president of
the college, Dr. Witherspoon.

That learned, if somewhat crusty, Scot put the young applicant through
his paces in the simple manner of examinations in those days. He gave
him a few passages in Latin to translate, asked him to read several
paragraphs from the English classics, and questioned him somewhat more
thoroughly on religion and morals. That was all.

"I believe, Master Hamilton," declared Dr. Witherspoon finally, "we can
enroll you in the College of New Jersey."

If he expected effusive thanks from the small, erect figure before him,
he was soon to be disappointed.

"Very good, sir," replied the lad with the utmost calm. "In which class
do I enter?"

The president was taken aback. "Why, as a freshman, of course."

"I'm sorry, sir; that won't do. I am sufficiently ahead in my studies to
attend the junior, or at least the sophomore, class. Furthermore, I do
not wish to be bound by the usual regulations governing promotions. I
must be advanced as rapidly as my abilities and knowledge admit."

The startled doctor peered down at this amazing youngster who thus
boldly set forth his conditions for entry into his institution. "Hmm!"
he said after a pause. "This is a most unusual request,
Master----er----Mister Hamilton."

"I won't enter under any other conditions," declared the youth firmly.

"We've never done it before. However, I shall submit
your----er----request to the trustees."

Dr. Witherspoon might have been impressed, having seen the applicant
face to face; but the trustees, considering the matter at a distance,
decided against any such revolutionary procedure.

    *    *    *    *    *

"Good!" exclaimed Hercules Mulligan when the sad news arrived. "I think
you'll do much better at King's College. Besides," he added
affectionately, clapping the downcast lad on the shoulder, "I'll be able
to see more of you."

Mulligan was correct in his prediction. The New York college, under the
presidency of Dr. Myles Cooper, was willing to take the student on his
own terms, and Hamilton promptly matriculated.

King's (now Columbia) was a small college in downtown New York. Aside
from its president, the entire faculty consisted of three professors who
assumed to cover the entire domain of learning.

The new--and unclassified--student threw himself into his studies with
purposeful ardor. These were but the tools for the business of life, and
that business beckoned to him night and day. He concentrated largely on
anatomy, having some thoughts of becoming a physician; but the swift
tide of events soon banished the idea.

A friendly, likable boy, he rapidly became popular with his fellow
students. There were youngsters of ability and talent among them,
including Ned Stevens, his cousin and childhood playmate who had
preceded him to the mainland. But almost immediately they recognized the
outstanding qualities of this intense young West Indian in their midst
and gladly submitted to his leadership. One in particular, Robert Troup,
was to become his lifelong friend and worshipful follower.

The students organized a debating club, and Hamilton, the youngest,
outshone all the rest in the cogency of his arguments and the
forcefulness of his speech.

The students did not have to look far for topics to debate. Ever since
the ending of the French and Indian War in 1763 the colonists had been
engaged in a mounting quarrel with the mother country, England. There
were two chief points of dispute. First, the English considered that the
colonies existed for their personal benefit; therefore, the American
trade must be so regulated as to bring maximum profit to England.
Second, the colonies ought to help pay the cost of the French and Indian
War and contribute toward the expenses of the government of the Empire,
of which they were a part.

The second item was reasonable enough. But the British also insisted
that their Parliament had the right and power to levy taxes directly on
the Americans to cover these costs. To this claim the Americans objected
violently. They insisted in turn that only their own legislatures,
elected by themselves, had the authority to levy taxes on them. To
bolster their argument, they coined the famous slogan "No taxation
without representation."

There had been trouble aplenty in 1765 when the British Parliament had
sought to levy certain taxes on America--the most notorious of these
being the stamp tax. So violent had been the resistance and so
tremendous the clamor that the tax was withdrawn. Now, in 1773,
Parliament gave the East India Company what the colonists considered a
monopoly of the sale of tea in the colonies. This, combined with a tax
on the tea, infuriated Americans. No longer content to protest, they
acted. In Boston a band of men painted like Indians boarded a vessel
loaded with tea, dumped the boxes into the bay, and vanished exultantly
into the night.

The British government retaliated swiftly. Troops were moved into the
defiant town, the port was closed to all trade and shipping, and the
city was placed under severe penalties until compensation was
forthcoming for the damage and the outrage. But the other colonies
rallied to the defense of the people of Massachusetts and declared that
they would stand or fall together. The Revolution, in effect, had begun.

    *    *    *    *    *

The students of King's College were intensely patriotic, and none more
so than the young West Indian. As a boy Hamilton had listened
attentively to the complaints of the British merchants and planters of
the islands against the restrictive regulations of the mother country
and had shared with them an equal indignation against the stamp tax.

When Hamilton heard of the Boston Tea Party and its consequences, he
reached for his pen. Once before, when nature had burst her bounds and
poured destruction on the islands, he had written a composition that
furnished him with his first great opportunity. Now, when it was man
that was in a state of ferment, another product of his pen might well
open a second path for him. He considered the mainland as his permanent
home, and it was here that fame and fortune beckoned. The islands of the
West Indies were forever left behind.

In the intervals between classes and studies, therefore, he composed a
"Defence of the Destruction of the Tea" and sent it without signature to
_Holt's Journal_, a patriot newspaper. When, to his joy, the article was
published, he hastened to write more articles on the same theme and
these, too, duly appeared in print.

The series made a deep impression on the important men of New York and
the neighboring colonies, and there was much speculation as to the
author. But John Jay, who was later to become governor of New York and
Chief Justice of the United States, knew his identity. "I hope," he
wrote warmly to a friend, "Mr. Hamilton continues busy."

It is extremely doubtful that Mr. Hamilton knew of Jay's favorable
comment, but he followed the advice just the same. It was in his nature
to keep eternally busy. When the news came to New York that the British
had shut the port of Boston, the angry patriots called an open-air
protest meeting. It was only natural that students should cut classes to
attend. A number of speakers addressed the milling crowd and, it must be
confessed, were a trifle dull. A disappointed student cried out to
Hamilton, "Give 'em a speech, Alec. You're good at it!" The crowd took
up the cry with enthusiasm and turned it into a roar. Before he knew
what was happening, he found himself heaved bodily onto the platform.

At first, as he stared out upon the sea of upturned faces, his nerve
failed him. His voice squeaked and his limbs trembled. Then both
steadied and he swung into an extemporaneous harangue full of fire and
passion, ending with a ringing peroration. "Resist this tyranny!" he
cried. "Let us act together and with such determination that a mighty
tidal wave will sweep from our shores clear across to the headlands of
England and shatter her arrogant power and glory."

His oratory stirred the huge assemblage and they shouted approval as he
stepped down, flushed and triumphant. "Who is he?" they demanded. "A
college boy," came the answer. "A young fellow from the West Indies,
name of Hamilton."

By nightfall everyone in New York was talking about him; within several
days Boston was buzzing with his name. At one bound Alexander Hamilton
had become famous.

But the boy refused to have his head turned. He went quietly back to his
books, lost himself in the mysteries of mathematics, and read diligently
in history, politics, government, economics, and oratory. As he read, he
took careful, precise notes, excerpting appropriate quotations from the
authors for use in the controversial pamphlets that continued to issue
from his pen.

Meanwhile, events were marching with giant strides toward the final
breach with England and the outburst of armed rebellion. At this time,
however, and in fact for a considerable period to come, few Americans
thought in terms of independence or even of actual revolt. All they
wished was to compel the British government to see things their
way--that is, to remove the restrictions on trade and to permit the
colonial legislatures to handle their domestic affairs, particularly in
the realm of taxation.

The First Continental Congress, attended by delegates from the thirteen
colonies, met in Philadelphia to consider ways and means for obtaining
these concessions from England. The quickest and surest way, they
finally agreed, was to aim directly at the pocketbook of the mother
country. Boycott her goods, they argued, and the loss of our trade and
money will quickly bring her to her senses.

But there were many Americans who shrank from a boycott as treasonable
and tending toward eventual rebellion. These were the Loyalists--or
Tories, as the patriots derisively named them--who wished to cling to
England, come what may. One of them was Dr. Samuel Seabury, a prominent
minister. To counteract the patriot propaganda, he wrote two pamphlets
and signed them "A Westchester Farmer." Written in plain, simple
language, they were calculated to appeal to the common sense and
pockets of farmers everywhere, pointing out to them how they would stand
to lose in dollars and cents by the proposed boycott. So effective were
these pamphlets that the alarmed patriots searched desperately for
someone who could answer his arguments.

But while they sought seemingly in vain, the job had already been done.
On December 15, 1774, a long pamphlet with a formidable title came out
in print. It was called "A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress
from the Calumnies of Their Enemies, in Answer to a Letter under the
Signature of a Westchester Farmer." No name was signed to it, and only a
small group of friends knew that Alexander Hamilton was its author.

If Seabury's initial pamphlet was powerfully written, this was even more
so. Hamilton's pen dripped biting sarcasms, convincing arguments, and
appeals to historical precedents as well as the passions of men. His
sentences marched in serried ranks and whipped up the emotions. No one,
with the exception of Tom Paine, wielded a readier or more effective
pen. Americans knew that a mighty champion had arisen to take their
part.

Stung by this invisible wasp, Seabury sought to retort with his second
article, and Hamilton rushed another flaming denunciation into print.

"The sacred rights of mankind," he thundered, "are not to be rummaged
for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a
sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the
divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

Again the colonies buzzed with admiration. Who was this anonymous
pamphleteer? John Jay? "I am not the man," Jay modestly replied. "I wish
I were."

When it leaked out finally that it was Hamilton, the student who had
created such a sensation with his speech at the protest meeting,
admiration turned to amazement. No one was more dumfounded than Dr.
Myles Cooper, president of the college. "I refuse to believe it," he
cried. "I know young Hamilton. He is a mere stripling." Cooper was a
staunch Tory, an adherent of England, and he could not conceive that any
student of his would have either the inclination to become a rebel or
the ability to write such prose.

But Hamilton was not through. When England sought to lure the provinces
of Canada to the British side by granting the majority Catholics equal
rights with the Protestants and by offering them special privileges in
the vast unsettled territory north of the Ohio River, the youthful
pamphleteer sprang to the attack with another long and vehement
argument. Unfortunately, one of his chief points was an appeal to the
prevailing prejudice against Catholics.

    *    *    *    *    *

It was now becoming obvious that words would not be enough; it might be
necessary to defend their rights with arms. Little groups of men began
to drill and to gather stores of guns and ammunition. Among these were
the students of King's College, with Hamilton as their leader. They went
in for grand effects. They called themselves the "Corsicans," and wore
short green coats and rakish hats that bore the slogan "Liberty or
Death." They pinned red tin hearts on their jackets, inscribed "God and
our Right." It was all very theatrical, and very patriotic.

But the romantic element was shortly to be submerged in the deadly
serious. In distant Lexington and Concord shots were fired. The
Revolution had begun.

When the news reached New York by express riders, the populace rose in
furious demonstrations against the British power and the native Tories
in their midst. Particularly was their wrath directed against Dr.
Cooper, who had minced no words in displaying his contempt for what he
called "the rabble."

On the night of May 10, 1775, Hamilton lay asleep in the room he shared
with his fellow student Robert Troup. A great clamor of voices, the rush
of many feet, a blaze of light, and the smell of smoke brought him bolt
upright. He sprang out of bed, rushed to the window.

In the narrow street below he saw men running. Some brandished
sputtering torches; others carried buckets of bubbling tar and bags of
feathers.

"What's up?" he cried.

A running man, face sooty and excited, swung his bucket and yelled up,
"We're after that blasted Tory, Myles Cooper. We're gonna give him a
taste o' tar and feathers." Then with a screech, he raced after his
fellows.

Aghast, the young student rushed back to the bed and shook his sleeping
friend. "Quick, Bob!" he whispered. "We've got to head those fools off.
If anything happens to Dr. Cooper, we'll never live it down."

Within seconds they were in their clothes and out into the by now
deserted street. "There's a short cut down the back lane," said
Hamilton. "It's our only chance."

Down the dark, winding path sped the young men, panting up the porch
steps of the president's house just as the mob surged toward it from the
main street.

"Stop!" commanded Hamilton in a loud voice, arm out-thrust. The rioters
slowed their forward rush, came to an indecisive halt. They recognized
the slight, slim figure who blocked their way. This was the student who
had roused them to patriotic fervor down in the fields, who had written
those stirring pamphlets.

Hamilton quickly availed himself of the respite. "Think of the shame of
what you meant to do," he shouted. "Think of the disgrace you will bring
by your conduct on the patriot cause, and on the cause of liberty you
claim to hold so dear."

The mob stirred under the tongue-lashing. A mutter ran through their
ranks, rose in volume. They were in no mood to be balked of their prey.
A few of the bolder spirits began to edge forward.

Overhead, a window was thrust open. Dr. Cooper, clad only in nightcap
and shirt, peered out. He saw the torches, the inflamed upturned
countenances--and young Hamilton gesticulating on his doorstep. "Aha!"
he muttered. "That rebellious young rascal is rousing the populace to do
me harm."

Trembling with fear, he shrieked, "Don't listen to him, men. He is
crazy, crazy!" Down slammed the window. Pulling a cloak over his
nightshirt, the elderly president rushed down the backstairs for flight.

Outside, a roar of laughter burst from the mob at his mistake. While
they shouted with glee, Hamilton slipped around the house, caught up
with the terror-stricken man, and hurriedly explained the situation.

"If you'll come with me, Dr. Cooper," he ended, "I'll guide you to
safety."

The old Tory was only too happy to commit himself to the hands of his
rescuer. Together they hurried by side roads down to the water front,
where next morning Cooper found protection on board a British
man-of-war. Eventually he went to England, never to return. There, in
gratitude to his young protector, he wrote some verses about his
terrifying experience. It is not a good poem, but a magazine published
it.

  _Meanwhile, along the sounding shore,
  Where Hudson's waves incessant roar,
  I take my weary way;
  And skirt the windings of the tide,
  My faithful pupil by my side
  Nor wish the approach of day._

Several months after Cooper's melodramatic escape, a rumor spread that
sailors from the British warships in the harbor intended to seize some
cannons on the shore. The alarm bells rang out, the drums beat, and the
militia hastened to the Battery to save the threatened guns. Hamilton,
musket on shoulder, was in the forefront. The ships fired on the
swarming men as they toiled feverishly to haul the great guns away.
Hamilton, with the greatest unconcern, tugged at one of the ropes.

The cannons were being dragged up Broadway and out of range when he
suddenly uttered an exclamation.

"What's wrong, Alec?" inquired Troup.

"My musket! I left it down at the Battery. I'm going back."

"You can't," Troup protested. "They're shooting like mad down there."

But Hamilton was already gone. The shells fell all around him, but he
scooped up the musket and, waving it in triumph, ran back to join his
company.

With Dr. Cooper's flight, King's College closed its doors. Hamilton was
free now to join the army that was rapidly being formed. He was
nineteen, and his exploits had made him a public figure. With that
supreme self-confidence which he exhibited all through life he
demanded--and received--a commission as captain of artillery from the
New York authorities.

But he was a captain without a company. The guns he had helped rescue
were available, but there was no one to man them. Men refused to enlist
unless they received a substantial bonus and an assurance of regular
pay. And the Provincial Congress of New York, newly formed, had no
funds.

The fledgling captain did not hesitate. He used the last of his private
funds from the West Indies to enroll and equip recruits, and was able to
bring an initial installment of thirty volunteers to his banner. They
were willing enough, but they knew nothing of guns or of soldiering.

It was not for nothing that Hamilton had employed every spare moment in
studying the manual of arms and the lives and tactics of the great
captains of the past. He drilled them himself, rigorously and
remorselessly. He sternly punished every breach of regulations, and when
the men rebelled, he crushed incipient mutiny and pursued deserters with
the utmost severity.

But when he was through with them, they no longer were a band of
slouching civilians. They looked and acted like disciplined soldiers.
Officers of the regular Continental Army came to watch admiringly the
formations of the little company under the brisk commands of its
captain.

No one believed it would be an easy task to beat England, but few
realized the long years of hardship and suffering that lay ahead. New
York had a taste of things to come almost immediately. A British fleet
blockaded the harbor, a British army under General Howe landed on Staten
Island. George Washington, the new American Commander in Chief, hurried
down from Boston to meet the formidable threat. But his men were few,
ill-clad, ill-armed, and inexperienced. It looked as if the rebellion
would be crushed before it got fully under way.

In an attempt to defend both Long Island and the City of New York,
Washington divided his all too scanty troops. Hamilton thought this a
mistake, and did not hesitate to tell the general so. Indeed, when his
company of artillery was ferried across the East River to Brooklyn
Heights, he sent a note to Washington advising that all the troops be
returned to the city. It was fortunate that he did not sign his name to
the note; the military career of the brash young captain might have
ended then and there.

Washington did not take the anonymous advice, though events soon proved
it to have been correct. A battle was fought on Long Island in which the
Americans suffered a disastrous defeat and were saved from destruction
only by Howe's sluggishness in pursuit.

That night the battered little army sought to retreat across the river.
It was dark and stormy, and the rain fell in torrents. Boats capsized,
and men and equipment were thrown into the churning waters. Only through
superhuman exertions was Hamilton able to get his precious guns across.

Barely had he set them up on a fortified hill just outside the town when
disaster struck again. Howe, recovered from his strange lethargy, had
quietly landed an army farther up the river, and threatened the capture
or destruction of all troops below him on the island.

Once again the signal for retreat was sounded. Hamilton's company
managed to slip through the encompassing lines to rejoin the main army
entrenched on Harlem Heights, but not without loss. One gun had to be
left behind, and with it Hamilton's personal baggage.

From there on, the campaign resolved itself into a hunt of fox by
hounds. For a while the wearied Americans held off a frontal assault on
the Heights, then retreated with the British in hot pursuit. At White
Plains the process was repeated. Each time that the British caught up
with their elusive prey, Washington fought a delaying battle and slipped
away again.

For days Hamilton and his men, now augmented to a company of a hundred,
fought, marched, and fought again. The days were dark, and the nights
gloomy. It was a time, as Paine immortally put it, to try men's souls;
and the summer patriots and the sunshine soldiers fell by the wayside,
convinced that all was lost.

But those who remained--and young Hamilton never had any thought of
quitting--were turning into hardened veterans who knew how to fight and
how to retreat, when necessary, in good order.

The young captain fought bravely at Harlem Heights, poured deadly shot
into the assaulting Hessians at White Plains, and held a bridge over the
Raritan River in New Jersey until the main army could make good its
escape. Then he marched his sadly depleted company after it into
Princeton.

That company, however, stood out among the bedraggled Continentals for
the precision with which it marched. Its captain, with his cocked hat
pulled deep over his brow, evoked favorable comments from the spectators
as he walked at its head beside one of the precious cannon, stroking it
as though it were a fine horse.

Nor had his exploit at the bridge been overlooked. Washington, hastening
his battered troops to safety, nevertheless found time to send an aide
galloping back to discover the name of the gallant officer who was
standing off the entire British force.

The youthful officer, face begrimed and sweaty, barely paused in his
rapid-fire orders to his gunners. Without looking up, he replied,
"Captain Alexander Hamilton."

The aide saluted. "His Excellency, General Washington, asks that you
report to him at our first halt."

It was to be some time, however, before Hamilton had a chance to report.
There was work to be done first at Trenton and Princeton. Everyone knows
of the brilliant exploit that frozen Christmas Eve at Trenton, when the
first faint ray of light illumined a hitherto uniform succession of
defeats. Not so many know of the equally spectacular exploit at
Princeton.

The British, caught unawares, had sought refuge in the college
buildings. Hamilton unlimbered his guns, cupped his hands and shouted a
demand for surrender. A derisive cheer was his only answer. His hand
went up. "Fire!" he ordered. The gunners thrust flaming tinder to the
touchholes; the guns recoiled under the thunder of the shot. A solid
ball smashed in direct hit through the outer chapel wall, hurtled
through the intervening interior to crush a portrait of George II on the
farther wall to smithereens.

That was enough. The British came tumbling out on the green, hands high
in surrender.

Winter now descended on the opposing armies. In those days, troops
rarely fought when the weather grew cold and snow blanketed the ground.
They went into winter quarters instead. Washington's little army took up
a position at Morristown, New Jersey. With it went Hamilton's men. But
only some twenty-five remained of the hundred that had constituted its
full strength.




  _3 Call Colonel Hamilton_


General Washington groaned as he stared at the huge pile of papers on
his table. "How can I fight a war," he asked bitterly of a staff
officer, "when all my time is taken up with correspondence? Letters to
Congress, letters to the states, general orders, special orders--I'm at
it all day long. If only I could get someone who could think for me as
well as execute orders."

"There is just such a man, General," said the staff officer.

Washington had been pacing the narrow confines of his headquarters room
at Morristown. He turned swiftly. "For God's sake," he said, "who is
he?"

"Captain Hamilton, sir. His pen is the readiest I know. You remember
those pamphlets in which he answered the Tory Seabury? He has a keen
wit, a quick apprehension, and he's a gallant soldier, to boot."

"Hamilton? Hamilton? Isn't he the artillery officer who held up the
British at the crossing of the Raritan?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then get him at once."

    *    *    *    *    *

Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton was a most unhappy young man. His new rank
of chief aide to the Commander in Chief had made him the most envied
officer in the army. Nevertheless, he was unhappy. "I'm a soldier," he
muttered morosely to himself, "not a letter writer, no matter how
glorified."

But Washington beamed. He had found just the person he needed. All he
had to do now was to go rapidly through the more important of his
correspondence, discuss briefly with Hamilton the nature of the replies,
and then dismiss the whole business from his mind with the comforting
assurance that everything would be properly taken care of, and in
language far more elegant and forcible than any in which he himself
could have expressed it.

Most of his mail, however, did not require his personal attention.
Hamilton would answer run-of-the-mill letters on his own and sign the
general's name to them. "Now," thought Washington with a grim smile, "I
can attend to my proper business--winning the war."

"Call Colonel Hamilton" became a sort of byword in the camp. Were there
complaints to answer tactfully, reports to get ready, orders to issue?
"Call Colonel Hamilton" and then forget about it. What a comfort to a
harassed commander in his days of trial!

Nor was Washington the only one to discover the value of this new and
very young colonel. The great men who piloted the State of New York
also discovered that his information was most accurate, his discretion
profound, and his advice weighty beyond his years. More and more they
came to rely on him in their complicated relations with the Continental
Army and the Continental Congress.

    *    *    *    *    *

The war dragged wearily on. By the summer of 1777, the American cause
looked gloomier than ever. Burgoyne, marching down from Canada, was
threatening to cut the colonies in two. Howe moved out of New York to
seize Philadelphia. Such was the clamor that Washington, against his
better judgment, was forced to quit his strong position at Morristown
and attempt to protect the chief American town. But Howe defeated him in
the bloody battle of Brandywine, and Philadelphia was doomed.

The Americans retreated in such haste that they were compelled to
abandon a huge store of supplies in some mills close to the Schuylkill
River. To prevent their falling into enemy hands, Washington detached
Hamilton and Captain Henry Lee with a small troop of cavalry to destroy
them.

Hamilton was delighted. This was the kind of work he loved--filled with
dangers, thrills, and a chance for daring exploits.

It was early morning as the little group spurred through the misty
countryside, galloping their foam-flecked horses up hill and down,
fording streams, and hearing the nipping wind of autumn whistle past.
Then they moved out upon the brow of a long hill at the foot of which
lay the mills, with the Schuylkill glinting beyond.

Not a living thing was in sight, yet Hamilton prudently posted two
sentries on the top of the hill before galloping with the rest of his
troop down to the mills. Here again he divided his forces. He sent one
small group under Lee to seize a flat-bottomed boat on the shore of the
river against any emergency; the other, under himself, went to burn the
mills.

Hamilton was inside, thrusting a blazing torch into the mass of
combustible flour, watching with satisfaction the swift tongues of flame
and the upward plume of smoke when he heard guns bang sharply outside.
Hurling his torch into the bin, he dashed into the open. Down the hill
came his two sentries, riding at breakneck speed, and charging after
them was a large body of red-coated cavalry.

The sentries did not pause as they hit the bottom but spurred over a
bridge that crossed the tiny millstream, shouting their warning as they
flashed by.

"Follow me for your lives!" cried Hamilton as his men emerged in
bewilderment from the mills. It was too late to get to their horses. The
only chance was the boat on the river, a bare hundred feet away. Lee's
men had abandoned it at the alarm and, with the panicky sentries, were
swimming their horses to the safety of the opposite bank.

It was touch and go. Hamilton with four troopers tumbled into the boat
and moved it into the stream just as the British were upon them.
Fortunately, the current was swift, and the ungainly craft spun and
whirled crazily down the stream as the redcoats drew up and fired a
volley after them. One man in the boat was killed outright; another was
badly wounded; and then they were out of range.

Late that afternoon Hamilton, drenched to the skin, disheveled and
reeling with fatigue, walked into Washington's tent just in time to
hear his comrade, Captain Lee, reporting in tragic tones, "Sir, I am
sorry to have to tell you that Colonel Hamilton and four men are lost
and, I fear, dead."

The exhausted young soldier managed a grin. He saluted the startled
general. "Colonel Hamilton reporting, sir, that the mission was
successfully completed. He also begs to remark that he is not dead."

Once again the secretary, he sent an urgent express to Congress, then in
session at Philadelphia, warning the members to get out fast--the
British were coming. The congressmen did not delay; they snatched up
their belongings, mounted their horses, and dashed off into the night.

They might just as well have taken their time. The British, as usual,
did not push their victory. It was several days before they marched
leisurely into town, red coats spick and span, boots and buttons smartly
polished, and drums beating. But the interval required for such sprucing
up was sufficient for Hamilton, working at top speed, to remove all
public stores and supplies of food from the endangered city to places of
safety.

But if things were going badly for the colonists around Philadelphia,
wonderful news came out of the North. Burgoyne with a formidable army,
aiming down from Canada toward Albany and the Hudson, had been
surrounded at Saratoga and forced to surrender. It was the turning point
of the war. The booty was vast; the prestige immense; and--most
important of all--the French, who had been secretly aiding the Americans
against their ancient enemy England, now decided to enter the war
openly.

The great victory, however, posed certain problems. General Horatio
Gates, to whom Burgoyne had surrendered, was a vain and ambitious man.
For some time he had been connected with a group of discontented
officers and members of Congress who resented Washington and plotted
secretly to supersede him. Among the malcontents in the army were
Generals Conway and Charles Lee.

Washington knew something of what was going on and that Gates was
involved. He knew also that it was essential for Gates to transfer a
substantial force of his troops to the outskirts of New York while he,
Washington, came up from the South. Between the two armies New York
might be recaptured.

A trustworthy messenger to Gates was needed, one who combined tact and
knowledge, boldness and ability to handle men. Hamilton was chosen for
the delicate mission.

The distance to Gates's headquarters in Albany was close to 250 miles;
yet Hamilton, riding hard, completed the journey in four days, including
a stopover with General Israel Putnam near Fishkill. Dusty, unshaven,
near to dropping from fatigue and lack of sleep, he nevertheless hurried
at once to Gates.

First he showed Washington's letter, with its final sentence, "From
Colonel Hamilton you will have a clear and comprehensive view of things,
and I persuade myself you will do all in your power to facilitate the
objects I have in contemplation."

Then he rapidly sketched Washington's needs: three brigades from Gates's
army and additional troops from Putnam's command at Fishkill.

Gates listened politely, though he had no intention of yielding so large
a part of his army to Washington. After all, why should he strengthen
the man whom he expected shortly to replace as Commander in Chief?

Aloud he said, "I'll send some troops, but not three brigades. I can't
spare them."

"How many will you send?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'll see."

"But the whole plan of General Washington's campaign depends on your
forces."

"Well, maybe I'll send one brigade."

"But----"

The pudgy general rose. "That is all I can spare, young man. Good day,
sir."

Furious, Hamilton withdrew. Well, at least he would look at the brigade
so grudgingly offered. One glance was enough. It was the weakest of the
lot, with barely six hundred men fit for any sort of duty.

In a white heat of rage he sat down to compose a letter to the hero of
Saratoga. It literally blistered the paper. "I insist," he wrote in
effect, "that a good brigade at least be sent instead of the one you
were pleased to pick. And you will be good enough to give instant orders
for its embarkation down the river."

Gates backed down when he read the peremptory command of this youth. He
greeted the angry aide later with a placating smile. "I'll tell you what
I'll do," he said effusively. "I'll send two brigades, not just one."

With the victory two-thirds won, Hamilton mounted his horse and rode
down to Fishkill to see what Putnam was doing. Putnam was supposed also
to have two brigades already on the march. But, to Hamilton's
astonishment and disgust, there was no sign of movement. Again he
resorted to his pen. "I now, sir, in the most explicit terms," he told
the veteran general, "by his Excellency's authority, give it as a
positive order from him that all the Continental troops under your
command may be immediately marched to King's Ferry, there to cross the
river and hasten to reinforce the army under him."

Old Putnam, trembling with rage at such impudence, dispatched a loud
complaint to Washington. In return came a stinging rebuke and a curt
command to obey Hamilton. But that daring young man had already gone
over Putnam's head and had ordered the troops to march. Again he had
triumphed over vanity, calculation, and delay.

But the strain had been too much. He went down with a fever, and for
almost a week his life was despaired of. It was December before
Hamilton, wan and shaky, was able to rejoin the army, now in winter
quarters at Valley Forge. The delays had been sufficient to ruin
Washington's hopes of besieging New York before the snows came.

The long and bitter winter brought suffering and starvation to the
ragged, almost naked troops at Valley Forge. Washington begged Congress
in vain for food, clothing, and supplies. Hamilton, finally recovered
from his illness, blazed with wrath. "Where are our great men?" he
demanded. "Why aren't they in Congress, where they could best help the
cause of the Revolution? No," he added bitterly, "they prefer to take
office in their own states rather than in the national Congress. It is
time for them to rouse themselves and understand that their place is not
at home, but with the nation."

He had put his finger on the great need of the times. Most men
considered their own state as the all-important political entity; as a
sovereign nation, in fact. True, they were joined with the other states
in a common cause; but they expected, once independence had been
achieved, to go their separate ways, each attending to its own business
and each claiming the total allegiance of its citizens. At the most
there might be a loose confederation of the states for purposes of
common defense against a foreign foe. Very few men were wise and
farseeing enough to have come as yet to the idea of a strong, united
nation in which the states would be bound together permanently.

But Hamilton had already risen to that brilliant concept. Perhaps the
fact that he was really an outsider, born on alien soil, enabled him to
override the local politics and local patriotisms of the day. In his
mind it was elementary that a great national compact was essential, in
which sentiment and government were one. Only such a nation could
survive among the powers of the earth and assume a position that would
compel respect from all and yield to none in strength, prosperity, and
grandeur.

More than anyone else, indeed, was Hamilton to bring about the
realization of that vision.

    *    *    *    *    *

The dreadful winter of 1777-1778 finally came to an end. In the spring
Washington's ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-armed troops marched down from
Valley Forge to meet the thrust of Sir Henry Clinton into New Jersey.
The two armies met at Monmouth Court House.

The battle was indecisive, though a splendid chance had been offered the
Americans to cut the British to pieces. The failure was due largely to
the unaccountable actions of General Charles Lee, a member of the group
that was plotting against Washington. He disobeyed orders, dallied
while Lafayette was locked in desperate combat with the full British
army, and when he finally did move, conducted himself so ineptly that
his flank was turned and his troops fled in wild disorder.

Washington, with Hamilton at his side, dashed up in time to rally the
fleeing men. Hamilton, galloping next with orders to one of the
shattered brigades, ran headlong into a furious melee. Without a
moment's hesitation he placed himself at the head of the leaderless
Continentals and led them in a driving countercharge. A musket ball
wounded his horse. Frantic with pain, the animal reared and threw
Hamilton heavily to the ground. Men and horses charged over his
prostrate body. Then the British broke and fled, and aid was rushed to
the fallen officer. He was carried off the field, bruised, battered, and
shaken; but he had helped save the day.

