The Conqueror

XII

The next few years may be passed over quick­ly; they are not the most in­ter­est­ing, though not the least hap­py of Hamil­ton's life. He re­turned home on fur­lough af­ter the bat­tle of York Town and re­mained in his fa­ther-​in-​law's hos­pitable home un­til the birth of his boy, on the 22d of Jan­uary. Then, hav­ing made up his mind that there was no fur­ther work for him in the army, and that Britain was as tired of the war as the States, he an­nounced his in­ten­tion to study for the bar. His friends en­deav­oured to dis­suade him from a ca­reer whose prepa­ra­tion was so long and ar­du­ous, and re­mind­ed him of the pub­lic of­fices he could have for the ask­ing. But Hamil­ton was ac­quaint­ed with his ca­pac­ity for an­ni­hi­lat­ing work, and at this time he was not con­scious of any im­me­di­ate am­bi­tion but of keep­ing his wife in a prop­er style and of found­ing a for­tune for the ed­uca­tion of his chil­dren. His mil­itary am­bi­tion had been so pos­sess­ing that the sud­den and bril­liant fin­ish at York Town of his pow­er to grat­ify it had dwarfed for a while any oth­er he may have cher­ished.

He took a lit­tle house in the long street on the riv­er front, and in­vit­ed Troup to live with him. They stud­ied to­geth­er. He had been the gayest of com­pan­ions, the most court­ed of favourites, since his re­turn from the wars. For four months even his wife and Troup had, save on Sun­days, few words with him on un­le­gal mat­ters. His brain ex­clud­ed ev­ery mem­ory, ev­ery in­ter­est. For the first time he omit­ted to write reg­ular­ly to Mrs. Mitchell, Hugh Knox, and Pe­ter Lyt­ton. All day and half the night he walked up and down his li­brary, or his fa­ther-​in-​law's, read­ing, mem­oriz­ing, mut­ter­ing aloud. His friends vowed that he marched the length and width of the Con­fed­er­acy. He nev­er gave a more strik­ing ex­hi­bi­tion of his con­trol over the pow­ers of his in­tel­lect than this. The re­sult was that at the end of four months he ob­tained a li­cense to prac­tise as an at­tor­ney, and pub­lished a “Man­ual on the Prac­tice of Law,” which, Troup tells us, “served as an in­struc­tive gram­mar to fu­ture stu­dents, and be­came the ground­work of sub­se­quent en­larged prac­ti­cal trea­tis­es.” If it be protest­ed that these feats were im­pos­si­ble, I can on­ly re­ply that they are his­toric facts.

It was dur­ing these months of study that Aaron Burr came to Al­bany.

This young man, al­so, was not un­known to fame; and the pe­ri­od of the Rev­olu­tion is the one on which Burr's bi­og­ra­phers should di­late, for it was the on­ly one through which he passed in a man­ner en­tire­ly to his cred­it. He was now in Al­bany, striv­ing for ad­mit­tance to the bar, but hand­icapped by the fact that he had stud­ied on­ly two years, in­stead of the full three de­mand­ed by law.

While Burr did not be­long to the aris­toc­ra­cy of the coun­try, his fam­ily not rank­ing by any means with the Schuylers, Van Rens­se­laers, Liv­ingstons, Jays, Mor­ris­es, Roo­sevelts, and oth­ers of that small and haughty band, still he came of ex­cel­lent and re­spectable stock. His fa­ther had been the Rev. Aaron Burr, Pres­ident of Prince­ton Col­lege, and his moth­er the daugh­ter of the fa­mous Jonathan Ed­wards. He was quick-​wit­ted and bril­liant; and there is no ad­jec­tive which qual­ifies his am­bi­tion. He was a year old­er than Hamil­ton, about an inch taller, and very dark. His fea­tures were well cut, his eyes black, glit­ter­ing, and cold; his bear­ing dig­ni­fied but unim­pos­ing, for he bent his shoul­ders and walked heav­ily. His face was not frank, even in youth, and grew no­tice­ably crafti­er. He and Hamil­ton were the great­est fops in dress of their time; but while the el­egance and beau­ty of at­tire sat with a pe­cu­liar fit­ness on Hamil­ton, seem­ing but the nat­ural con­tin­ua­tion of his high-​bred face and easy erect and grace­ful bear­ing, Burr al­ways looked stu­dious­ly well-​dressed. In re­gard to their height, a sim­ilar im­pres­sion pre­vailed. One nev­er for­got Burr's small stature, and of­ten com­ment­ed up­on it. Com­ment up­on Hamil­ton's size was rare, his pro­por­tions and mo­tions were so har­mo­nious; when he was on the plat­form, that ruth­less test of inch­es, he dom­inat­ed and con­trolled ev­ery brain in the au­di­ence, and his en­emies vowed he was in league with the dev­il.

