The Conqueror

VIII

Wash­ing­ton was in tem­po­rary quar­ters--a cramped and wretched tav­ern--at Lib­er­ty Pole, New Jer­sey. The in­ac­tion be­ing op­pres­sive, Hamil­ton con­cen­trat­ed his thoughts on the con­di­tion and needs of the coun­try.

I am sor­ry that the same spir­it of in­dif­fer­ence to pub­lic af­fairs pre­vails, [he wrote to Sears]. It is nec­es­sary we should rouse and be­gin to do our busi­ness in earnest, or we shall play a los­ing game. We must have a gov­ern­ment with more pow­er. We must have a tax in kind. We must have a for­eign loan. We must have a bank on the true prin­ci­ples of a bank. We must have an ad­min­is­tra­tion dis­tinct from Congress, and in the hands of sin­gle men un­der their or­ders. We must, above all things, have an army for the war.... We are told here there is to be a Congress of the neu­tral pow­ers at the Hague for med­itat­ing of peace. God send it may be true. We want it; but if the idea goes abroad, ten to one if we do not fan­cy the thing done, and fall in­to a pro­found sleep till the can­non of the en­emy wak­en us next cam­paign. This is our na­tion­al char­ac­ter.

Hamil­ton, the High Priest of En­er­gy, had long since de­clared war against the ge­nius of the Amer­ican peo­ple, who be­lieved in God and the art of leisure. Hamil­ton be­lieved in God and a cab­inet of zeal­ous min­is­ters. He was al­ready a thorn in the side of es­timable but hes­itant pa­tri­ots, and in times to come his un­remit­ting and re­morse­less en­er­gy was to be a sub­ject of re­proach by as­so­ciates and en­emies alike. Even Jef­fer­son, that idol of the present as of the past democ­ra­cy, had timid­ly de­clared against sep­ara­tion in 1774, while Hamil­ton, a boy of sev­en­teen, had been the first to sug­gest the re­sort to arms, and in­ces­sant in his en­deav­ours un­til the great re­sult was ac­com­plished. He had count­less oth­er schemes, and he knew that even­tu­al­ly he would suc­ceed in driv­ing the Amer­ican peo­ple be­fore the point of his quill. That his task would be long and ar­du­ous did not daunt him for a mo­ment. By this time he knew ev­ery want of the coun­try, and was de­ter­mined up­on the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the gov­ern­ment. The en­er­gy which is one of the dis­tin­guish­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of the Amer­ican na­tion to-​day was gen­er­at­ed by Hamil­ton, might, in­deed, be said to be the per­sis­tence and dif­fu­sion of his ego. For the mat­ter of that, all that is great­est in this Amer­ican evo­lu­tion of a cen­tu­ry was typ­ified in Hamil­ton. Not on­ly his formidable en­er­gy, but his un­qual­ified hon­our and in­tegri­ty, his un­quench­able op­ti­mism, his ex­traor­di­nary nim­ble­ness of mind and readi­ness of re­source, his gay good-​na­ture, high spir­its, and buoy­an­cy, his light phi­los­ophy ef­fer­vesc­ing above un­sound­ed depths, his in­abil­ity to see when he was beat­en, his re­morse­less in­dus­try, his hard com­mon sense, com­bined with a ver­sa­tile clev­er­ness which makes for shal­low­ness in an­oth­er race, his care­less gen­eros­ity, his ap­ti­tude for de­tail and im­pa­tience of it, his reck­less brav­ery in war and in­tre­pid­ity in peace, even his high­ly strung nerves, ex­citabil­ity, and oblig­ing readi­ness at all times for a fight, raise him high above his­to­ry as the ge­nius of the Amer­ican race. The re­verse side of the na­tion­al char­ac­ter we owe to the great­est of his ri­vals; as will be seen here­after.

Dur­ing the so­journ at Lib­er­ty Pole, Wash­ing­ton and he sat through many nights dis­cussing the im­per­ative need of the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of the gov­ern­ment, and the best meth­ods by which it could be ac­com­plished. The re­sult was Hamil­ton's let­ter to James Du­ane, an im­por­tant mem­ber of the Congress.