The army resounded with his praises and with denunciations of the folly,
cowardice, or worse of General Lee. Hamilton plainly intimated that he
was a traitor and that a court-martial would find him so. He testified
at the trial and thereby made a mortal enemy of the discomfited general.
For a while, in fact, it seemed as if a duel might result. But another
aide challenged Lee first and wounded him slightly in an exchange of
shots. Hamilton acted as second for the challenger.

The court-martial brought in a verdict of guilty on several of the
charges, and Lee was suspended from his command for a year.

Now great news came. The French, encouraged by the American success at
Saratoga, had entered the war against England. A formidable fleet
sailed across the ocean to aid their new ally. Hamilton, the trusted
right hand of Washington, was sent to establish liaison. He made such an
impression on D'Estaing, the French admiral, that the latter wrote
warmly to Washington, "His talents and his personal qualities have
secured to him for ever my esteem, my confidence, and my friendship."

Washington did not have to be told these things about his brilliant
aide. He had already extended his own friendship and confidence, and he
listened carefully to Hamilton when he offered advice.

There was the time, for example, when he considered a plan for kidnaping
the British commander, Sir Henry Clinton, in New York.

"No doubt it could be done," admitted Hamilton. "But have you examined
the consequences of such an act?"

The general stared, surprised. "Consequences? What consequences?"

"We'd lose rather than gain by the capture," explained Hamilton. "We
understand perfectly Sir Henry's character. We know exactly what he can
be expected to do next. But should we take him prisoner, the British
will appoint another general. Very likely he'll be an abler man, and
we'd have to start all over again to figure what he would do in a given
situation and how to counterbalance him."

Washington was so struck by the force of this reasoning that he canceled
the kidnaping orders, and Sir Henry Clinton, unaware of the danger that
had threatened him, continued to sleep peacefully by night and do
nothing by day.

The great French fleet from which so much had been expected turned out
to be singularly ineffective. Its solitary action was an unsuccessful
assault on Savannah, Georgia, then in British hands. After that it
sailed first to the West Indies and later ingloriously back to France.

In fact the entry of the French into the war, though ultimately
decisive, had a bad effect in the beginning. The Americans, tired of
this war which seemed to have no end, relaxed their own exertions. "Why
should we continue to pour out our blood and money?" they queried. "Let
the French handle the fighting and the matter of supplies from now on."
Accordingly, every request to Congress and the states for men and money
met with lethargy, indifference, and worse.

Washington's little army was in desperate straits. It had no clothing,
little food, and practically no guns or ammunition. Nor could it buy
these items with the Continental currency that Congress generously
printed as fast as the presses could turn it out. The people were tired
of seeing the flimsy paper. From day to day it dropped in value. The
farmers flatly refused to accept anything but gold or silver for their
produce, while the merchants raised the prices of their wares to
astronomical figures to keep pace with its deterioration. By the end of
1779 a paper dollar was worth only two cents in hard cash, and still the
value kept sliding. "It's not worth a Continental" has ever since become
a contemptuous synonym for anything wholly worthless.

Everyone blamed Congress for the financial troubles. Actually it was not
the fault of Congress; it was the fault of the states and of the men who
controlled them. Fearful of a central government and believing that any
further power granted to it would result in loss of power to themselves,
they refused to grant Congress an independent right to raise money by
taxation. They knew that he who controls the purse controls all. Were
they not fighting a war with England on the very ground that no
"foreign" legislature had the right to tax them?

As a result, whenever Congress needed money--and that was always--it had
to go hat in hand to the state legislatures begging for it. And the
states, having financial difficulties of their own, gave very little,
and that grudgingly.

Hamilton knew the problem as well as any man. He was constantly writing
letters, on Washington's orders, pleading for and demanding money with
which to pay the soldiers and to buy supplies. The fault, he saw
clearly, was with the entire setup of the national government under the
current Articles of Confederation. Congress, supposedly representative
of a nation engaged in a war for life and independence, simply had to
have some means of raising money without depending on the promptness of
the several states.

Filled with these ideas, he sat down to compose a long and carefully
thought-out plan for remedying the situation. Signed with a
pseudonym--for he feared a reaction against his chief if his right name
were attached--the document was sent to John Sullivan, a member of
Congress from New Hampshire, who was sympathetic.

The plan was a remarkable performance. Written by a young man of
twenty-two, whose sole acquaintance with the complicated problems of
finance, banking, taxation, and government came from books and his own
reflections, it sprang full-blown as a great economic and political
document.

The chief trouble with the country, he declared, was financial. No war
could be fought without money. And the only way to obtain money--aside
from the temporary expedient of foreign loans--was by taxation. But
Congress had been given no power to tax; instead, it had to depend for
funds on the whim of the constituent states. In addition the country was
poor, so that in its present state even taxation could not raise
sufficient sums to carry on the war.

What then was the answer? Hamilton had it ready, and it became famous in
American history. The only way to raise money for every purpose, he
insisted, was to make it "the immediate interest of the moneyed men to
cooperate with government in its support."

Hamilton was nothing if not realistic. He firmly believed that it was
easier to get men to sacrifice their lives for a cause than to get them
to part with their money. Therefore it was essential to offer attractive
inducements to the "moneyed men" in the form of high interest rates, a
chance for substantial profits on their principal, and an assurance of
reasonable safety for both principal and interest.

The way to achieve this, said Hamilton, was to charter a national bank
for a minimum of ten years, with a capital composed of a foreign loan in
hard cash and an investment of Continental currency by the rich. The
repayment of the latter would be guaranteed by the government in such
fashion that the lucky stockholders would make almost 100 per cent on
their original investment.

This bank would then lend real money both to the government and to
private individuals at good rates of interest, and the ensuing profits
would be divided equally between the government and the stockholders.

It was a clever scheme, modeled somewhat on the existing structure of
the Bank of England, and much later Hamilton was to put into effect the
Bank of the United States organized on similar lines. But the times were
not yet ripe. The "moneyed men" certainly were interested; the majority
of the people, however, who had no money to invest, and therefore could
make no money from the bank, and who saw themselves being eventually
taxed for the benefit of the rich, viewed the idea then and later with
the utmost suspicion. Nor would the states, fiercely jealous of their
local sovereignties, consider the project of a national bank which, they
were well aware, must give large powers to the central government.

Congressman Sullivan, therefore, much as he might privately approve,
decided it would not be wise to introduce the plan in Congress. But
Hamilton then and there vowed that someday his idea of a national bank
must go through.




  _4 Benedict Arnold--Traitor_


The quarters in which Washington's little army finally settled for the
winter of 1779-1780 were much more comfortable than the bleak tents of
Valley Forge of the preceding winter. Civilian patriots from New York
and Philadelphia, with their wives and pretty daughters, visited the
officer corps regularly, and the gallant soldiers responded by
organizing a round of entertainments and balls for their mutual
pleasure.

Hamilton, young, slim, good-looking, with a pleasant manner, as well as
a growing reputation, set many a female heart aflutter. As for himself,
he had begun to think of marriage and, half in earnest, half in jest,
outlined the qualities he required in a wife to his good friend and
fellow officer Henry Laurens.

    She must be young, handsome (I lay most stress upon a good
    shape), sensible (a little learning will do), well bred (but she
    must have an aversion to the word _ton_), chaste, and tender (I
    am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness), of
    some good nature, a great deal of generosity (she must neither
    love money nor scolding, for I dislike equally a termagant and
    an economist). In politics I am indifferent what side she may be
    of. I think I have arguments that will easily convert her to
    mine. As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must
    believe in God and hate a saint. But as to fortune, the larger
    stock of that the better.

While he thus wrote in high spirits of the kind of young lady he would
be willing to marry, he had already met the girl who filled all
specifications except perhaps two: she was pretty but not handsome and
she was sincerely and deeply religious.

She was the daughter of General Philip Schuyler, and accompanied her
father in his frequent visits to the encampment. Schuyler came of an old
Dutch New York family and owned huge tracts of land in the vicinity of
Albany, where he lived in almost feudal splendor. He was a soldier of
distinction, a power in New York politics, and a member of the
Continental Congress.

Elizabeth Schuyler (Eliza or Betsy, as she was more familiarly known)
was a good-natured, lively brunette, and the young officers on
Washington's staff thronged eagerly around her, both for her own sake
and for her father's. But the moment she met the dashing Alexander
Hamilton, she knew that he was the one man in the world for her.

On the other hand, the young colonel, surrounded by a bevy of adoring
young women, danced and flirted with her no more and no less than with a
score of others.

As time passed, however, and he became better acquainted with Eliza and
the old general, his thoughts and attentions turned with increasing
seriousness in her direction. General Schuyler, on his part, was deeply
impressed with the remarkable talents of the young man and found in
conversation that they agreed on the great political and military
questions of the day. Consequently, as the romance unfolded, he viewed
it with the utmost approval.

By spring Hamilton had proposed to Eliza. Having been joyfully accepted,
he sought her hand in marriage in a formal interview with the general.

Schuyler beamed. "My boy," he said fondly, "nothing will give Mrs.
Schuyler and myself greater pleasure than to call you son-in-law. You
have our consent."

"Thank you, sir. May I request then that the marriage take place
immediately?"

The old general shook his head. "That, my boy, will have to wait until
we can do it in proper style at our home in Albany. You see," and his
face darkened a trifle, "our elder daughter, Angelica, ran off to marry
some Englishman, and neither of us was present at the wedding. I need
not tell you how pained Mrs. Schuyler was. I would not wish that to
happen again."

The impetuous lover bowed. "I understand, sir, and shall possess myself
in patience."

    *    *    *    *    *

Thus formally engaged, yet with the wedding date indefinite, Hamilton
threw himself into a dozen schemes for winning the war by making the
government more efficient and powerful in its conduct.

To a good many thoughtful men, particularly among the more
conservative, the Revolution was going badly. The spirits of the people
were at a low ebb, money was not to be had, and the states were
selfishly concerned only with themselves. Whenever Congress sought to
make some positive move, the cry went up that it was seeking regal power
and the states resorted to sabotage.

James Duane, a conservative delegate from New York, discussed the
situation with Washington and Hamilton. So impressed was he by the
latter's concrete remedies that he suggested they be put in writing. He
wanted to show them to his fellow conservatives in Congress and
elsewhere.

Hamilton wasted no time. He retired to his room and set down on paper
his reflections on the state of the country. The pale light of morning
came through the window as his pen finally ceased. His eyes were rimmed
with fatigue, his fingers were cramped, and every muscle cried out for
sleep. Nevertheless, as he snuffed out the candle, he was content. He
knew he had written a masterpiece.

One of his first sentences drove to the heart of the problem. "The
fundamental defect," he declared unequivocally, "is a want of power in
Congress." Give Congress the necessary powers--the power to levy taxes,
coin money, establish banks, regulate foreign affairs and trade, make
treaties--and the nation would proceed to victory. But, he warned, if
you don't, and you continue as thirteen separate sovereign states, each
jealous of the others and of the central government, each unwilling to
cooperate except on its own terms, all of you will find yourselves
shortly back under the tyrannical rule of England.

It was necessary, therefore, to revise the Articles of Confederation.
Congress must be given the right to levy a poll tax, taxes on land, and
duties on imports. The revenues derived would be employed by Congress
for the benefit of all. Only those matters should be left to the states
which relate to the private lives and individual property of their own
citizens.

In addition the structure of Congress itself must be changed to make it
more efficient. It must stop trying to act simultaneously as a
legislative and an executive body. Administrative departments with
strong executives must be set up to handle war, navy, foreign affairs,
and finance.

Hamilton had watched the state militias in action and had nothing but
contempt for them. They served usually for a few months and quit the
moment their terms expired. They were difficult to discipline, and on
occasion refused to fight outside their own state. The only way to win a
war, he insisted, was to organize a regular national army with
enlistments for the duration. Suppose there were not enough volunteers?
Then conscript them.

And, of course, there must be a national bank. This was the keystone of
every system of government that Hamilton was ever to propose. Money was
the motive power that made the wheels go round. And paper dollars, which
in effect are merely governmental promises to pay, have no value unless
the rich, the "moneyed men," are interested in supporting them. How
obtain that interest and support? By giving them, Hamilton said frankly,
a stake in the success of the paper money, that is, a share in the
profits. That could be accomplished only through the agency of a
national bank authorized to issue paper money--a bank in which
government and private investors would be partners.

Hamilton was not interested in the ethics of the situation he described
so cynically. It was a fact of human nature, he was convinced, and the
wise statesman must take advantage of it for the public good. And that
good consisted in the establishment of a prosperous and powerful nation,
ready to meet the entire world on equal terms. If the only way to set up
such a nation was to give the rich a financial stake in its success,
then, so Hamilton believed, it was actually immoral not to give it to
them.

But still the times were not ripe for startling proposals such as these,
though every influential man to whom Duane showed the letter was deeply
impressed with its contents. For they were conservatives and either
"moneyed men" themselves or well disposed to them.

Duane did not show the letter to any radical. That would have caused an
explosion. For the lines of cleavage were already clear. The
conservatives were interested only in a political revolution. Once they
gained independence, they were willing enough to continue the same type
of institutions and government as England possessed, without the king,
of course.

The radicals, on the other hand, demanded a social as well as a
political revolution, though they differed among themselves as to its
nature and extent. Sam Adams and Patrick Henry called for a leveling
democracy; Thomas Jefferson sought to elevate the farmer over the city
merchant and trader; while Governor George Clinton of New York clung
jealously to the rights of the states against any outside interference.

Therefore Duane and his friends reluctantly agreed that it would be
wiser to wait for a more propitious moment before submitting Hamilton's
bold proposals to the public. But they also agreed that here was a
young man who would decidedly bear watching.

    *    *    *    *    *

Meanwhile the war went on its weary way, with the shock of disaster
coming in the South through the defeat of General Gates--hero of
Saratoga--at Camden, in South Carolina. And in the North, at West Point,
a greater disaster seemed in the making; this time not by force of arms,
but by treason! Hamilton found himself accidentally in the midst of it.

The mist lay heavy on the road that early September morning in 1780 as
Hamilton and a fellow aide, James McHenry, of Maryland, jogged into
Benedict Arnold's headquarters on the east bank of the Hudson. It was a
peaceful scene, with only a sentry or two lounging around. Across the
river loomed the strong fortress of West Point, key defense position
that barred British progress to the North.

General Arnold met the two young staff officers. "This is an unexpected
pleasure," he greeted. "Does it mean that General Washington is about to
honor me with a visit?"

The aides dismounted stiffly. They had been in the saddle all the way
from Newport, Rhode Island, where Washington had gone to confer with the
French.

"His Excellency," replied Hamilton, "is following us. In fact he and his
staff expect to breakfast with you later in the morning."

"I shall be delighted to see him," exclaimed Arnold. "Yes," he repeated,
"most delighted."

As he said this, a sinister smile stole over his face. What a wonderful
coincidence! At this very moment Major André of the British army was
riding in disguise down the river with complete plans of the
fortifications and dispositions of the American troops in and around
West Point tucked in his boots, together with a message to Sir Henry
Clinton outlining Arnold's traitorous scheme to deliver everything to
him.

Now, not only could the important stronghold be turned over to the
British, but also the Commander in Chief and his entire staff. Thus, in
one swift blow the rebellion would be crushed, and he, Benedict Arnold,
would collect a fantastic reward for his treason.

Meanwhile, completely unaware of what was passing through their host's
mind, the young officers chatted easily with the smiling traitor and his
lovely wife, the famous Peggy Shippen, of Philadelphia.

While they were engaged in conversation over the breakfast table, a
travel-stained messenger strode hurriedly into the room. "A letter for
General Arnold," he said.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," said Arnold and broke the seal. As his eye
traveled swiftly down the sheets, his face grew pale as death and beads
of perspiration started on his forehead. With an incoherent mutter he
leaped up and quit the room. The young men stared, wondering what bad
news could have affected Arnold so. But Peggy knew. With a quick excuse
of her own, she rushed from the chamber to follow her husband.

Upstairs, in their bedroom, a terrible scene took place. For the
ill-omened letter told that Major André had been captured and the
incriminating documents on him discovered. The jig was up!

Leaving his wife in a faint, Arnold rushed out the back door, mounted
his horse, and rode full gallop down the river to a British sloop,
secretly at anchor, where it had been waiting for the plot to hatch. A
rowboat came at his hail; within minutes Arnold was safe on board, the
anchor was weighed, and the disappointed British and their haggard
American accomplice were dropping down the river toward New York.

In the meantime Hamilton and McHenry, left abruptly alone, did not know
what to make of it all. As they stared uneasily at one another,
Washington and his staff rode up. By this time, however, Peggy Arnold
had recovered sufficiently to send down excuses for their strange
behavior: her husband, she said, had been called suddenly across the
river to the fort, and she had been taken ill.

Suspecting nothing, Washington crossed the Hudson to meet Arnold, while
Hamilton remained behind. It was fortunate he did, for another messenger
clattered up, bearing the incredible news and the sheaf of damning
documents found on André.

As Hamilton, stunned at the implications, was reading the report,
Washington strode into the room. He had not found Arnold at West Point.
Without a word, Hamilton handed him the papers.

It was only too plain. One of the bravest and most highly regarded
officers in the American army had sought to sell out his country for
gold. Only the hand of fate had intervened to save the Revolution.

A vein pumped on Washington's forehead; his face was like a
thundercloud. He gave swift orders. "Colonel Hamilton, Major McHenry,
ride at full speed to our post at Verplanck's Point. There may still be
time to intercept the British ship and seize the traitor."

The young men saluted, swung into saddle, and galloped furiously down
the road. But they arrived too late. The sloop had already passed the
Point and was out of range of the American guns.

Hamilton issued the instruction to General Nathanael Greene to march a
brigade to West Point to secure it against outside attack or inside
treachery. Then he galloped back to find Peggy Arnold throwing a fit of
hysterics, partly real and partly feigned. Always impressionable to
beauty in distress, Hamilton was deeply moved. Like most Americans for a
long time after, he believed her innocent of her husband's guilt and
wrote Eliza about her.

Peggy, he said, was "an amiable woman, frantic with distress for the
loss of a husband she tenderly loved; a traitor to his country and to
his fame. . . . It was the most affecting scene I ever was witness to.
She, for a considerable time, entirely lost herself. The General went up
to see her, and she upbraided him with being in a plot to murder her
child. One moment she raved, another she melted into tears. . . . We
have every reason to believe that she was entirely unacquainted with the
plan."

He might have saved his sympathy, for many years later the truth came
out. Peggy Arnold not only knew every detail of her husband's treason,
but in a sense had put him up to it.

In a different way, Hamilton also sympathized with the captured Major
André. After all, the British officer had done only what any brave man
would have done in the service of his country. Yet Washington was
determined to execute him as a spy. Hamilton sought to intervene with
his chief, but the commander was inflexible: technically André was a
spy--he had gone through the American lines in disguise--and he must be
hanged.

Hamilton watched the gruesome ceremony with bitterness in his heart and
tears in his eyes. He resented his chief's stubborn obstinacy and
lamented André's fate. It was the first rift between the general and his
aide. It was not to be the last.

    *    *    *    *    *

For some time previous, in fact, Hamilton had been discontented. Almost
any other young man would have thought he had reached the heights: was
he not a colonel, the great Washington's personal secretary and right
hand, at the very center of events? But not Hamilton. He passionately
wanted to be a fighting soldier, not a writing one. He panted for glory
and the crash of battle; instead, he composed letters and dealt in
bloodless ink. And he was inordinately sensitive and quick to take
offense. He thought highly of his own dignity and fancied slights where
none was intended. Sometimes, he thought, Washington treated him with
abruptness and discourtesy.

He determined, therefore, to get out of his humiliating position. First
he tried to get a commission in a line regiment. Washington would not
hear of it; he was too valuable in his present post. Next he pulled
wires to obtain a diplomatic mission to France. Congress chose John
Laurens, of Maryland, instead. He then requested the command of a corps
in certain dangerous operations; and Generals Lafayette and Greene
backed him up for the post of Adjutant General. Washington turned down
both applications.

By now Hamilton was thoroughly exasperated. He blamed Washington for his
lack of success and attributed it to ill will. Yet he controlled his
temper, especially since his long delayed marriage to Eliza Schuyler was
near. On December 14, 1780, Hamilton obtained a leave of absence and
went to Albany. There, in the bride's home, the wedding took place with
full pomp and ceremony.

Back in camp again, the newly married man redoubled his efforts to
escape from Washington's official family. He was determined to seize the
first opportunity to do so. The chance came shortly.

He was descending headquarters stairs with an order that required
immediate delivery. He met Washington coming up. The general paused. "I
would like to speak with you, Colonel Hamilton," he said.

"Right away, sir," replied the young man and continued downstairs. He
delivered his order and met some friends, including Lafayette. They
greeted him and he stopped to chat. It was ten minutes before he
ascended the stairs again. At their head waited Washington, face dark
with anger. "Colonel Hamilton," he exploded, "you have kept me waiting
ten minutes. I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect."

This was the opportunity for which Hamilton had waited so long and so
impatiently. "I am not conscious of it, sir," he retorted coldly. "But
since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part."

The startled general answered briefly, "Very well, sir; if it be your
choice."

Then the two men parted, each going to his own room.

On reflection, however, Washington calmed down. He did need this most
impudent young man. He sent another aide, Tench Tilghman, to act as
intermediary. Why not talk it over, he suggested, and settle this
unfortunate difference?

But Hamilton had no intention of talking things over. This was his
chance to escape, and he was ready to make the most of it. He therefore
refused to parley with the chastened general. He would continue
temporarily in his position, he stated, until Washington could find a
replacement. But he wished neither explanations nor a continuance in the
official family.

That night he sent an account of the quarrel to his father-in-law,
General Schuyler. "I always disliked the office of an aid-de-camp," he
explained, "as having in it a kind of personal dependence." And he also
accused Washington of being deficient in "delicacy" and "good temper."

It was an extraordinary situation: the great general cavalierly treated
by a youthful aide. Yet Washington, wiser than the hotheaded young man,
swallowed his pride and anger. In later years he was to raise his once
insubordinate officer to the heights.

    *    *    *    *    *

Now that Hamilton had resigned, he expected no difficulty in obtaining
the active service he craved. Nevertheless, his repeated applications
met with denials, since the posts he demanded would have pushed him
ahead of the regular line officers, his seniors in years and length of
service. He therefore found himself out of the army and out of the war.

He refused, however, to remain idle. He could still prove of service to
his country; ironically, once again with the pen. To Robert Morris,
newly appointed financier of the federal government, he sent a new essay
on an old topic: how to place the shaky finances of the country on a
sound basis.

Twice before--once to John Sullivan and once to James Duane--he had
offered his solution. Now he tried it a third time. Hamilton never
conceded defeat.

Again he proposed a bank as a means of raising money and enlisting the
support of the wealthy. Again he called for a revision of the Articles
of Confederation, to curtail the powers of the states and increase those
of the federal government. There were indeed those, he acknowledged, who
feared to burden the country with a load of debts. "Ridiculous!" he
retorted. "A national debt, if it is not excessive, will be to us a
national blessing. It will be a powerful cement of our Union."

That last quotation became famous. His opponents at a later date were
forever casting it back in his teeth. They sneered, "A national
blessing, indeed! Your rich men may like the idea; but the poor--and
there are many of them--hate it." When the matter came up again in later
years, Jefferson wanted to know why the poor should be taxed. So that
exorbitant interest might be paid to the rich? "No," said Jefferson. "A
national debt is always a national curse, that grinds down the many and
benefits only the few."

One wonders how both these great men would have viewed the enormous debt
load of the United States today.

    *    *    *    *    *

As was everyone else who had read Hamilton's previous proposals, Robert
Morris was greatly impressed by the logic, the vision, and the
practicality of his plan. But, like everyone else, Morris did not wish
to stir up the radicals unduly. Instead of Hamilton's thoroughgoing
scheme, therefore, he set up a much more modest and limited bank--the
Bank of North America. It lasted until the war ended, when it bowed to
the clamor of the states' righters and reorganized itself as a state
bank with a Pennsylvania charter.

More than a decade was to elapse before Hamilton was in a position to
put his own ideas into operation.




  _5 From Soldier to Lawyer_


Now that Hamilton was out of the army, his father-in-law proposed to him
that he employ his talents in politics, arguing rightly that his
services in Congress would at this stage of the game be of more value to
the country than any single military victory he might have been able to
accomplish. In this plea General Schuyler was ardently joined by his
daughter Eliza.

The young husband admitted the logic; but the vision of himself charging
into the smoke of battle at the head of cheering troops could not be
denied. He must, he vowed, at least once obtain that chance before
settling down to the humdrum tasks of civilian life.

The chance came with dramatic suddenness. The war took an unexpected
turn. Washington proposed to attack the British in New York; and Sir
Henry Clinton, in alarm, stripped the army of Lord Cornwallis in the
South in order to defend himself. Thereupon the French fleet under the
Comte de Grasse sailed down to Chesapeake Bay to blockade Cornwallis by
sea while Washington, hastily revising his plans, marched his men
secretly and in haste into Virginia to beleaguer Cornwallis by land. The
startled Englishman found himself caught in a trap at the tip of
Yorktown peninsula, with the French fleet in victorious control of the
sea and a superior French and American force shutting him off from the
mainland.

In Washington's army was Hamilton. The moment he had heard of the
proposed assault on New York, he had delivered a virtual ultimatum to
his former chief--either give me a battle command or I tear up my old
commission. This time the harassed general yielded and, on July 31,
1781, to his extreme joy Hamilton found himself in full command of a
battalion.

The assault on New York did not materialize, and Hamilton sought to
still his impatience on the long march down to Yorktown. But once there,
opportunity beckoned.

On October 14 the combined Franco-American army prepared to storm the
earthworks which Cornwallis had hastily erected. A French force was to
storm those on the left, while an American battalion attacked the right.
Once again, however, fate seemed to intervene between Hamilton and his
thirst for glory. Lafayette assigned the command on the right to Colonel
Barber. Hamilton then sent a furious complaint to Washington, and once
again the commander obligingly yielded.

At six that evening the great moment came. As the French swept forward
on their side, Hamilton's contingent crouched behind their protecting
palisade, ready for the order to charge. Pulses pounding with
excitement, Hamilton waited until he saw the French locked in
hand-to-hand combat with the enemy; then he gave the signal. The
palisade was too high for his five feet six inches; but a soldier
presented his back, Hamilton leaped nimbly up to the top, brandished his
sword, jumped down into the ditch, and raced forward, with his men after
him.

Without a glance backward to see if his troops were following, Hamilton
ran through the storm of shot and leaped unhesitatingly into the moat
that protected the British front. For a moment it was thought that he
had been hit, and his men rushed after him, only to find him waiting to
form them in line for a bayonet charge.

Cheering, they swarmed into the fortification, while another troop
attacked simultaneously on the flank. The outnumbered British hoisted
the white flag, and the position had been taken. Nine Americans were
dead and thirty-two wounded, but the reckless young commander had come
through unharmed.

It was not a great affair, as battles go; but with the capture of the
earthworks, the position of Cornwallis became so difficult that, five
days later, he surrendered.

With the capture of Cornwallis, the war practically ended. Technically,
it dragged on for two more years, but there was little further fighting.
Both sides marked time until the diplomats in Paris worked out the terms
of a peace treaty that ended forever British rule in the thirteen
colonies and prepared the way for the United States of today.

Hamilton's exploit, small as it was, was sufficiently gallant to satisfy
him and calm his thirst for military glory; and the American army
generously applauded its brilliance. He was ready now to return to
civilian life and attempt to make a living.

Back in Albany again, Hamilton considered his prospects. He had no money
of his own, and he was too proud to live on his father-in-law's money.
He therefore decided to go in for law, as both lucrative and honorable.
At all times the practice of law had been a fertile field, but now it
was particularly so. The solid, established lawyers had been largely
Tory in sympathies, and the infuriated patriots, now that victory had
perched on their banners, drove them out of the profession and thereby
created a splendid opportunity for the new crop of patriot aspirants.

The study of law was a simple procedure. One read in the fundamental law
books like Blackstone, diligently digested the reported cases as given
in the English texts, and when one felt sufficiently prepared, went up
before a group of examining lawyers to answer a barrage of questions. If
the examiners certified to the sufficiency of the candidate's knowledge,
he was admitted to practice at the next session of the court.

Hamilton's friend from student days, Robert Troup, was already in
practice and agreed to assist him in his studies. For three months
Hamilton pored over his books with his accustomed fierce energy and
concentration, jotting down the main points and working them into an
outline in order to fix them in his memory. So well did he prepare this
outline that later students borrowed it, made copies, and used it as a
basic practice manual in their own study of the law.

After such concentrated efforts for three months, Hamilton boldly
applied for an examination, passed it with flying colors, and in July,
1782, was admitted to the bar.

But he was not permitted to start practice immediately. Robert Morris,
in charge of the finances of the infant nation, was struggling with an
almost insuperable problem--how to collect from the states their quotas
of the Continental taxes so essential for the continued existence of the
army and the war effort. New York's quota amounted to $365,000, but
everyone knew it would be impossible to extract anything like that. The
question was how much could be obtained? And that, so Morris thought,
depended on the energy and vigor of the state tax collector.

In his dilemma he remembered that brilliant financial plan he had
received from Washington's former aide, Colonel Alexander Hamilton. He
was the very man to browbeat a recalcitrant state legislature into
voting the requisite sums. He therefore offered the thankless position
to Hamilton who, after several refusals, reluctantly accepted the job.

It was, he knew in the beginning, a tough assignment; but exactly how
tough, he did not realize until he came up against the tactics of
Governor George Clinton. That gentleman was a thoroughgoing democrat,
representing the small farmers and the city mechanics. He suspected
every attempt to collect taxes by a power outside the state as a
deep-laid plot by the rich merchants and landowners to create a strong
national government, aristocratic in tone, which would eventually
swallow up the independence of the states.

Fortunately, Hamilton had able assistants in the legislature itself, in
the persons of his father-in-law and other friends who were then members
of it. In spite of Clinton's bitter resistance, Hamilton made a personal
plea to the joint committee of the two houses of the assembly. He was
so impressive in his force and logic that two bills were passed. The
first appropriated about $40,000 to Morris's order, though Hamilton
realized it would be hard, in spite of the legal appropriation, to
collect half that amount. The second--and from the new collector's point
of view, far more important--proposed that a convention of all the
states be called to enlarge the powers of Congress and grant it the
right to lay and collect taxes. Hamilton himself drafted this set of
resolutions. And, so much did they think of the youthful orator, they
elected him as a delegate to the Continental Congress.

But it was easier for the legislature to appropriate money for the
benefit of Congress than for Hamilton to collect it. The amount was
supposed to be turned over from the state's own tax collections by the
various county treasurers, but the treasurers resented the allocations
and preferred to keep the money for their local needs. They put every
obstacle in the way. In vain Hamilton pleaded, exhorted, and threatened;
he could get little or nothing from them. In the end he had to throw up
the sponge and confess failure. New York's total assessment had amounted
to $365,000; Hamilton collected only $6,250 or less than 2 per cent!

Nor were the other states any more generous. For all of them the
assessment had amounted to $8,000,000; the sum actually collected was a
paltry $422,161.63. No wonder Hamilton resigned in disgust and
determined that a way must be found to have Congress lay and collect
taxes, directly, without being helplessly dependent on the good will of
the states.

    *    *    *    *    *

Inspired by his experience, with a grim determination he once more
resorted to his pen. In a series of public letters called "The
Continentalist," he initiated a campaign addressed to the entire nation,
hammering home with all the persuasiveness at his command a single
point: Give more power to Congress!

In his peroration he conjured up a magnificent vision of what America
might be if the people followed his advice, and a dreadful picture of
the consequences if they failed to do so.

    There is something noble and magnificent in the perspective of a
    great Federal Republic, closely linked in the pursuit of a
    common interest, tranquil and prosperous at home; respectable
    abroad; but there is something proportionably diminutive and
    contemptible in the prospect of a number of petty states, with
    the appearance only of union, jarring, jealous, and perverse,
    without any determined direction, fluctuating and unhappy at
    home, weak and insignificant by their dissensions in the eyes of
    other nations.

