The Conqueror

I

It was the au­tumn of 1786. New York had risen from her charred and bat­tered ru­ins. There were cows on her mead­ows, a lake with wood­ed shores as mere­ly tra­di­tion­al, groves, gar­dens, or­chards, fields, and swamps; but her busi­ness hous­es and pub­lic build­ings were am­bi­tious once more, her spires more lofty and en­dur­ing, her new dwelling-​hous­es, whether some­what crowd­ed in Wall Street and Broad­way, or on the ter­races of less busy streets, or along the riv­er fronts and fac­ing a wild and love­ly prospect, were square, sub­stan­tial, and usu­al­ly very large. And ev­ery street was an av­enue of an­cient trees. Mrs. John Jay, with her ex­pe­ri­ence of for­eign courts, her great beau­ty, and the pres­tige of her dis­tin­guished hus­band, was the lead­er of so­ci­ety, hold­ing week­ly re­cep­tions, and the first to re­ceive the many dis­tin­guished strangers. Al­though so­ci­ety was not quite as gay as it be­came three years lat­er, un­der a more set­tled gov­ern­ment and hope­ful out­look, still there was qui­et en­ter­tain­ing by the Hamil­tons, who lived at 58 Wall Street, the Duers, Watts, Liv­ingstons, Clin­tons, Du­anes, Jays, Roo­sevelts, Van Cort­landts, and oth­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives of old New York fam­ilies, now re­turned to their own. Congress was come to New York and es­tab­lished in the City Hall in Wall Street. It had giv­en the fi­nal im­pe­tus to the city, strug­gling un­der the bur­den of ru­ins and debt left by the British; and so­ci­ety saun­tered forth ev­ery af­ter­noon in all the glo­ry of vel­vet and ruf­fles, three-​cor­nered hats reck­less­ly laced, bro­cades, hoop­skirts, and Ro­han hats, to prom­enade past the build­ing where the mori­bund body was hold­ing its last ses­sions. The drive was down the Broad­way in­to the shades of the Bat­tery, with the mag­nif­icent prospect of bay and wood­ed shores be­yond. Pol­itics, al­ways epi­dem­ic among men and wom­en alike, had re­cent­ly been an­imat­ed by Hamil­ton's coup at An­napo­lis, and the prospect of a gen­er­al con­ven­tion of the States to con­sid­er the re­or­ga­ni­za­tion of a gov­ern­ment which had re­duced the Con­fed­er­ation to a con­di­tion fear­ful­ly close to an­ar­chy, the coun­try to ru­in, and brought up­on the thir­teen sovereign in­de­pen­dent im­po­tent and war­ring States the con­tempt of Eu­rope and the threat of its greed.

A group of men, stand­ing on a cor­ner of Wall Street and the Broad­way, were laugh­ing hearti­ly: a watch was drag­ging off to jail two cit­izens who had fall­en up­on each oth­er with the ven­om of po­lit­ical an­tithe­sis; the one, a Na­tion­al­ist, hav­ing called Heav­en to wit­ness that Hamil­ton was a de­mi-​god, be­got­ten to save the wretched coun­try, the oth­er vo­cif­er­at­ing that Hamil­ton was the dev­il who would trick the coun­try in­to a monar­chy, cre­ate a vast stand­ing army, which would pro­claim him king and stand up­on the heads of a peo­ple that had fought and died for free­dom, while the tyrant ex­er­cised his abom­inable func­tions.

The men in the group were Gov­er­nor Clin­ton, Hamil­ton's bit­ter­est op­po­nent, but suf­fi­cient­ly amused at the in­ci­dent; William Liv­ingston, Gov­er­nor of New Jer­sey, now with but a few hairs on the top of his head and a few at the base, his nose more pen­etrat­ing, his eye more dis­ap­prov­ing, than ev­er; James Du­ane, May­or of New York; John Jay, the most fault­less char­ac­ter in the Con­fed­er­ation, hon­oured and unloved, his cold eyes ev­er burn­ing with an ex­alt­ed fire; and John Mar­shall of Vir­ginia, munch­ing an ap­ple, his at­tire in shab­by con­trast to the fash­ion­able New York­ers, the black mane on his splen­did head un­pow­dered and toss­ing in the ocean breeze.

“I like your Hamil­ton,” he an­nounced, “and I've come to the con­clu­sion that I think with him on all mat­ters. He's done more to ed­ucate the peo­ple up to a ra­tio­nal form of gov­ern­ment dur­ing the last sev­en years than all the rest of us put to­geth­er. He's shone up­on them like a fixed star. Oth­er comets have come and gone, whirling them for­ward to de­struc­tion, but they have al­ways been forced to turn and look at him again and again, and he has al­ways shone in the same place.”

