The Conqueror

XIV

Wash­ing­ton was Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States. He had come over grand­ly from the Jer­sey shore in a mag­nif­icent barge manned by twelve oars­men in white uni­form, es­cort­ed by oth­er barges but a shade less im­pos­ing. A week lat­er he had tak­en the oath of of­fice on the new Broad Street gallery of Fed­er­al Hall, amidst the breath­less si­lence of thou­sands, sur­round­ed by the dig­ni­taries of state and three per­son­al friends, Hamil­ton, Steuben, and Knox. The an­ti-​Fed­er­al­ists were crushed, no longer of dig­ni­ty as a par­ty, al­though with am­ple re­sources for ob­struc­tion and an­noy­ance. The coun­try, af­ter an in­ter­val of re­joic­ing, had set­tled down to an­oth­er pe­ri­od of hope and anx­iety.

And Hamil­ton had in­curred the dis­like of Adams and the hos­til­ity of the Liv­ingstons. He had thought it best to scat­ter the votes for the Vice-​Pres­ident, lest there be the slight­est risk of Wash­ing­ton's de­feat; and Adams who thought quite as much of him­self as he did of George Wash­ing­ton, and had ex­pect­ed to be elect­ed with lit­tle less than una­nim­ity, in­stead of by a bare thir­ty-​four votes, nev­er for­gave Hamil­ton the hu­mil­ia­tion. “I have seen the ut­most del­ica­cy used to­ward oth­ers,” he wrote to a friend, “but my feel­ings have nev­er been re­gard­ed.” He knew that Hamil­ton be­lieved him to have been in sym­pa­thy with the Con­way Ca­bal,--a sus­pi­cion of which he nev­er cleared him­self,--and at­tribut­ed to the Fed­er­al lead­er the mo­tive of wish­ing to be­lit­tle his po­lit­ical sig­nif­icance, lest he should en­deav­our to use his pow­er as Pres­ident of the Sen­ate to ham­per and an­noy the Ad­min­is­tra­tion. Per­haps he was right. Far be it from any­one to at­tempt a jour­ney through the ut­most re­cess­es of Hamil­ton's mind. He was frank by na­ture and habit, but he had re­solved that the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment should suc­ceed, and had no mind to put weapons in­to the hands of Wash­ing­ton's ri­vals. He be­lieved in Adams's gen­er­al in­tegri­ty, pa­tri­otism, and fed­er­al­ism, how­ev­er, and brought him to pow­er in his own fash­ion. He achieved his ob­jects with lit­tle or no thought of per­son­al con­se­quences; and al­though this has been char­ac­ter­ized as one of the great po­lit­ical mis­takes of his ca­reer, it must be re­mem­bered that it was a time for ner­vous­ness and ex­ag­ger­at­ed fears. Wash­ing­ton had en­emies; no oth­er man was be­lieved, by the men who did the think­ing for the coun­try, to be able to hold the Unit­ed States to­geth­er un­til they were past their shoals, and the method of elec­tion was pre­car­ious: each elec­tor cast­ing two votes with­out spec­ifi­ca­tion, the high­er of­fice falling to the can­di­date who re­ceived the larg­er num­ber of votes.

The Liv­ingstons had de­sired a seat in the Sen­ate of the new Congress for one of their pow­er­ful fam­ily, and Hamil­ton had giv­en the prize to Ru­fus King. No gift could have been more just­ly be­stowed; but the Liv­ingstons felt them­selves flout­ed, their great ser­vices to the coun­try un­re­ward­ed. Their open hos­til­ity roused all the haughty ar­ro­gance of Hamil­ton's na­ture, and he made no ef­fort to pla­cate them. When the great of­fice of Chief Jus­tice of the Unit­ed States was giv­en to John Jay, in­stead of to Robert Liv­ingston, they at­tribut­ed the dis­crim­ina­tion to Hamil­ton's in­flu­ence over Wash­ing­ton; and the time came when this strong and hos­tile fac­tion lent them­selves to the schem­ing of one of the sub­tlest politi­cians that has ev­er lived.