In further pursuit of the same mighty aim, Hamilton took his seat in the
Continental Congress at Philadelphia on November 25, 1782. At first he
was bitterly disappointed by what he saw. So few members were in
attendance that there was no quorum, and they adjourned from day to day
without doing any business. Elected delegates refused to attend a body
whose decrees had no weight, preferring to stay home and participate in
the work of the state legislatures that did possess power.

Finally, however, a sufficient number to constitute a quorum straggled
in, and Congress got down to business. Hamilton had come prepared with
concrete plans. Every resolution he proposed, every bill he sponsored,
tended toward a single aim--to obtain for Congress the right to levy and
collect taxes. He knew that, once that power was granted, all other
powers of a true government must inevitably follow.

He made the case of Rhode Island his testing stone. That stubborn little
state had refused to follow the reluctant assignment by the other states
to Congress of a right to impose import duties. Since unanimity of all
the states was required, it was essential to swing Rhode Island into
line.

Hamilton did so with a powerful statement which finally convinced the
stubborn legislature it would be prudent to agree. But, as victory thus
seemed at hand, Hamilton's own state, under the influence of Governor
Clinton, reversed its former stand and now revoked the grant. At one
blow, Hamilton's triumph was ground in the dust.

Nevertheless, after the initial shock, he went back to work, using his
pen in private and the floor of Congress in public to push on and on
toward his goal. That vision of a united nation, strong at home and
abroad, never let him rest until it was accomplished. And, in the
process, his name came more and more before the leaders of the country
as a young man to be watched and ticketed for future use.

    *    *    *    *    *

In 1783 the Revolution legally ended. In Paris the commissioners of
England, France, and America finally drafted a peace treaty whose terms
were remarkably favorable to the colonies. It granted them complete
independence, gave them vast, ill-defined territories in the western and
northwestern areas, agreed to evacuate all British troops from cities,
posts, and forts within the area, and forbade the British from taking
with them any property belonging to the Americans--including in the
definition of property, Negro slaves.

In return for these tremendous benefits, the Americans agreed to permit
British merchants to collect debts owed by the former colonists and to
recommend through Congress that the states restore to their former
owners all confiscated British or Loyalist estates.

It was easier, however, to include these last two provisions in the
peace treaty than to have them enforced. The debts to British merchants
were chiefly owed by the planters of the South, and they had neither the
money nor the will to pay up now that the war was over. And they saw to
it that, by and large, their legislatures and courts backed them up,
treaty or no treaty. The same held good for the confiscated estates, now
held by true patriots, who saw no profit in giving up lands and property
they had obtained for a song to owners who had been traitors to the
cause.

But Hamilton was all for the enforcement of these clauses. It was a
matter of good faith and national honor. Besides, the Tories had been
wealthy and conservative, and he foresaw that he would need their
support in his own national program. For their security in any
recaptured holdings would depend on a strong central government, able to
keep down the radical clamor of the poorer classes who controlled the
states.

In spite of his efforts, however, no resolutions enforcing the treaty
clauses could be pushed through Congress in the face of the defiance of
some of the states, and the whole business continued to plague
British-American relations for many years to come.

Disgusted, Hamilton resigned from Congress, went back to Albany, packed
up his wife and infant son, and moved down to the City of New York to
open a law office. As the British army, so long comfortably established
in that city, reluctantly departed, Hamilton and a group of other
patriot lawyers moved in, eager to partake of the lucrative business of
a busy port and a mercantile clientele. Among them were those whose
names came into considerable prominence in the history of the
nation--Aaron Burr, John Jay, Rufus King, Egbert Benson, Robert Troup,
and many another.

Hamilton promptly forged to the head of his profession; only Aaron Burr,
the brilliant grandson of Jonathan Edwards, presumed to meet him on
equal terms. The national reputation which Hamilton had already gained,
his proven eloquence and keen, analytical mind, as well as his close
association with the Schuyler interests, now served him well. Cases and
fees began to pour in.

In the beginning, the chief and most lucrative business came from claims
resulting from the confiscation of Loyalist property. New York had been
particularly bitter about those who had chosen to adhere to the mother
country in the Revolution. For years the city, Long Island, and most of
Westchester County had been in the hands of the British. Patriot
dwellers had been compelled to flee, their property being confiscated,
while resident Loyalists lived in ease and comfort.

Now, with the Revolution won, the victorious patriots exacted their
revenge. Even before the end, Governor Clinton had sworn he would
"rather roast in hell to all eternity than be dependent upon Great
Britain or show mercy to a damned Tory"; while the legislature, in 1779,
had passed a confiscation act, decreeing the forfeiture and sale of
Loyalist possessions. After the war it became even worse, and the
persecuted Tories fled the country rather than face the taunts and
reprisals of the victors.

Hamilton sought in vain to moderate the revengeful spirit of the people.
He had sufficiently shown his own patriotism on the battlefield; with
the war over, he advocated wisdom and forbearance, a decent
forgetfulness of past differences, and a common justice for the future.
His arguments fell on deaf ears for the moment.

He soon had the opportunity, however, to translate them into dramatic
action. In March, 1783, New York passed the so-called "Trespass Act."
Any patriot citizen of the state whose property, during the British
occupation, had been used by another without his permission might now
collect damages from the unlawful user, even though the British had
expressly authorized it.

A case under this act now came up. A widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Rutgers, and
her son had owned a brewery and house in New York City. Being ardent
patriots, they fled the town and abandoned their property when the
British marched in early in the fall of 1776.

In 1778 the British gave a license to two British merchants, Benjamin
Waddington and Evelyn Pierrepont, to use Mrs. Rutgers's premises at an
annual rental. In 1783 the British quit New York in accordance with the
terms of the peace treaty and Mrs. Rutgers took back her buildings.
Pierrepont accompanied the British army to England, but Waddington was
foolish enough to remain. Whereupon Mrs. Rutgers brought suit against
him under the terms of the Trespass Act. She demanded the full rental
value of the premises for the four and a half years of his possession.

She had seemingly an open-and-shut case. The law was clear; the
possession was not denied. She was a patriot and a widow; the defendant
a Britisher. Passions ran high, and suits involving millions of dollars
only waited the inevitable outcome of this one. How dared any lawyer
undertake Waddington's defense? In the face of popular clamor he might
as well shut up his office afterward, if he were fortunate enough to
escape a coat of tar and feathers.

Yet Hamilton did not hesitate an instant. He foresaw the dangerous
consequences of such a gross violation of the express terms of the
treaty of peace and of such continued opening of old wounds between
patriots and former Loyalists. If it was within the power of the state
legislature to pass the Trespass Act, and if damages could be collected
under the act, the states could defy Congress and consider as a mere
scrap of paper any treaty Congress had made. How could any nation exist
under such circumstances?

The treaty to which this country had solemnly pledged itself
specifically stated that all claims for damage arising out of the war
were mutually renounced between Great Britain and America and their
respective subjects and citizens. Therefore, argued Hamilton, the act
was void as inconsistent with the treaty. In so arguing, he laid down a
most important principle, that a treaty ratified by Congress was the
supreme law of the land and that Congress had full power to bind all the
states by such a compact.

This was bold and novel doctrine then. When the case came up for trial
in the Mayor's Court of New York City--with James Duane, the Mayor,
presiding--the room was packed with hostile people who glared at
Hamilton and muttered threats as he dauntlessly argued his points. It
was less difficult, so Hamilton must have thought as he saw the flushed
and angry faces, to stand up to bullets than the passions of one's
fellow citizens. Yet a sense of the justice and future importance of his
position sustained him throughout the proceedings.

On August 27, 1784, Duane read his decision. Once again the room was
jammed with muttering people. Duane actually agreed with Hamilton, but
did not dare say so outright. Therefore he straddled the issue. He
agreed with Hamilton that a treaty ratified by Congress was the supreme
law of the land, but, he added hastily, he had found a technicality to
declare against Waddington. The license which Waddington received from
the British had not been legally proper; therefore Mrs. Rutgers was
entitled to damages.

Even though the widow had actually won, everyone was furious at the
doctrine Hamilton and Duane had laid down. The legislature voted
disapproval of the entire proceedings, and reaffirmed the Trespass Act
in defiance of Congress and the treaty. It was not until 1788 that it
was finally repealed. In the eyes of history, however, Hamilton had won
a great victory, and the Constitution expressly declared with him that
no state could contradict a treaty into which the nation had entered.

    *    *    *    *    *

In the eyes of the radicals, Hamilton had by now definitely proved
himself a conservative, on the side of the merchants and businessmen as
well as the Tories. Party lines were beginning to be sharply drawn. In
New York State Hamilton became the definite leader of the conservatives
and Governor George Clinton, with the newcomer Aaron Burr, was in
control of the radicals.

But for several years the struggle did not burst out into the open in
all its fury. Hamilton busied himself with his law practice and his
growing family, while the country as a whole continued a rather wavering
course under the Articles of Confederation.

It was only an interlude, however. Both sides were getting ready for the
final struggle, to decide what this nation would eventually be. Could it
continue as a loosely bound group of sovereign states, each of which
could bar action by the whole? Could trade and commerce flow smoothly
and uninterruptedly under such a setup? These were questions that
continued to raise their heads and could not be denied.

When battle was finally joined, Hamilton was in the center of it; and
law yielded without a struggle to politics.




  _6 The Constitution Is Written_


The merchants complained that trade was at a standstill and that they
could not collect the monies that were owing to them. The farmers, on
the other hand, who owed most of the debts, insisted that the load was
too great for them to bear and that they could not get enough from their
crops to meet their obligations.

The soldiers, now returned to civilian life, found themselves penniless
and with little room for them in the economy of the country. Their war
services had largely been paid for in Continental scrip--paper promises
to pay. But Congress had no money with which to make those promises
good, and the soldiers, faced with starvation, sold the scrip for
whatever it would bring.

That was little enough, a mere fraction of the amount printed on the
face of the scrip. For only speculators would buy--men willing to take a
chance that someday Congress would be able to meet its obligations. At
the moment, that day seemed far off.

The states, yielding to the pressure of their farmer and debtor classes,
tried to alleviate the situation. Chiefly their method was to print
paper money of their own and place it in the hands of their citizens.
This money, without anything solid to back it up, was declared legal
tender for the payment of debts.

But the merchant and banking creditors did not want it. They knew it had
no real value and that it must soon drop in price when it came to buying
commodities. Therefore, when their debtors tried to force it on them,
they employed every method possible to avoid receiving it. Some, so the
story goes, even went into hiding or fled the state, with their debtors
in hot pursuit to make a legal offer of the discredited paper money.

Another source of trouble was the fact that there was no uniformity in
the laws of the several states and that each state could and did erect
trade barriers at its borders as though it were an independent nation.
Each state also had its own currency, and the rate of exchange varied
from state to state, so that it was a complicated matter to conduct
ordinary trade among them.

The national government was a sorry joke, even to itself. Few delegates
bothered to attend meetings of Congress, and when a law was passed,
hardly anyone paid any attention to it. As Rufus King declared:

    There is no money in the federal Treasury--the civil list is in
    arrear--the troops in service mutinous--the loans abroad
    exhausted--the foreign ministers destitute of funds to draw on
    for their daily support--and the payments made by the four
    Eastern & three Southern States for 15 months past not equal to
    4 thousand dollars.

If the country was to be saved--at least so Hamilton and his friends
believed--something drastic had to be done immediately. Hamilton thought
he saw a weapon at hand. James Madison, of Virginia, at this time also
advocated a strong national government. He had just put through his own
state legislature a call for a national convention to be held at
Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the chaotic condition of trade and
commerce and recommend a uniform system of commercial regulation.

Hamilton did not really believe the convention would initiate any
positive action, but he saw in it a preliminary step toward proposing a
fundamental revision of the entire federal structure. It was therefore
essential to get New York to send delegates and to see to it that the
delegates who were chosen would do as he suggested.

To accomplish this, it was necessary to control the New York
legislature. An election was pending, and Hamilton campaigned vigorously
to elect his friends as members from New York City. His efforts were
successful, and the city representatives at the next session of the
legislature were able to push through an acceptance of the Virginia
invitation, even though Clinton managed to include certain reservations
in the powers granted the delegates.

Hamilton now determined to enter politics openly. As a candidate for
office of assemblyman, he won the seat after a bitter struggle and much
maneuvering of votes. Once in, he had no difficulty in getting himself
selected as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention.

    *    *    *    *    *

Only five states attended the meeting. The others refused, suspecting
that the apparent purpose cloaked something much more drastic than a
mere trade agreement. Hamilton, however, was not discouraged. He had
intended from the beginning to use this convention as a mere instrument
for another call--for a convention of all the states with power to
reconstruct and remodel the outworn Articles of Confederation.

Just as he expected, nothing was done about trade at the meeting. But he
did manage to get the delegates to issue a report recommending another
meeting of the states, this time not only for discussion of commercial
matters but for "such other purposes as the situation of public affairs
may be found to require."

Back again in New York, Hamilton found the whole country alarmed at an
uprising that had taken place in Massachusetts. In that state the
political control had gone into the hands of the eastern seaboard and
the wealthier classes. They passed a tax system which, so the farmers of
the western areas insisted, bore most heavily on them and very lightly
on the eastern merchants. Steps were also taken to enforce collection of
long outstanding debts through the courts, and here again the western
farmers and poor debtors were hit. Judgments were taken, and when, as
was most often the case, the defendant could not pay in cash, his farm,
his house, and his personal possessions were put up at auction and sold.

A flame of revolt ran through the countryside. The farmers and debtors,
headed by Daniel Shays, a former captain in the army, formed into great
bands. Armed with muskets, flintlocks, and scythes, they forcibly closed
the hated courts, burned the records, and stopped foreclosure sales.
They even threatened to march directly on Boston to force the
legislature to do their bidding.

"This is rebellion!" exclaimed the men of property in the state and
elsewhere. "If it is not put down, it will end in chaos and bloody
anarchy!" The militia was called out, young men organized themselves
into companies, and an army marched against the rebels. Shays and his
men were ruthlessly hunted down and scattered, dragged from their hiding
places, and clapped into jail. For a while there was talk of hanging
them, but cooler heads eventually prevailed and a general pardon was
issued.

But the owners of property, the merchants and creditors, and all who
stood for law and order had been badly frightened. The specter of a
social revolution haunted their dreams; and the idea of a strong
national government, possessed of a regular army that could be used to
put down such uprisings in the future, began to loom before them as the
only possible salvation.

It was in this atmosphere of excitement and alarm that the New York
legislature opened another session on January 12, 1787. Hamilton was in
his seat, the recognized leader of the forces that favored strengthening
Congress. Taking advantage of the situation, he introduced his pet
measure--to grant Congress the proceeds of the duties on certain imports
into the state and the power to collect them.

There was little objection to the first section of the bill, but there
was vehement opposition to the second. As both parties in the
legislature were well aware, whoever controlled the collection of money
possessed the power. Therefore, in spite of an eloquent speech by
Hamilton, the Clintonites, holding a majority of the seats, decisively
defeated that part of the resolution.

Undismayed, Hamilton now introduced his second pet measure--the
recommendation that the states call a convention "for the purpose of
revising the Articles of Confederation." Once again the Clintonites
fought him tooth and nail. They knew quite well that this was even more
dangerous than a right of Congress to collect the import duties. For
there was only one direction in which the Articles could be
revised--toward a tighter union and more power in all respects to the
national government.

In spite of this knowledge, however, some of the weaker members of
Clinton's following, who had become uneasy over the outcry directed
against them for their voting down the collection, now deserted him. To
Hamilton's incredulous amazement, the recommendation passed.

The move had been carefully concerted by the leaders in all the states
and, after similar struggles everywhere, with the specter of Shays'
Rebellion haunting them, the legislatures succumbed to the mounting
pressure and voted resolutions like that of New York.

The earnestly desired Constitutional Convention had finally been
achieved.

Three delegates were chosen by New York to attend. Hamilton was an
obvious choice, and could not be defeated. But the Clintonites still
thought to sabotage the workings of the new convention and were strong
enough to force through two of their own men to accompany
Hamilton--Robert Yates and John Lansing. Since the states voted under a
unit rule, these two believers in state sovereignty could always outvote
Hamilton in casting the ballot of New York in the coming convention.

Hamilton was decidedly not happy over the prospect of being thus thrust
into an ineffectual minority; nevertheless, he could comfort himself
that at least a constitutional convention had actually been called and
that he would partake in its deliberations.

    *    *    *    *    *

In May, 1787, the fifty-five delegates from the various states gathered
in Philadelphia. Their instructions had been of the vaguest, and they
had no specific powers of action. Whatever they decided on in the way of
changing the unsatisfactory Articles of Confederation would have to be
referred to the legislatures of their respective states for final
decision.

Yet the fifty-five comprised some of the greatest men and keenest minds
in America. They included George Washington, James Madison, Benjamin
Franklin, Robert Morris, John Dickinson, and others of almost equal
caliber. Not the least of them was Alexander Hamilton.

It was largely a conservative group, in the sense that most of the
delegates believed in the rights of property and in a government that
would protect and foster them. It was weighted heavily with men who
sympathized with the problems of the "respectable" classes--meaning the
wealthy, the merchants, the professional men, and the possessors of
landed estates. Few knew much about the problems of the small farmer and
the mechanic and the struggling little man who was loaded down with
debts that he saw no chance of ever paying.

Almost immediately, the delegates decided that a mere amendment of the
Articles of Confederation would be useless. What was needed was a
brand-new constitution that would create a true national union. Once
this momentous decision had been made, several plans were put forward.

The Virginia plan proposed a national legislature with two houses, which
would appoint the national executive, or president. The legislature
would be empowered to veto any state law which it considered a violation
of the federal constitution, while the president and a federal judiciary
in turn would have the right to veto federal as well as state
legislation. But such a veto could be overridden by a two-thirds vote.
Each state would be given representation in the federal legislature in
proportion to its population or the size of its financial contribution
toward the government. In effect this would mean that the larger and
wealthier states, of which Virginia was one, would run the government.

The smaller states naturally objected to any such plan and brought
forward instead the New Jersey proposal. This called for a single-bodied
legislature in which each state represented a unit and was entitled to
an equal vote. The present Senate of the United States embodies this
idea. Such a congress would be granted certain sources of income, the
regulation of foreign and interstate commerce, and the right to enforce
its own laws. In other words, under the New Jersey plan, the states as
such would be the basis of the new government, and not the people as
individuals.

Hamilton liked neither plan. They would not, he believed, make for a
strong government or a true nation. Of the two, the Virginia plan was
closer to his own ideas, and he therefore proposed that it be amended to
give the president alone an absolute veto over all legislation, federal
or state, that in his opinion was contrary to the constitution.

This power was close to the prerogative of the king of England, and
several delegates pointed out the deadly similarity. Hamilton, however,
was unperturbed. Such a veto, he insisted, would rarely be exercised;
the mere threat of it would be enough. Nevertheless, when the votes on
the amendment were counted, only two ballots besides Hamilton's were
cast in its favor.

Hamilton now realized that his ultrastrong views would never be
considered by the convention. Any constitution that came out of it would
have to be a compromise between two extremes: an all-powerful central
government and a group of essentially sovereign states.

In such a jockeying for position and bargaining in a give-and-take,
Hamilton was temperamentally unfit. He could never bring himself to
compromise--with him it was all or nothing. Furthermore, under the unit
rule of voting, the two other delegates from New York would consistently
outvote him. Therefore, disgusted with the situation, he practically
withdrew from further participation in the convention. In all the
maneuvering that followed, in all the debates that helped hammer out the
Constitution of the United States as we know it today, the man who had
been most vigorous in its initiation took little or no part.

On one occasion only did he return to the debate, and that was to place
himself on record as to the type of government he really wanted.

On June 18, 1788, he rose in the convention to speak. In his hand he
held a sheaf of notes, and his gray eyes were grimly determined. The
delegates leaned forward to listen; they had heard of his oratorical
abilities, and the report had quickly spread that this would be his
supreme effort.

For five solid hours Hamilton spoke uninterruptedly to a hushed
convention. Occasionally he referred to his notes, but chiefly his eyes
swept the assemblage of notables as he ticked off his points. This was
no occasion for mere oratory; he knew that these men could be swayed
only by cold logic and irrefutable facts. His tone was conversational,
but every word was precise.

"This is a serious crisis," he said, "and therefore I must speak. I
disapprove of both plans that have been laid before you. I am convinced
that no mere amendment of the Confederation can answer the purposes of
good government, so long as the state sovereignties do, in any shape,
exist." His lip curled. "What good are the states anyway?" he demanded.
"The loyalties they receive from their citizens ought rather to go to
the nation. They are more selfishly concerned with their own interests
than with the interests of the nation. They serve no useful function;
they are not necessary for commerce, revenue or agriculture; they add
vast and useless expenses to the cost of government. In short, the
sooner they are reduced to purely local units or even abolished
altogether, the better all of us will be."

"But," he continued, "you may ask what do I propose in exchange?"
Hamilton paused a moment, drew a deep breath. He knew that what he was
going to say would bring a torrent of angry abuse upon him, if not from
the men who were there listening to him with the closest attention, then
certainly from the great majority of the people from Massachusetts to
Georgia. Yet he refused to palliate or evade, to say one thing when he
meant another. No one would ever be able to say that he did not know
just how Hamilton stood on any great issue.

"I propose," he began quietly, "a plan of government as closely
approximating the English model as circumstances and the temper of the
people will permit. I don't mind telling you," and his voice rose a
trifle, "that I almost despair of the success of a republican form of
government over so vast an area. I don't see how it can possibly work.
Of course," he shrugged, "I realize that it wouldn't be wise for you
gentlemen to propose a constitutional monarchy. It would be as much as
your political lives were worth. Nevertheless, it is my personal opinion
that the British form is the best in the world, and America would be
infinitely better off to adopt it with such modifications as our
peculiar circumstances demand."

As he made this astounding avowal, an audible gasp rose from the
delegates. A slight smile played over the speaker's lips. "I have here,"
he continued, "a constitution of my own. Oh, I realize most of you won't
like it and that there isn't a chance it will be adopted; but I want to
give you a correct idea of the plan of government I would like to see in
effect in this nation of ours."

The plan was carefully worked out to the last detail. It called for a
two-chamber legislature, the lower house, surprisingly enough, to be
elected by universal suffrage. To make up for this concession to
democracy, however, Hamilton proposed a senate and an executive both
elected for life and chosen indirectly; but the senators had to possess
substantial landed estates to qualify. The executive would appoint the
state governors, and hold an absolute veto over federal and state
legislation.

As he looked around the stunned and silent convention, Hamilton realized
that his plan was hopeless. Yet he sincerely believed that only such a
scheme of government could control and weld a strong union from thirteen
separate states. He was not then, nor ever, a believer in democracy--the
rule of all the people. To him, people in the mass were nothing but a
mob, with all the irrationality and cruelty of the mob. Later, when he
was goaded into indiscreet utterance, he burst out passionately, "The
people, sir; the people is a great beast!"

Today, before this assemblage of his peers, in secret session, he went
almost as far.

"All communities," he asserted, "divide themselves into the few and the
many. The first are the rich and well-born, the other the mass of the
people. The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God;
and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is
not true in fact. The people are turbulent and changing; they seldom
judge or determine right. Give, therefore, to the first class a
distinct, permanent share in the government. They will check the
unsteadiness of the second; and as they cannot receive any advantage by
a change, they therefore will ever maintain a good government."

On this note Hamilton sat down. For a while there was a deathly silence;
then a delegate rose to bring up another topic. No one said a word in
the convention on Hamilton's astonishing proposals; by common consent it
was as though the speech had never been made.

With a bitter smile, Hamilton sat silently through the rest of the day's
session. He was, he thought, an outcast, a pariah, for having dared
speak the truth. The moment the gavel in Washington's hand descended to
announce adjournment, he stalked out alone.

But barely had he reached the outer hall when other delegates hurried
after him. A group surrounded him, wrung his hand. "By God, Hamilton!"
cried one, "that was a great speech." Another chimed in, "You expressed
my sentiments exactly."

Hamilton stared. "Then why," he inquired sarcastically, "didn't you
second my plan?"

The assenting delegate drew back in dismay. "I couldn't do that," he
protested. "It would be as much as my life was worth in my home state."

"Cowards!" muttered Hamilton to himself as he strode solitary to his
lodgings. "They're all afraid of their precious skins. They believe like
me, but in public they mouth and rant about democracy."

The group of well-dressed men stared after him. One shook his head. "A
brilliant fellow, Hamilton, and full of wonderful ideas. But he's too
rash; he has no place in politics."

There was a general murmur of assent.

Shortly after this, Hamilton went home. He was, he felt, of no further
use inside the convention. Outside, however, among "safe" men, there was
missionary work to be done.

About the same time his fellow delegates from New York, Yates and
Lansing, also stalked out. To their radical views, the constitution in
the making was too authoritarian, too much in favor of the rich and
powerful, and too subversive of the states. Someone has sagely remarked
that, when both extremes denounce a measure, it very probably is a good
one.

In spite of the continued absence of the New York delegation, the
constitution making went on, slowly but surely. It was full of
compromises and not wholly satisfactory to anyone. But only such an
instrument stood a chance of success with the great majority of the
people.

Hamilton did not remain altogether away. When the news filtered out that
a final document had been shaped and that it was this or nothing, his
patriotism came to the fore. Any scheme that sought to create a union
was better than the present chaos. He had no illusions; he
predicted--falsely, as events showed--that it would not last over ten
years; but it was worth trying.

He never appeared to better advantage than at this time. Believing as he
did that the Constitution was a "frail and worthless fabric," he
nevertheless returned to the convention to advocate its final passage
and to urge everyone to sign it. "I shall take any system," he
dramatically declared, "which promises to save America from the dangers
with which she is threatened."

So saying, with a bold flourish he signed the document. But some others,
chiefly among the radicals, refused to sign and went back home to lead
the fight against its ratification.




  _7 Ratification_


If there were those who, like Hamilton, did not think the new
Constitution went far enough in giving power to the federal government,
the radicals were convinced it went entirely too far. Such states as New
York, Rhode Island, Virginia, North Carolina, and even Massachusetts
were up in arms. "We did not revolt from the tyranny of England," they
cried, "to fasten on ourselves a new and greater tyranny."

To go into effect, the Constitution required the ratification through
popularly elected conventions of three-fourths of all the thirteen
states--nine in number. The prospect looked gloomy, however, as the
clamor of the radicals and the states' righters rose in denunciation and
wrath.

Hamilton returned to New York to find that state in an uproar. His
fellow delegates were denouncing the Constitution to all and sundry,
and Governor Clinton was beside himself with rage. At first it seemed as
if it could never be ratified. Only the merchants and the rich were in
favor of it; the farming sections, including even the large landowners,
the poor, the settlers on the western frontier, the mechanics of the
towns, were vehemently opposed.

But Hamilton, though himself disappointed in the proposed Constitution,
threw himself with every ounce of energy into the fight. It was no
longer for him all or nothing; it was this or nothing. All the northern
forces for ratification, both in New England and the middle states,
looked to him for leadership in the forthcoming struggle. Similarly,
James Madison worked valiantly in Virginia and the neighboring states.

With pen and tongue, with facts and arguments, Hamilton strove to
counteract the powerful influence of Governor Clinton and his cohorts.
But time was fast running out before the state convention to decide on
ratification was chosen. How best, meditated Hamilton, could he get the
pertinent facts and arguments before the great mass of the people? For
days he wrestled in vain with the problem.

One day--or night--a brilliant idea came to him. He would write a series
of papers--fifty or more--in which he would take every clause of the new
Constitution, examine it in detail, submit it to careful analysis, and
prove by logic that it was the best possible solution for the problem
under the special circumstances of America. His opponents were appealing
to prejudice and emotion and employing invective. Very well, then, he
would write coolly, judicially, and in good temper. Perhaps the people
would appreciate sober logic after the heavy doses of passion and name
calling.

Oddly enough, Hamilton, who said that the people were a "great beast"
and were seldom able to "judge or determine right," was going to appeal
to them as if they were just the intelligent citizenry he had said they
were not.

But time was indeed running short; the job he had set for himself was
too great for one man to handle. He therefore called on John Jay in New
York and Madison in Virginia for help. Both consented; and as a result
the _Federalist Papers_ came into existence.

Hamilton wrote the first of the papers at top speed. Jay wrote the next
four, but found the time element too much for him and dropped out.
Thereafter, Hamilton and Madison shared the honors between them. Back
and forth, between New York and Virginia, without time for discussion
even by letter, the two great men steadily forged the links of argument
and constructed a philosophy of government that has ever since been
hailed as one of the masterpieces of all time in the science and art of
government.

At the moment, however, neither man could stop to consider whether he
was writing a masterpiece. Already the various states were holding
elections for delegates to the ratifying conventions, and the impact on
the voters must be now or never.

Hamilton wrote his _Federalist_ articles at a white heat. Between
interviews with clients and appearances in court he scribbled away
furiously. He barely snatched at meals, and his lamp cast its glow out
into the darkened street until the sun peeped over the eastern horizon
and Eliza awoke to call him to bed.

"You'll kill yourself, Alec," she cried. "Haven't you done enough for
your country?"

"One can never do too much for one's country, my dear," he retorted,
without lifting his head from the sheets. "Besides, if I don't finish
this paper immediately, it won't appear in the next issue of the
_Independent Journal_."

As if to prove his point, a loud knock sounded. Wrapping a robe around
her, Eliza hastened to open. An excited, troubled man appeared in the
dawn light.

"Mr. Hamilton! Mr. Hamilton!" he cried. "My newspaper is already on the
press, and there's a blank space for your next article. Where is it?"

Hamilton looked up, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep. "There," he nodded
toward a mass of manuscript, "is part of it. I'll be finished with the
rest in an hour."

"Too late!" wailed the printer. "My typesetter can't work that fast. I
must have it at once."

"Simple!" smiled Hamilton, nodding toward the wide-eyed little boy who
had accompanied the printer. "Send him back with the finished sheets,
though I haven't had a chance to correct them. Then you can wait here
for the rest."

Eliza threw up her hands and ran from the room. How could her husband
keep up this terrible pace?

He could and did. And when he had finished, praise and wonderment over
the _Federalist Papers_ rose on every hand. Even his opponents gave them
unwilling admiration. No greater argument for the formation of a strong
and durable union, for the Constitution to cement and perpetuate that
union has ever been written. To this day, the _Federalist Papers_ are
quoted by the Supreme Court and in Congress as the great authority on
the subject.

Yet Hamilton knew that the Constitution he so valiantly defended was
not a perfect document. From his point of view it had many flaws. But,
as he wrote:

    I never expect to see a perfect work from imperfect man. . . .
    The compacts which are to embrace thirteen distinct States in a
    common bond of amity and union, must as necessarily be a
    compromise of as many dissimilar interests and inclinations.

He built, however, better than he knew. In spite of flaws, the
Constitution has since created a great nation and proved itself time and
again sufficiently flexible to be adjusted to conditions far different
from those in which its framers lived.

But more than the writing of theoretical papers was required to get the
necessary number of states to ratify the Constitution. It was essential,
of course, to prepare men's minds and sway those who were amenable to
logic. But there were still many whose minds were closed by emotional
blocks or who were honestly convinced that centralization was an evil
and that too much power had been granted under it to a special class. To
overcome such objections, hard, practical politics was essential in the
state legislatures and among the delegates elected to the ratifying
conventions.

Within a few months, five of the states had ratified; but their approval
had been expected. The real struggle was to come in the large states of
Massachusetts, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and New York.
There the opposing forces prepared for battle.

In New York particularly, the situation looked dark for the advocates of
ratification. When the votes were counted in the election for delegates,
it was discovered that the anticonstitutionalists had won an
overwhelming victory--they had seated forty-six delegates as against
nineteen who favored it. They had swept the entire state with the single
exception of New York City, where the merchant class was in control.