Burr brought let­ters to Gen­er­al Schuyler, and was po­lite­ly giv­en the run of the li­brary. He and Hamil­ton had met ca­su­al­ly in the army, but had had no op­por­tu­ni­ty for ac­quain­tance. At this time the law was a sub­ject of com­mon in­ter­est, and they ex­changed many opin­ions. There was no shock of an­tag­onism at first, and for that mat­ter they asked each oth­er to din­ner as long as Hamil­ton lived. But Hamil­ton es­ti­mat­ed him just­ly at once, al­though, as Burr was as yet un­con­scious of the depths of his own worst qual­ities, the most as­tute read­er of char­ac­ter hard­ly would sus­pect them. But Hamil­ton read that he was ar­ti­fi­cial and un­scrupu­lous, and too self­ish to serve the coun­try in any of her com­ing needs. Still, he was bril­liant and fas­ci­nat­ing, and Hamil­ton asked him to his home. Burr, at first, was agree­ably at­tract­ed to Hamil­ton, whose ra­di­ant dis­po­si­tion warmed his cold­er na­ture; but when he was forced to ac­cept the as­tound­ing fact that Hamil­ton had pre­pared him­self for the bar in four months, di­gest­ing and re­mem­ber­ing a moun­tain of knowl­edge that cost oth­er men the labour of years, and had pre­pared a Man­ual be­sides, he ex­pe­ri­enced the first con­vul­sion of that jeal­ousy which was to be­come his con­trol­ling pas­sion in lat­er years. In­deed, he es­tab­lished the habit with that first pro­longed parox­ysm, and he asked him­self sul­len­ly why a name­less stranger, from an un­heard-​of Is­land, should have the un­prece­dent­ed suc­cess which this youth had had. So­cial vic­to­ry, mil­itary glo­ry, the pref­er­ence of Wash­ing­ton, the re­spect and ad­mi­ra­tion of the most em­inent men in the coun­try, a horde of friends who talked of him as if he were a de­mi-​god, an al­liance by mar­riage with the great­est fam­ily in Amer­ica, a fa­ther-​in-​law to ad­vance any man's am­bi­tions, a fas­ci­na­tion which had kept the wom­en talk­ing un­til he mar­ried, and fi­nal­ly a mem­ory and a le­gal fac­ul­ty which had so as­tound­ed the bar--large­ly com­posed of ex­cep­tion­al men--that it could talk of noth­ing else: it was enough for a life­time, and the man was on­ly twen­ty-​five. What in heav­en's name was to be ex­pect­ed of him be­fore he fin­ished? The more Burr brood­ed, the more en­raged he be­came. He had been brought up to think him­self ex­traor­di­nary, al­though his guardian had oc­ca­sion­al­ly birched him when his own con­fi­dence had dis­turbed the peace; he was in­tense­ly proud of his mil­itary ca­reer, and aware of his fit­ness for the bar. But in the blaze of Hamil­ton's ge­nius he seemed to shriv­el; and as for hav­ing at­tempt­ed to pre­pare him­self for prac­tice in four months, he might as well have graft­ed wings to his back and ex­pect­ed them to grow. It was some con­so­la­tion to re­flect that, as aide and con­fi­den­tial sec­re­tary for four years to Wash­ing­ton, Hamil­ton had been a stu­dent of the law of na­tions, and that thus his mind was pe­cu­liar­ly fit­ted to grasp what con­fronts most men as a sol­id wall to be tak­en down stone by stone; al­so that him­self ac­knowl­edged no ri­val where the af­fec­tions of wom­en were con­cerned. But while he lift­ed the droop­ing head of his pride, and tied it firm­ly to a stake with many strong words, he chose to re­gard Hamil­ton as a ri­val, and the idea grew un­til it pos­sessed him.

In Ju­ly Robert Mor­ris, af­ter some cor­re­spon­dence, per­suad­ed Hamil­ton to ac­cept the of­fice of Con­ti­nen­tal Re­ceiv­er for a short time.

Your for­mer sit­ua­tion in the army [he wrote], the present sit­ua­tion of that very army, your con­nex­ions in the state, your per­fect knowl­edge of men and mea­sures, and the abil­ities with which heav­en has blessed you, will give you a fine op­por­tu­ni­ty to for­ward the pub­lic ser­vice.

Hamil­ton, who had no de­sire to in­ter­rupt his stud­ies, was placed in a po­si­tion which gave him no choice; his sense of pub­lic du­ty grew steadi­ly.

For my part [he wrote to Mor­ris], con­sid­er­ing the late se­ri­ous mis­for­tune to our al­ly, the spir­it of ref­or­ma­tion, of wis­dom, and of una­nim­ity, which seems to have suc­ceed­ed to that of blun­der and dis­sen­sion in the British gov­ern­ment, and the uni­ver­sal re­luc­tance of these states to do what is right, I can­not help view­ing our sit­ua­tion as crit­ical, and I feel it the du­ty of ev­ery cit­izen to ex­ert his fac­ul­ties to the ut­most.

But in spite of the oner­ous and dis­agree­able du­ties of his po­si­tion, he con­tin­ued to pur­sue the course of study nec­es­sary for ad­mis­sion to the bar as a coun­sel­lor. He al­so found time to write a let­ter to Meade. The fol­low­ing ex­tract will show that the sever­ity of his great task was over, and that he was once more alive to that do­mes­tic hap­pi­ness to which so large a part of his na­ture re­spond­ed.