“Sir,” ex­claimed Clin­ton, who was flushed with rage, “are you aware that I am present, and that I en­tire­ly dis­ap­prove of Mr. Hamil­ton's at­tempt to re­duce the States to a con­di­tion of ig­no­min­ious sub­servien­cy to an am­bi­tious and tyran­ni­cal cen­tral pow­er?”

“I had heard of you, sir,” replied Mar­shall, meek­ly, “and I am glad to have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask you what _your_ rem­edy is for the ex­ist­ing state of things? You will ad­mit that there must be a rem­edy, and quick­ly. If not a com­mon gov­ern­ment with a Con­sti­tu­tion em­pow­er­ing it to reg­ulate trade, im­posts, re­duce the debt, en­ter in­to treaties with for­eign pow­ers which will not be sneered at, ad­min­is­ter up­on a thou­sand de­tails which I will not enu­mer­ate, and raise the coun­try from its slough of con­tempt, then what? As the per­son­age who has tak­en the most de­cid­ed stand against the en­light­ened and pa­tri­ot­ic ef­forts of Mr. Hamil­ton, I ap­peal to you for a counter sug­ges­tion as mag­nif­icent as his. I am pre­pared, sir, to lis­ten with all hu­mil­ity.”

Clin­ton, whose self­ish fear of his own down­fall with that of State suprema­cy was so well known that a smile wrin­kled across the po­lite group of gen­tle­men sur­round­ing him, deep­ened his colour to pur­ple un­der this as­sault, and stam­mered: “Sir, have I not my­self pro­posed an en­large­ment of the pow­ers of Congress, in or­der to coun­ter­act the damnable pol­icy of Britain? Did not your Hamil­ton ha­rangue that crowd I sanc­tioned till he got near­ly all he asked for?”

“But he knew bet­ter than to ask for too much, in the con­di­tions,” replied Mar­shall, suave­ly. “May I sug­gest that you have not an­swered my hum­ble and earnest ques­tions?”

“I an­swer no ques­tions that I hold to be im­per­ti­nent and unim­por­tant!” said Clin­ton, pompous­ly, and with a dig­ni­fied at­tempt to re­cov­er his poise. He swept his hat from his head; the New York­ers were as punc­til­ious; Mar­shall lift­ed his bat­tered lid from the wild mass be­neath, and the pop­ular Gov­er­nor saun­tered down the street, salut­ed def­er­en­tial­ly by Na­tion­al­ists and fol­low­ers alike. When he had oc­ca­sion to sweep his gor­geous hat to his knees, the ladies cour­te­sied to the ground, their draperies tak­ing up the en­tire pave­ment, and His Ex­cel­len­cy was obliged to en­counter the car­riages in the street.

“If Clin­ton were sure of fig­ur­ing as pow­er­ful­ly in a na­tion­al gov­ern­ment as he does in the state of New York, he would with­draw his op­po­si­tion,” said Liv­ingston, con­temp­tu­ous­ly. “He has been Gov­er­nor for nine years. New York is his throne. He is a king among the com­mon peo­ple, who will elect him in­def­inite­ly. Were it not for Hamil­ton, he would be New York, and the aw­ful pos­si­bil­ities ly­ing hid­den in the ker­nel of change haunt his dreams at night. You em­bar­rassed him in a man­ner that re­joiced my heart, Mr. Mar­shall. I beg you will do me the hon­our to dine with me to-​night. I beg to as­sure you that your fame is as known to me as were I a Vir­gini­an.”

“I'll ac­cept the in­vi­ta­tion with plea­sure,” replied Mar­shall, whose man­ners were all that his at­tire was not. “I shall be glad to talk with you on many sub­jects. To-​mor­row I shall pay my re­spects to Mr. Hamil­ton. His has been a try­ing but not a thank­less task. He has ad­dressed him­self to the right class of men all over the coun­try, win­ning them to his sound and en­light­ened views, giv­ing them courage, con­sol­idat­ing them against the self-​in­ter­est­ed ad­vo­cates of State sovereign­ty. That he has so of­ten ne­glect­ed a le­gal prac­tice which must bring him a large in­come, as well as suf­fi­cient per­son­al glo­ry, out of a sin­cere pity for and pa­tri­ot­ic in­ter­est in this af­flict­ed coun­try, gives New York deep cause for con­grat­ula­tion that she was in such close com­mu­ni­ca­tion with that Is­land of his youth. I wish that fate had steered him to Vir­ginia.”

“Sure­ly you have enough as it is,” said Du­ane, laugh­ing: “Wash­ing­ton, your­self, Patrick Hen­ry, Jef­fer­son, Madi­son, Ran­dolph. Spare us Hamil­ton. We shall need him bad­ly enough. The Clin­ton fac­tion is very strong. That the Hamil­ton em­braces the best spir­its of the com­mu­ni­ty means that it is in the mi­nor­ity, and needs the un­remit­ting ex­er­cise of his ge­nius to coun­ter­act the dis­ad­van­tage in num­bers.”