This let­ter, no doubt the most re­mark­able of its kind ev­er writ­ten, and as in­ter­est­ing to-​day as when Hamil­ton con­ceived it, is far too long to be quot­ed. It be­gan with an ex­haus­tive anal­ysis of the rea­sons for the fail­ure of Congress to cope with a sit­ua­tion which was be­com­ing more threat­en­ing ev­ery hour, and urged the ex­am­ple of the Gre­cian re­publics and the Swiss can­tons against the at­tempt­ed con­fed­er­ation of the States with­out a strong cen­tral­ized gov­ern­ment. Lack­ing a com­mon tie of suf­fi­cient strength, the States would in­evitably drift to­ward in­de­pen­dent sovereign­ty, and they had giv­en sig­nal proof in the mat­ter of rais­ing troops, con­tribut­ing mon­ey, and in their ev­er­last­ing dis­putes about bound­ary lines, as to the ab­so­lute lack of any com­mon pub­lic spir­it. His rem­edy, in brief, was a con­ven­tion of the States for the pur­pose of cre­at­ing a Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, the dis­tribut­ing of the pow­ers of gov­ern­ment in­to sep­arate de­part­ments, with Pres­idents of War, Ma­rine, and Trade, a sec­re­tary of For­eign Af­fairs, and a Fi­nancier, defin­ing their pre­rog­atives; the States to have no priv­ileges be­yond an in­ter­nal po­lice for the pro­tec­tion of the prop­er­ty and the rights of in­di­vid­uals, and to raise mon­ey by in­ter­nal tax­es; the army to be re­cruit­ed on a per­ma­nent es­tab­lish­ment. In ad­di­tion, there was an elab­orate sys­tem of tax­ation, by which the coun­try could be sup­port­ed in all its emer­gen­cies. His favourite plan of a Na­tion­al Bank was elab­orat­ed in minute de­tail, the im­me­di­ate ne­ces­si­ty for a for­eign loan dwelt up­on with sharp re­proof, and ex­am­ples giv­en of the re­cruit­ing of armies in Eu­ro­pean states.

Out of a mul­ti­tude of sug­ges­tions a few were adopt­ed with­in a short time, but the great cen­tral sug­ges­tion, the call­ing of a con­ven­tion for the pur­pose of cre­at­ing a Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion, was to be ham­mered at for many weary years be­fore jeal­ous States and un­con­fi­dent pa­tri­ots could be per­suad­ed to a mea­sure so monar­chi­cal and so bold. But the let­ter is on record, and noth­ing more log­ical, far-​sight­ed, and com­pre­hen­sive ev­er was writ­ten. It con­tained the foun­da­tion-​stones up­on which this gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States stands to-​day. Congress put on its spec­ta­cles and read it with many grunts, mag­nan­imous­ly ex­press­ing ad­mi­ra­tion for a youth who had fear­less­ly grap­pled with ques­tions which ad­dled old­er brains; but its au­da­cious sug­ges­tions of a gov­ern­ment greater than Congress, and of a bank which would add to their trou­bles, were not tak­en se­ri­ous­ly for a mo­ment.

Hamil­ton al­so found time to write a good many love let­ters. Here is one of them:--

I would not have you imag­ine, Miss, that I write you so of­ten to grat­ify your wish­es or please your van­ity; but mere­ly to in­dulge my­self, and to com­ply with that rest­less propen­si­ty of my mind which will not be hap­py un­less I am do­ing some­thing in which you are con­cerned. This may seem a very idle dis­po­si­tion in a philoso­pher and a sol­dier, but I can plead il­lus­tri­ous ex­am­ples in my jus­ti­fi­ca­tion. Achilles liked to have sac­ri­ficed Greece and his glo­ry to a fe­male cap­tive, and An­tho­ny lost a world for a wom­an. I am very sor­ry times are so changed as to oblige me to go to an­tiq­ui­ty for my apol­ogy, but I con­fess, to the dis­grace of the present time, that I have not been able to find as many who are as far gone as my­self in the laud­able Zeal of the fair sex. I sus­pect, how­ev­er, if oth­ers knew the charm of my sweet­heart as I do, I could have a great num­ber of com­peti­tors. I wish I could give you an idea of her. You can have no con­cep­tion of how sweet a girl she is. It is on­ly in my heart that her im­age is tru­ly drawn. She has a love­ly form and still more love­ly mind. She is all good­ness, the gen­tlest, the dear­est, the ten­der­est of her sex. Ah, Bet­sey, how I love her!