You re­proach me with not hav­ing said enough about our lit­tle stranger. When I wrote last I was not suf­fi­cient­ly ac­quaint­ed with him to give you his char­ac­ter. I may now as­sure you that your daugh­ter, when she sees him, will not con­sult you about her choice, or will on­ly do it in re­spect to the rules of deco­rum. He is tru­ly a very fine young gen­tle­man, the most agree­able in con­ver­sa­tion and man­ners of any I ev­er knew, nor less re­mark­able for his in­tel­li­gence and sweet­ness of tem­per. You are not to imag­ine by my be­gin­ning with his men­tal qual­ifi­ca­tions that he is de­fec­tive in per­son­al. It is agreed on all hands that he is hand­some; his fea­tures are good, his eye is not on­ly spright­ly and ex­pres­sive, but it is full of be­nig­ni­ty. His at­ti­tude in sit­ting is, by con­nois­seurs, es­teemed grace­ful, and he has a method of wav­ing his hand that an­nounces the fu­ture or­ator. He stands, how­ev­er, rather awk­ward­ly, and as his legs have not all the del­icate slim­ness of his fa­ther's, it is feared he may nev­er ex­cel as much in danc­ing, which is prob­ably the on­ly ac­com­plish­ment in which he will not be a mod­el. If he has any fault in man­ners, he laughs too much. He has now passed his sev­enth month.

Hap­py by tem­per­ament, Hamil­ton was at this time hap­pi­er in his con­di­tions--bar­ring the Re­ceiver­ship--than any vague, wist­ful, crowd­ed dream had ev­er pre­saged. His wife was adorable and pret­ty, spright­ly and sym­pa­thet­ic, yet ac­com­plished in ev­ery art of the Dutch house­wife; and al­though he was far too mod­est to boast, he was pri­vate­ly con­vinced that his ba­by was the finest in the Con­fed­er­acy. He had a charm­ing lit­tle home, and Troup, the ge­nial, hearty, and sol­id, was a mem­ber of it. In Gen­er­al and Mrs. Schuyler he had found gen­uine par­ents, who strove to make him for­get that he had ev­er been with­out a home. He had been forced to refuse of­fers of as­sis­tance from his fa­ther-​in-​law again and again. He would do noth­ing to vi­olate his strong sense of per­son­al in­de­pen­dence; he had half of the ar­rears of his pay, Troup his share of the ex­pens­es of the lit­tle house. He knew that in a short time he should be mak­ing an in­come. The clever­est of men, how­ev­er, can be hood­winked by the sub­tle sex. The great Sarato­ga es­tate of the Schuylers fur­nished the larder of the Hamil­tons with many things which the young house­hold­er was far too busy to com­pare with his slen­der purse.

He heard con­stant­ly from his friends in the army, and fi­nal­ly was per­suad­ed to sit for a por­trait, to be the com­mon prop­er­ty of six or eight of them. Mon­ey was des­per­ate­ly tight, they could not af­ford a copy apiece, but each was to pos­sess it for two months at a time so long as he lived; he who sur­vived the oth­ers to dis­pose of it as he chose. For Hamil­ton to sit still and look in one di­rec­tion for half an hour was noth­ing short of mis­ery, even with Bet­sey, Troup, and the Ba­by to amuse him; and on­ly the head, face, stock, and front of the coat were fin­ished. But the artist man­aged to do him­self jus­tice with the mas­sive spir­it­ed head, the deep-​set mis­chievous eyes, whose light­nings nev­er were far from the sur­face; the hu­mour in the re­mark­able curves of the mouth, the de­ter­mi­na­tion and sup­pressed en­er­gy of the whole face. It was a liv­ing por­tray­al, and Bet­sey part­ed from it with tears. When she saw it again her eyes were dim with many tears. The last of its own­ers to sur­vive fell far in­to pover­ty, and sold it to one of her sons. It is to-​day as fresh, as alive with im­pa­tient youth and ge­nius, as when Hamil­ton es­ti­mat­ed por­trait painters thieves of time.

Mean­while a com­pli­ment was paid to him which up­set his plans, and placed him for a short time in the awk­ward po­si­tion of hes­itat­ing be­tween pri­vate de­sires and pub­lic du­ty: he was elect­ed by the New York leg­is­la­ture, and al­most unan­imous­ly, a del­egate to Congress. Troup brought him the news as he was walk­ing on the broad street along the riv­er front, mut­ter­ing his Black­stone, obliv­ious of his fel­low-​cit­izens.

“Go to Congress!” he ex­claimed. “Who goes to that ramshack­le body that is able to keep out of it? Could not they find some­one else to send to dis­tin­guish him­self by fail­ure? I've my liv­ing to make. If a man in these days man­ages to sup­port his wife and child, there is noth­ing else he can do which so en­ti­tles him to the es­teem of his fel­low-​cit­izens.”

“True,” said Troup, sooth­ing­ly; “there cer­tain­ly is noth­ing in that body of old wom­en and lu­natics, per­pet­ual­ly bick­er­ing with thir­teen sovereign, dis­obe­di­ent, and jeal­ous States, to tempt the am­bi­tion of any man; nor, or­di­nar­ily, to ap­peal to his sense of use­ful­ness. But just at present there are sev­er­al ques­tions be­fore it with which it is thought you can cope more suc­cess­ful­ly than any man liv­ing. So I think you ought to go, and so does Gen­er­al Schuyler. I know all that you will sac­ri­fice, do­mes­tic as well as pe­cu­niar­ily--but re­mem­ber, you solemn­ly ded­icat­ed your­self to the ser­vice of this coun­try.”

“I'm not like­ly to for­get it, and I am will­ing to sac­ri­fice any­thing if I am con­vinced of my use­ful­ness in a giv­en di­rec­tion, but I see no chance of ac­com­plish­ing aught in Congress, of do­ing this coun­try any ser­vice un­til it is a na­tion, not a sack of scratch­ing cats.”