“I think that what I ad­mire most in Hamil­ton,” re­marked a new­com­er, a small dark man of vivid per­son­al­ity, “are his meth­ods of ma­nip­ula­tion. He picks out his own men, Duer, Troup, Mal­colm, has them sent to the leg­is­la­ture, where they blind­ly and in­de­fati­ga­bly obey his be­hest and gain the con­sent of that body to the con­ven­tion at An­napo­lis, then see that he is elect­ed as prin­ci­pal del­egate. He goes to An­napo­lis os­ten­si­bly to at­tend a com­mer­cial con­ven­tion: while its in­suf­fi­cient num­bers are drows­ing, he springs up­on them an elo­quent pro­pos­al for a na­tion­al con­ven­tion for re­form­ing the Union, and forces it through be­fore they know what they are about. Cer­tain­ly Mr. Hamil­ton is a man of ge­nius.”

“Do I un­der­stand. Mr. Burr,” said Jay, from his glacial height, “that you are im­pugn­ing the pu­ri­ty of Mr. Hamil­ton's mo­tives?”

“No, sir,” replied Burr, whom an archangel could not have re­buked. “In the present con­di­tion of things all meth­ods are jus­ti­fi­able. Hamil­ton is great but adapt­able. I re­spect him for that qual­ity above all oth­ers, for he is quite the most im­pe­ri­ous char­ac­ter in Amer­ica, and his nat­ural in­stinct is to come out and say, 'You id­iots, fall in­to line be­hind me and stop twad­dling. I will do your think­ing; be kind enough not to de­lay me fur­ther.' On the oth­er hand, he is forced to be diplo­mat­ic, to per­suade where he would com­mand, to move slow­ly in­stead of charg­ing at the point of the bay­onet. So, al­though I have no sym­pa­thy with his pro­nounced monar­chi­cal in­cli­na­tions, I re­spect his ac­quired meth­ods of get­ting what he wants.”

“What do you mean by pro­nounced monar­chi­cal in­cli­na­tions?” snort­ed Gov­er­nor Liv­ingston, who could not en­dure Burr.

Burr gave his pe­cu­liar sar­don­ic laugh. “Will you de­ny it, sir?”

“De­ny it? I cer­tain­ly am in Mr. Hamil­ton's con­fi­dence to no such ex­tent, and I chal­lenge you to in­di­cate one sen­tence in his pub­lished writ­ings which points to such a con­clu­sion.”

“Ah, he is too clever for that; but his very walk, his whole per­son­al­ity ex­press­es it, to say noth­ing of the fact that he nev­er thinks of deny­ing his ad­mi­ra­tion of the British Con­sti­tu­tion. And did he not de­fend the To­ries af­ter the evac­ua­tion, when no oth­er lawyer would touch them? I ad­mired his courage, but it was suf­fi­cient ev­idence of the catholic­ity of his sen­ti­ments.”

“Mr. Hamil­ton de­fend­ed the ab­stract prin­ci­ple of right against wrong in de­fend­ing the wretched To­ries against the per­se­cu­tions of an un­mag­nan­imous pub­lic sen­ti­ment,” said Jay, with­er­ing­ly. “I should ad­vise you, young gen­tle­man, to be­come a dis­ci­ple of Mr. Hamil­ton. I can rec­om­mend no course which would prove so ben­efi­cial.” And he turned on his heel.

He had hit Burr. The jeal­ousy born in Al­bany had thriv­en with much sus­te­nance since. Hamil­ton was by far the most promi­nent fig­ure at the New York bar, and was has­ten­ing to its lead­er­ship. Burr was con­spic­uous for le­gal abil­ity, but nev­er would be first while Hamil­ton was in the race. More­over, al­though Hamil­ton had not then reached that dizzy height from which a few years lat­er he looked down up­on a gap­ing world, he was the lead­er of a grow­ing and im­por­tant par­ty, in­tel­li­gent­ly fol­lowed and wor­shipped by the most em­inent men in the Con­fed­er­ation, many of them old enough to be his fa­ther; and he was the theme of ev­ery draw­ing-​room, of ev­ery cof­fee-​house group and con­clave. His con­stant pam­phlets on the sub­ject near­est to all men's hearts, his elo­quent speech­es on the same theme up­on ev­ery pos­si­ble oc­ca­sion, and the ex­traor­di­nary bril­liance of his le­gal vic­to­ries, gave peo­ple no time to think of oth­er men. When he en­tered a draw­ing-​room gen­er­al con­ver­sa­tion ceased, and the com­pa­ny re­volved about him so long as he re­mained. When he spoke, all the world went to hear. For an am­bi­tious young man to be told to at­tach him­self to the train of this con­quer­ing hero was more than poor Burr could stand, and he replied an­gri­ly:--

“I have the priv­ilege of be­ing true to my own con­vic­tions, I sup­pose. They are not Mr. Hamil­ton's and nev­er will be. I do not im­pugn the pu­ri­ty of his mo­tives, but I have no de­sire to see George Wash­ing­ton king, nor Hamil­ton, nei­ther. I wish you good day, sirs,” and he strode up Broad­way to the Fields with dig­ni­ty in ev­ery inch of him.