An atmosphere of gloom pervaded the Federalist camp; but Hamilton,
studying the returns, refused to despair. "All is not lost," he told
John Jay. "Not every so-called anti is really as extreme in his
opposition as Clinton would like to believe. Most of the delegates
object only because the Constitution doesn't provide a bill of rights to
safeguard personal liberties. If we'll agree to amendments to that
effect after ratification--you know, freedom of speech, press, and
religion, habeas corpus, and so on--they'll come in."

Jay was unconvinced. "I hope you're right, Hamilton. But our old friend
Governor Clinton won't join us because of a bill of rights."

"That's true," admitted Hamilton. "He doesn't want any outside power to
interfere with his control of this state. But I know how to get at him."

"How?"

"He doesn't dare put himself out on a limb. Suppose he forces through
the convention a complete rejection of the Constitution, and nine other
states do ratify, then New York becomes isolated from the rest of the
nation. In fact, I'm going to use that argument as my trump card. They
know we control at least the city. I'll hint to Clinton's followers that
if they refuse to join the Union, the city will break away and join on
its own. Without a port, without the industry and finance concentrated
here, the rest of the state would soon find itself in terrible
straits."

"It's a point," Jay acknowledged. "But would we----?"

Hamilton smiled. "We can say it, can't we?"

    *    *    *    *    *

The convention opened at Poughkeepsie, a little town on the Hudson about
midway between Albany and New York. The inhabitants of the place rubbed
their eyes. They had never seen such a gathering of delegates,
politicians, hangers-on, and curious spectators come to see the
fireworks. Everyone knew it was going to be a battle to the death
between Governor Clinton and Hamilton; not as many knew that the fate of
a nation depended on the result.

The anticonstitutionalists were in high feather, swaggering down the
dusty main street and bragging what they would do as soon as the first
vote was taken. But the leaders on either side did not want an immediate
vote. As Hamilton had justly observed, Clinton did not wish to put
himself out on a limb; while Hamilton for himself knew that a quick
ballot would spell defeat. So both sides were cautious, waiting for
something to break while they jockeyed for position.

"Everything depends on the action taken in the conventions of the other
states," Hamilton told his friend Robert Troup, who had been elected
from the city.

"But it takes so long for news to travel," groaned Troup. "Already
everyone's impatient to get through with the business and go home."

"I've arranged for that," grinned Hamilton. "I've got express riders
stationed all along the way from New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and
Virginia. The moment those states come to a decision, relays will be
pounding the roads to bring me private information."

"You think of everything, Alec," Troup exclaimed admiringly.

"One has to if one wants results."

When the gavel banged to bring the convention to order, Hamilton rose to
his feet to commence a long-winded speech. For days thereafter, he and
his friends held the floor, arguing, attacking, pleading. They did not
really expect to shift any votes; the strategy was to hold off balloting
until those messengers would come galloping down the road with news. But
the days passed, and the oratory became dry and monotonous as the long
street betrayed no sign.

Jay was discouraged. "We can't hold off much longer, Hamilton," he said.
"The antis are getting restless. I understand they intend to press for a
vote tomorrow."

The next day dawned, and another session opened. Hamilton was on his
feet; as usual, talking against time. In the chair Clinton glowered. He
was ready to put an end to these interminable proceedings. His gavel was
poised to cut off the orator and demand an immediate vote. Outside, in
the drowsy street, the noise of hoofbeats suddenly swelled. There was a
long slither, the pound of rapid feet. A messenger, spattered with mud
and wearied with hard riding, dashed into the hall. He brandished a long
envelope at Hamilton. "From General John Sullivan, of New Hampshire," he
panted.

Hamilton opened the enclosure while the delegates gaped. As he read
rapidly down the scrawled lines, a smile broke on his face. "Listen to
this, gentlemen," he called out triumphantly. "On June 21st, in the year
of our Lord, 1788, the state of New Hampshire ratified the Constitution.
Since it was the ninth state to do so, I am happy to inform you that the
United States of America has just been born."

A wild cheer burst from the Federalists; a mutter of dismay from the
antis. Clinton was angry. "If New Hampshire wants to yield her
sovereignty, that doesn't matter to us," he shouted above the tumult.
"New York and Virginia are the two greatest states of all, and they will
stand together. Have you by chance heard from Virginia, Mr. Hamilton?"
he asked sarcastically.

Hamilton was compelled to admit that he had not. He could see that
Clinton's words had stiffened the wavering antis, that they were not yet
ready to give in. Everything now depended on Virginia. Again the days
passed, and still no word from that influential state. Down there, as a
matter of fact, it was touch and go. Madison was fighting as valiantly
and against almost as great odds as Hamilton in New York.

Then, one day, another express thundered into Poughkeepsie. Virginia had
joined the Union! Now only New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island
remained outside.

As Hamilton read the great news to the convention, everyone could notice
the visible change that came over the faces of the delegates. It was all
over. New York must join or be cut off from all her sister states. North
Carolina and Rhode Island were small and uninfluential.

But Clinton was a stubborn man and could still crack the whip over his
followers. He employed every trick in the political bag. No, he
insisted, the Bill of Rights must first be passed. There must be
safeguards against any tyrannizing by the federal government over the
individual. Or, New York might enter on a conditional basis, with leave
to withdraw if the amendments did not go through. Or, New York would
enter the Union for a period of ten years only, to see how it worked.
And so on and so on.

Hamilton was firm. No conditions, limits, or strings could be attached
to entry into the Union.

Ah! thought Clinton. Now I have you. That flat assertion will scare any
hesitant delegate back into line. Now is the time to take a vote.

Accordingly, the balloting commenced on July 25, 1788. John Lansing, an
anti, first put a motion to join the Union conditionally for a term of
years, with the right of withdrawal if, by that time, the amendments
relating to a bill of rights had not been added to the Constitution. The
motion was defeated by a vote of 28 to 31.

The exultant Federalists now took the offensive. They were willing, they
said, to attach a recommendation for the future passage of a bill of
rights to their entry into the new nation, but that entry must be wholly
unconditional. On this basis the delegates voted again. Breathlessly the
crowded hall listened to the slow counting of the ballots. Then a wild
cheer burst forth. The motion had passed by 30 to 27. New York was in
the Union. Almost singlehandedly, Hamilton had performed the impossible.

    *    *    *    *    *

Down in New York City, the news was greeted with joy. The bells rang,
the cannon thundered. A great parade moved slowly up Broadway. In the
post of honor lumbered a huge float that represented a thirty-two-gun
frigate in full sail. Complete with hull and rigging, manned by
thirty-two sailors, and drawn by relays of horses, the craft drew shouts
and applause as it moved along. For on the hull, painted in large black
letters for all to read, was the name _Hamilton_.

Another ship, named the _New Constitution_, followed in its wake, with a
wooden bust of Hamilton as its figurehead. Behind them marched the
military companies in full regalia and long lines of people.

In this fashion did the New Yorkers honor their greatest citizen and
testify their gratitude for his efforts to make the United States a
reality.




  _8 Secretary of the Treasury_


A nation had been born; but as yet it was a nation only in theory, not
in fact. Nothing quite like it had ever been seen on the face of the
earth. Thirteen sovereign states--North Carolina and Rhode Island
eventually came in--were joined together in a federal compact; yet they
had carefully kept for themselves every power that had not been
specifically granted to the federal government in the Constitution.

What had been granted and what had been retained by the states were to
become matters of hot dispute for many years to come. Parties came into
being on the basis of that dispute, and great sections of the country
divided, until the vital issue was resolved once for all in a bloody
civil war.

Most of this was still in the future; but already many of the states had
determined not to yield to the new federal government an inch of power
more than the Constitution specifically granted. At the same time, there
was an equal determination on the part of national-minded men to stretch
the interpretation to the limit of those clauses in the Constitution
which made the grants.

Much depended on the character and make-up of the new government.
Strong, universally respected officials could cement its insecure
foundations and build a solid structure and cooperation out of the loose
bricks of the states. Weak, inefficient men at the helm, on the other
hand, would become mere tools of the ambitious politicians who looked to
the states for their prestige and power.

Everyone agreed that there was only one man in the country who could
properly fill the presidency. That was George Washington. There was no
such agreement on the vice-presidency; but after some debate, John
Adams, of Massachusetts, was chosen for the post.

Washington did not want any office; all he wished, he told Hamilton, was
"to live and die, in peace and retirement, on my own farm." But Hamilton
and others pressed him to accept. "Without you in the presidency,"
insisted the former, "the ship of state is sunk before it has even quit
the port."

    *    *    *    *    *

On April 30, 1789, Washington was rowed in a resplendent barge across
the Hudson to the temporary capital, New York City, mounted the steps of
the Federal Building, and took the oath of office as President of the
United States. An immense assembly of people shouted their approval,
while guns fired a thunderous salute.

But once the tumult and the shouting had died, he found himself
confronted with a host of difficulties. He had to commence a brand-new
government from scratch and start the wheels moving. Every small
administrative detail had to be worked out; even the number and types of
departments to head executive functions had to be planned.

Certain departments, of course, were obviously essential and had already
functioned in the Confederation. Such were Foreign Affairs, Treasury,
and Army. To these was now added the office of Attorney General. It was
some years before a separate Department of the Navy was organized, and
many more before the other departments we now consider as part of the
Cabinet came into being.

For Foreign Affairs (or the State Department, as it eventually was
called), Washington chose Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of
Independence, an active member of the Continental Congress, governor of
Virginia during the war years, and just returned on leave from a
five-year stay in France as American minister. No one doubted his
capabilities or his brilliance.

For War, Washington chose General Henry Knox, of Massachusetts, a sound
if not brilliant Revolutionary commander, who knew something about the
problems of military organization and supplies. For Attorney General, he
selected Edmund Randolph, of Virginia, who, like Jefferson, had served
as governor of his state, knew the law, and had taken an important part
in the politics of his native state.

The Department of the Treasury, however, presented difficulties. It was
agreed that the new nation would stand or fall on the success or
failure of its financial system. Without money to meet at least the
interest payments on the staggering debts contracted during the
Revolution, without funds to pay the ordinary expenses of government,
without the establishment of sound credit at home and abroad, the new
government must soon go the way of the old and the nation break up.

It was logical to offer the post first to Robert Morris, who had been
the treasurer in the time of the Confederation. But Morris refused it
and suggested Hamilton instead. He still remembered that masterly scheme
of reorganization which the then youthful officer had submitted to him.

Washington was secretly pleased. He had given the choice to Morris as a
matter of political logic; actually, he preferred Hamilton. He was too
wise and too great a man to hold a grudge against his former aide for
his petulant treatment of years ago; and he knew firsthand his merits
and his talents. Only a man with Hamilton's bold vision and ability to
deal swiftly with problems could solve the tangled finances of the
country.

For a while Hamilton hesitated. His salary as Secretary of the Treasury
would be a mere $3,000 a year. As a lawyer he could make far more. Nor
did he have an independent private fortune on which to fall back. But a
sense of public duty and responsibility, as well as Eliza's insistence,
decided him to accept. She adored her brilliant husband and was certain
that no task was beyond his powers.

There was some opposition in Congress to his appointment. Certain
members feared his frankly expressed views on the necessity for a
strong, vigorous government, but they subsided for the moment into
mutterings and grumblings. On September 11, 1789, Hamilton began his
duties as Secretary of the Treasury.

    *    *    *    *    *

He was barely installed in office when Congress called on him to furnish
it with a plan for the "adequate support of the public credit."

That such a plan was urgently needed, everyone agreed. Indeed, there was
at the moment no such thing as "public credit," that is, the ability to
obtain loans to the government of the United States from private
individuals either here or abroad. But how to go about restoring or
creating public credit was another matter.

The task of writing such a report might well have daunted a much older
and more experienced man. It called for a thorough grasp of the entire
theory and practice of finance, a knowledge of the nature and amount of
the debts owed by the federal government and the various states, and an
exploration of the means by which they could eventually be paid and
confidence in the integrity of the government restored.

But Hamilton never permitted any problem to defeat him. The greater the
difficulty, the keener and more clearly his mind moved to the attack.
Within days he had assembled a vast array of pertinent facts and
figures, received advice from his friends, and gone to work.

Within ten days he had completed his "First Report on the Public
Credit." Like everything else he did, he had written the lengthy,
bewilderingly complex document at top speed. Like all his other papers,
it displayed no evidence of the fierce pace and nervous energy that had
gone into its making. It was logical, precise, and clear.

What did the debt of the United States consist of? On the domestic side,
it meant monies due soldiers for army service, merchants for goods and
supplies, farmers for provisions. On the foreign side, it represented
the loans which had been subscribed to by European bankers and others
during and after the Revolution.

No one disputed the fact that the foreign debt, with interest, must
eventually be paid in full. Otherwise, the infant nation must declare
itself in bankruptcy and find itself excluded from the money markets of
the world. The big dispute came over the question of the domestic debt.

Here there was considerable room for argument. During those years of the
Revolution, the struggling Continental Congress had paid its way chiefly
by pieces of paper called scrip. These were negotiable--that is,
transferable--and represented promises to pay at some future date in
cash.

Unfortunately, the returned soldiers had to eat in the meantime. They
could not afford to wait for that very indefinite future date. Neither
could many of the smaller merchants and farmers. As the Confederation
got into trouble, and there seemed less and less likelihood that the
scrip would ever be paid, these needy holders decided that a bird in the
hand was worth two in the bush. Therefore, when speculators offered them
hard cash now for their pieces of paper--at a substantial discount, of
course--they were only too happy to sell the scrip.

The result was that more and more of the domestic debt found its way
into the strongboxes of the wealthy and the speculators. They bought it
as low as twelve cents on the dollar and could afford to wait for the
day when the scrip could be cashed at full value. Since they were also
influential, they kept pressing the government for payment and
supported the Constitution and Hamilton's idea of a powerful central
government in the belief that these would hasten the day.

The radicals, however--among whom Madison was now to be
counted--insisted that it was not fair to pay over the full amount to
those who had purchased the scrip from the original holders at a mere
fraction of its face value. To do so, they argued, would reward the
gambler, the stockjobber, and the wealthy, while penalizing the poor and
the deserving. In fact, these latter would be doubly penalized. Not
merely would they have lost the difference, but they would now be
compelled to pay taxes for the benefit of those who had taken advantage
of their need.

Some of the radicals went so far as to demand that the domestic debt be
paid only at the current market price for the scrip and that the
government benefit by the reduction. Others, like Madison, more
moderately proposed that the face amount be divided among the original
and present holders. Give the latter, they said, only what they actually
paid for the scrip and give all the rest to the original payees. In that
way, everyone would get what they were actually entitled to.

But Hamilton from the very beginning set his face like flint against any
and all of the plans proposed by the radicals. The debt of the United
States, he declared in ringing tones, was a debt of honor and the price
which we had paid for our liberties. It must be met in full. Nor could
we make any distinction between past and present holders. Congress had
said in the beginning that the paper was negotiable, that it could be
bought and sold. Otherwise, it would have had practically no value at
all. As a result, people had purchased it in good faith and were now the
legal owners.

To attempt to go behind the present legal ownership, he continued, and
differentiate between holders would fly in the face of all law and
usage, ruin the credit of the country, and be even unjust to the paper
holders themselves. How, he asked, was it possible to arrange sets of
payments to holders past and present? Much of the paper had passed
through several hands at different prices; it was impossible to
determine exactly who had owned it at what times and what they had paid
for it. Don't you see, he exclaimed, what a mess would result and what
room it would leave for endless claims and disputes?

The same arguments held good for the state debts. These also consisted
of promises to pay by the states for services rendered during and after
the Revolution. Under the Articles of Confederation these debts were
supposed to be met by the states themselves. But, argued Hamilton, they
too had been for the general cause and to meet the expenses of the
Revolution. They should therefore be assumed by the national government
and paid in exactly the same fashion as the Continental debt.
Furthermore--and this was an argument Hamilton was careful not to use
too much in public debate--if the states continued to be responsible,
they would have to lay heavy taxes on domestic items like land and
whisky and would vigorously oppose a double tax on them by the national
government. But Hamilton had already included such direct taxes,
particularly on whisky, as an integral part of his own scheme of
revenue.

Having thus to his own satisfaction settled the question of payment in
full and the assumption by the national government of the state debts,
the next step was to solve the problem of how they were to be paid. This
was certainly not simple. The total ran to about 85 million dollars, a
staggering sum for a tiny nation still unsure of itself and without
money or an industrial economy on which to draw.

Yet Hamilton faced the issue boldly and confidently. He was sure of the
essential soundness of the nation and its future prosperity if only a
firm government continued to hold the reins and there was external peace
for a long enough period so that commerce and industry could grow
unhampered. He foresaw that the debt, and even a greater one, could be
taken in its stride by an expanding America. And he believed that such a
debt, instead of sinking the country as his opponents feared, would
actually be a bond by which it would be held together. For the new
holders of this debt, under his scheme, would be wealthy men who had
surplus funds to invest. With these new promises to pay in their
pockets, it would obviously be to their interest to ensure that the
nation continue to exist and remain solvent; otherwise their investment
would go up in smoke.

With such ideas in mind, Hamilton proposed that all the old
scrip--Continental or state--be called in and that new bonds or stock
guaranteed by the United States, bearing an attractive rate of interest,
be sold to the general public to pay for it. Such a method of issuing
bonds in exchange for the old certificates of indebtedness was called
"funding the debt," and the method by which Hamilton worked it out
became known as his "funding system."

How pay the annual interest on these new bonds and meet the principal
when it came due? Levy taxes, said Hamilton. Place an import duty on
most articles from abroad; exact from each ship trading in our harbors a
charge based on its gross tonnage; and put an excise, or internal, tax
on items like whisky distilled at home.

Hamilton expected to appear before Congress in person to explain his
propositions and to meet questions and objections raised from the floor.
But the radicals raised a clamor about it as an attempt to influence
their debate, and the idea was voted down. Instead, the written report
was submitted to the House and referred to a select committee of its
own.

By voting down Hamilton's offer to appear in person, the whole future
course of the nation was determined. Had it been accepted, we might have
had today something like the responsible cabinet government of England,
where the ministers must appear in Parliament to explain and defend
their actions and are thereby subject to its control. As it now stands,
the members of the Cabinet are responsible only to the President. Thus
Congress did the very thing it had sought to avoid--it strengthened the
executive branch of the government.

    *    *    *    *    *

While Hamilton's report was in the making, and before it had been laid
publicly before Congress, there was a sudden surge of activity in the
trading of scrip, and the price began to soar. There were those in
Congress who saw a connection and angrily accused Hamilton of having
given advance information of his proposals to friends who thereby stood
to make a fortune. For the report called for payment of the scrip at
face value. The current market price was around forty cents on the
dollar. Those in on the secret, therefore, could more than double their
money in a very short time.

Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania--a fearless, plain-spoken,
rough-and-ready backwoodsman--literally scorched the pages of his
journal with his blistering comments. "This business," he wrote grimly,
"will, I think in all probability, damn the character of Hamilton as a
minister forever."

Certainly there was an increasing number of opponents to Hamilton and
his policies who tried their best to "damn" him forever. The chorus rose
that Hamilton deliberately handed out state secrets to friends,
relatives, and political cronies by which they could benefit financially
and that, in return, they formed a "political phalanx" of followers in
Congress and out to further his policies and do his bidding.

There is no real evidence to prove these charges in so far as Hamilton
personally is concerned. Yet there is evidence that his assistant in the
Treasury, William Duer, of New York, used the information he gained by
virtue of his position to speculate profitably on his own and to hand
out tips to commercial friends. Hamilton himself never made a penny on
matters of which he possessed advance knowledge, and it is certain that
he left the Treasury a poorer man than when he entered it.

On the other hand, it cannot be denied that he was not unduly disturbed
that men of wealth were in a position to make more money as a result of
leaks from his department. From his point of view, the more the rich
invested in the debt of the United States, the more they would support
the government which had to repay it.

But such a philosophy only infuriated the more those who thought
corruption to be corruption, no matter what its ultimate goal, and who
now began to view with considerable alarm the whole drift of Hamilton's
plans. Reports of fast ships sailing south and faster horsemen spurring
into the remote backwoods, commissioned by northern speculators and
congressmen to buy up the paper held by people who had not yet heard of
Hamilton's funding scheme, only added fuel to the wrath of the
righteous.

"My soul rises indignant," thundered Jackson, of Georgia, to a crowded
House, "at the avaricious and immoral turpitude which so vile a conduct
displays."

As he spoke, he turned pointedly to certain members of Congress who
everyone knew, or thought they knew, were speculating in the scrip.

Nevertheless, in spite of the opposition of men like Jackson, Madison,
and Maclay, in spite of the rising tide of indignation in the country,
the funding of the national debt as proposed in Hamilton's report was
pushed through both branches of Congress and became law.

    *    *    *    *    *

With the first great section of his plan thus swiftly put into effect,
Hamilton immediately moved to obtain a similar approval for the second
part: the assumption by the national government of the debts of the
various states and their inclusion in the common national debt.

At first glance, it might be considered that there would certainly be no
trouble in putting this through, that the states would be only too happy
to unload their burden of debts on the national government. But there
was more to it than met the eye.

Hamilton was frank enough in stating his purpose: first, he wished to
have a single national debt so that uniform national taxes might be
levied to pay it; second, that the great number of state creditors might
have an equal interest with the national creditors in the perpetuation
of the Union.

The states, on the other hand, realized only too well that such a
shifting of the debt would weaken their own position with respect to the
federal government and that the old adage "Beware the Greeks bearing
gifts" applied squarely to this particular proposition. Had they been
unanimous in opposition, they could easily have defeated the assumption.
But they were not; and for this too there were good reasons.

The New England states, for example, were staggering under heavy war
debts which they had so far done little to pay off and were therefore
eager to transfer the burden to the nation. The southern states,
however, were in a different situation. Georgia's war debt was small,
and she saw no reason why her citizens should later be taxed by the
federal government to help pay the larger debts of the other states.
Virginia, whose debt had truly been large, had managed to pay off most
of it and now humanly resented being taxed for the benefit of states
like Massachusetts which had made no such effort. And there was another
complication. Most of the state debts had fallen into the hands of
northern speculators, purchased from the original holders at a heavy
discount. Why, argued the South, should we bring the value up to par, at
a heavy cost in taxes to ourselves, merely to enrich these vultures who
had taken advantage of the needs of our citizens?

It is obvious, therefore, that there were good arguments on either
side; neither had a monopoly on truth or justice. Yet in the long run,
and in spite of current injustices, Hamilton was right. If a nation was
ever to develop from a loose association of states, each primarily going
its own way and consulting its own interests, a cement of union had to
be discovered and applied. And, for good or ill, a financial cement,
compounded of a common fund, a common debt, and universal taxes
uniformly applied, is the most durable of all.

If the struggle over the funding of the national debt had been bitter,
the fight that now raged over the assumption of the state debts burst
all the bounds of passion. In Congress opposing members shouted insults.
Outside, men spoke openly of corruption on the one hand and the breakup
of the Union on the other.

On April 12, 1790, the plan of assumption was put to a vote in the House
and went down to defeat by a margin of two votes.

Hamilton was stunned. All his plans were now disorganized. What was
there left for him to do? He shut himself up in his room and
concentrated on the problem. Only two votes short! Actually, he needed
more because absent members of Congress were hurrying to New York to
join in the epic struggle. For the hundredth time he counted his
supporters in both chambers of Congress. Five additional votes were
necessary in the House, and a single one in the Senate. Where could he
get them?

The hours passed. Eliza knocked timidly on the door. "It's after
midnight, Alec," she said anxiously. "Please go to bed."

But he made no move. Then, suddenly, he snapped his fingers. "Now why
didn't I think of that before?" He flung open the door, called upstairs.
"Eliza!" His voice was gay. "It's amazing what a little hard thinking
will do. I've just solved my problem."

"Then come to bed at once," she replied with pardonable wifely
exasperation.

    *    *    *    *    *

The next morning, bright and early, Hamilton dressed and hurried down
Broadway to within a block of President Washington's house. He looked at
his timepiece. It was almost 9 a.m. Ordinarily, the man he was waiting
for should have been here by now, coming down the street with that
loose-limbed swing of his. No one could mistake the tall, rather
gangling gentleman with the reddish-sandy hair, the mild, open
countenance, the gray eyes, and the clothes that still bore the impress
of Paris upon them.

Ah, there he was! Hamilton hurried forward, hand outstretched. "What a
coincidence, Mr. Jefferson!" he exclaimed. "I was just thinking of you.
Where are you going?"

Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, paused in his stride. "To the
President, of course," he replied. "Aren't you in attendance on him this
morning, Mr. Hamilton?"

"Later! Later!" Hamilton, short, erect, took the tall man's arm. "I am
in terrible trouble, sir," he said with a great sigh and a tragic
expression on his face.

Jefferson stared down at his companion in alarm. "Mrs. Hamilton----the
children----"

"No, thank God! Yet this is almost worse. You know, assumption was
defeated yesterday."

"Oh, that! Well, I don't know. My fellow Virginians feel pretty strongly
on that subject. Madison says----"

"That's just it," Hamilton broke in eagerly. "Madison says, and everyone
follows obediently. You've been in France for quite a few years, so you
don't know in what a state this country is."

"That's true," Jefferson admitted. "Nevertheless----"

But Hamilton was hurrying on. "If you knew what I knew, Mr. Jefferson.
Should assumption fail, the Union is at an end. I saw the members of the
New England delegations last night. They're boiling with rage. They
swear they're going home and tell their constituents that the South, and
especially Virginia, doesn't care whether the North goes into bankruptcy
or not. They're going, so they say, to call for state conventions to
secede from the Union."

"Oh, they can't do that. The Constitution----"

"They claim it's the South that's tearing up the Constitution. Now,
look, we're both members of the government. We can't stand by and see
the nation we both worked so hard to build breaking up before our eyes."

"I suppose you're right," said Jefferson somewhat doubtfully. "But the
southern states feel that the North has been getting the best of things
so far."

"Oh, you mean the permanent capital of the United States," exclaimed
Hamilton. This was the point to which he had been leading up all the
time.

Jefferson was taken aback for a moment. "Well, since you mention it, I
suppose that's a major item in their thinking," he agreed. "The
temporary capital is in New York, and you easterners want it to remain
here, while the Pennsylvanians are insisting that Philadelphia or some
other spot in that state be chosen. We would like it on the Virginia
border. That's the central location of the country, you know."

Hamilton pretended deep thought. The game was in his hands. "Suppose,"
he said finally, "I promise that enough friends of mine in Congress will
vote for placing the capital where you want it; would some of your
friends vote for assumption?"

"Hmm!" Jefferson studied the idea. "I'm really a stranger to the
political scene here, but----" He broke off. "Suppose I arrange a little
dinner, Mr. Hamilton, with you and some of my friends present? You can
tell them just what you've been telling me."

Hamilton wrung the tall man's hand. "Name the place and the time, and
I'll be there."

As he watched the gangling Virginian mount the steps of Washington's
quarters, he chuckled to himself. He knew now that assumption was as
good as passed. "What do I care where the capital is," he thought
scornfully, "as long as there's a nation to support it?"

    *    *    *    *    *

The dinner was held, and the deal was made. The necessary number of
southern congressmen gave their votes to assumption, while a sufficient
number of northerners agreed that the new capital would be built on the
banks of the Potomac--later to be called the city of Washington. In
order to placate the Pennsylvania delegation, it was agreed that first
the temporary capital would be moved from New York to Philadelphia,
there to remain for ten years, until the permanent capital was built and
made ready for occupancy.

But Jefferson was later to regret bitterly that deal into which he had
been drawn. As Hamilton's policies continued to unfold, he began to
realize that there must be war to the death between his beliefs and
Hamilton's. To him it was essential that the country remain a nation of
small, sturdy, and independent farmers, a nation where personal liberty
was primary and there would be no government supervision of or
interference with the lives of the people, a nation where the common man
would rule and democracy flourish.

Hamilton, on the other hand, believed that a nation devoted almost
wholly to agricultural pursuits could never be anything but weak and
powerless, the prey of the great empires of the world. Only
industrialization and the growth of manufacturing could create strength.
As for democracy, he had no great admiration for the common man nor a
belief in his wisdom and judgment. To be governed properly, he thought,
a country must be ruled by the rich and the well-born. They were
necessarily better educated, more intelligent and, from sheer
self-interest, would always stand for order and stability as against
chaos and anarchy.

With two such diverse views, it is no wonder that Hamilton and Jefferson
must someday come to a dramatic head-on collision.




  _9 The Bank at Home and Convulsions Abroad_


Late in 1790 the temporary capital, as had been arranged, was moved from
New York to Philadelphia. Hamilton was barely settled in his new
quarters when he commenced working on the third section of his
tremendous scheme to place the nation on a sound financial basis.

Ever since he had been a youth of twenty-two, he had considered a
national bank, partly governmental and partly private, as necessary to
public welfare. It was the Bank of England, he was convinced, that had
been primarily responsible for that country's rise to greatness; and the
United States must follow suit if it expected to become equally great.

On December 14, 1790, he laid a complete scheme for such a bank before
the House of Representatives. In essence it followed the lines of his
recommendations of previous years, but with the difference that he was
no longer an obscure, if brilliant, young man. He was Secretary of the
Treasury and recognized by friend and foe alike as one of the most
influential leaders of his time.

His plan called for a bank capital of 10 million dollars divided into
25,000 shares of stock. Of these the government would take 5,000 shares;
and private individuals would subscribe the rest. There would be
twenty-five directors to manage its affairs, only five of whom would
represent the government's interest. Hamilton strongly was of the
opinion that the bank must not be made into a political football, that
only a sense of private interest and ownership could be relied on for
careful and wise administration. Another point of interest--and one
which Hamilton planned to ensure that people would be eager to purchase
the governmental bonds which had been issued to pay off the scrip--he
provided that only a quarter of the subscription price for the bank
stock should be paid in cash; the other three-quarters was to be paid by
depositing bonds to that amount.

The bank was given the power to issue its own notes for general
circulation as money, up to a certain amount in excess of its assets,
while the government was authorized to borrow sums from time to time
from the bank in an amount not to exceed its own investment, that is, 2
million dollars. Otherwise, the bank was to operate like any private
bank.

The whole plan seemed dry and technical, and not worth any particular
fuss. Yet no measure offered by Hamilton during his entire tumultuous
career raised such an immediate passion of opposition. The battles over
the funding of the national debt and the assumption of the state debts
were pink teas compared to what now took place.

Several great principles were involved. In the first place, the average
farmer, planter, and mechanic--all, in fact, who were not
businessmen--mistrusted and hated banks. Their sole contact with them
was when they had to borrow money to live on or to pay off old debts, at
a pretty steep rate of interest. Since they rarely realized enough cash
from the sale of their farm products or their personal services to meet
the interest charges, or the principal when it fell due, the amount they
owed would steadily snowball in size. The unfortunate debtors would find
themselves working all their lives--at least so they claimed--for the
benefit of shrewd, hardhearted financiers who did nothing but sit back
and collect interest on their money.

In the second place, nothing specific had been said in the Constitution
about the power of the federal government to charter a national bank.
How then was that precious document to be construed? Was it to be
considered as a strictly limited instrument, granting no powers whatever
to the national government that were not specifically mentioned in it?
Or was it to be considered more broadly, as containing certain implied
powers which might be spelled out from the general clauses or even from
a consideration of the nature of government itself?

If the so-called "strict constructionists" won this particular battle,
then the national government must forever be hampered in its operations
and the states must remain the ultimate sovereigns. If, on the other
hand, the upholders of implied powers were victorious, then the
Constitution could be made into a flexible instrument whereby the
central government would necessarily find new sources of authority as
the need developed and eventually triumph in the struggle for
sovereignty over the states.

Therefore it was not only the immediate question of a bank or no bank
that was involved, but also the larger and more tremendous issue of
where sovereignty must eventually lie--with the nation or with the
states?

Both sides were thoroughly aware of the implications of the struggle,
and found in it the all-important issue on which to form political
parties as we know them today. The conservatives, the men of property,
the merchants, the businessmen, and many of the large planters who
treated their estates as businesses, wanted the Constitution to be
interpreted "liberally." Hamilton was their leader and they became known
as the Federalist Party.