Not on­ly was great pres­sure brought to bear up­on him, but he was not long con­vinc­ing him­self that it was his du­ty to take his knowl­edge of cer­tain sub­jects vex­ing the Con­fed­er­ation, to the de­crepit body which was fee­bly striv­ing to save the coun­try from an­ar­chy. He had giv­en lit­tle at­ten­tion to the gen­er­al af­fairs of the coun­try dur­ing the past six months, but an ex­am­ina­tion of them fired his zeal. He ac­cept­ed the ap­point­ment, and re­turned to his law books and his dispir­it­ing strug­gle with the tax­es.

In the au­tumn Hamil­ton re­ceived the sec­ond of those heavy blows by which he was re­mind­ed that in spite of his mag­netism for suc­cess he was to suf­fer like oth­er mor­tals. Lau­rens was dead--killed in a pet­ty skir­mish which he was so loath to miss that he had bolt­ed to it from a sick-​bed. Hamil­ton mourned him pas­sion­ate­ly, and nev­er ceased to re­gret him. He was mer­cu­ri­al on­ly among his lighter feel­ings. The few peo­ple he re­al­ly loved were a part of his dai­ly thoughts, and could set his heart­strings vi­brat­ing at any mo­ment. Bet­sey con­soled, di­vert­ed, and be­witched him, but there were times when he would have ex­changed her for Lau­rens. The per­fect friend­ship of two men is the deep­est and high­est sen­ti­ment of which the fi­nite mind is ca­pa­ble; wom­en miss the best in life.

In Oc­to­ber Hamil­ton re­signed the Re­ceiver­ship, hav­ing brought an hon­ourable amount of or­der out of chaos and laid down the law for the guid­ance of fu­ture of­fi­cials. Novem­ber came, and he set off for Philadel­phia philo­soph­ical­ly, though by no means with a light heart. The ba­by was too young to trav­el; he was obliged to send his lit­tle fam­ily to Gen­er­al Schuyler's, with no hope of see­ing them again for months, and a re­ced­ing prospect of of­fer­ing them a home in New York. His fa­ther-​in-​law, not un­mind­ful that con­so­la­tion was need­ed, drove him two-​thirds of the dis­tance, thus sav­ing him a long ride, or its al­ter­na­tive, the heavy coach. In Philadel­phia he found suf­fi­cient work await­ing him to drive all per­son­al mat­ters out of his head.

It was dur­ing this year of hard work and lit­tle re­sult that he re­newed an ac­quain­tance with James Madi­son, Jr., af­ter­ward fourth Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, and Gou­verneur Mor­ris, one of the most bril­liant and dis­in­ter­est­ed young men in the coun­try, now as­so­ci­at­ed with Robert Mor­ris in the De­part­ment of Fi­nance. With the last the ac­quain­tance ripened in­to a life­long and in­ti­mate friend­ship; with Madi­son the friend­ship was equal­ly ar­dent and in­ti­mate while it last­ed. Madi­son had the brain of a states­man, en­er­gy and per­sis­tence in crises, im­mense in­dus­try, fa­cil­ity of speech, a broad con­tempt for the pre­ten­sions and mean bick­er­ings of the States, and a fair­ly na­tion­al out­look. As Hamil­ton would have said, he “thought con­ti­nen­tal­ly.” But he lacked in­di­vid­ual­ity. He was too pa­tri­ot­ic, too sin­cere to act against his prin­ci­ples, but his prin­ci­ples could be changed by a more pow­er­ful and mag­net­ic brain than his own, and the in­her­ent weak­ness in him de­mand­ed a stronger na­ture to cling to. It hap­pened that he and Hamil­ton, when they met again in Congress, thought alike on many sub­jects, and they worked to­geth­er in har­mo­ny from the first; nev­er­the­less, he was soon in the po­si­tion of a dou­ble to that tow­er­ing and en­er­get­ic per­son­al­ity, and wor­shipped it. In their let­ters the two young men sign them­selves, “yours af­fec­tion­ate­ly,” “yours with deep at­tach­ment,” which be­tween men--I sup­pose--means some­thing. So no­tice­able was Madi­son's de­vo­tion to the most dis­tin­guished young man of the day, and a few years lat­er so ab­sorbed was he in­to the huge per­son­al­ity of his ear­ly friend's bit­ter­est en­emy, that John Ran­dolph once ex­claimed in wrath, “Madi­son al­ways was some great man's mis­tress--first Hamil­ton's, then Jef­fer­son's:” a re­mark which was safe in the days of our an­ces­tors, when life was all work and no sati­ety.

Gou­verneur Mor­ris had sac­ri­ficed home, in­her­itance, and ties in the cause of the Rev­olu­tion, most of his fam­ily re­main­ing true to the crown. His ed­uca­tion was thor­ough, how­ev­er, and sub­se­quent­ly he had nine years of Eu­rope, of which he left to pos­ter­ity an en­ter­tain­ing record. Tall, hand­some, a wit, a beau, no­table for en­er­gy in Congress, er­rat­ic, caus­tic, cyn­ical, but the warmest of friends, he was a pet of so­ci­ety, a dar­ling of wom­en, and trust­ed by all men. He and Hamil­ton had much in com­mon, and to some de­gree he took Lau­rens's place; not en­tire­ly, for Lau­rens's ide­al­ism gave him a pedestal in Hamil­ton's mem­ory which no oth­er man but Wash­ing­ton ev­er ap­proached; and Mor­ris was bru­tal in his cyn­icism, plac­ing mankind but a de­gree high­er than the beasts of the for­est. But heart and brain en­deared him to Hamil­ton, and no man had a lofti­er or more burn­ing pa­tri­otism. As for him­self, he loved and ad­mired Hamil­ton above all men. He was as strong in his na­tion­al­ism, be­liev­ing Union un­der a pow­er­ful cen­tral gov­ern­ment to be the on­ly hope of the States. Both he and Madi­son were lead­ers; but both, even then, were will­ing to be led by Hamil­ton, who was sev­er­al years their ju­nior.