His re­it­er­at­ed de­mand for a for­eign loan, and the send­ing of a spe­cial en­voy to ob­tain it, at last wrung a re­luc­tant con­sent from Congress. Lafayette was his politic sug­ges­tion, and Congress would have in­dorsed it, but that ad­ven­tur­ous young hero had not come to Amer­ica to re­turn and beg mon­ey on his own doorstep. There was a prospect of fight­ing in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture, and he was de­ter­mined to add to his renown. The choice then lay be­tween Hamil­ton and Lau­rens, who had re­ceived the thanks of Congress for his dis­tin­guished ser­vices in the field, and whose fa­ther had been a pres­ident of that body. Lafayette and all the French­men were anx­ious that the mis­sion be giv­en to Hamil­ton. The for­mer went to Philadel­phia and talked to half the Congress. He of­fered Hamil­ton pri­vate let­ters which would in­tro­duce him to the best so­ci­ety of Eu­rope; adding, “I in­tend giv­ing you the _key_ of the cab­inet, as well as of the so­ci­eties which in­flu­ence them.”

Lau­rens, by this time, was ea­ger to go. His fa­ther, who had start­ed for Hol­land as Min­is­ter Plenipo­ten­tiary, had been cap­tured by the British and con­fined in the Tow­er of Lon­don; the for­eign mis­sion would give him an op­por­tu­ni­ty to at­tempt his lib­er­ation. More­over, life was very dull at present, and he knew him­self to be pos­sessed of diplo­mat­ic tal­ents. But he was al­so aware of Hamil­ton's ar­dent de­sire to vis­it Eu­rope, all that it would mean to that in­sa­tiate mind, his weari­ness of his present po­si­tion. Wash­ing­ton would give his con­sent to the tem­po­rary ab­sence of Hamil­ton, for the French mon­ey was the vi­tal ne­ces­si­ty of the Re­pub­lic's life, and he knew that his in­domitable aide would not re­turn with­out it There­fore Lau­rens wrote to Hamil­ton, who was in Al­bany await­ing his wed­ding-​day, that he should re­sign in his favour, and con­grat­ulat­ed him on so bril­liant and dis­tin­guished a hon­ey­moon.

The strug­gle in Hamil­ton's mind was brief. The prospect of sail­ing with his bride on a long and de­light­ful jour­ney that could not fail to bring him high­est hon­our had made his blood dance. More­over, in the pre­vi­ous month Wash­ing­ton had again re­fused his re­quest for an in­de­pen­dent com­mand. It took him but a short time to re­lin­quish this cher­ished dream when he thought of the un­hap­py plight of Mr. Lau­rens, and re­mem­bered the deep anx­iety of the son, of­ten ex­pressed. He wrote to Lau­rens, with­draw­ing in the most de­ci­sive terms. Lau­rens was not to be out­done. He loved his fa­ther, but he loved Hamil­ton more. He pressed the ap­point­ment up­on his friend, protest­ing that the af­fairs of the el­der Lau­rens would be quite as safe in his hands. Hamil­ton pre­vailed, and Congress, hav­ing wait­ed ami­ably while the two mar­tial youths had it out, unan­imous­ly ap­point­ed Lau­rens. He could not sail un­til Febru­ary, and as soon as the mat­ter was de­cid­ed ob­tained leave of ab­sence and re­paired in all haste to Al­bany, to be present at Hamil­ton's wed­ding.