The small farmers, the mechanics in the cities, the believers in a wide
democracy, all who feared that a strongly centralized government might
lead to tyranny and a return to a monarchy, demanded that nothing be
read into the Constitution that was not there in black and white.
Jefferson became their leader, and they went under the name of
Republicans or Democratic-Republicans. In later years this was shortened
to Democrats.

Now, with the lines clearly drawn between two theories of government,
Hamilton and Jefferson began their great feud. They fought one another
in the Cabinet, in Congress, and in the public press. In the heat of
battle they called each other names and accused one another of ambitions
and ideas that were, to say the least, exaggerated. From friendly
acquaintances they turned to the bitterest of enemies. Jefferson thought
that Hamilton was trying to change the United States into a hereditary
monarchy. Hamilton believed that Jefferson was a dreamer, a radical, and
a leveler. Neither one really understood what the other was trying to
do.

After a bitter struggle, Hamilton's forces managed to push the bank bill
through both branches of Congress, in spite of loud cries that it was
unconstitutional.

When the bill came to President Washington for signature, however, he
was troubled. Was the bank authorized by the Constitution or not? He
sought the opinions of his Cabinet. That body of advisers divided in
accordance with their political beliefs. Hamilton and Knox said it was;
Jefferson and Randolph declared it was not.

Both Hamilton and Jefferson submitted written opinions. These were
powerful statements of their points of view. Washington was convinced by
Hamilton's arguments rather than Jefferson's, and signed the bill. The
doctrine of implied powers, as stated by the former, became thereafter a
part of constitutional law and was later quoted as such by Chief Justice
John Marshall in a series of important decisions.

The importance of Hamilton's victory cannot be overestimated, for it set
the nation firmly on the path which we today, more than 150 years later,
are still traveling. Had Jefferson won, it is difficult to see how a
strong, united nation, capable of withstanding stress and strain, could
ever have developed. In fact, when Jefferson himself became President,
he found that there were occasions when it was necessary for him to
close his eyes to evasions of a truly strict interpretation of the
Constitution.

    *    *    *    *    *

Hamilton was not a man content to rest on his laurels. No sooner had he
placed a firm foundation under the nation's financial structure than he
turned his attention to what he considered the keystone of his
system--the encouragement and promotion of industry and manufacturing.

Unlike Jefferson, who firmly believed that an agricultural society was
the purest and most natural form, Hamilton pinned his faith on a nation
in which great cities and belching chimneys produced a never-ending
supply of manufactured goods.

No country, he declared, could ever be prosperous on agriculture alone.
A nation of farmers who had to import every plow, every stitch of
clothing that could not be made in the home, every pot and pan, every
tool would soon find itself helplessly dependent upon the whims or greed
of other nations. Let us meet them on equal terms, he insisted; let us
have the means of independence.

The industrial revolution was just commencing in England, and Hamilton
read the signs correctly. In a world of competition and grasping for
power, any country that refused to industrialize itself would soon find
itself out of the race and a victim of those that did.

But the United States was as yet primarily an agricultural country. The
small industries that did exist could not compete even in the domestic
market with the more advanced industries of England. Therefore, proposed
Hamilton, let us encourage the establishment of manufacturing at home by
granting liberal financing help to get them started and enacting a
protective tariff to keep out foreign competition thereafter.

He stated these observations and the proposed remedies in a long and
famous "Report on Manufactures" which he submitted to Congress at the
end of 1791. But the lawmakers were not ready for such a comprehensive
scheme and the large sums of money it would require, while the
Republicans saw in it the deathblow for their own philosophy of
government and way of life. The report was therefore pigeonholed.

Defeated in his attempt to obtain government aid for industry, Hamilton
tried another tack. His busy mind evolved a scheme for a great,
privately supported society to promote manufacturing in this country. If
he could get adventurous, profit-seeking investors to subscribe a
million dollars, he thought, the society could proceed with the
manufacture of paper, sailcloth, stockings, blankets, carpets, shoes,
cotton goods, and a host of other essential items that were then largely
imported from England.

He wrote and distributed an explanation of his plan in the best and most
flamboyant modern advertising technique. Within a remarkably short time
he had obtained promises of $250,000 from eager investors who had
confidence in Hamilton. Thus armed, he drew up a charter of
incorporation with extensive powers to the new company and persuaded the
New Jersey legislature to adopt it in November, 1791.

The Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (or "SUM" as it came
familiarly to be called) commenced operations at the falls of the
Passaic River--the present site of the city of Paterson. Buildings were
erected, machinery was ordered, and workmen and superintendents were
hired.

But the glowing dream soon faded. For one thing, it was difficult to
obtain skilled workmen who knew machinery and the methods of production.
It is true that England had them, but she was smart enough to hold on to
them and made it a criminal offense for anyone to lure them out of the
country. Hamilton disregarded the law and sent agents abroad to offer
attractive inducements, but with little success.

Worse still, one of the directors of SUM was William Duer, Hamilton's
friend and former assistant in the Treasury. But Duer's tips to
speculators about Hamilton's proposed policies had raised such a storm
that Hamilton had been compelled to "accept" his resignation. Once again
a private citizen, Duer continued his off-color enterprises, with the
ultimate result that his speculations became so complicated and so shady
that the structure now collapsed with a resounding crash. Thousands of
gullible little people had been taken in by his reckless promises, and
they saw their life's savings vanish into smoke.

Duer went to jail, but that did not restore the lost monies. One of his
chief creditors, in fact, was the SUM. Duer had not hesitated to use its
funds in his own enterprises, nor could the commingling ever be properly
untangled.

The fall and bankruptcy of Duer toppled other businesses like a house of
cards, and panic and depression followed. Hamilton tried heroically to
stem the tide of disaster, but it swept beyond his control. SUM, to his
bitter regret, was forced to give up all its projects and content itself
with remaining a mere landholding corporation. As such it existed until
recent years, when the State of New Jersey finally purchased its last
charter rights.

    *    *    *    *    *

What Jefferson and his followers had predicted now actually came to
pass. A mania for speculation had seized the country as a result of
Hamilton's most successful policies. It began with the rush to deal in
the scrip when he first proposed to fund it at par and had increased
when he put forward his plan for a national bank. Rights merely to
subscribe to its stock passed rapidly from hand to hand, each time at a
large increase in price, until they reached enormous figures.

Everyone rushed to get in on the easy money. The butcher, the baker, the
candlestick maker, the widow with her mite, and the soldier with his
service bonus--all were seized with the universal get-rich mania. And,
like all small people in every clime and time who try their hands at
speculation, they got burned.

For the moment, however, the profits--on paper--were enormous. Warnings
went unheeded. "It has risen like a rocket," cried the New York _Daily
Advertiser_. "Like a rocket it will burst with a crack and down drops
the rocket stick. What goes up must come down--so take care of your
pate, brother Jonathan." But no one paid any attention to the advice.

Hamilton was himself uneasy over the orgy of speculation, and tried to
stop it. As he explained to his friend Rufus King, "A bubble connected
with my operations is of all the enemies I have to fear, in my judgment,
the most formidable."

He sought to support the price of government bonds and even to help Duer
when he crashed. But his help could only be a drop in the bucket. The
bottom suddenly dropped out; there was a wave of bankruptcies; the small
fry were wiped out; and a great cry rose for Duer's blood and, by
implication, for Hamilton's.

As we have said, Duer went to jail; but Hamilton managed to weather the
storm. In spite of gossip and open accusations that he had been directly
involved in Duer's manipulations, the only thing that could be proved
was that, at worst, he had been unwise in seeking to save his former
assistant and friend from the consequences of his criminal folly.

    *    *    *    *    *

The enmity that had existed in principle between Hamilton and Jefferson
now became personal as well as political. Step by step Jefferson had
watched Hamilton's policies unfold and achieve success. They went
counter to everything in which Jefferson believed; yet Washington, as
President, seemed more and more inclined to take Hamilton's side on
every issue. Jefferson fumed and fretted but temporarily held his peace.

Then Hamilton poached on Jefferson's private preserves--the official
conduct of foreign relations; and the fat was in the fire. France, our
ally during the Revolution, was now in the midst of her own and far more
thoroughgoing revolution. In the beginning most Americans hailed it with
delight, thinking it would be a moderate one like their own. They were
soon disabused. As the wave of revolutions swept over Europe, encouraged
and supported by the French armies, it proved to be a social and
economic as well as a political upheaval. And, since it set class
against class within each country, the struggles were bitter, ruthless,
and bloody. The Continent became a battlefield of arms and ideas, with
France rallying to her support the republican and radical forces, while
England rapidly assumed the leadership of the conservatives.

Something of the same feelings that affected Europe found echoes in
America. By and large the common man, the small farmer, and the artisan,
the followers of Jefferson, favored the French; the merchants, the great
landowners, and the rich, under Hamilton, took the part of England.

The split coincided generally with the new division into parties of
Republicans and Federalists. Old World hatreds were transported bodily
to the New World. The Republicans wore the French colors on their hats
and shouted the slogan "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity." They hailed
every French victory with cheers, and every defeat with a groan. They
formed "democratic" clubs in imitation of the French revolutionists and
held somewhat pompous secret meetings. They greeted one another in the
streets and in their letters as "Citizen" instead of plain "Mister."

The Federalists, on the other hand, viewed the course of the French
Revolution more and more with horror and turned instead to the British
system as one of law, order, and respect for property rights. They
accused the Republicans of attempting a similar anarchy here and
sincerely believed that the so-called "democratic" clubs were intended
to initiate a French-type revolution in the United States.

The Republicans retorted by charging the Federalists with being
monarchists at heart and secretly regretful that they had ever severed
themselves from England. Passions rose and tempers snapped. Men who had
been lifelong friends now crossed the street rather than meet. Brother
did not speak with brother, nor father with son.

Outwardly, at least at Cabinet meetings under the watchful eye of the
President, Hamilton and Jefferson maintained a formal courtesy.
Privately, they each spoke in bitter terms of the other. Everything was
therefore ripe for the final explosion.

England had sent George Hammond as envoy to the United States to
negotiate the numerous matters in dispute between the two countries. The
chief items related to the execution--or rather, the inexecution--of the
treaty of peace. England by its terms was bound to surrender the forts
and trading posts which she held within the northern and western borders
of the United States. She was also supposed to pay damages for the Negro
slaves her army had taken with it when it evacuated the American shore.

Neither of these treaty clauses had been fulfilled. England claimed she
had not done so because the United States in turn had not lived up to
her obligations under the treaty. At the time of the Revolution, many
Americans owed money to English merchants for goods purchased. The
outbreak of war naturally put a stop to payments, and various states
passed what were called "stay" laws to prevent suits being brought on
these debts in their courts. When the war ended, the northern states
generally discontinued such laws or their citizens paid up in any event.
The situation was different in the South, however. The planters, heavily
indebted and without funds with which to pay, saw to it that the laws
continued in effect. As a result, British merchants raised a great
clamor.

The treaty of peace therefore contained a clause that such "stay" laws
be repealed so that British creditors might sue in the state courts and
obtain judgments. It is true that Congress duly recommended such repeal
to the several states; it is also true that the southern states
disregarded the recommendation.

With these claims and counterclaims between them, it is obvious that
Anglo-American relations were delicate enough. But there were other
points of friction. England had practically put an end to the once
lucrative American trade with her island colonies in the West Indies,
and had seized and confiscated those ships which attempted to evade the
stringent regulations. As her relations with France worsened, England
also found herself in desperate need of sailors to man her navy. The
higher pay and better working conditions on American ships had attracted
many English-born seamen to them, and some of them had actually become
American citizens. But the British contended that once an Englishman,
always an Englishman, and claimed the right to board and search any
American ship in order to impress these men.

All negotiations on these points of dispute were technically in the
domain of the State Department and, therefore, of Jefferson. But
Hamilton considered that the nature of American relations with Great
Britain was a matter of concern to every officer of government, and
peculiarly vital to the stability and success of his own financial
system. A war with England would send toppling to disaster everything he
had thus far accomplished. Commerce would halt, revenues would cease,
and his entire credit structure would collapse. War was therefore
unthinkable, and he felt justified in doing everything in his power to
prevent it, if possible.

Accordingly, soon after Hammond had presented his credentials as the new
British envoy, Hamilton hastened privately to him.

"How are you getting along in your negotiations with Mr. Jefferson?" he
asked.

"Not at all well, sir. I'm afraid Mr. Jefferson is no friend to His
Majesty's government. He stubbornly insists that we give up the forts
and pay compensation for the Negroes. When I point out that you
Americans breached the treaty first by refusing to repeal the stay laws,
he counters with the nonsensical argument that since Congress
recommended repeal to the states, even if the states failed to do so,
you had lived up to the letter of the treaty."

Hamilton shook his head sadly. "Mr. Jefferson," he said, "has some
strange ideas. Would you believe that he actually excuses the horrible
cruelties of the French Revolution on the ground that the tree of
liberty sometimes requires a little blood as fertilizer?"

"I'd believe anything of him," Hammond retorted. "You understand, Mr.
Hamilton, it is impossible for me to come to any agreement with him."

"I know," acknowledged Hamilton. "I find him difficult enough myself.
But you must realize that his opinions are his own; they do not
represent the thinking of the government of the United States."

"No?"

"Not at all. I flatter myself that the President and I see eye to eye on
these matters, and we sincerely want to straighten out every dispute
between our two countries."

Hammond raised his brows. "But we seem so far apart."

Hamilton smiled. "Not as far as you suppose. The one thing that this
government will insist on is the return of the border posts and forts;
though even here we might be willing to grant you special privileges
with respect to the fur trade. As far as damages for the slaves who went
off with your army----" Hamilton shrugged, "that does not seem to me as
important as it does to certain other people."

Hammond took his hand. "You have been a great help, Mr. Hamilton," he
exclaimed. "I'm certain that, were you at the head of the State
Department, we could settle all our difficulties."

"No doubt about it," replied Hamilton complacently.

    *    *    *    *    *

But Jefferson was of a different opinion. When it finally dawned on him
that Hamilton was talking privately to Hammond, his indignation knew no
bounds. He hastened to Washington to complain and even threatened to
resign. It was with great difficulty that Washington talked him out of
giving up his post.

Nevertheless, smarting under this undermining of his own careful
negotiations, Jefferson determined to strike back. He also believed that
Hamilton's playing up to England and snubbing France would eventually
lead to disaster and that Washington was being influenced by him in the
wrong direction. Unless public opinion was aroused to exert pressure on
the government, we would soon find ourselves on the side of England and
at war with France.

There was only one way to arouse public opinion, Jefferson decided; and
that was through the newspapers. Unfortunately, most of those in
Philadelphia were Federalist in politics; particularly so was the
_United States Gazette_, edited by John Fenno, which was semiofficial
and generally recognized as reflecting Hamilton's views. It was
necessary, therefore, to start a new paper which would present his,
Jefferson's, side of the controversy.

Secretly, and with the help of James Madison, Jefferson brought Philip
Freneau, a well-known poet and newspaper writer, to Philadelphia. He
gave him the post of French translator in the State Department at a
salary of $250 a year, with the privilege of running a newspaper on the
side. In this fashion the _National Gazette_ was born.

The new Republican paper was an immediate sensation. Freneau's pen was
biting and his assaults savage. He minced no words and did not hesitate
to name names. He attacked Hamilton and his policies in most intemperate
language and even intimated that Washington was under his thumb and the
country was going to the dogs.

Now it was Hamilton's turn to be furious. He soon discovered that
Jefferson stood behind Freneau and determined to strike directly at him.

On July 25, 1792, the subscribers to Fenno's _United States Gazette_
(Fenno and Freneau and the two _Gazettes_ are confusingly similar in
names) casually opened their newspaper at the dinner table, glanced at
the advertisements on the front page, then turned to the inside. As they
suddenly stiffened, their wives were startled. "What's the matter, John
(or James or William)?" asked the wives anxiously.

"Whew!" whistled their lords and masters. "Just listen to this, Betty
(or Mary or Martha)!"

This is what they read, printed in bold black type.

"The editor of the _National Gazette_ receives a salary from government.
Question: Is this salary paid to him for _translations_, or for
publications, the design of which is to vilify those to whom the voice
of the people has committed the administration of our public
affairs. . . . In common life it is thought ungrateful for a man to bite
the hand that puts bread in his mouth; but if the man is hired to do it,
the case is altered."

    *    *    *    *    *

Everyone knew instantly that the last reference was to Jefferson; and
the country buzzed with excitement. The little item had been signed with
the initials "T. L." Who was T. L.?

The secret was soon out. It was Alexander Hamilton. The buzz rose to a
tremendous roar. The clandestine war between the two members of the
Cabinet had exploded into the open.

Nor was Hamilton finished. He followed up this initial assault with
others, under the pseudonym "An American." Madison and other Republicans
rushed to Jefferson's defense, and for months the big guns volleyed and
thundered. Only the main target, wounded though he was to the core, kept
a public silence. The government was split wide open, and the rival
parties, rallying behind their chiefs, hardened into open enmity.

Washington was dismayed. He had hoped to keep the differences of his two
temperamental Cabinet members a private affair; but now all the dirty
linen was on display for the dullest witted to see. He first tried to
reconcile the antagonists. They retorted with bitter complaints against
each other. Each offered to resign. Washington refused to accept the
resignations. Both were too valuable to the country in their present
posts. In spite of clashes, both were necessary as balance wheels in the
middle course he was firmly determined to steer. With either out, the
government would find itself committed to an extreme position. With both
out, the administration would find itself compelled to choose men of far
less political and intellectual standing.

He therefore employed all his influence and persuasive powers to get
them to remain. Reluctantly, and sullenly, they finally agreed. But the
war had been joined and there could be no retreat. The political parties
which no one had contemplated when the Constitution had been drafted
were now fully in the field, and it was only a question of time when the
battle would be renewed.




  _10 A World Aflame_


The party split was openly evident in the presidential election of 1792.
There was no question as to the next President. Both sides were
unanimous on George Washington for another term; although some of the
more radical Republicans grumbled privately that he had become a tool in
the hands of Hamilton.

But there was no such agreement on the choice for Vice-President. The
Republicans accused John Adams, the incumbent, of favoring a monarchy
and aristocracy, and put up Governor George Clinton of New York as the
opposing candidate.

Hamilton himself, though of the same party as Adams, would have
preferred someone else, but he dared not risk a split in the ranks if
Adams were by-passed and reluctantly supported him.

Washington was re-elected easily; and Adams remained in the
vice-presidency, though not without a stiff battle against three rival
candidates.

The Republicans professed themselves as elated over the result. Where
they had exerted their full strength, they had shown a strong following
everywhere but in New England. They even claimed that the majority of
the nation was in their camp, pointing to the strict qualifications then
in effect for the privilege to vote. Suffrage was by no means universal;
only those who possessed a certain amount of property were permitted to
attend the polls; and it has been estimated that not more than one-sixth
of the total free white adult population could cast the ballot.

The new Congress, moreover, disclosed a substantial increase in
Republican strength, sufficient to encourage Hamilton's enemies to make
a supreme effort to get rid of him and disgrace him forever in the eyes
of the public.

On February 27, 1793, William Giles, of Virginia, the Republican leader
in the House, rose dramatically to move a series of resolutions. Ten in
number, these accused Hamilton of illegal acts as Secretary of the
Treasury in handling the funds entrusted to his care. In preparation for
these specific charges, Giles had a month previously called on Hamilton
for a complete accounting of his operations in the foreign debt and his
relations with the Bank of the United States.

Hamilton had long suspected that he would soon be under open attack, but
he had not expected such a set of serious charges on the floor of
Congress.

"They are trying to drive me out of public life," he told his wife
grimly that night, when the first demand came to him.

"But what can you do, Alec?" she cried in despair. "It's impossible for
you to get together the immense amount of material they demand in the
few weeks left in the session. That's why they held off asking for it
until now."

"The Republicans rely on that," Hamilton admitted. "They expect to make
political capital out of my alleged silence during the months when
Congress stands adjourned. But I'll fool them," he added grimly. "The
accounting they demand will be ready before they adjourn."

"It's an impossible task," cried Eliza.

Hamilton chucked her under the chin. "I am accustomed to doing the
impossible," he grinned.

    *    *    *    *    *

On February 13 a messenger appeared in the House, bowed to the Speaker,
and laid an overwhelming portfolio of papers and documents on the desk.
In a loud voice he said, "Sir, I submit to the House of Representatives
the formal accounting of the Secretary of the Treasury as requested in
their resolution of January 23."

Giles, who had been lounging comfortably in his seat, started violently.
"By God!" he swore. "I never thought that fellow Hamilton could have had
it ready in time."

The remark was overheard by William Smith, of South Carolina, one of
Hamilton's most ardent admirers. He leaned forward in his chair. "Mr.
Giles," he chuckled, "by this time you ought to know that it is
dangerous to underestimate that fellow Hamilton. He always does the
impossible."

To which taunt Giles could only return a baffled glare.

Nevertheless, the Republicans went ahead with their plans, though
Hamilton's report was so complete as to seem to provide no chink in its
armor. Giles introduced his resolutions on February 27, based on what
appeared to be certain small technical irregularities in the vast
financial operations. In a speech on March 1, he tried to substantiate
the charges.

But Smith, of South Carolina, was instantly on his feet to reply. So
eloquent was his response and so crushing its logic and weight of
evidence that, when he finally sat down, it was obvious to all
unprejudiced onlookers that the resolutions would never pass. Nor did
they; even Republicans, except for the die-hards, joined with the
Federalists to vote them down.

That night Eliza cried out in glad relief, "I'm so happy, Alec. Wasn't
that a wonderful speech Mr. Smith made?"

"Oh, it wasn't bad," Hamilton dismissed it offhandedly. How could he
tell her that he had written the speech himself?

The long-expected war in Europe flamed up in February, 1793.
Revolutionary France hurled its troops against monarchical England and
her allies on the Continent. Like all wars that are fought over ideas,
this one soon spread beyond the boundaries of the original combatants.
The distant United States divided sharply in sympathies, and so strong
was the disagreement that for years there seemed grave danger that civil
war might break out.

The European belligerents fished diligently in the troubled American
waters and employed every technique to bring the United States into the
general conflict. England's minister, George Hammond, turned naturally
to Hamilton for aid and comfort, while the French envoy looked similarly
to Jefferson. The fact that America might prefer to remain neutral in
the holocaust did not occur to either of them.

In a certain sense France had the inside track. She had been America's
ally during the Revolution, and she had a treaty with the United States
whereby the latter guaranteed that the French West Indies colonies would
be protected from seizure by any aggressor nation.

But both belligerents reckoned without the good sense of President
Washington and, for all their opposing sympathies, the essential
patriotism of Hamilton and Jefferson.

The moment Washington heard of the outbreak of war, he called his
Cabinet together and submitted a series of questions to them. Should the
United States issue a proclamation of neutrality? Should Citizen Edmond
Charles Genêt, the new French minister on his way to America with
proposals for a war alliance, be received? Should the United States
honor the old treaty with France or consider it at an end? Should
Congress be called into session? On these vital questions depended the
fate of the nation and the alternatives of peace or war.

Actually, as Jefferson suspected, Hamilton had drafted these questions
for Washington to present and had worded them so that the answers were
implicit in the questions. For himself, Hamilton promptly answered most
of them in the affirmative.

On the first, he said yes, we ought to issue a proclamation of
neutrality. Jefferson, though just as firm a believer in the fact of
neutrality, argued we were throwing away a bargaining point by
announcing thus publicly that we would not join the war on either side.

On the second and third, Hamilton would have preferred not to receive
Genêt; but since that would have meant a break in diplomatic relations
with France, he demanded that Genêt be told on his arrival that we
reserved to ourselves the right to determine whether the old treaty of
guarantee was in effect or not. Actually, Hamilton wanted to rid himself
once and for all of this dangerous guarantee. To all this, Jefferson
retorted on the sanctity of treaties and our base ingratitude for
France's former help if we now let her down.

With most of the questions thus in hot dispute, it was necessary to
compromise. Genêt was to be received, and the question of what to tell
him was left for the future. Congress was not to be called in special
session. A proclamation of neutrality would be issued, but it was not to
be labeled as such. This last proviso was due to Jefferson's insistence.
History, however, has persisted in calling it the Proclamation of
Neutrality.

The Proclamation, as it was eventually issued, declared it to be the
intention of the United States to "adopt and pursue a conduct friendly
and impartial toward the belligerent powers" and warned American
citizens against doing anything to violate such a policy. All
pronouncements by the American government in the same field have been
based on this proclamation. To put it into practice, however, amid the
violent taking of sides by the American people proved another matter.

    *    *    *    *    *

Citizen Genêt, the new envoy from France, proved the worst possible
choice for a delicate mission. He was vain, arrogant, puffed up with his
own importance, and contemptuous of the piddling little nation to which
he was sent.

Instead of landing in Philadelphia, the capital of the United States, he
found an excuse to put in instead at Charleston, far to the south, and
to go by land to the seat of government. As far as he was concerned, the
results justified this move.

The southern states, and Pennsylvania as well, were overwhelmingly
Republican in politics and were admirers of the French. Officials and
general populace alike contributed to making Genêt's journey a
triumphant procession, complete with parades, cannon salutes, cheers,
dinners, speeches, and all the trimmings.

No wonder that Genêt lost what little wits he had. He considered himself
a conquering hero, a superman to whom all things would be granted. Were
not the people of the United States conclusively on his side? What
mattered then what Washington and the government thought?

For a while it actually seemed as if he were correct in this arrogant
surmise. At Charleston, Genêt was able to enlist Americans in the armed
service of France, outfit privateers, and send them out to prey on
British commerce. When they returned with captured prizes, Genêt ordered
them sold in American ports. In short, he conducted himself as if he
were, in truth, above the laws of the country to which he had been
accredited as envoy.

The Republicans saw nothing wrong in all this, not even a breach in
American neutrality. But the Federalists viewed the matter differently.
From Genêt's actions and the applause with which the Republicans greeted
them, the Federalists were certain that another reign of terror was just
around the corner, with themselves earmarked as the chief victims. One
of them wrote in great fear to Hamilton, "Only you can save us from
disaster and the wreck of our government."

Hamilton thought so too. He watched the slow approach of Genêt with
growing rage. "This most unneutral progress," he told Washington, "is an
insult to the government of the United States. We shall have to take him
down a peg." Washington agreed.

Finally, on May 17, 1793, the dilatory Genêt appeared in Philadelphia
and presented his credentials. Washington received them with frigid
politeness. The cold correctness of the reception, after the unmeasured
enthusiasm to which he had become accustomed, angered Genêt. "Old man
Washington is jealous of my success," he sneered, "and of the enthusiasm
with which the whole town flocks to my house."

At least the Philadelphia Republicans frequented his quarters, including
Jefferson, the Secretary of State. Just as Hamilton had been most chummy
with Hammond, the British envoy, so now Jefferson took up Genêt with
equal ardor.

Trouble started almost at once. The British made formal complaint of
Genêt's privateers operating out of Charleston as a breach of
neutrality, and Hamilton backed up their complaints. Even Jefferson
admitted that Genêt had gone too far. In fact, the more he saw of the
latter, the more his enthusiasm for him cooled. This domineering,
stupid fellow acted like a mad bull in a china shop, doing his best to
wreck the interests of his own country and, worse still, making the
Republican cause objectionable to the majority of Americans. "He will
sink the Republican interest," Jefferson was finally forced to complain,
"if they do not abandon him."

The last straw in Genêt's conduct was his action over a British merchant
ship called the _Little Sarah_. It had been captured at sea by a French
frigate and sent to Philadelphia as a prize. Under the rules of
neutrality this was permissible. But Genêt then took a step which was
wholly outside the rules.

    *    *    *    *    *

On July 6, 1793, Hammond, the British minister, stormed into Hamilton's
office. Washington was vacationing at home in Mount Vernon, and the
Cabinet had been empowered to handle affairs during his absence.

Hamilton stared in surprise at the pale, shaking minister. "What is the
matter, sir?" he asked. "Are you ill?"

"Ill enough," shouted Hammond. "Your neutrality, sir, is a farce."

"What do you mean?"

"I have information that the _Little Sarah_ has been armed and outfitted
by that precious Genêt as a privateer to prey on our shipping. She is
due tomorrow to sneak down the river and out to sea."

Hamilton jumped to his feet. His gray eyes snapped fire. "I shall take
this up with Jefferson at once."

"Much good that will do," Hammond retorted. "He is hand in glove with
the Frenchman."

"You mistake him, sir. We disagree on many things, but not on a
fundamentally American position."

Jefferson was shocked at Hamilton's news. "Give me a chance to have
Governor Mifflin make inquiries," he said. "The ship lies in his
jurisdiction."

"And if it be so?"

"Then Genêt has gone too far, and we'll take the necessary measures to
prevent the sailing."

The next day Jefferson came all smiles to the Cabinet meeting. Only
Hamilton and Knox were present; both Washington and Randolph, the
Attorney General, were on vacation.

"Everything has been straightened out," he said. "I saw Genêt, and he
promised not to let the _Little Sarah_ quit its anchorage until the
President returns to Philadelphia."

Hamilton's brows raised. "He promised?"

Jefferson flushed. "Yes, he did," he replied with some heat. "Citizen
Genêt is a gentleman."

Hamilton had some doubts about that; but aloud he only said, "I still
think we ought to order a battery of artillery placed on Mud Island down
the river, with instructions to fire on the ship if she tries to slip
away."

General Knox stirred his stout bulk in the chair. "I agree with Colonel
Hamilton," he rumbled.

"Well, I don't," cried Jefferson. "Such a move would be an insult to a
friendly nation. It might even lead to war, and we have no right to risk
that possibility in the President's absence."

    *    *    *    *    *

The next morning, wholly unaware of the excitement of the previous day,
Washington rode leisurely into Philadelphia. Promptly Hamilton and
Jefferson placed their separate views before him. Hamilton slyly added
something Jefferson had seen fit not to mention: that Genêt, in his
interview with Jefferson, had yelled and stamped his feet and cried out
that the President of the United States was his personal enemy and also
the enemy of France, that he, Genêt, would appeal over his head to the
American people and that they would force the government to change its
course.

For once Washington lost his iron control. "Is the Minister of the
French Republic," he stormed, "to be permitted to set the acts of this
government at defiance? Is he to be permitted to threaten the President
of the United States with an appeal to the people? What must the world
think of such conduct, and of the government of this nation for
submitting to it?"

Jefferson tried to explain, to defend, to deny; but Washington would
have none of it. Even as Jefferson stammered along, Governor Mifflin was
announced. He entered with a tragic air. "The _Little Sarah_," he said,
"has just gone down the river, in spite of Genêt's promise."

A bombshell could not have had more effect. Washington started to his
feet, the veins swelling on his forehead. Jefferson went pale as ashes.
Only Hamilton smiled. "So much the better," he said. "We now know how to
treat Genêt. We must demand his recall."

    *    *    *    *    *

That evening, Hamilton went to his desk and began to write at a furious
pace. So Genêt was going to appeal to the American people. That was a
game that two could play.

A series of open letters were already appearing in the _Gazette of the
United States_. They were signed "Pacificus," but everyone knew they
came from the vigorous pen of Hamilton. They placed the Federalist
position on the European war squarely before the public. Now, another
series made their appearance, entitled "No Jacobin." These exposed
Genêt's conduct and made much of his threat to appeal to the people
against Washington.

When he read these powerful articles, Jefferson was at his wit's end.
Frantically, he called on Madison to reply. "For God's sake, my dear
Sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies and cut him to
pieces in the face of the public. There is nobody else who can and will
enter the lists with him."

Madison reluctantly obeyed his chief; nevertheless, when the smoke of
battle had cleared, Hamilton was triumphant. No one, indeed, could
overcome him in a dispute. He was without doubt the most remarkable
pamphleteer of his age.

A demand for Genêt's recall was sent to France, but France had already
acted. The party there in power had been overthrown, and the incoming
group sent Fauchet as minister to replace Genêt with instructions to
return him to France under arrest.