The three young en­thu­si­asts made a strik­ing trio of con­trasts as they sat one evening over their port and wal­nuts in a pri­vate room of a cof­fee-​house, where they had met to dis­cuss the prob­lems con­vuls­ing the un­for­tu­nate coun­try. Madi­son had the look of a stu­dent, a tac­iturn in­tel­lec­tu­al vis­age. He spoke slow­ly, weight­ily, and with great pre­ci­sion. Mor­ris had, even then, an ex­pres­sion of cyn­icism and con­tempt on his hand­some bold face, and he swore mag­nif­icent­ly when­ev­er his new wood­en leg in­ter­fered with his com­fort or dig­ni­ty. Hamil­ton, with his fair mo­bile face, pow­er­ful, pen­etrat­ing, del­icate, il­lu­mi­nat­ed by eyes full of fire and vi­vac­ity, but ow­ing its chief at­trac­tion to a mouth as sweet as it was firm and hu­mor­ous, made the oth­er men look al­most heavy. Madi­son was care­less­ly at­tired, the oth­er two with all the pic­turesque el­egance of their time.

“A debt of $42,000,000,” groaned Mor­ris, “in­ter­est $2,400,000; Robert Mor­ris threat­en­ing to re­sign; deliri­ous prospect of pan­ic in con­se­quence; na­tion­al spir­it with which we be­gan the war, a stink­ing wick un­der the tin ex­tin­guish­er of States' self­ish­ness, stingi­ness, and in­dif­fer­ence--caused by the nat­ural re­ver­sion of hu­man na­ture to first prin­ci­ples af­ter the col­lapse of that en­thu­si­asm which in­flates mankind in­to a bom­bas­tic pride of it­self; Vir­ginia pusil­lan­imous, Rhode Is­land an old bel­dam stand­ing on the vil­lage pump and shriek­ing dis­ap­proval of ev­ery­thing; Jay, Adams, and Franklin, af­ter years of hu­mil­iat­ing men­di­can­cy, their very hearts wrin­kled in the ser­vice of the stupi­dest coun­try known to God or man, shoved by a Congress not fit to black their boots un­der the thumb of the wil­iest and most disin­gen­uous diplo­ma­tist in Eu­rope--much France cares for our in­ter­ests, pro­vid­ed we cut loose from Britain; New­burg ad­dress and ex­cit­ing prospect, in these monotonous times, of civ­il war, while peace com­mis­sion is sit­ting in Lon­don; just de­mands of men who have fought, starv­ing and naked, for a bare sub­sis­tence af­ter the army dis­bands, mod­est re­quest for ar­rears of pay,--on which to re­lieve the ne­ces­si­ties of their fam­ilies turned out to grass for sev­en years,--pleas­ant­ly in­dorsed by the Congress, which feels safe in in­dors­ing any­thing, and re­ject­ed by the States, called up­on to foot the bill, as a painful in­stance of the greed and de­prav­ity of hu­man na­ture--there you are: no mon­ey, no cred­it, no gov­ern­ment, no friends,--for Eu­rope is sick of us,--no pa­tri­otism; im­me­di­ate prospects, bankrupt­cy, civ­il war, thir­teen sep­arate meals for Eu­rope. What do you pro­pose, Hamil­ton? I look to you as your Is­landers flee to a stone house in a hur­ri­cane. You are an alien, with no damned state roots to pull up, your courage is un­hu­man, or un-​Amer­ican, and you are the one man of ge­nius in the coun­try. Madi­son is hero­ic to a fault, a roar­ing Berserk­er, but we must tem­per him, we must tem­per him; and mean­while we will both de­fer to the pe­cu­liar qual­ity of your met­tle.”

Madi­son, who had not a grain of hu­mour, replied grave­ly, his rich south­ern brogue seem­ing to roll his words down from a height: “I have a mod­est hope in the ad­dress I pre­pared for the cit­izens of Rhode Is­land, more in Hamil­ton's re­al­ly mag­nif­icent let­ter to the Gov­er­nor. Noth­ing can be more forcible--nay, be­guil­ing--than his ar­gu­ment in that let­ter in favour of a gen­er­al gov­ern­ment in­de­pen­dent of state ma­chin­ery, and his elab­orate ap­peal to that ir­ri­tat­ing lit­tle com­mon­wealth to con­sent to the levy­ing of the im­post by Congress, nec­es­sary to the rais­ing of the mon­eys. I fear I am not a hero, for I con­fess I trem­ble. I fear the worst. But at all events I am de­ter­mined to place on record that I left no stone un­turned to save this mis­er­able coun­try.”

“You will go down to pos­ter­ity as a great man, Madi­son, if you are nev­er giv­en the chance to be one,” replied the fa­ther of Amer­ican hu­mour and coinage; “for it is not in words but in acts that we dis­play the faith that is not in us. Well, Hamil­ton?”