“This con­stant talk of Hamil­ton's monar­chi­cal prin­ci­ples makes my gorge rise,” said Liv­ingston. “Did he not fight as hard as he was per­mit­ted, to drive monar­chy out of the coun­try? Was he not the first to sound the call to arms?”

“Hamil­ton's ex­act at­ti­tude on that ques­tion is not clear­ly un­der­stood,” replied Du­ane, sooth­ing­ly, for the heat of Liv­ingston's re­pub­li­can­ism had nev­er abat­ed. “I fan­cy it is some­thing like this: So far no con­sti­tu­tion has worked so well as the British. Mon­tesquieu knew where­of he praised. The num­ber of men in this coun­try equal to the great prob­lem of self-​gov­ern­ment are in a piti­ful mi­nor­ity. The an­ar­chic con­di­tions of the States, the dis­grace which they have brought up­on us, their in­ef­fi­cien­cy to cope with any prob­lem, the con­temptible depths of hu­man na­ture which they have re­vealed to the think­ing mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty--all these caus­es in­spire Hamil­ton, in­com­pa­ra­bly the great­est brain in the coun­try, with a dread of leav­ing any pow­er what­ev­er in their hands. He be­lieves firm­ly in the few of tried brain and pa­tri­otism. I very much doubt if he has con­sid­ered the sub­ject of ac­tu­al monar­chy for a mo­ment, for he is no dream­er, and he knows that even his fol­low­ers have been Re­pub­li­cans too long. But that he will fight for the strongest sort of na­tion­al gov­ern­ment, with the least pos­si­ble pow­er vest­ed in the States--oh, no doubt of that.”

“Our peo­ple are hope­less, I fear,” said Liv­ingston, with a sigh. “This pe­ri­od of in­de­pen­den­cy seems to have de­mor­al­ized them when it should have brought out their best el­ements. Well, Mr. Mar­shall, what say you? You have been mod­est­ly silent, and we have been rude­ly vol­uble when so dis­tin­guished a guest should have had all the floor.”

“I have been deeply en­ter­tained,” replied Mar­shall, with a grin. “My vis­it to New York is by no means wast­ed. I en­vy Mr. Hamil­ton; but let him look out for Mr. Burr. There are just five feet sev­en inch­es of jeal­ous hate in that well-​bal­anced ex­te­ri­or, and its meth­ods would be sin­uous, I fan­cy, but no less dead­ly. But Hamil­ton has had many es­capes. What was that atro­cious sto­ry I heard of a du­elling ca­bal? When the rolling stone of gos­sip reach­es Vir­ginia from New York, it has gath­ered more moss than you would think.”

“It would be dif­fi­cult to ex­ag­ger­ate that sto­ry,” snort­ed Liv­ingston.“ Hamil­ton de­fend­ed his course in re­gard to the To­ries in two pam­phlets, signed 'Pho­cion.' They were an­swered by a Mr. Led­yard, who signed him­self 'Men­tor,' and was a con­spic­uous ad­vo­cate of the damnable spir­it of re­venge pos­sess­ing this coun­try. It is a bold man in­deed who en­ters in­to a con­flict of the pen with Hamil­ton, and 'Men­tor' was left with­out a leg to stand on. Forth­with, a club of Led­yard's friends and sym­pa­thiz­ers, en­raged by de­feat, and fear­ing the grow­ing as­cen­den­cy of Hamil­ton over men's minds, de­lib­er­ate­ly agreed to chal­lenge him in turn un­til he was si­lenced for­ev­er. This atro­cious project would un­doubt­ed­ly have been car­ried out, had not Led­yard him­self re­pu­di­at­ed it with hor­ror. Can you show me a greater in­stance of the de­prav­ity of hu­man na­ture, sir?”

“We are in a fer­ment of bit­ter pas­sions,” said Mar­shall, sad­ly, “and I fear they will be worse be­fore they are bet­ter. I on­ly hope that Hamil­ton will not be swept in­to their cur­rent, for up­on his keep­ing his bal­ance de­pends the fu­ture great­ness of this coun­try. I am at your ser­vice, sir, for I will con­fess my two legs are tired.”