Fortunately for the discredited Genêt, Washington was not vindictive.
Knowing that perhaps the guillotine awaited the recalled minister, he
refused to compel him to leave the country. Genêt gladly decided to
remain in the land he had abused and despised. Marrying Governor
Clinton's daughter, he settled in New York and ended his days in
obscurity.

    *    *    *    *    *

Hamilton had emerged from the fray a victor, but he paid a price for his
great efforts. Yellow fever had come to Philadelphia, and each day the
ominous carts went down the streets, picking up the dead. Those who
could, fled from the stricken town. Hamilton stuck to his post until he
awoke one day with a high fever and found that the dreaded spots were
upon him.

For over a week his life was despaired of. Ned Stevens, his boyhood
friend, now a doctor, hurried to his rescue. He ordered cold baths in
constant succession and drinks made from the infusions of bark. It was a
heroic treatment--no one seemed in the current state of medical science
to know how to cure the disease. In Hamilton's case, however, it worked.
He was one of the few to survive yellow fever. Weak and shaken, he was
transported in a coach to the Schuyler home in Albany to regain his
strength. It was October before he was able to return to Philadelphia
and resume his duties.

    *    *    *    *    *

However, the dangerous illness had not softened the hearts of his
enemies. They even redoubled their efforts to drive him from office and
public life. True, Jefferson himself had finally wearied of the conflict
and resigned to return to his beloved Monticello. But the Republican
forces in Congress and out still hammered away at Hamilton and his
policies. Equally tired, Hamilton offered his resignation. Washington
would have none of it. He had already lost Jefferson, and he
successfully insisted that Hamilton remain.

With Genêt's dismissal, the difficulties with France seemed at an end.
But those with England now grew worse. Engaged in a life-and-death
struggle with France, the "Mistress of the Seas" was not disposed to pay
much attention to the rights of neutrals. She forbade all commerce with
the French West Indies and seized hundreds of American ships when they
refused to obey what they believed an illegal prohibition.

Before he resigned, Jefferson had protested strenuously but in vain
against the numerous limitations with which England was strangling
American commerce. Hamilton had not joined him in these protests. In the
first place, he feared they would lead to war; in the second, he
believed that England was fighting the battle of civilization against
the monster, France, and could not be held to a strict obedience of the
rules. But now, with this new and savage deathblow to the most lucrative
field for American trade, even Hamilton turned angrily on his friend
Hammond and called the restrictions "atrocious."

The country at large blazed with fury, and the Republicans seized the
opportunity to demand retaliatory measures against the British.
Hamilton's indignation cooled when he contemplated these proposed
measures. They called for heavy duties on British goods and even a
temporary embargo against them. Hamilton was convinced that this meant
war; and war would be complete disaster. He saw clearly that what the
United States needed above all things was peace. She was still weak. War
would totally disrupt the country and bring to an end the great
experiment that was America.

The nationwide clamor for retaliation and even for war brought the
Federalists to a realization that some dramatic step must be taken to
stem the tide. A small group of leaders, all devoted to Hamilton, met
in secret and decided that a special envoy ought to be sent to England
in a final effort to settle the outstanding differences between the two
nations. Who should be the envoy? Hamilton, of course.

Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, one of the conferees, laid the plan
before Washington. The President was impressed by the urgency of the
occasion and the remedy proposed, but he balked at sending Hamilton. Not
that he doubted his ability and talents, he said; Hamilton was too much
of a party man and "did not possess the general confidence of the
country." He chose instead John Jay, the Chief Justice of the United
States.

Though Hamilton was somewhat disappointed at not being the envoy, he
cooperated loyally with Jay and drafted for him a set of instructions to
guide him through the negotiations. These called for a greater freedom
of the seas for American ships, a more stringent definition of
contraband, damages for previous seizures, fulfillment of the terms of
the old treaty of peace with respect to the kidnaped slaves and the
return of the border posts, and a right to trade with England and her
colonies on fair terms.

Armed with these instructions, which Washington had approved, Jay sailed
for England. There he proved himself to be a poor negotiator and
diplomat. He allowed the British to flatter and twist him around their
fingers. He did not even know that Sweden and Denmark were rallying the
neutral nations of Europe into an alliance of defense against British
violations of neutrality--a step which alarmed England mightily and
would have disposed her to try all means to keep the United States from
joining.

Jay therefore permitted himself to be wheedled into accepting a treaty
which gave America only a small portion of her demands. England did
agree to give up the forts, but made the time for doing so indefinite.
In the West Indies she granted such a limited and grudging trade that
she might as well have granted none at all. And that was the sum total
of her concessions. Nothing was said about the kidnaped slaves; nothing
about the freedom of the seas or the all-important items of contraband
and the right of search.

Yet it must be admitted that Jay was not all to blame for his failure to
obtain greater concessions; Hamilton must be held responsible to a
certain extent. In his anxiety to ensure a peaceful settlement, Hamilton
had talked too freely and too much with Hammond. He informed the British
minister confidentially that we would never agree to join a group of
European nations in an alliance of any kind--meaning the "armed
neutrality" group being formed by Sweden and Denmark. The British
gleefully received this wholly gratuitous and vital bit of information
and immediately stiffened their attitude toward Jay.

Jay returned in 1795 with the treaty he had fashioned, and found to his
bewilderment that its terms roused a storm of indignation. The
Republicans shouted that he had sold his country for a mess of pottage.
Even the Federalists, including Hamilton, were at first aghast. But they
soon rallied to the defense. Bad as the treaty is, thought Hamilton, and
contrary to his instructions, it still gave the United States a
breathing space and kept her from war, which he dreaded more than
anything else.

By this time Hamilton had finally resigned from the Treasury and engaged
once more in the practice of law. But he was still regarded as the
leader of the Federalist party, and could no more keep out of public
affairs than he could from breathing.

The Republicans denounced the treaty and threatened, even after the
Senate had ratified it with certain reservations and Washington had
signed it, to use their majority in the House of Representatives to kill
it by refusing to appropriate the funds necessary to put it into effect.

The Federalists in turn, overcoming their own misgivings, organized mass
meetings and signed petitions in favor of the treaty. Once again the
country was split into two warring camps.

Hamilton jumped into the fray. He did not like the treaty himself, but
he felt it had to be upheld. Peace and trade with England were
essential. And by now he hated the French Revolution with a consuming
hatred and sincerely believed that most Republicans in this country were
willing to follow that bloody example. People in the mass he looked upon
as a mob, as "a great beast" who must be firmly dealt with to keep it
from overturning orderly government and instituting a reign of terror.
An unpleasant experience only served to confirm these prejudices.

He was defending the treaty before a great mass meeting in New York. The
crowd, chiefly Republican, howled him down. He raised his voice angrily
against the uproar. The mob flung stones. One hit him squarely on the
forehead. He staggered, and the blood streamed down his face.

Hamilton was never greater than at this moment. Holding his handkerchief
to the jagged wound, he bowed ironically to the yelling mob. "If you use
such knockdown arguments then I must retire." Nevertheless, he stood
his ground, and the revulsion of the more decent members of the
audience forced the rowdies to subside. Whereupon Hamilton offered a
vote of confidence in Washington and the Senate. The resolution was
voted down.

Hamilton now resorted to his best and most feared weapon--the pen. In a
series of public letters signed "Camillus" he made out the strongest
possible case for Jay's treaty. His arguments greatly strengthened
Washington's hand in the struggle with the House of Representatives, who
claimed a right to kill a treaty by refusing to vote funds. The debate
was long and bitter, but in the end the House backed down and the treaty
became effective.

Hamilton had won again; but privately he was furious with the British
for having placed the Federalists and the government in such an
embarrassing position. "The British Ministry," he wrote, "are as great
fools or as great rascals as our Jacobins, else our commerce would not
continue to be distressed by their cruisers; nor would the Executive be
embarrassed as it now is by the new proposition."




  _11 Whisky Rebellion and Private Scandal_


Before Hamilton finally stepped out of his office, he found an
opportunity to hammer home to the country the truth of his idea that the
United States was a nation and not a mere collection of semi-independent
states, that the central government had the will and the power to
enforce its laws and was, if it came to it, prepared to use arms to
compel obedience.

One of the mainstays of his financial system was the independent income
enjoyed by the federal government. One part of it came from the duties
on imports; another from taxes on certain domestic products, chief of
which was whisky.

Very few objected to the import duties, but there was vehement
opposition from the Republicans to the excise tax. Since this was an
internal tax, they claimed that only the states had the right to levy
it, not the federal government. To this every farmer and frontiersman
west of the Alleghenies heartily agreed. For the only way these dwellers
across the mountain barrier could get their corn to market was to
distill it into the more compact and easily transportable whisky. A tax,
therefore, on this essential item of commerce, payable in hard cash, of
which they had none, seemed to them a rank discrimination and an
unbearable burden.

They rose, therefore, literally in arms. They tarred and feathered any
tax collector foolhardy enough to penetrate their districts; they drove
the more timid away; they threatened the sheriffs and the judges; they
held mass meetings of defiance and raised liberty poles ominously
reminiscent of the Revolution. A first-class revolt seemed in the
making.

Hamilton viewed with the greatest indignation these symptoms of a spirit
which, he had once declared, must be scotched or it would kill the
country. This was not the first time the western people had rioted over
the excise taxes. Once before, in 1792, Washington had been compelled to
issue a proclamation calling on the westerners to obey the laws. The
agitation had subsided then; but now, in 1794, it had revived with
redoubled force. It was Shays' Rebellion all over again--tar and
feathers, beatings, house burnings, closing of the courts, and armed
bands roaming the country.

This time Hamilton determined on a showdown. He intended to convince the
rioters that the central government would tolerate no nonsense and that
French-type terroristic tactics would be given short shrift in America.
He told Washington bluntly that the time for decisive action had come.
Any faltering or backing down in the face of rebellion meant the end of
the government's prestige. "Call out 12,000 militia," he advised. "Issue
a proclamation ordering the rebels to disperse. Then march."

Washington, who held the same views as Hamilton, promptly issued the
proclamation. But he hesitated about the militia. First, he thought,
Pennsylvania, the chief trouble spot, ought to be given a chance to put
down the insurrection itself. Governor Mifflin evaded the issue. He did
not like to cooperate with the national government on such an unpopular
measure, and he feared that the local militia would refuse to go against
their neighbors.

Hamilton was pleased at this turn of events. He had privately fumed at
Washington's attempt to work through the state government. This, he
felt, was strictly the business of the national government. There must
be no befogging of the issue or any doubt as to the agency that was
responsible for the crushing of the insurrection. Another circumstance
pleased him also. General Knox had resigned as Secretary of War, and
Hamilton was temporarily in charge. This gave him the chance to get
personally into the picture.

On Mifflin's failure to act, Washington called out the national militia.
It assembled at Philadelphia and other key points in the state in
overwhelming force--9,000 foot soldiers and 3,000 cavalry. Hamilton was
delighted. The dreams of glory as a boy now seemed about to be
translated into reality.

During these tremendous preparations, however, the rebellion was
already fading out. Commissioners sent out in advance by the President
were peacefully discussing grievances with the discontented farmers;
resolutions of submission were being voted; and the rioting had ceased.
Nevertheless, Hamilton was determined to march. A show of force, he
thought, was essential to overawe the rebellious folk and keep them from
repeating the disturbance at a later date. Furthermore, it would be an
object lesson to the nation as a whole of the power of the government.

Late in September, 1794, therefore, the army started out of Philadelphia
with flags flying and drums beating. Major General Lee was technically
in command, but Hamilton rode by his side in his capacity of Secretary
of War. It was an impressive sight; unfortunately, the weather turned
rainy and not an "enemy" was in sight. There were only "peaceful"
farmers who stared blankly at the endless array of troops and committees
hastening to pass resolutions avowing their peaceful intentions.

Nevertheless, several hundred men were arrested and clapped into jail.
Since there was no evidence of present armed resistance, the militia
went home and left the accused in the hands of the civil authorities.
Later on most of them were released. The great Whisky Rebellion was
over.

Hamilton returned to Philadelphia to be greeted with a storm of
criticism and abuse from the Republicans. They asserted that the whole
business was an invention of the Federalists to keep themselves in
power, that honest and freedom-loving farmers were being persecuted
simply because they dared stand up for their rights.

Hamilton was now ready to resign. He had wanted to do so several times
before, but each time Washington had begged him to remain. His family,
however, was steadily enlarging; and he was a poor man. As Secretary of
the Treasury he received a salary of $3,500 a year. As a lawyer in
private practice he could make from ten to fifteen thousand dollars
annually.

He had sacrificed long enough for his country. He had placed its
finances in a sound position, with the result that the credit of the
United States took first place in the money markets of Europe. He had
been largely instrumental in hammering out a foreign policy and, in
spite of certain errors, had helped preserve the peace the country
needed so badly. More than anyone else, he had been responsible for
welding the nation with what he hoped were permanent ties. More than
anyone else, he had placed such an interpretation on the Constitution as
to make it a sufficient and responsible instrument for all foreseeable
future use.

With these services accomplished, he submitted his resignation, to take
effect on January 31, 1795. Washington accepted it, with regret and the
warmest praise for his long devotion to the country.

Hamilton was now a private citizen. He resumed the practice of law in
New York City and, as much for his acknowledged legal brilliance as for
his public prestige and private connections, became immediately one of
the leaders of the bar.

He was as diligent in his devotion to his clients as he had been to the
nation. Talleyrand, temporarily exiled from France, drove late one
evening past Hamilton's law office on Pine Street. Candles within cast a
flicker of yellow light out into the street. He saw a slight, spare
figure bent over a desk piled high with legal documents, writing
steadily with firm, clean strokes of the pen. Some minutes later,
Talleyrand walked into a gay salon, bright with candles, glittering with
dazzling costumes, and humming with party chatter. The hostess came
hurrying up. "You are late, Comte de Talleyrand," she murmured
reproachfully.

"Late?" There was a dazed look in his eyes. "Oh, yes. But there is one
who is still later than I."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Monsieur Hamilton. I've just passed his office. He is still at his
desk." He shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't understand it. There
is a man who has made the fortune of his country; yet now he is working
all night to support his family."

One of the other guests turned to a friend. "How could Talleyrand
understand?" he whispered. "To him public office is only an excellent
means of lining one's own pocket."

Even in his law practice Hamilton thought more of his clients' welfare
than of his own pocket. His fees were reasonable; never did he hesitate
to take a case simply because his client was too poor to pay. Only one
other lawyer in New York equaled him in ability. That was Aaron Burr,
his political rival. Time and again they met as opposing counsel in
court, and the honors were fairly evenly divided.

Outwardly, the two men were friends, but there existed a secret enmity
between them that was to result in tragedy. For Burr was the idol of the
New York Republicans and Hamilton's chief opponent for control of the
key city of New York. There was much that was alike in the two men; both
were short, erect, with a record of gallantry during the war; both were
nimble of wit, agile of mind, and personally charming. Burr had been a
Senator from New York and later organized the Bank of the Manhattan
Company in New York City, much to the dismay of the local bank which
Hamilton favored.

Perhaps it was because they were so alike that they were enemies.
Hamilton looked on Burr as an ambitious, unscrupulous politician who
thought nothing of the welfare of his country and only of his own
personal aggrandizement. When Burr sought public office, Hamilton moved
heaven and earth to defeat him, going beyond the ordinary language of
political controversy to term him a would-be dictator, a man who would
not hesitate to sell out his country for gold.

What particularly enraged Hamilton was the fact that a good many
Federalists were personally well disposed to Burr, in spite of his
Republican politics, and were on occasion even ready to support him for
office. Such treason on the part of his friends caused Hamilton to
redouble his epithets against Burr. Eventually, and in most disastrous
fashion, they came home to roost.

    *    *    *    *    *

Hamilton was no longer formally connected with the government, but he
continued to play a leading role in affairs. He fought successfully for
the acceptance of Jay's treaty, and actively interested himself in the
politics of New York and the nation.

Washington was determined to retire from the presidency at the end of
his second term, and all the pleadings in the world could not change his
decision. He was tired of public life, of the steady and increasing
chorus of abuse from the Republican press, and he yearned for his home
in Mount Vernon and the life of a plantation farmer.

Before he retired, he contemplated a farewell address to his countrymen
which would survey the situation at home and abroad and offer some
warnings and advice as to the future policies of the nation he had done
so much to mold.

Some years before, Madison had sketched out some ideas for him. But
Madison was now in the opposition, and the draft did not sufficiently
meet the present circumstances. As in the days when he had paced his
tent and told his orderly, "Call Colonel Hamilton," now again he called
Colonel Hamilton.

Once again Hamilton responded to the appeal of his old chief in war and
peace. Washington sent him Madison's draft with his penciled revisions.
"Put it into your own shape," wrote Washington, "basing it of course on
the ideas you will find enclosed."

Back and forth went the various drafts, worked on first by Hamilton,
then by Washington, and again by Hamilton. Finally both were satisfied,
and the great Farewell Address was completed--that wise and solemn
speech which, up to a generation or so ago, every schoolboy was supposed
to know by heart.

Washington's steadfast refusal to accept the presidency a third time
threw the election of 1796 into a scramble. The Federalists in general
considered John Adams, twice Vice-President, as entitled to the office.
Republicans in turn picked Thomas Jefferson as their candidate.

For the second place on the ticket, the Federalists put up Thomas
Pinckney, of South Carolina, who had been the American minister to
England; the Republicans chose Aaron Burr, of New York.

Hamilton was not particularly pleased with the Federalist choice of
Adams for the premier post; he would have preferred Pinckney. For a
time, indeed, he toyed with the idea of so maneuvering the electoral
votes that Pinckney might get in. But the danger that either Jefferson
or Burr would win as a result decided him against it.

To Hamilton, as to most Federalists, the victory of either of these men
spelled disaster to the country. Party passions ran high, higher perhaps
than at any future era in the nation's history. Only in Lincoln's first
election did a similar situation arise. At other times, though campaigns
might become extremely heated and orators solemnly predict the end of
the world if their opponents got in, very few really believed it. In
1796, however, and again in 1800, the cries of alarm and the accusations
were sincere.

The election was close. Not until the last minute, almost, was it known
who had won. When the smoke finally cleared, Adams was President with 71
electoral votes and Jefferson Vice-President with 68. There is evidence
that the actual result was even closer--that it really was 70 to 69.

No one was satisfied. Adams was bitter because his margin of victory was
so uncomfortably slim. Thomas Pinckney's friends accused New England
electors of deliberately throwing their second votes away from him.
Adams's friends retorted that Hamilton had tried to ensure Pinckney's
election and displace Adams. Burr accused Jefferson's southern electors
of splitting their second votes between himself and George Clinton,
claiming that this was a breach of faith. Only Jefferson professed
himself content, saying that he had not really wanted to be President.

The presidency of John Adams began in turmoil and ended in the
disruption of the Federalist party. Foreign relations had steadily
worsened. France was everywhere victorious in Europe, and now
disregarded American rights on the high seas and in the ports under her
control with the same arrogance that had once been England's special
forte.

With this shift in the aspect of our foreign relations came a curious
shift in the attitude of the parties at home. When England had been the
main aggressor, the Republicans had been hot for war, while the
Federalists preached peaceful submission. Now that France was in the
spotlight, it was the Federalists who shouted for war, while the
Republicans suddenly discovered the advantages of peace.

In the beginning, Hamilton faithfully followed the Federalist line.
French aggressions, he asserted, were far worse than England's had ever
been. "The man who, after this mass of evidence," he wrote in a public
letter, "shall be the apologist of France, and the calumniator of his
own government, is not an American. The choice for him lies between
being deemed a fool, a madman, or a traitor."

To him, and to most Federalists, a French-type revolution seemed just
around the corner. In their heated imaginations every Republican was a
secret traitor ready to cooperate with the French fleet and army
already, so rumor had it, in full sail to conquer America.

A series of fires happened to break out in New York. The Federalists
told each other that the incendiary Republicans were trying to burn down
the city and take advantage of the resulting confusion to start a
revolution. To counteract such a plot, they patrolled the streets at
night in armed bands, vigilant against both fires and revolutions.
Hamilton tramped with the rest until he sprained his ankle on the
cobblestones and was laid up at home.

As time went on, however, Hamilton calmed down and adopted a more
statesmanlike view. War with France would be almost as much a calamity
as war with England. The same considerations that had called for peace
with the latter held equally good with the former. Why not, therefore,
inquired Hamilton, repeat the procedure of the previous emergency; that
is, send a special mission to France just as John Jay had been sent to
England?

Hamilton had a way of making his private views felt in the councils of
the government, without the knowledge of President Adams. No friendship
now existed between Hamilton and Adams; and the former's direct advice
would have been completely disregarded. But Adams's Cabinet--an
inheritance from Washington's administration--was another matter.

Its chief members were Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, Oliver
Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, and James McHenry, Secretary of War.
All were Federalists, close friends of Hamilton, and eager to obey him
as their leader. As for their titular head, the President of the United
States, they resented him and spoke of him privately with contempt.

Everything that happened in government, therefore, no matter how secret
and confidential, was first submitted to Hamilton in New York for his
advice. When Adams requested written opinions from his Cabinet on the
course to be pursued with France, the three officers of government
promptly sent the questions along to Hamilton and waited for his reply.

Hamilton, in response, suggested that a mission of three envoys be sent
abroad to attempt a settlement of all outstanding grievances; but in the
meantime, and in order to give point to the mission, an embargo be laid
on trade with France, the navy be greatly enlarged, and a professional
army raised.

Wolcott obediently copied Hamilton's plan and sent it to Adams as his
own. Pickering and McHenry were willing to follow the second half, but
disliked the idea of the mission. When Hamilton insisted on it, however,
they yielded and so advised Adams.

It was a strange situation, one of which Adams for a long time was
wholly ignorant. His Cabinet was not his own; rather, it was Hamilton's.
The private citizen in New York had as much to say, if not more,
concerning governmental policies than the duly elected President of the
United States.

Adams approved of the idea of a special mission to France. As a sensible
and moderate man, he had resisted the pressure of the more extreme
members of his party who had been demanding an immediate declaration of
war. Accordingly, he appointed John Marshall, of Virginia, Charles C.
Pinckney, of South Carolina, and Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, as
special envoys. The first two were strong Federalists; the last a former
Federalist who was turning Republican.

    *    *    *    *    *

While the country waited impatiently to hear the results of this
mission, Hamilton found himself unexpectedly under serious attack. The
story went back to 1792, when he was still Secretary of the Treasury and
the Republicans were eager for his scalp.

On a day in December of that year, three Republican congressmen, James
Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable, stalked into Hamilton's private office.
Monroe carried a wallet of papers, and all their faces were grim and
accusing.

Hamilton stared up at them in some surprise. "What do you wish,
gentlemen?" he asked.

For answer, Monroe threw the pile of documents on the table. "Read
these, Mr. Hamilton," he said coldly. "If you have any explanation you
care to offer, we shall be glad to hear it."

Even more surprised, Hamilton picked them up and commenced to read. As
his practiced eye went from sheet to sheet, the congressmen could see a
flush mounting on his cheeks.

The papers were damning enough. They consisted of affidavits by a
certain unsavory couple, Mr. and Mrs. James Reynolds, and by two men who
had been minor clerks in the Treasury--Jacob Clingman and Andrew G.
Fraunces. According to their sworn statements, Hamilton had conspired
with his friend William Duer to buy up secretly the certificates of the
debt of the United States before anyone knew that Hamilton intended to
propose their payment at face value. After the news became public, Duer
was able to sell them at a handsome profit, sharing the proceeds with
Hamilton. At least, so stated the affidavits.

When he had read the final sheet, Hamilton stared at the three grim men.
"Meet me at my home tomorrow evening, gentlemen," he said quietly, "and
I shall have ready for you evidence of my innocence."

They bowed and went out. For almost an hour Hamilton sat unmoving in his
chair. He could see that the Republicans had been skeptical; and in
truth, on their face, the affidavits seemed unanswerable. Then, with a
sigh, he picked up his hat and went home.

The next evening, Monroe and his associates appeared promptly at
Hamilton's house. The latter was ready for them. He handed them a series
of letters written by the Reynolds couple. They unveiled a sordid story
of private blackmail which had nothing to do with the Treasury,
speculation in the funds, or Hamilton's public conduct. Each check which
Hamilton had paid, each letter he had written them, which had seemed to
dovetail into the story of their affidavits, now appeared in its true
light by the admissions contained in their own letters. It was only when
Hamilton had resolutely refused to submit any further to the blackmail
that the Reynoldses, with their confederates, had sought to take revenge
and concocted their tale.

The congressmen were convinced by the evidence which Hamilton presented
to them, picked up their papers, and swore on their honor as gentlemen
that the matter would go no further.

For five years it did not. In 1797, however, a Republican hack scribbler
named James T. Callender began the installment publication of what
pretended to be a history of the United States during the preceding
year. In this highly partisan publication Callender spread before the
public view all of the charges and affidavits which the congressmen had
sworn to Hamilton would be held forever in the strictest privacy.

In hot haste Hamilton called on the three men for an explanation.
Muhlenberg and Venable promptly responded that they knew nothing of it,
that the papers had not been left in their hands. Monroe did not answer.

In a fury, Hamilton, with a witness, called on Monroe. There was a
heated scene.

Monroe, faced with the accusation that he had broken his pledge,
reddened. "I did not," he replied angrily. "I sent those papers under
seal to a friend in Virginia to hold for me. I was in Europe and knew
nothing of their publication until I returned."

"That, sir," cried Hamilton, "is a falsehood."

Monroe jumped up from his chair. "If you say I lie," he shouted, "you
are a scoundrel."

It was now Hamilton's turn to come to his feet. "I will meet you like a
gentleman."

"Get your pistols," retorted Monroe. "I am ready."

By this time the friends on either side were intervening, crying,
"Gentlemen! Gentlemen! Be moderate." They managed finally to persuade
the glaring antagonists to sit down again, and after much further talk
the matter seemed to be satisfactorily settled. Monroe agreed to join
Muhlenberg and Venable in a statement absolving Hamilton from all blame
in the charges directed against him in Callender's history.

But the statement never was issued; and Monroe proved evasive when
Hamilton continued to press him. The letters between them grew more and
more bitter until a duel seemed unavoidable. Ironically enough, it was
prevented by the intervention of Aaron Burr.

Hamilton, however, found himself in a dilemma. He could not let the
charges thus publicly spread in Callender's scandalous pages go
unanswered. Yet to reply to them meant unfolding the tale of blackmail.
In the end he decided that his public honor was dearer to him than his
private.

He wrote and issued a pamphlet in which he disclosed the entire story,
proving conclusively to every unprejudiced man that he had not been
guilty of using his public office for private gain. It required a great
deal of courage to do so, and many Republicans jeered at his
embarrassment. Even his Federalist friends thought it would have been
wiser to have remained silent.

It has never been fully disclosed just who was the "friend in Virginia"
to whom the incriminating documents had been sent by Monroe. It was
either Jefferson or John Beckley, clerk of the House of Representatives.
More probably it was the latter, who had deliberately turned them over
to Callender for publication as a party weapon to drag the Federalists
down in the person of their greatest leader.




  _12 Downfall of the Federalists_


In March, 1798, Marshall and Pinckney returned from France with an
unbelievable tale. They had quit France in a towering fury; though
Gerry, the third member of the mission, had elected to remain.

What had happened to cause them to shake the dust of France off their
feet? After their arrival, they explained, they had cooled their heels
day after day in the antechamher of Talleyrand without an audience.
Talleyrand had been recalled to France from his exile and made into an
all-powerful minister of state.

When they entered a formal protest to the discourtesy, three men who
claimed to be Talleyrand's agents came to them secretly.

"To get anywhere in France you must do two things," they said.

"What are they?"

"In the first place, your government must lend our government a large
sum of money."

"When would we get it back?" demanded Marshall.

The agents merely shrugged.

"What is the second thing?" asked Pinckney.

"Ah! that is even more important. You must give to our principal a very
substantial _douceur_--how do you say it in English?"

"Bribe!" Pinckney retorted with a tinge of sarcasm.

"Call it what you wish. Only so will Monsieur Talleyrand interest
himself in your case."

Pinckney's face reddened with indignation. "No! No! Not a sixpence!" he
cried, while his fellow envoys nodded their heads emphatically. (The
famous line attributed to Pinckney, "Millions for defense, but not a
cent for tribute," is very pretty; but it was coined by an after-dinner
speaker at a later date.)

The agents shrugged again, bowed, and departed.

    *    *    *    *    *

The news was withheld from the public by Adams until he could make up
his mind what course of action he ought to pursue. He was afraid that if
the cynical proposition of the three agents (anonymously named in the
dispatches as X, Y, and Z) became generally known, the resulting
indignation would force him to go to war, whether he thought it
advisable or not.

But his Secretary of State, Timothy Pickering, told Hamilton all about
it "in perfect confidence" and asked his opinion.

Hamilton advised him to remain calm. At the same time, however, he
proceeded to whip up public indignation against the French in a series
of articles entitled "The Stand." In these he called attention to the
conduct of the French: the "disgusting spectacle" of their Revolution,
and "the volcano of atheism, depravity, and absurdity" which they
represented.

By this time the so-called "XYZ Affair" had leaked out, and even the
Republicans were taken aback. Many were ready to join the Federalists in
a cry for war. Others, like Jefferson, preferred to believe that the
story was a Federalist lie. Had not Gerry, the Republican, remained
behind to continue negotiations?

Hamilton, while not yet demanding a declaration of war, insisted that an
army be immediately raised. A bill to that effect was rushed through
Congress; though Adams did not want it and the Republicans, saying that
a professional army would be used as a tool of oppression, cried out
against it.

There was no question as to the head of the new army. There could only
be one man--George Washington, now living in peaceful retirement at
Mount Vernon. He consented, on two conditions: that he would be
permitted to select his own staff and that he should not have to take
command in the field until an actual necessity arose.

In effect, that meant that his second in command would be the real head
of the army.

At once there was a scramble for that coveted position. This was the
chance for which Hamilton had long and impatiently waited. That boyhood
dream had never faded. He still panted for glory on the battlefield, for
the baton of a marshal, for the gallant charge at the head of his
troops through a storm of shot and shell. He had had only a minor fling
at it during the Revolution; the Whisky Rebellion had collapsed before
his army reached the scene; it was now or never.

His friends in the Cabinet worked feverishly to gain him the honor. They
pressed it without Adams's knowledge on Washington; and McHenry even
made a special journey to Mount Vernon to argue the case. Washington
agreed, and placed Hamilton at the head of his list of proposed
generals, with the title of Inspector General. He gave second and third
places respectively to Charles C. Pinckney, one of the envoys to France,
and Henry Knox, former Secretary of War, with the titles of Major
General.

Adams, who knew nothing of these backstairs negotiations and who thought
that, as President of the United States, he had the final say on
military appointments, had other plans in mind.

When, therefore, Washington's list came to his hands, he stared at it in
amazement. What! Place Hamilton, a mere lieutenant colonel of yesteryear
and with no field experience, over the heads of such battle-tried
generals as Knox and Pinckney? And what about Generals Gates, Lincoln,
and Morgan, any one of whom far outranked Hamilton?

He sat down to write sharply to McHenry, the Secretary of War. Both Knox
and Pinckney, he insisted, must rank over Hamilton. "This, sir," he
cried, "is a humiliation to the New England states that they will not
bear."

McHenry sent the news in haste to Washington. "Mr. Adams," he wrote
angrily, "intends to disregard your recommendations."

Thus prodded by McHenry and by other of Hamilton's friends, Washington
intimated stiffly to the President that he would resign the command if
his wish were not fulfilled.

Adams was defeated, and knew it. The name of Washington still possessed
some of its old magic with the country, and if it became known that he
refused to serve and on what grounds, it might wreck the administration.
With many grumblings and an exceedingly bad grace, Adams yielded.
Hamilton was duly appointed Inspector General and second to Washington.

    *    *    *    *    *

As Inspector General, Hamilton had complete charge of raising,
equipping, and drilling an army--everything, in short, until there was
actual war.