“I must con­fess,” said Hamil­ton, “that Congress ap­pears to me, as a new­com­er, root­ed con­tent­ed­ly to its chairs, and de­ter­mined to do noth­ing, hap­py in the be­lief that Prov­idence has the mat­ter in hand and but bides the right mo­ment to make the whole world over. But I see no cause to de­spair, else I should not have come to waste my time. I fear that Rhode Is­land is too fos­silized to lis­ten to us, but I shall urge that we change the prin­ci­ple of the Con­fed­er­ation and vote to make the States con­tribute to the gen­er­al trea­sury in an equal pro­por­tion to their means, by a sys­tem of gen­er­al tax­ation im­posed un­der con­ti­nen­tal au­thor­ity. If the poor­er States, ir­re­spec­tive of land and num­bers, could be re­lieved, and the wealth­ier taxed specif­ical­ly on land and hous­es, the whole reg­ulat­ed by con­ti­nen­tal leg­is­la­tion, I think that even Rhode Is­land might be pla­cat­ed. It may be that this is not agree­able to the spir­it of the times, but I shall make the at­tempt--”

“Con­sid­er­ing there is no spir­it _in_ the times, we might as well ex­pect to in­form its skull with ge­nius by means of a light­ed can­dle. You think too well of hu­man na­ture, my boy; ex­pect noth­ing, that ye be not dis­ap­point­ed, es­pe­cial­ly in the mat­ter of rev­enue.”

“I have no ex­alt­ed opin­ion of hu­man na­ture, but if I did not think more hope­ful­ly of it than you do, I should yield up that en­thu­si­asm with­out which I can ac­com­plish noth­ing. You have ev­ery gift, but you will end as a dilet­tante be­cause your ide­al is al­ways in the mud; and it is on­ly now and again that you think it worth while to pick it up and give it a bath.”

“Right, right,” mur­mured Mor­ris, good-​na­tured­ly. “Would that I had your un­quench­able be­lief in the worth while. Al­lied to your abil­ities it will make the new world over and up­set the wicked plans of the old. An­alyst and dis­be­liev­er in man's right to his ex­ag­ger­at­ed opin­ion of him­self, how do you keep en­thu­si­asm abreast with knowl­edge of hu­man kind? Tell me, Hamil­ton, how do you do it?”

“I fear 'tis the essence of which I am made. My en­er­gies will have out­let or tear me to pieces. When there is work to do, my nos­trils quiver like a war-​horse's at the first roar and smoke--”

“Your mod­esty does you in­fi­nite hon­our; the truth is, you have the holy fire of pa­tri­otism in an ab­nor­mal de­gree. I have it, but I still am nor­mal. I have made sac­ri­fices and shall make more, but my ego curls its lip. Yours nev­er does. That is the dif­fer­ence be­tween you and most of us. Hun­dreds of us are dogged­ly de­ter­mined to go through to the bit­ter end, sac­ri­fice mon­ey, youth and health; but you alone are hap­py. That is why we love you and are glad to fol­low your lead. But, I re­peat, how can you labour with such undy­ing en­thu­si­asm for the good of hu­man kind when you know what they amount to?”

“Some are worth work­ing for, that is one point; I don't share your opin­ion of gen­er­al abase­ment, for the facts war­rant no such opin­ion. And the bat­tle of ideas, the fight for cer­tain stir­ring and race-​mak­ing prin­ci­ples,--that is the great­est game that mor­tals can play. And to play it, we must have mor­tals for pup­pets. To cre­ate a new gov­ern­ment, a new race, to found what may be­come the great­est na­tion on the earth,--what more stu­pen­dous des­tiny? Even if one were for­got­ten, it would be worth do­ing, so tremen­dous would be the ex­er­cise of the fac­ul­ties, so colos­sal the dif­fi­cul­ties. I would have a few men do it all; I have no faith in the un­ed­ucat­ed. The lit­tle brain, half opened by a vil­lage school­mas­ter, is pesti­len­tial; but in the few with suf­fi­cient pow­er over the many,--from whom will be evolved more and more to rank with the first few,--in those I have faith, and am proud to work with them.”

“Good. I'd not have a monar­chy, but I'd have the next thing to it, with a muz­zle on the rab­ble. Per­haps I, too, have faith in a few,--in your­self and George Wash­ing­ton; and in Madi­son, our own Gibral­tar. But the pig-​head­ed, self­ish, swin­ish--well, go on with your present plans. 'Tis to hear those we met to-​night, not to an­alyze each oth­er. Tell us all, that we may not on­ly hope, but work with you.”

“The army first. If re­tire­ment on half pay is im­pos­si­ble, then full pay for, say six years,--and the ar­rears,--paid up­on the dis­band­ing of the army. Wash­ing­ton, by the ex­er­cise of the great­est moral force, but one, that has ap­peared in this world, has avert­ed a civ­il war--I am per­suad­ed that hor­ror is avert­ed, and I as­sume that the coun­try does not care eter­nal­ly to dis­grace it­self by let­ting its de­liv­er­ers, who have suf­fered all that an army can suf­fer, re­turn to their ru­ined homes with­out the few dol­lars nec­es­sary for an­oth­er start in life. I have re­signed my claim to ar­rears of pay, that my ar­gu­ment may not be weak­ened. Then a peace es­tab­lish­ment. Fan­cy leav­ing our fron­tiers to the mer­cy of state mili­tia! I shall urge that the gen­er­al gov­ern­ment have ex­clu­sive pow­er over the sword, to es­tab­lish cer­tain corps of in­fantry, ar­tillery, cav­al­ry, dra­goons, and en­gi­neers, a gen­er­al sys­tem of land for­ti­fi­ca­tions, es­tab­lish­ment of ar­se­nals and mag­azines, erec­tion of founderies and man­ufac­to­ries for arms, of ports and mar­itime for­ti­fi­ca­tions--with many de­tails with which I will not bore you. I shall urge the ne­ces­si­ty of strength­en­ing the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment through the in­flu­ence of of­fi­cers de­riv­ing their ap­point­ment di­rect­ly from Congress--al­ways, al­ways, the ne­ces­si­ty of strength­en­ing the cen­tral gov­ern­ment, of cen­tral­iz­ing pow­er, and of putting the States where they be­long. It is fed­er­ation or an­ar­chy. Then--mod­er­ate funds per­ma­nent­ly pledged for the se­cu­ri­ty of lenders. I have preached that since I have dared to preach at all, and that is the on­ly so­lu­tion of our present dis­tress, for we'll nev­er get an­oth­er for­eign loan--”

“We've ac­cept­ed your wis­dom, but we can't ap­ply it,” in­ter­posed Mor­ris. “Our on­ly hope lies in your na­tion­al gov­ern­ment--but go on.”

“A mo­ment,” said Madi­son. “This, in re­gard to the peace es­tab­lish­ment: Do we ap­ply a war congress to a state of peace, I fear we shall too clear­ly de­fine its lim­its. The States may refuse obe­di­ence, and then the poor in­valid­ed body will fall in­to greater dis­re­pute than ev­er.”

“I have thought of that,” replied Hamil­ton, “and if the worst comes to the worst, I have a rad­ical plan to pro­pose,--that Congress pub­lish frankly its im­per­fec­tions to the coun­try--im­per­fec­tions which make it im­pos­si­ble to con­duct the pub­lic af­fairs with hon­our to it­self or ad­van­tage to the Unit­ed States; that it ask the States to ap­point a con­ven­tion, with full pow­ers to re­vise the Con­fed­er­ation, and to adopt and pro­pose all nec­es­sary al­ter­ations--all to be ap­proved or re­ject­ed, in the last in­stance, by the leg­is­la­tures of the sev­er­al States. That would be the first step to­ward a na­tion­al gov­ern­ment. With that, all things would be pos­si­ble,--the pay­ment of our for­eign loan, of our army, du­ties on for­eign goods, which is a source of rev­enue to which they are in­cred­ibly blind; the es­tab­lish­ment of a firm gov­ern­ment, un­der which all will pros­per that are will­ing to work, of a Na­tion­al Bank, of a peace army--”

“Of Utopia!” ex­claimed Mor­ris. “Hamil­ton, you are the least vi­sion­ary man in this coun­try, but you are God knows how many years ahead of your times. If we are ev­er on two legs again, you will put us there; but your gold­en locks will thin in the pro­cess, and that rosy boy­ish face we love will be lined with the seams of the true states­man. On­ly you could con­tem­plate im­bu­ing these fos­silized and com­mon­place in­tel­lects, com­pos­ing our Congress of the Con­fed­er­ation--mark the ring of it!--with a be­lief in its own im­po­ten­cy and worth­less­ness. You are not mor­tal. I al­ways said it. When Du­ane gave me your let­ter to read, I re­marked: 'He with­drew to heav­en, and wrote that let­ter on the knee of the Almighty; nev­er on earth could he have found the courage and the op­ti­mism.' No, Hamil­ton, I would em­brace you, did my wood­en leg per­mit me to es­cape your wrath, but I can give you no en­cour­age­ment. You will fail here--glo­ri­ous­ly, but you will fail. Mark my words, the army will go home curs­ing, and scratch the ground to feed its wom­en. The States will have no peace es­tab­lish­ment to threat­en their sovereign rights, we will pay no­body, and be­come more and more pover­ty-​strick­en and con­temptible in our own eyes, and in the eyes of Eu­rope; we will do noth­ing that is wise and ev­ery­thing that is fool­ish--”

“And then, when the coun­try is sick un­to death,” in­ter­rupt­ed Hamil­ton, “it will awake to the wis­dom of the dras­tic rem­edy and co­here in­to a na­tion.”

“Query,” said Madi­son, “would it not be pa­tri­ot­ic to push things from bad to worse as quick­ly as pos­si­ble? It might be a case of jus­ti­fi­able Je­suit­ism.”

“And it might lead to an­ar­chy and the jaws of Eu­rope,” said Hamil­ton. “It is nev­er safe to go be­yond a cer­tain point in the man­age­ment of hu­man af­fairs. What turn the pas­sions of the peo­ple may take can nev­er be fore­told, nor that el­ement of the un­known, which is al­ways un­der the in­vis­ible cap and close on one's heels. God knows I have not much pa­tience in my na­ture, and I do not be­lieve that most of my schemes are so far in ad­vance of even this coun­try's de­vel­op­ment; but cer­tain lessons must be in­stilled by slow per­sis­tence. I have no faith in rush­ing peo­ple at the point of the bay­onet in times of peace.”