He threw himself into the heartbreaking task with all his old energy and
enthusiasm. America had never possessed a true professional army--even
the regular Continental troops of the Revolution could not be placed in
such a category. Hamilton had to start from scratch and build from the
ground up.

The Republicans, recovered from their first panic, added to his
difficulties. They hated the whole idea of a professional army. It was,
they claimed, a tool which the Federalists were fashioning, not against
France, but against the righteous discontent at home. They laughed at
the eagerness with which Federalists applied for commissions. "Very well
then," they jeered, "let only Federalists become privates in the army.
Let us see how many they will be able to muster."

John Adams did nothing to help; he had been pushed against his will
into the idea of an army. And McHenry, friend though he was to Hamilton,
was thoroughly incompetent as Secretary of War; and Hamilton knew it.

But Hamilton always was at his best when confronted with what appeared
to be overwhelming difficulties. He worked at his new job with almost
superhuman energy. He permitted nothing to escape his personal
attention: a commission as lieutenant for the friend of a friend of some
Federalist politician in New Hampshire, the costs and quality of
blankets, the number of rounds of ammunition to be provided each
soldier, the grave question whether an obscure fort in the West should
be garrisoned by twenty or twenty-five men, the cost of fortifications
for New York Harbor, the bore of the cannon to be installed.

All orders, communications, plans, requests for information, contracts,
and so on, were personally written by him in his swift, bold hand and
copies made for his own files. No secretary took the load off his
shoulders as he had once done for General Washington. No one helped
him--from the President and the inept Secretary of War down to the
sullen Republicans in Congress who sought to hamper him at every turn.
He barely ate or slept; he abandoned his law practice; he hardly saw
anything of his wife and children.

    *    *    *    *    *

Meanwhile, the national hysteria grew in fervor. An undeclared shooting
war with France was in progress--at least on the sea. French frigates
captured every American merchantman they met; in return, a hornet's nest
of American privateers raided French commerce. Set battles took place
between French and American ships of war--sea fights that have taken
high place in the glorious annals of the American navy. The
_Constitution_ smashed the _Guerrière_, while the _Constellation_ forced
the heavier-armed _L'Insurgente_ to flee.

So far, the Federalists had the country with them. But now, in their
exasperation with their Republican opponents, they became hysterical and
committed a fatal blunder.

To their superheated imaginations, every French alien in this country
was a spy and every Republican critic of the government a traitor.
Laboring under such delusions, the Federalist majority in Congress
forced through two notorious laws, known to history as the Alien and
Sedition Acts.

The first gave the President the power to deport any alien who spoke or
wrote against the government, or who might be suspected of doing so. The
second called for heavy fines and terms of imprisonment for any citizen
of the United States who "defamed" or sought to bring into "contempt and
disrepute" either the President or the Congress of the United States.

There is no question that these laws, particularly the Sedition Act,
stretched the Constitution to the breaking point, if not actually beyond
it. It is true that the Republican press had achieved new heights, or
rather depths, of political slander and abuse. Epithets were being
applied to poor John Adams, as well as to the more extreme Federalist
leaders in Congress, that could not be used in ordinary conversation
today. But the problem has always been: which is worse, to permit
unrestrained freedom to the press, subject to the laws of libel, or to
allow the administration in power to throttle all criticism against
itself?

As a result of the Alien Act, French liberals like the
philosopher-scientist Volney departed in haste from the country. Under
the Sedition Act several Republican editors were called before grand
juries for indictment. They were tried by unfriendly judges and
hand-picked juries; some were heavily fined and others were sentenced to
prison.

The Republicans were up in arms. The laws were unconstitutional, they
cried; the country was groaning under a tyranny far worse than any which
Great Britain had dared to impose. Jefferson and Madison, the party
leaders, decided that here was a crisis which must be met immediately if
freedom were not to be destroyed.

In strictest secrecy, Jefferson drafted a series of resolutions which he
transmitted to a Kentucky friend for introduction into the legislature
of that state. They were passed almost at once. Madison wrote another
series, more moderate in tone, for the Virginia legislature to adopt.
They have become known in history as the Kentucky and Virginia
Resolutions.

The resolutions denounced the Alien and Sedition Acts as
unconstitutional and wholly out of the power of Congress to enact. They
declared further that the states, as sovereign powers, had the right and
the duty to determine whether any law passed by Congress was
unconstitutional or not. And, in Kentucky, the doctrine was boldly
announced that a state had the power to treat such a law as having no
effect within its own borders.

To Hamilton, of course, all this was very close to treason. He had not
devoted his entire life to building a national unity only to see it
broken to pieces simply because a state or group of states did not like
the laws or actions of the central government.

When he heard of the resolutions, his eyes flashed. "This," he
exclaimed, "is why it is necessary to have a standing army that will
obey the national government. I am willing to place myself at the head
of the troops and march them down to the borders of Virginia. Then let
us see whether they will resist the enforcement of the nation's laws."

But he never had a chance to put the question to the final test. For
John Adams, President of the United States, suddenly decided to take
back the government into his own hands. He had been blind long enough to
the fact that he was not master in his own Cabinet, that its members
were secretly taking orders from a certain private citizen in New York
by the name of Alexander Hamilton.

John Adams was a man of notably short temper; and now that he had
discovered what was going on behind his back, he exploded with
tremendous violence. He dashed his wig on the floor and swore that he
would not be pushed into a full-scale war with France simply because
some extremists in the Federalist party saw glory or advantage to
themselves in it. He would make a last desperate effort to come to terms
with the French government. If that did not work, then there would be
time to talk of war.

He acted with speed and dispatch. Without consulting his Cabinet, he
nominated the American envoy to Holland, William Vans Murray, as special
minister to France. Murray was an able diplomat with no political axes
to grind, and could be counted on to obey the instructions of the
President.

The nomination, when submitted for approval by the Senate, acted like a
bombshell on the Federalists. What! This President whom they were
accustomed to treating almost as an office boy had taken action on his
own? Suppose Murray did come to some sort of an agreement with France!
What would happen to the forthcoming presidential election of 1800? What
would be the fate of the great army they were building so carefully?
Peace would mean they had lost their biggest campaign issue--fear of
French aggression and the almost treasonable friendliness of the
Republicans to the enemy. The army, on which they had relied to enforce
the national authority against civil and state disobedience at home,
would have to be disbanded. Didn't that fool Adams realize he was
ensuring his own and his party's defeat in the election?

Hamilton joined in the general indignation. He had gradually come around
to the view that a war with France would unite the country and end
incessant party squabbles. At the same time, he was intelligent enough
to see that the peace mission idea as such could not be denounced. The
nation would not understand Federalist motives. Therefore, he proposed
to modify the character of the mission by sending three envoys instead
of one. If Adams stubbornly refused to agree to this plan, then the
Senate would be in an excellent position to reject the nomination. If he
accepted, then the party leaders would make certain that two sound
Federalists were joined with Murray.

Adams saw through the clever idea and expressed his willingness to send
a mission of three. The Senate, therefore, could do nothing else but
confirm. The envoys did not sail for some time, but the very fact of
their appointment put an end to the war fever; and the country gradually
became calm.

This was a bitter disappointment to Hamilton. He watched the army he had
worked so hard to create disband and go home, and with it went his dream
of glory. Never again would there be an opportunity to prove himself one
of the great captains of all time.

There was nothing left for him but to return to the humdrum pursuits of
civilian life.

    *    *    *    *    *

As the election campaign of 1800 approached, both parties braced
themselves for their mightiest effort. It was universally admitted that
the election would be exceedingly close.

The problems and issues involved were complex. Had the country had
enough after twelve years of Federalist supremacy? Did the people
approve of Hamilton's financial system, with a public debt as a means of
cementing the Union? Did they prefer a strong national government armed
with full authority, proceeding under a Constitution that could be
interpreted to grant it greater powers? Did they agree that only the
rich, the well-born, and the educated were competent to rule? Did they
prefer the English mode of society and politics to the French
revolutionary model? Were all men really created free and equal, as
Jefferson had asserted in the Declaration of Independence? Did they
approve of the Alien and Sedition Acts, or did they resent them as
tyrannical and oppressive? Had a state the right to determine whether an
act of Congress was constitutional? What was the true nature of the
Constitution that bound the states together?

These were burning questions that agitated the nation and gave rise to
innumerable pamphlets and appeals to party passions. Yet it must not be
forgotten that not everyone had the right to express his or her opinion
through the ballot box. Women, for example, could not vote. Neither
could Negro slaves. Nor, for that matter, could the majority of adult
white men. Most states enforced property qualifications for voting. The
poor who had no land or did not pay a certain amount of taxes were
disfranchised and had no say in the choice of officials either in the
state or national government.

In addition, there was no direct choice of President and Vice-President.
Under the Constitution these officers of government were chosen by
electors from the various states, who met and cast their ballots for two
men each. The man who received the greatest number of votes, provided it
was a majority of the whole, became President. The runner-up became
Vice-President.

The electors were chosen differently in each state. Some provided for a
state-wide election of them by the people qualified to vote. Others, and
they were in the majority, called for their appointment by the state
legislature. And in theory the electors were not bound to vote for any
named candidate, but could exercise their free choice. Actually, though
not to the same extent as today, they tended to follow party orders.

Jefferson was unanimously picked to head the Republican ticket, and it
was understood that any Republican electors chosen in the states would
vote for him. After considerable maneuvering, Aaron Burr was selected
for the vice-presidential post.

On the Federalist side John Adams, the President, was the logical
choice. But many leading Federalists disliked him as stubborn and
independent of the party conclaves. They also believed he had hurt the
party's chances with his move to send a mission to France.

To add to their bitterness, Adams demanded the resignation of two
members of his Cabinet--Timothy Pickering, Secretary of State, and James
McHenry, Secretary of War--on the ground that they had disobeyed his
orders and plotted with Hamilton and others behind his back. Why he did
not also include Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, is something
of a mystery, for Wolcott was equally guilty with the others.

Hamilton was confronted with a dilemma. He was disgusted with Adams,
whom he considered a bad President and destructive of Federalist
principles and policies. In addition, by dismissing Pickering and
McHenry, Adams in effect had declared war on him personally.

Yet he dared not openly oppose Adams for the presidency. To do so would
certainly wreck the party and bring in the Republicans. For a time,
indeed, he toyed with the idea. "I would rather," he wrote bitterly,
"see Jefferson president than Adams. If we must have an enemy at the
head of the government, let it be one whom we can oppose, and for whom
we are not responsible, who will not involve our party in the disgrace
of his foolish and bad measures."

That idea, however, was soon displaced by a subtle plan which would
defeat both Adams and Jefferson, and yet bring victory to the
Federalists. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, of South Carolina, had been
spoken of for the vice-presidency. Why not, pondered Hamilton, see to it
that such Federalist electors as were chosen by the states would take
orders from himself? Let Adams be the ostensible candidate for the
presidency, and Pinckney for the vice-presidency. When the electors met,
all would cast one of their ballots for Pinckney. On the second ballot,
however, a few would forget to vote for Adams and cast it for an
outsider. In that way Pinckney would receive the higher number--always
provided, of course, that the Federalist electors outnumbered the
Republican--and become President.

The first step was to make certain that a majority of the electors
chosen by the states were Federalists. The New England states were safe,
though unfortunately most of them would definitely back Adams. Most of
the southern states would go into the Republican column, though South
Carolina--Pinckney's home state--was doubtful. The pivotal states in the
election would be Pennsylvania and New York. Whichever way they went, so
would go the final election. And of these two, New York was the more
crucial.

The situation in New York was confused. The upper state was fairly
evenly divided, with a slight edge in favor of the Republicans. The vote
in the City of New York usually swung the election into either camp.
Therefore, it might be said, that as the city went, so went the nation.

In New York it was the legislature that chose the electors. Hence it was
vital to obtain control of that body. The election which would decide
its composition took place in the spring of 1800. Hamilton was confident
of the issue; for years the legislature had been Federalist in
complexion, and Hamilton's candidates had been regularly successful in
the city.

Hamilton hand-picked a group of candidates for the city, men who--if
elected--would vote exactly as he told them. He worked hard to put them
across, enlisting the aid of the city merchants and business people who,
in turn, exercised a powerful pressure on their employees to vote the
"right" way.

But Aaron Burr, the Republican leader in the city, was not idle. For
years he had been engaged in perfecting a political machine. Through the
Tammany Society--an outgrowth of the old Liberty Boys of Revolutionary
days--he organized each ward on a mass basis, seeing to it that every
Republican came out to vote and using ingenious schemes to bring known
Republicans, no matter how poor, within the financial qualifications for
the exercise of the ballot.

The great day arrived. Hamilton was confident of success. He rode from
polling booth to booth on a great white horse, stopping at each one to
make a speech to the assembled voters. Burr, on the other hand, made no
speeches. He did not have to; his work had already been done. Tammany
marched its men in a body to the booths and voted them in machinelike
fashion.

When the votes were counted, it was a stunning upset. The Republicans
had swept the city and gained sufficient votes in the state legislature
to dominate the appointment of the national electors.

The returns crushed Hamilton. Disaster stared him in the face. All his
carefully laid plans had gone awry. He lost his head completely. He
asked the Federalist governor of New York, John Jay, to change the
method for choosing the electors. Jay had the good sense and the decency
to refuse.

After a while Hamilton recovered from his first despair. Perhaps there
was still a chance. Even with New York in the Republican column, New
England was firm, there was a probability of picking up votes in the
South, and Pennsylvania was still to be heard from. But, he told himself
grimly, rather Jefferson than Adams; rather the devil himself than that
man in the presidential seat.

Ordinarily, Hamilton was clear-thinking and realistic. But resentment
against Adams, who was reported to have said that Hamilton belonged to
an English faction, clouded his reason.

For a week of nights Hamilton sat late in his office, writing at
breakneck speed. His wife, his children, the importunity of his
friends--nothing could stop him. What he wrote was a long pamphlet which
he headed "The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq.,
President of the United States."

It was an amazing performance indeed, but not of the caliber of his
great reports. This was a blunderbuss loaded with shot--a wild,
free-swinging attack on Adams as an individual, a party leader, and a
President. It spoke of Adams's "disgusting egotism, distempered
jealousy, and ungovernable indiscretion"; it roundly declared that he
was unfit for the office of President.

Hamilton had sufficient caution left to realize that this was dynamite,
that if the pamphlet fell into the hands of the Republicans, he had
personally hammered the last nail into the coffin of Federalism. He
therefore caused it to be printed privately by a supposedly loyal
printer and sent under seal of secrecy to key Federalist leaders. The
pamphlet was intended to convince them that they ought to scuttle
Adams, choose electors who would vote first for Pinckney, and drop
enough votes from Adams to ensure the former's election. By this time
Hamilton did not care whether Jefferson retained the vice-presidency or
not, as long as Pinckney was President and Adams was out.

He reckoned, however, without the clever Mr. Burr. That astute gentleman
had ways and means of getting information. He found out about the
pamphlet and where it was being printed. Then he went to work.

The next day a boy rushed panting into the tiny printing establishment.
"Mr. Hamilton sent me," he gasped breathlessly. "He wants a press copy
of that John Adams thing right away."

"But----" protested the printer.

"He's got to change one paragraph," interposed the lad hurriedly. "It
contains a terrible mistake and it mustn't go out like that."

Convinced, the printer gave him a copy. He sped out of doors, rushed by
back alleys to Burr's law office.

"Have you got it?" cried Burr.

The boy grinned. "Here it is. I put on a good act."

Burr snatched the still damp sheets from him, glanced through them
rapidly. "Aha!" he cried in great satisfaction, "now I have Mr. Hamilton
in the hollow of my hand! Here, boy, take this to my printer and tell
him----" He stopped, stared shrewdly at the lad. "On second thought,
I'll take it myself."

    *    *    *    *    *

The following week, every Republican newspaper in the land carried the
full text of "The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams."
Republicans howled with laughter as they read this bitter assault by
the leading Federalist of the day on the Federalist candidate for the
presidency. But the Federalists groaned in dismay. Had Hamilton gone
mad? Supporters of Adams rushed into the fray with ardent defenses of
their hero and violent counterattacks on Hamilton, while the Republicans
stood gleefully on the sidelines and egged both sides on. The wiser
Federalists shook their heads sadly. "Hamilton has ruined our chances,"
they told one another. "This will kill the party."

After the event, Hamilton knew he had committed a fatal blunder. But
there was nothing he could do now except try and pick up the pieces.
Everywhere he turned, he ran into a stone wall.

The New England Federalists refused to have anything to do with his
plan, and threatened instead to drop Pinckney and even take up with
Burr. This was enough to infuriate Hamilton. If he despised Adams and
disliked Jefferson, he hated Burr.

Always it had been Burr whose figure blocked his path. For over a decade
they had fought each other in New York as opposing attorneys and as
rival politicians for the mastery of the state. The fortunes of war had
varied. But now Burr had snatched the victory and made Hamilton into the
laughingstock of the nation. That was unforgivable. To political enmity
was added personal hate.

When, therefore, he heard that certain Federalists were playing with the
idea of supporting Burr, he lost his last vestige of caution and wrote
extraordinary letters to them, denouncing Burr's political and personal
character in the most unmeasured terms. The idea faded; but Burr
learned of the letters and of the epithets which Hamilton had employed.
He said nothing for the moment, biding his time.

    *    *    *    *    *

There was no single election day. Each set of electors was appointed or
elected in the several states at different times; and the results
traveled slowly by messenger and stagecoach to the other states. It was
late in December, 1800, before the last results came in, and it was
finally obvious that Jefferson and Burr had defeated Adams and Pinckney.
The Federalist party, in power since the beginning of the nation, had
been finally ousted.

It was not, so far as the votes went, an overwhelming defeat. In spite
of the Alien and Sedition Acts, in spite of the split in the Federalist
ranks, in spite of Hamilton's ill-advised pamphlet, in spite of last
minute dropping of votes, the margin of victory was not great. Jefferson
and Burr each received 73 electoral votes; Adams obtained 65 and
Pinckney 64.

Nevertheless, the Republicans were justified in rejoicing. They were now
in a position to put into effect the policies for which they had
clamored through the years of their minority in the administrations of
Washington and Adams: to scuttle the hated Hamiltonian policies against
which they had so long declaimed.

Whether it was possible to do so, however, remained to be seen.




  _13 Public Defeat and Private Tragedy_


The Republicans had won, but a strange situation now arose. Under the
Constitution as it stood, each elector had voted for two men without
being able to state any preference between them. Jefferson and Burr were
therefore tied for first place, though everyone knew it had been the
intention of the people and of the electors to make Jefferson President
and Burr Vice-President.

The law provided that in such a case the final decision lay in the House
of Representatives, voting as state units and not as individuals. Had
the House followed the obvious will of the country, there would have
been no trouble. But the defeated Federalists thought they saw an
opportunity in the muddle to gain political advantage for themselves.
For the choice would rest with the lameduck Congress, not with the one
just elected; and the Federalists held a majority there.

The Federalists in Congress promptly went into consultation. For a while
the more extreme members proposed to keep both Jefferson and Burr out of
the presidency and to elevate as acting President one of their own party
from the Senate. The majority, however, thought this was going too far
and decided instead to make Burr President. They considered him a more
moderate and practical man than Jefferson, and less likely to make
radical changes in the government.

When Hamilton heard of this decision, he emerged from the sullen
retirement into which he had gone after the storm aroused by his
pamphlet on Adams. This was the last straw. Jefferson would be bad
enough, with his theories of government and his opposition to strong
administrative control; but at least he was an honest man. Hamilton did
not believe Burr to be one. Jefferson, so Hamilton read his character,
was timid in action, and would not go as far in practice as the bolder
and more daring Burr in persuading the people to follow Republican
principles. In this diagnosis he disagreed with his Federalist fellows.

Once more, therefore, he wrote letters. "Let it be Jefferson, by all
means," he pleaded, "not Burr. For Heaven's sake, let not the Federalist
party be responsible for the elevation of such a man!"

But the leaders in Congress refused to listen to his warnings. They cast
their votes for Burr, while the Republicans voted for Jefferson. Nine
out of a total of sixteen states were necessary to elect. Eight went to
Jefferson, six to Burr, and two were tied.

Ballot after ballot, day after day, did not break the deadlock. Not a
member, not a state, switched their vote. The country was in a turmoil.
The Republicans threatened to use the Republican militia to march on
Washington and seize the government.

Federalists sped to New York to try and make a deal with Burr to bring
over certain waverers. They could get nothing from him. Then they went
to Jefferson. He agreed to certain compromises--at least, so the
Federalists later claimed and Jefferson denied--and the deadlock was
broken.

Jefferson became President, and Burr Vice-President. It was over; and a
new era began--the age of Jefferson and of Republican domination.

Back in New York, Hamilton was disgusted, even though in these last days
he had worked mightily to elevate Jefferson over Burr. He was convinced
that the country would go to the dogs under Republican rule, that
everything for which he had labored would now be destroyed. "I am
through with politics," he lamented to his good and faithful follower
Robert Troup. "Only a general convulsion will ever call me back to
public affairs. Hereafter I am a lawyer, and nothing else."

But this was easier said than done. Like an old war horse, he sniffed
battle from afar. He could no more help getting into a fight when issues
were involved than breathing.

The more he thought over his original defeat by Burr in New York, the
more he was convinced it had been due to the lack of a good Federalist
newspaper in the city. The Republicans had several, and they had been
extraordinarily effective in name calling--particularly of Hamilton--and
in whipping up enthusiasm for the Republican ticket.

With Hamilton, to think of a thing was to do it. He called a meeting of
his friends and told them what he proposed. "But we need a good man for
editor," he added. "A man who can stand up to these Republican
scribblers and give them better than he takes. Do you know of anyone?"

There was a pause. Then Troup spoke up, "I think I know just the man.
He's William Coleman, a fairly young lawyer who likes to write. I've
seen some of his stuff. It's good."

"Bring him to me, Bob."

Hamilton liked Coleman and his ideas. "We'll set you up in business
within a couple of months," he told the new editor.

"How about money?" asked Coleman diffidently.

"Leave that to me. I'll subscribe a thousand dollars. And I'll get the
rest from my friends."

"And the name of the paper?"

Hamilton thought a moment. "We'll call it the New York _Evening Post_."
He rose, extended his hand. "Good day, Mr. Coleman, and good luck." As
the editor reached the door, Hamilton said, "Oh, by the way, I shall of
course contribute some articles to your paper."

"Of course, Mr. Hamilton," agreed Coleman effusively.

    *    *    *    *    *

The first issue of the _Evening Post_ appeared on November 16, 1801. The
Federalists naturally subscribed to it and quoted its opinions. Just as
naturally, the Republicans and the rival editors jeered. But the _Post_
outlived them all. It still exists, one of the oldest continuously
printed newspapers in the country.

Coleman did not hesitate to take Hamilton at his word. Regularly, some
such scene as the following would take place.

It was eleven at night. The knocker on Hamilton's door resounded.
Hamilton, still awake and busy with the preparation of a law case, went
to the door.

"Ah, Coleman, it's you!" he greeted the late caller. "Come into my
library."

Once seated, the editor explained his errand. "Mr. Hamilton, the
Republicans in Congress have moved to repeal the Judiciary Act and
abolish the judgeships created in the last days of Mr. Adams's
administration. I think we ought to have a good, swinging editorial
denouncing a repeal."

"Why, of course, you should," Hamilton agreed. He threw himself back in
his chair, stared at the ceiling. "This is a vital blow to the
Constitution," he began. "All good Americans must rally to the
defense----"

Coleman had whipped out a notebook, and took down rapidly Hamilton's
words as he went on and on.

At midnight Hamilton stopped. "There," he remarked, "I believe I have
given you some pointers on the subject."

The editor put away his notebook. "You certainly have, Mr. Hamilton.
Thank you very much for your assistance." Then he hurried down to his
tiny printing office, smiling quietly to himself.

The next day, a vigorous, well-thought-out editorial appeared in the
columns of the New York _Evening Post_. Its subscribers read the article
with open admiration. "This fellow Coleman is good!" they chuckled.
"Why, he writes almost as well as Hamilton himself!"

Only Coleman knew that it actually was Hamilton, taken down in shorthand
as Hamilton had talked on and on. Even Hamilton did not realize he was
being quoted verbatim.

    *    *    *    *    *

Jefferson was installed as President on March 4, 1801. The months
passed, and still the country held an even keel. There was no bloody
revolution, no proscriptions, no forcible seizures of property such as
the more extreme Federalists had confidently predicted. In fact, one
could hardly tell that there had been a change in administration.
Jefferson skillfully aided the illusion with soothing words. In his
inaugural speech he proclaimed, "We are all Federalists; we are all
Republicans," and thereby sought to woo the rank and file of the
opposition party into his own camp.

Hamilton's financial system continued practically intact. The bank
remained in business; Hamilton's taxes were collected; and the funded
debt continued to be a legal obligation. The only changes that Jefferson
instituted were in the direction of economy. He cut down on expenses
wherever he could, particularly in the Department of the Navy, and
sought to pay off the debt as rapidly as possible.

Though still watching the course of the Republicans with a vigilant eye,
Hamilton now had some time to devote to his private affairs. His family
had grown tremendously in size. There were eight children growing to
maturity, of whom his son Philip was the eldest. It was time to move
from his cramped quarters in the city and build himself a spacious house
in the country.

With this in mind, he purchased some fifteen acres in the northern part
of Manhattan Island, then considerably out of town. The land was located
on the side of a hill on what is now Amsterdam Avenue, between 144th and
145th Streets. From the top of the hill he could command a noble view of
the Hudson River and the Palisades on the Jersey shore.

For a whole year Hamilton was busy planning and supervising the
construction of his new house, which he called the Grange, in honor of
the Hamiltons of Scotland. Around the house he planted thirteen gum
trees, symbolic of the thirteen original states of the Union. He went in
for gardening on a large scale, soliciting all his friends for seeds and
rare saplings. He was only forty-four, but he considered himself a
settled man who could now sit back and enjoy the twilight of life with
his wife Eliza and his numerous children.

His law office, naturally, was still downtown in the "city." Each
morning Hamilton saddled his horse and rode the ten miles along the
Broadway turnpike to his business; and each evening he rode the same
distance back to the bosom of his family.

Of his eight children, the apple of his eye was young Philip, now
nineteen and recently graduated from Columbia College. Philip was
destined to follow his father's footsteps in the law; and Hamilton, with
a rigor that no modern father would dare employ, laid down a set of
rules for him to observe.

    From the first of April to the first of October he is to rise
    not later than six o'clock; the rest of the year not later than
    seven. If earlier, he will deserve commendation. Ten will be his
    hour of going to bed throughout the year.

    From the time he is dressed in the morning till nine o'clock
    (the time for breakfast excepted) he is to read law. At nine he
    goes to the office, and continues there till dinner-time. He
    will be occupied partly in writing and partly in reading law.

    After dinner he reads law at home till five o'clock. From this
    time till seven he disposes of his time as he pleases. From
    seven to ten he reads and studies whatever he pleases.

    From twelve on Saturday he is at liberty to amuse himself.

    On Sunday he will attend the morning church. The rest of the day
    may be applied in innocent recreations.

    He must not depart from any of these rules without my
    permission.

Just how faithfully young Philip carried out these strict rules must
remain in doubt. In any event, on a Friday evening in November, 1801,
Philip Hamilton and a friend named Price attended the theater. In the
box next to them sat a politically active Republican lawyer by the name
of George I. Eacker. The preceding Fourth of July, Eacker had made a
speech in which he had assailed the political views of Philip's father.

Philip and his friend stared at Eacker and passed uncomplimentary
references about his speaking abilities in loud tones meant to attract
attention. Eacker reddened and invited them out into the lobby. Not at
all reluctant, the young men went. There the three men began to quarrel.
Harsh words were passed; a crowd gathered. Eacker shook his fist and
shouted, "Sir, you are a damned rascal!"

Philip went white. "Sir," he said, "this calls for explanations. Let us
leave this public place and go across the street to the tavern."

"By all means!" cried Eacker.

There, in a private room, Philip Hamilton and Price turned on the
Republican. "To whom, sir, did you apply that epithet?"

"To both of you."

"Then," burst from both young men simultaneously, "I challenge you."

"That suits me fine," retorted Eacker.

That Sunday morning, Price and Eacker met on a secluded field. Shots
were exchanged several times. No one was hit, and the seconds stopped
the duel.

Now it was Philip Hamilton's turn. Their duel took place on November 23.
He and Eacker paced off their steps. "Fire!" called one of the seconds.
Both men turned, raised pistols. There was a blast of sound. When the
smoke cleared, Eacker was seen standing erect. But Philip staggered,
clapped a hand to his side, and fell.

They took the wounded young man away, and the doctors worked over him.
But no remedy helped. Within a short time he was dead.

Pale as a ghost, Price sped to the Hamilton home. It was still only a
little after dawn, and Hamilton threw a dressing gown over himself as he
answered the door. He saw his son's friend standing there. "What----what
is it?" he cried.

"It----it's Philip!" panted Price. "He's been hurt----in a duel."

Hamilton staggered, leaned against the door. From upstairs floated
Eliza's voice. "Who is there, Alec?"

Hamilton gestured to Price to keep silent. "It's some urgent legal
business, my love," he called up. "I'll have to go down to the office at
once. Don't bother getting up."

Within seconds he was on his horse, galloping madly down the great
highroad to New York, anguish tearing at his heart. When he arrived,
however, it was too late. Philip was cold, silent, and beyond the
hearing of his heartbreaking cry.

Neither Hamilton nor his wife ever fully recovered from the tragedy. For
weeks they hid themselves from the public eye and even from the sympathy
of their friends. Philip's eldest sister, Angelica, went into a nervous
breakdown and her mind became permanently clouded. It was a home of
double sorrow.

Gradually, Hamilton steeled his will to emerge; once more he would
resume his law practice and participate in the embittered politics of
the day. He had noted with increasing alarm Jefferson's attempts to win
over the more moderate of the Federalist rank and file, and now urged
them not to listen to the siren's voice. But his efforts were without
effect; and more and more the once proud Federalist party shrank.

This was a disaster to Hamilton almost on a level with his personal
tragedies. For many years he had labored to place the party on a solid
and permanent foundation; and now the end seemed at hand. Under the
Republicans, he was sincerely convinced, the country would wither and
eventually fall to pieces. How could it do otherwise when governed by
such a false philosophy? If only he could rouse his fellow citizens to
the dangers that lay ahead! But they went about their business and paid
little attention to his incessant laments. Even some of his old friends
began to shrug their shoulders.

"Mine is an odd destiny," wrote Hamilton despairingly. "Perhaps no man
in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present
Constitution than myself. . . . Yet I have the murmur of its friends no
less than the curses of its foes for my reward. What can I do better
than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that
this American world was not made for me."

It would have been better for him had he taken his own advice and
withdrawn, if not from the America he had helped to build, then
certainly from politics. He had done his share. He did not realize in
the heat of the moment that what he had done was permanently a part of
the America he loved. The Republicans might change certain things,
perhaps for the better, but they could not uproot his essential
foundation. That was solid and enduring.

It was not in Hamilton's nature, however, to stay out of a political
fight. When the Republicans sought to repeal the Judiciary Act which had
placed staunch Federalists on the bench for life, Hamilton proclaimed
that such a repeal would be "a vital blow to the Constitution." He
called on his old cronies to form societies and agitate among the people
against the administration in office; but they merely nodded their heads
and did nothing. The magic of Hamilton's name was gradually losing its
power.

    *    *    *    *    *

He did, however, regain some of his former prestige in a libel suit
which had been brought against a small-town Federalist editor in Hudson,
New York. Croswell, the editor, had printed some violent accusations of
Jefferson. They were similar in venom to those which Republican editors
had once employed against Adams when he was President. At that time the
Federalists had promptly indicted the offending Republicans and sent
some of them to jail under the Sedition Act.

The Sedition Act had since been repealed; therefore, no charge could now
be brought under federal law. Nevertheless, libel remained a criminal
offense under state law, and the Republicans indicted Croswell in New
York for his statements concerning Jefferson.

It was now the Federalists' turn to raise an outcry about the freedom of
the press. As the leading lawyer and the leading Federalist in the
state, Hamilton was asked to represent Croswell. At the time he was tied
up with other cases; and Croswell was defended by other counsel. The
trial judge charged the jury that the truth of Croswell's printed
assertions was no defense, that the only thing for the jury to decide
was whether he had actually made those assertions. Since he obviously
had, he was duly convicted.

The judge's charge was based on old English law; though a famous
American case during colonial days--that of Peter Zenger--had been
decided otherwise. Nowadays the law has been changed. A defendant in a
libel suit may introduce evidence to show that what he said was true;
and if the jury believes him, they may acquit him.

Croswell appealed his conviction; and Hamilton, freed of his former
entanglements, now entered the case. The appeal was heard in February,
1804; and such was the interest aroused that people throughout the
country waited breathlessly for the result. On the bench of the
appellate court to hear arguments were four judges; two of them were
Republicans and two were Federalists.

There was eminent counsel on both sides, but Hamilton outshone them all.
He argued the appeal with such brilliant logic and impassioned fervor
that William Kent, one of the judges--and a Federalist--remarked
afterward that he had been "sublimely eloquent." His closing speech, so
Kent added, was "probably never surpassed and made the deepest
impression. I never heard him so great."

Hamilton may have been eloquent and great, but the judges decided the
appeal, not on its merits, but along strict party lines. The two
Republicans voted to sustain the conviction; the two Federalists to
reverse it. Since the vote was a tie, by the rules the verdict of the
lower court must be sustained; and poor Croswell therefore stood
convicted and had to suffer the penalty.

Hamilton's fame as a lawyer, however, rose to new heights. His name was
on everyone's tongue, and all who could rushed to obtain his services.
As a result of the case, a bill was introduced in the legislature to
make the truth of an alleged libel a good defense; but it was 1821
before it finally became the law of the state.




  _14 Duel and Death_


Hamilton's days were now numbered. A chain of grim circumstances,
ominously linked, brought him to the end of the trail and snapped his
life in the full vigor of its prime.

For many years he and Aaron Burr had been political enemies as well as
rival attorneys in court. But that had been the case with many another,
and had not led to tragedy. In this instance, however, doom approached
swiftly.

Hamilton had always believed Burr to be a dangerous man, one who, by
hook or crook, sought to mount to the highest offices for wholly selfish
and corrupt purposes. Many a politician thinks the same of his rivals,
but usually he is careful not to say it aloud and in plain language.
Hamilton was never famous for his caution; what he had to say he said
boldly and recklessly. He had spoken and written his opinion of Burr on
many an occasion. There were dozens of letters extant in which he had
unreservedly committed himself.

It is highly probable that Burr, with his unrivaled espionage system,
knew of Hamilton's personal comments about him. He held his peace,
however, since the accusations were contained in private letters to
Federalist leaders and had not been made known publicly.

But the state election of 1804 brought the matter into the open, so that
it could no longer be disregarded. Burr was Vice-President of the United
States. However, he had fallen out with Jefferson nationally and with
the Republican faction in New York headed by De Witt Clinton, the
ruthless nephew of old George Clinton, the former governor. Since Burr
knew that Jefferson would never permit his renomination for
Vice-President in the coming election of 1805, he was confronted with a
choice: either retire to private life or fight it out with Clinton and
his allies, the Livingstons, in New York State. He chose the latter
course. He decided to run for governor.

The Republican party, however, dominated by De Witt Clinton, nominated
Morgan Lewis. Burr refused to bow silently to this mandate. He looked
about him for allies to aid him in an independent race for the office.
In New York City he had a loyal and faithful following, spearheaded by
the Tammany Society. In the state at large he also had a considerable
personal following among Republicans, many of whom felt that he had been
badly treated by Jefferson and the local politicians.

He was also on good terms with a large number of Federalists who thought
him a moderate and able man. Since they could not hope to win with a
candidate of their own party, they sensibly determined to support Burr
for the governorship and thereby gain a measure of political rewards for
their help.

They reckoned without Hamilton. When he heard that they were seriously
discussing the idea of supporting Burr, he lost whatever trace of
caution he might have lingeringly possessed. Burr by now was the mortal
enemy, the man who must be defeated though the heavens fell. Anyone--let
it be the bitterest Republican--could be elected; it must not be Burr!

About the same time, other news reached him which only increased his
determination. A group of extreme New England Federalists, convinced
they could never regain their former power within the Union, decided to
have the New England states secede and form a confederacy of their own.
But they realized that New England could not go it alone; New York was
necessary as a member if secession was to succeed.

They therefore sent a secret representative to sound out Burr, offering
him support for the governorship and a prominent place in the new
confederacy. Burr refused to commit himself, and the emissary was
compelled to report failure. Nevertheless, they went ahead with their
plans to support Burr, hoping that when the time came he would, as an
act of political gratitude for their assistance, come in with them.

Thus faced on the one hand with the possibility of Burr's election and
on the other with the treasonable plots of some of the leaders of his
own party, Hamilton went into action.

On the matter of the treason, he rose to the heights of patriotism.
What! Break up the United States simply because the Republicans were in
power? Never, as long as he had speech and pen! He wrote angry letters
to every Federalist among the plotters and warned off other Federalist
leaders from joining the conspiracy. By such efforts he managed to
scotch the scheme before it got past the talking stage.

Then he turned his attention to Burr. Though he knew Burr had refused to
join the conspiracy, Hamilton was certain that, should he be elected, he
would put himself at its head. He wrote further letters to his
Federalist friends, this time in New York and elsewhere, pointing out
the dangers of supporting such an unprincipled man as Burr. He attended
secret meetings of the party politicians and begged them with all the
old passion not to join forces with Burr.

One such meeting was held in a tavern. It was highly secret, but Burr
managed to get some spies inside. In spite of Hamilton's name calling,
in spite of his denunciations, the assembled Federalists decided to
support Burr. Hamilton was slipping; no longer was he the infallible
leader whose every word was a command. Even his own newspaper, the
_Evening Post_, deserted him and practically came out for Burr.

These were bitter blows. Hamilton felt his life had been useless, that
he was merely a lone voice crying in the wilderness. At a private dinner
in Albany, just before the election, he really let himself go. He
denounced Burr in terms reserved usually for a thief, a scoundrel, and a
man of the most abandoned morals.

Burr had no spies at this dinner; but Charles D. Cooper, who had been
present at the dinner, wrote two letters to friends. In these Cooper
said that Hamilton had declared Burr to be "a dangerous man and ought
not to be trusted." If this were all, nothing might have happened. But
the luckless Cooper went on to say that he could tell his correspondents
"a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton had expressed of
Mr. Burr."

If Cooper was a fool, his friends were even worse. For they sent the
letters to be published in the local press.

This was just before election day, and Burr waited. When the results
were in, he found himself defeated by the Republican candidate. Tammany
had voted for Burr, so had a majority of the Federalists. But Hamilton's
efforts had switched a sufficient number of the latter to the Republican
ticket to ensure Lewis's election.

Burr was through politically. His last chance for a comeback had failed;
and Hamilton had been responsible.

    *    *    *    *    *

On June 18, 1804, a gentleman galloped up to the Grange, handed the
reins to a servant, and mounted the stately steps. Hamilton, seated at
breakfast, glanced up in surprise at the early morning visitor; then, as
recognition came, the glance deepened into something else.

"Mr. Van Ness!" he exclaimed. "What----er----I had not expected, sir,
the honor of a visit from you. Will you have coffee with me?"

William P. Van Ness bowed. "My business with you, Mr. Hamilton, does not
permit me to partake of your hospitality. I have a letter for your
perusal, sir."

"Ah!" Hamilton braced himself. Now he knew why this close friend and
political lieutenant of Aaron Burr had come so early from the city.
"Very well, sir," was all he said.

He stared a moment at the envelope which Van Ness handed him. It bore
only his name: "Alexander Hamilton, Esq." Then he opened it, smoothed
out the sheet of paper within.

    Sir,

    I send for your perusal a letter signed Charles D. Cooper,
    which, though apparently published some time ago, has but very
    recently come to my knowledge. Mr. Van Ness, who does me the
    favour to deliver this, will point out to you that clause of the
    letter to which I particularly request your attention. You must
    perceive, sir, the necessity of a prompt and unqualified
    acknowledgement or denial of the use of any expressions which
    would warrant the assertions of Mr. Cooper. I have the honour to
    be

      Your obedient servant,

      A. Burr

For a moment further Hamilton sat, while Van Ness stood erect and
formal. He did not have to look at the enclosure of newspaper clippings.
He knew them by heart, and had many times cursed the stupidity of Cooper
and of his correspondents in permitting such explosive material to get
into the papers.

A swirl of thoughts, of regrets, crowded his mind. The bitter memory of
his son Philip, pale, cold, and bloody, rose like a specter before him.
Yet how could he deny? He had said things to justify Cooper's phrase. He
had said and written worse things of Burr for many years. And Burr, he
was certain, knew of them.

Not that he was afraid! He had proved his personal courage too many
times. But he had a family--a wife and seven sons and daughters--who
needed him. He had a mission yet unfulfilled, to ensure that the country
of his adoption grew strong and united. And if he acknowledged the
truth of Cooper's assertion, as Burr demanded, there could be only one
outcome.

He looked up at Van Ness. "Sir," he said in a steady voice, "this matter
requires careful consideration. I shall send you a reply shortly."

Van Ness bowed, departed. The hoofbeats of his horse galloping down the
highroad to New York receded and died.

Eliza came in. "Who was it, Alec?" she asked.

"Someone about business." He kissed her, put on his coat, and rode at a
slow pace to his office.

    *    *    *    *    *

It took Hamilton two days to compose a reply, he who could dash off a
complicated state paper or an involved financial report overnight.
Sheets of scrap paper littered his desk before he was finally satisfied.

"I have maturely reflected on the subject of your letter of the 18th
inst.," he wrote, "and the more I have reflected the more I have become
convinced that I could not, without manifest impropriety, make the
avowal or disavowal which you seem to think necessary." After all, he
continued, Burr had not told him what the offending phrase was. Until
this was done, how could he, Hamilton, deny it? Furthermore, in politics
people said many things about one another. But, he concluded, "I stand
ready to avow or disavow promptly and explicitly any precise or definite
opinion which I may be charged with having declared of any gentleman."
He hoped Burr would see the matter in the same light as he did. "If
not," Hamilton added most unwisely, "I can only regret the circumstance,
and must abide the consequence."

It would have been far better had Hamilton not taken so long to write
this letter or had he consulted a discreet friend about it. His usual
clear-mindedness had deserted him. He had written just the kind of
letter which led directly to the dueling field.

Had he merely replied with a denial of any remark which gave a
"despicable opinion" of Burr, the latter would have been compelled to
close the incident. Instead, he demanded from Burr a specific account of
it, which Burr necessarily did not have. And his last sentence put an
end to any possibility of compromise; it expressed his willingness to
settle the matter by a duel.

It must be said on Hamilton's behalf that he was in a tight spot. Had he
denied making any statement which could have justified Cooper's
adjective, Burr would naturally have published it to the world. Then
there would have been consequences. In the first place, those who had
been present remembered only too well what he had actually said, and
would have taken the denial as a sign of cowardice on the part of their
great leader. In the second place, Burr could then have turned to Cooper
for redress. In either event, Hamilton's reputation would have suffered
irremediably and his usefulness to his party and country would have
ended abruptly. This was something Hamilton could not have borne.

Burr read the letter and smiled. He now had Hamilton at his mercy. He
wrote in return a cold, vigorous, remorseless letter that tore
Hamilton's evasions to shreds.

"Political opposition," said Burr, "can never absolve gentlemen from the
necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honour and the rules of
decorum. I neither claim the privilege nor indulge it in others." And he
concluded with ominous language, "Your letter has furnished me with new
reasons for requiring a definite reply."

This sharp, precise note was again delivered by Van Ness. Hamilton's
face flushed as he read it. "This," he told the waiting emissary,
"contains several offensive expressions and seems to close the door to
further reply."

Without a word, Van Ness went away, and Hamilton braced himself for the
inevitable.

Thinking it over, however, he picked up his hat and went to see a good
friend, Nathaniel Pendleton. Had he done so before, the entire sad
tragedy might have been averted. Now it was too late. Pendleton shook
his head when he heard the story. "I'll see what I can do, Mr.
Hamilton," he said soberly, "but I'm afraid----" His unended sentence
was more eloquent than any words.

"I know you'll do your best," said Hamilton quietly. Then he handed him
a sealed letter. "If the worst comes to the worst, and Burr challenges,
will you give this to Van Ness?"

Pendleton saw Van Ness several times, but nothing satisfactory came out
of their conferences. On June 27 Burr sent his formal challenge; and
Pendleton accepted it on behalf of Hamilton. The date of the duel was
set for July 11, the time at dawn, and the place on the rise of ground
at Weehawken, New Jersey, on the other side of the Hudson River.

    *    *    *    *    *

As Hamilton lay in bed, staring sleeplessly at the darkened ceiling and
listening to the gentle breathing of his wife, he reviewed all the
events of an eventful life. Thus far he had said nothing to Eliza, nor
to any of his children. Only Pendleton knew of the coming encounter.

That Burr was going to do his best to kill him, he was certain. But
what should he do? Should he try to kill Burr; or should he deliberately
miss the first shot and give the seconds an opportunity to stop the duel
at that point?

Hamilton's conscience was bothering him. It was true he had called Burr
many names, names that justified his being called out on the field of
honor. True, he had sincerely believed Burr to be without morals and a
menace to the country. But ought he to have said so openly and without
equivocation?

"I am only forty-seven," thought Hamilton, "in the prime of life. I have
a family to support. I still have years of usefulness ahead to the
country. What can I do? What ought I do?"

With a sudden determination, he slipped out of bed, taking care not to
waken Eliza. He went downstairs to his desk, lit the lamp, took pen and
paper, and commenced to write.

He first wrote a letter to his wife. "This letter, my dear Eliza," he
said, "will not be delivered to you, unless I shall first have
terminated my earthly career." And it ended, "Adieu, best of wives--best
of women. Embrace all my darling children for me."

Then he wrote a longer one, for his friends, the public, and posterity.
It contained a statement of his position, a justification of his
conduct.

He was opposed, he wrote, to dueling on moral and religious grounds. He
had not been actuated by personal enmity to Burr; his opposition had
been based solely on political views. He had, he admitted, been perhaps
extremely severe in his comments on Burr as a politician and as a
private individual. It was possible, he admitted further, that he might
have been wrong in some of his uttered appraisals.

Therefore--and his pen moved steadily--he was resolved to shoot into the
air on the first exchange of shots, and give Burr a chance to pause and
reflect before a second exchange.

Why had he not, in view of his aversion to dueling, refused to accept
the challenge? That was impossible, he replied, if he were to continue
to be useful to his country. For the people generally would not believe
the true reasons for his refusal and would treat him with contempt as a
coward.

The letters were written and carefully sealed. Then he went back to bed.
Eliza had not awakened.

    *    *    *    *    *

The days went all too swiftly. There was much for Hamilton to do. He
wound up his law cases, settled his clients' affairs. Then he attended
to his own private matters, putting his house in order, just in case. He
wrote his will and tried to arrange money matters. He was heavily in
debt because of the great expense to which his mansion, the Grange, had
put him. He had lived up every penny of his income, and there were no
reserves. In the meantime, he went about his business as usual, wearing
a mask of calm so that nothing would be suspected.

He told only one other besides Pendleton of the impending duel--Rufus
King, his personal and political friend. When the two men heard of
Hamilton's determination to fire into the air, they exploded. "For God's
sake, Alec," expostulated King, "are you mad? Burr is a good shot. You
will surely be killed."

Hamilton replied quietly, "That is the chance I shall have to take. I
shall not aim at him; at least not on the first fire." And from that
position he could not be budged.

On July 4 the Society of the Cincinnati held its annual banquet. This
was the organization which had been formed by the officers of the
Revolution. Both Hamilton and Burr were members; and both attended the
celebration.

Hamilton was never gayer. He jumped on the table to sing an old military
song and led his brother officers in the chorus. Those who were present
afterward remembered how joking and carefree he had seemed. But Burr sat
in a deathly silence, with fixed, impenetrable face. When Hamilton
shouted for them all to join in the chorus, Burr neither sang nor spoke;
he just stared up at the flushed face of his enemy with a strange
expression.

The morning of July 11, 1804, dawned a misty red. Hamilton, Pendleton,
and Dr. David Hosack as attending physician rowed quietly over the
sluggish Hudson to the meeting ground. They scrambled up the tiny path
that led to the top of the Weehawken plateau. Out of the mist loomed the
figures of Aaron Burr and Van Ness. It was seven o'clock, and the sun
was moving up the horizon, burning the morning fog away.

It was a desolate spot, with not a house to be seen; only brambles,
underbrush, and trees. But in one spot there was a clearing, ringed
around by elms and maples; and this had become the usual resort of those
who sought revenge for fancied attacks on their honor. Another reason
for the choice of Weehawken was that it lay in New Jersey and,
therefore, was out of the jurisdiction of New York. After all, there
were laws on the statute books against dueling, though no one seemed to
pay any attention to them.

The two seconds, Pendleton and Van Ness, went into consultation. The
principals, Hamilton and Burr, stood apart, careful not to cast even a
glance in each other's direction. The doctor placed his black bag on the
grass, opened it, and took out his grisly instruments. They gleamed
ominously in the morning light.

Each second had a case of pistols; each examined those of the other.
Then they paced off ten steps and drew marks in the grass. Pistols in
hand, Hamilton and Burr strode to the marked positions, took their
stands. Their arms were at their sides, the pistols were cocked and
gripped with whitened fingers.

"When I call 'fire!'" said Pendleton, "you will shoot as you will; but
not before. Do you understand?"

Both men nodded.

Pendleton looked at his watch, raised his hand, shouted the fatal word,
"Fire!"

Both men raised their guns. There were two reports, one a little behind
the other. Smoke billowed. A leaf from an overhanging tree fluttered
down to the earth.

Hamilton jerked convulsively, raised himself on his toes, staggered, and
pitched headlong to the ground. Burr remained erect, his smoking pistol
still in his hand.

Pendleton ran over to his stricken friend, shouting for Dr. Hosack to
come and help. Burr's face clouded with regret; he took an impulsive
step toward his fallen foe; but Van Ness caught him by the arm and
pulled him away. A barge was crossing the river and he did not wish Burr
to be recognized by the boatmen.

Hosack hastened up, instruments ready. Pendleton had his chief in his
arms, the tears streaming down his cheeks. The blood gushed from
Hamilton's right side in a thick, red stream.

As Hosack came up, Hamilton opened his eyes. "This is a mortal wound,
Doctor!" he said feebly. Then he fainted and slid from Pendleton's hold
to the grass.

Hosack knelt, swiftly probed the gaping wound with his instrument. Then
he looked up at Pendleton, and his face was grim. "The ball entered the
right side, fractured a rib. I can't find it; I'm afraid it has ripped
through vital organs. We must get him back to New York at once. Perhaps
there----"

"Will he live, Doctor?" cried Pendleton in anguished tones. Hosack
averted his eyes and made no response.

The approaching barge was hailed, and the wounded man was carried
carefully down the steep path to the boat. The boatmen leaned on their
oars and sent the clumsy craft shooting across the incoming tide.

Halfway across, Hamilton opened his eyes. "My----my vision is
indistinct," he gasped. "I can see nothing." Then, as the others bent
down to catch his words, he muttered, "Pendleton knows----I did not
intend to fire at him." Then he collapsed again.

    *    *    *    *    *

They took the dying man to a friend's house on Jane Street, and more
doctors were called in. Even a surgeon from a French frigate in the
harbor was summoned to try his skill.

It was all to no avail. The bullet had crashed through the liver and
diaphragm and lodged in the vertebrae of the spine. It could not be
removed. For thirty-one hours Hamilton lingered in a frightful agony
that no sedative could alleviate. About his bedside crowded his
anguished wife, their bewildered children, friends, and followers.

At two in the afternoon, on July 12, 1804, Hamilton died.

The news spread like wildfire. Bells tolled, and the city went into
mourning. So did the nation, as messengers and papers carried the news
from Maine to Georgia. In a hundred pulpits sermons were preached to
mark the passing of a great man, one of the greatest this country has
ever seen. The Federalists rallied their ranks; even those who had
become restive under Hamilton's leadership now hailed him as the noblest
of them all. Even the Republicans regretted his death.

A great outcry rose against Aaron Burr, the man who had killed him. New
York indicted him for murder, though the crime had not been committed in
its jurisdiction. New Jersey, which had the legal right, did the same.
The Vice-President of the United States was compelled to flee south for
refuge until the excitement could subside. Even when the indictments
were finally quashed and Burr returned to Washington to complete his
term of office, he was a doomed man. His political days were over.
Later, he went on to fantastic adventures and mysterious schemes in the
Southwest that resulted in one of the most famous treason trials in
history. He was acquitted, journeyed to Europe, and returned eventually
to practice law in New York in obscurity.

But Hamilton, his great rival, was dead. In death, however, Hamilton had
triumphed. He had accomplished more in his short life than men who lived
almost twice as long. He had helped bring about a new nation and set it
on the path to greatness. He died believing he had failed; yet he had
built more surely than he knew. The foundations were strong, the edifice
firm; and the course he had envisioned was traversed by the ship of
state with but few variations from his dreams. As much as any other
figure in American history, Hamilton might truly be called "the nation's
builder."




  _For Further Reading_


For the benefit of those who may wish to read further concerning the
history of Hamilton's times and of his great colleagues and
contemporaries, the author has prepared the following short list of
books from the hundreds available.


  GENERAL HISTORY

Bassett, John S., _The Federalist System_, Harper & Brothers, New York,
1906.

Blake, Nelson M., _A Short History of American Life_, McGraw-Hill Book
Company, Inc., New York, 1952.

Bowers, Claude G., _Jefferson and Hamilton_, Houghton Mifflin Company,
Boston, 1925.

Channing, Edward, _History of the United States_, The Macmillan Company,
New York, 6 vols., 1927-1930. (See Vols. 3 and 4.)

Greene, Evarts B., _The Revolutionary Generation_, The Macmillan
Company, New York, 1943.

Krout, John A., and Dixon R. Fox, _The Completion of Independence_, The
Macmillan Company, New York, 1944.

McLaughlin, Andrew C., _The Confederation and the Constitution_, Harper
& Brothers, New York, 1905.


  DOCUMENTS

_The Federalist_, by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (E. J. Bourne, Editor),
Tudor Publishing Company, New York, 1937.

Hacker, Louis M., _The Shaping of the American Tradition_, Columbia
University Press, New York, 1947. (See pages 233-309.)


  BIOGRAPHIES

Brant, Irving, _James Madison, The Nationalist_, Bobbs-Merrill Company,
Indianapolis, 1948.

Chinard, Gilbert, _Honest John Adams_, Little, Brown & Company, Boston,
1933.

Ford, Henry J., _Washington and His Colleagues_, Yale University Press,
New Haven, 1918.

Schachner, Nathan, _Alexander Hamilton_, Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc.,
New York, 1946.

----, _Aaron Burr_, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1937.

----, _Thomas Jefferson_, 2 vols., Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., New
York, 1951.




  _Index_


    A

  Adams, John, 181
    appoints generals, 178-179
    appoints new mission to France, 183-184
    defeated for re-election, 186-188, 190-194
    elected President, 166-167
    elected Vice-President, 106
    ousts Cabinet, 183
    re-elected Vice-President, 141-142
    sends mission to France, 168-170
    XYZ Affair, 176-177

  Alien and Sedition Acts, 181-182, 205

  André, Major John, 57-61

  Arnold, Benedict, his treason, 57-60

  Arnold, Peggy Shippen, 58-60


    B

  Bank of the United States, 123-127

  Beckley, John, 174

  Boudinot, Elias, 18-19

  Burr, Aaron, 167-174
    called names by Hamilton, 207-208
    challenges Hamilton, 211-217
    defeated for governor of New York, 208-211
    defeats Hamilton in New York, 189
    elected Vice-President, 186-196
    kills Hamilton, 218-220
    rival of Hamilton, 164-165


    C

  Callender, James T., 172-174

  Clingman, Jacob, 171

  Clinton, De Witt, 208

  Clinton, George, 56, 70, 79, 82, 85, 95, 99, 100-103, 141, 168, 208

  Clinton, Sir Henry, 46, 58, 66

  Coleman, William, 197-199

  Congress, Continental, 47-48, 54-55, 71-75, 80-81

  Constitutional Convention and ratification of Constitution, 85-93, 94-108

  Cooper, Charles D., 210-211, 214

  Cooper, Dr. Myles, 20, 27
    Hamilton helps him escape, 28-30

  Cornwallis, Lord, 66-68

  Croswell, Harry, 204-206

  Cruger, Nicholas, 1-2
    employs Hamilton as clerk, 8, 10-12, 15, 18


    D

  D'Estaing, Admiral, 46

  Duane, James, 54, 56, 78

  Duer, William, 115, 130, 131-132, 171


    E

  Eacker, George J., 201-202

  Ellsworth, Oliver, 155


    F

  Farewell Address, 165

  Fawcett (Faucette), John, 4-5

  Fawcett, Mary, 5-6

  _Federalist Papers_, 95-98

  Fenno, John, 138

  Fraunces, Andrew G., 171

  Freneau, Philip, 138


    G

  Gates, Horatio, 41-42, 57

  Genêt, Edmond Charles, 145-152

  Gerry, Elbridge, 170, 177

  Giles, William B., resolutions on Hamilton, 142-144

  Greene, Nathanael, 60, 61


    H

  Hamilton, Alexander, activities against Burr, 207-211
    aide to Washington, 36-37
    army general, 177-180
    attacks Jefferson, 138-140
    attends King's College, 21-31
    Bank of the United States, 123-127
    battle of Monmouth, 44-45
    becomes lawyer, 69
    becomes Secretary of Treasury, 108-109
    birth and boyhood, 1-16
    breaks with Washington, 61-63
    builds the Grange, 199-200
    Burr challenges, 211-217
    campaign at Philadelphia, 38-40
    captain of artillery, 31-32
    clerk, 1-4, 9-12
    collector of taxes, 70-71
    death of, 220-222
    death of son, 200-203
    defends Croswell, 204-206
    delegate to Constitutional Convention, 85-93
    delegate to Continental Congress, 71-73
    duel, 218-220
    election of 1800, 185-194
    Farewell Address, Washington's, 166
    _Federalist Papers_, 95-98
    fights at White Plains, Raritan, Princeton, 33-34
    fight over financial schemes, 114-122
    foreign relations, 132-137
    founds _New York Evening Post_, 197-199
    and Genêt, 145-152
    Giles's resolutions, 142-144
    goes to New York, 15-18
    "Hurricane Letter," 12-15
    Jay's mission, 154-158
    law practice, 75-79
    letter, to Duane, 54-56
      to Robert Morris, 63-65
      to Sullivan, 47-50
    marries Elizabeth (Eliza) Schuyler, 62
    meets Elizabeth Schuyler, 52-53
    mission to Gates and Putnam, 41-43
    in New York Assembly and Annapolis Convention, 82-85
    pamphlets against Seabury, 25-27
    quarrel with Adams, 183-185
    rather Jefferson than Burr, 192, 195
    report on public credit, 109-114
    "Report on Manufactures" and SUM, 128-130
    resigns, 156
    revolutionary agitation, 23-24
    Reynolds affair, 71-74
    Rutgers _vs._ Waddington, 76-78
    saves Dr. Cooper, 28-30
    schooling, 19-20
    the struggle for ratification, 85-93
    unofficial adviser, 168-170
    Whisky Rebellion, 159-162
    writes pamphlet against Adams, 190-192
    XYZ Affair, 176-177
    at Yorktown, 66-68

  Hamilton, Elizabeth (nee Schuyler), 52-53, 96-97, 108, 118-119,
      143-144, 202-203, 216, 221
    marriage of, 62

  Hamilton, James, 6-7
    father of Alexander, 7

  Hamilton, Philip, 200-203

  Hamilton, Dr. Will, 6-7

  Hammond, George, 134, 136-137, 145, 149, 154

  Hosack, Dr. David, 218, 219-220

  Howe, General William, 32, 38


    J

  Jay, John, 23, 75, 96, 99, 101, 189
    mission to England, 155-158

  Jefferson, Thomas, 154, 174, 199, 204
    becomes Secretary of State, 107
    drafts Kentucky Resolutions, 182
    elected President, 185-196
    elected Vice-President, 166-168
    foreign affairs, 132-137
    and Genêt, 145-152
    makes deal on assumption, 119-122
    opposes Bank, 126-128
    relations with Hamilton, 137-140
    resigns, 153


    K

  Kent, James, 205-206

  King, Rufus, 75, 81, 217

  King's College (Columbia), 20-21, 27, 31

  Knox, Henry, 107, 127, 150, 178

  Knox, Dr. Hugh, 14-15, 18


    L

  Lafayette, Marquis de, 61

  Lansing, John, 85, 92

  Lee, General Charles, 44-45

  Lee, Henry, 38-40, 162

  Levine, John Michael, 4
    Rachel Fawcett, marries, 5-6
      divorces, 6

  Levine, Peter, 6, 8

  Levine, Rachel (nee Fawcett), 4-7
    death of, 7
    marriage to John Michael Levine, 5-6
    meets James Hamilton, 6
    mother of Alexander, 7

  Livingston, William, 18-19


    M

  McHenry, James, 57, 59, 169-170, 178-180, 187

  Maclay, William, 115, 116

  Madison, James, 82, 86, 95, 96, 102, 138, 152, 166
    drafts Virginia Resolutions, 182
    opposes Hamilton, 111, 116

  Marshall, John, 170
    XYZ Affair, 175-177

  Mifflin, Governor Thomas, 151, 161

  Monroe, James, 171-174

  Morris, Robert, 63, 64, 70, 86, 108

  Mulligan, Hercules, 18-20

  Murray, William Vans, 183


    N

  New York _Evening Post_, 197-199


    P

  Pendleton, Nathaniel, 215, 218-220

  Pickering, Timothy, 169-170, 176, 187

  Pinckney, Charles C., 170, 187-188, 193
    XYZ Affair, 175-178

  Pinckney, Thomas, 167

  Putnam, Israel, 41-43


    R

  Randolph, Edmund, 107, 127

  Reports on public credit, 109-114

  "Report on Manufactures," 128-129

  Reynolds, Mr. and Mrs. James, affair of, 171-174

  Rutgers _vs._ Waddington, 76-78


    S

  Schuyler, Philip, 52-53, 63, 66

  Seabury, Samuel, 26

  Shays' Rebellion, 83-84

  Smith, William, 143-144

  Society for Establishing Useful Manufactures (SUM), 129-130

  Stevens, Edward, 8, 9, 21, 153

  Sullivan, John, 48, 50, 101


    T

  Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 163-164, 175-176

  Tammany Society, 189, 208, 211

  Troup, Robert, 21, 69, 75, 100-101, 196-197


    V

  Van Ness, William W., 211-213, 215, 218-219


    W

  Washington, George, 18, 86, 132, 138, 139, 153, 163
    appoints Hamilton aide, 36-43
    Arnold's treason, 59-60
    Battle of Monmouth, 44-45
    becomes President, 106
    campaigns, 32-35
    elected to second term, 141-142
    Farewell Address of, 165-166
    and Genêt, 145-152
    Hamilton breaks with, 61-63
    heads army, 177-179
    issues Proclamation of Neutrality, 146
    organizes government, 107-108
    signs bank bill, 127
    takes Hamilton's advice, 46
    Whisky Rebellion, 160-161
    at Yorktown, 66-67

  Whisky Rebellion, 159-162

  Witherspoon, Dr., 19-20

  Wolcott, Oliver, 169-170


    Y

  Yates, Robert, 85, 92


[The end of _Alexander Hamilton_ by Nathan Schachner]