“I think you are right there,” said Mor­ris. “But mark my words, you'll prop­agate ideas here, and the re­sult in time will be the birth of a na­tion--no doubt of that; but you must rest con­tent to live on hope for the present. I was a fet­tered limb in this body too long. I know its in­er­tia.”

He knew where­of he spoke. Hamil­ton won lit­tle but ad­di­tion­al rep­uta­tion, much ad­mi­ra­tion, half re­sent­ful, and many en­emies. The army went home un­paid; the peace es­tab­lish­ment con­sist­ed of eighty men; lit­tle or noth­ing was done to re­lieve the na­tion­al debt or to car­ry on the busi­ness of gov­ern­ment. Even his propo­si­tion to ad­mit the pub­lic to the gal­leries of Congress, in the hope of in­ter­est­ing it in gov­ern­men­tal af­fairs, on­ly drew up­on him the sneer that he could go out on the bal­cony and make his speech­es if he feared his elo­quence was wast­ed. He was ac­cused of writ­ing the New­burg ad­dress in­cit­ing the of­fi­cers to civ­il war, be­cause it was par­tic­ular­ly well writ­ten, and of hur­ry­ing Congress to Tren­ton, when threat­ened by a muti­nous reg­iment. But he worked on un­daunt­ed, leav­ing his in­deli­ble mark; for he taught the States that their fu­ture pros­per­ity and hap­pi­ness lay in giv­ing up to the Union some part of the im­posts that might be levied on for­eign com­modi­ties, and in­ci­den­tal­ly the idea of a dou­ble gov­ern­ment; he pro­posed a def­inite sys­tem of fund­ing the debts on con­ti­nen­tal se­cu­ri­ties, which grad­ual­ly root­ed in the com­mon sense of the Amer­ican peo­ple, and he in­veighed with a bit­ter in­ci­sive­ness, which was tem­pered by nei­ther hu­mour nor gai­ety, against the traitorous fac­tion in the pay of France. He dis­suad­ed Robert Mor­ris from re­sign­ing, and in­tro­duced a res­olu­tion in eu­lo­gy of Wash­ing­ton's man­age­ment of his of­fi­cers in the most crit­ical hour of the Union's his­to­ry. But his im­me­di­ate ac­com­plish­ment was small and dis­cour­ag­ing, al­though his fore­sight may have an­tic­ipat­ed what George Tic­knor Cur­tis wrote many years lat­er:--

The ideas of a states­man like Hamil­ton, earnest­ly bent on the dis­cov­ery and in­cul­ca­tion of truth, do not pass away. Wis­er than those by whom he was sur­round­ed, with a deep­er knowl­edge of the sci­ence of gov­ern­ment than most of them, and con­stant­ly enun­ci­at­ing prin­ci­ples which ex­tend­ed far be­yond the tem­po­riz­ing pol­icy of the hour, the smiles of his op­po­nents on­ly prove to pos­ter­ity how far he was in ad­vance of them.

The fol­low­ing ex­tract from a let­ter of James M'Hen­ry, Lafayette's for­mer aide, and a mem­ber of the Congress, is in­ter­est­ing as a com­men­tary on the dif­fi­cul­ties of our hero's po­si­tion while a mem­ber of that body.

DEAR HAMIL­TON: The hom­ilies you de­liv­ered in Congress are still re­mem­bered with plea­sure. The im­pres­sions they made are in favour of your in­tegri­ty; and no one but be­lieves you a man of hon­our and of re­pub­li­can prin­ci­ples. Were you ten years old­er and twen­ty thou­sand pounds rich­er, there is no doubt but that you might ob­tain the suf­frages of Congress for the high­est of­fice in their gift. You are sup­posed to pos­sess var­ious knowl­edge, use­ful, sub­stan­tial, and or­na­men­tal. Your very grave and your cau­tious, your men who mea­sure oth­ers by the stan­dard of their own creep­ing pol­itics, think you some­times in­tem­per­ate, but sel­dom vi­sion­ary: and that were you to pur­sue your ob­ject with as much cold per­se­ver­ance as you do with ar­dour and ar­gu­ment, you would be­come ir­re­sistible. In a word, if you could sub­mit to spend a whole life in dis­sect­ing a fly you would be, in their opin­ion, one of the great­est men in the world. Bold de­signs; mea­sures cal­cu­lat­ed for their rapid ex­ecu­tion; a wis­dom that would con­vince from its own weight; a project that would sur­prise the peo­ple in­to greater hap­pi­ness, with­out giv­ing them an op­por­tu­ni­ty to view it and re­ject it, are not adapt­ed to a coun­cil com­posed of dis­cor­dant el­ements, or a peo­ple who have thir­teen heads, each of which pay su­per­sti­tious ado­ra­tions to in­fe­ri­or di­vini­ties.

Adieu, my dear friend, and in the days of your hap­pi­ness drop a line to your

M'HEN­RY.

At the end of 1783 Hamil­ton was con­vinced that he was of no fur­ther im­me­di­ate use to the coun­try, and re­fused a re­elec­tion to the Congress, de­spite en­treaty and ex­pos­tu­la­tion, re­turn­ing to the hap­pi­ness of his do­mes­tic life and to his ne­glect­ed law-​books. The British hav­ing evac­uat­ed New York, he moved his fam­ily there and en­tered im­me­di­ate­ly up­on the prac­tice of his pro­fes­sion.