The con­test for the prizes of the two Hous­es had been hot and bit­ter, and Hamil­ton had nev­er been more ac­tive. As a re­sult, the Fed­er­al­ists con­trolled the Sen­ate, and they had elect­ed four of the six Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Philip Schuyler had drawn the short term in the Sen­ate, and the an­tag­onism of the Liv­ingstons to Hamil­ton en­abled Burr to dis­place him two years lat­er. The sig­nal mis­takes of Hamil­ton's po­lit­ical ca­reer were in his par­ty man­age­ment. One of the great­est lead­ers in his­to­ry, cool and wise, and of a con­sum­mate judge­ment in all mat­ters of pure states­man­ship, he was too hot-​head­ed and im­petu­ous, too ob­sti­nate when his right­ing blood was up, for the skil­ful ma­nip­ula­tion of pol­itics. But so long as the Fed­er­al par­ty en­dured, no oth­er lead­er was con­tem­plat­ed: his in­tegri­ty was spot­less, his mo­tives un­ques­tioned, his pa­tri­otism and stu­pen­dous abil­ities the glo­ry of his par­ty; by sheer force of ge­nius he car­ried ev­ery­thing be­fore him, whether his meth­ods were ap­proved by the more con­ser­va­tive Fed­er­al­ists or not.

Madi­son, who mild­ly de­sired an of­fice, pos­si­bly in the Cab­inet, he despatched South to get him­self elect­ed to Congress, for he must have pow­er­ful friends in that body to sup­port the great mea­sures he had in con­tem­pla­tion; and that not un­am­bi­tious states­man, af­ter a hot fight with Patrick Hen­ry, was obliged to con­tent him­self with a seat in the House. Be­fore he went to Vir­ginia he and Hamil­ton had talked for long and pleas­ant hours over the Fed­er­al lead­er's fu­ture schemes. In all things he was in ac­cord with his Cap­tain, and had warm­ly promised his sup­port.

It was some weeks be­fore Hamil­ton had a pri­vate in­ter­view with Wash­ing­ton, al­though he had dined at his house, en­ter­tained him, and been present at sev­er­al in­for­mal con­sul­ta­tions on such mi­nor ques­tions as the eti­quette of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion. But del­ica­cy held him from em­bar­rass­ing Wash­ing­ton in a fa­mil­iar in­ter­view un­til he had been in­vit­ed for­mal­ly to a po­si­tion in the con­tem­plat­ed cab­inet. He knew that Wash­ing­ton wished him to be Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury, but he al­so knew that that most cau­tious and con­sci­en­tious of men would not trust to his own judge­ment in so grave a mat­ter, nor take any step with­out weeks of anx­ious thought. The more deeply were Wash­ing­ton's af­fec­tions or de­sires en­gaged, the more cau­tious would he be. He was not a man of ge­nius, there­fore fell in­to none of the pit­falls of that ter­ri­ble gift; he was great by virtue of his su­per­hu­man moral strength--and it is safe to say that in pub­lic life he nev­er ex­pe­ri­enced a temp­ta­tion--by a wis­dom that no men­tal heat ev­er un­bal­anced, by an un­ri­valled in­stinct for the best and most use­ful in hu­man be­ings, and by a pub­lic con­science to which he would have un­hesi­tat­ing­ly sac­ri­ficed him­self and all he loved, were it a ques­tion of the na­tion's good. But Hamil­ton knew whom he would con­sult, and de­vot­ed him­self to his le­gal work with­out a qualm for the fu­ture. As he had an­tic­ipat­ed, Wash­ing­ton wrote to Robert Mor­ris for ad­vice, and the re­ply of that em­inent fi­nancier, that “Hamil­ton was the one man in the Unit­ed States com­pe­tent to cope with the ex­treme dif­fi­cul­ties of that of­fice,” pleas­ant­ly end­ed the in­de­ci­sion of the Pres­ident, and he com­mu­ni­cat­ed with Hamil­ton at once.

Hamil­ton an­swered by let­ter, for Wash­ing­ton was wed­ded to the for­mal­ities, but he fol­lowed it with a re­quest for a pri­vate in­ter­view; and af­ter the lapse of eight years Wash­ing­ton and Hamil­ton met once more for a pure­ly per­son­al col­lo­quy.

Wash­ing­ton was oc­cu­py­ing tem­porar­ily the house of Wal­ter Franklin, on the cor­ner of Cher­ry Street and Franklin Square, a coun­try res­idence at which so­ci­ety grum­bled, for all the world lived be­tween the present site of the City Hall and Bat­tery Park. Hamil­ton rode up on horse­back, and was shown in­to the li­brary, which over­looked a pleas­ant gar­den. The Pres­ident, in the brown suit of home man­ufac­ture which he had worn at the in­au­gu­ra­tion, as grace­ful and erect as ev­er, al­though with a more el­der­ly vis­age than in the days of war, en­tered im­me­di­ate­ly, closed the door care­ful­ly, then took both Hamil­ton's hands in his enor­mous grasp. The aus­tere dig­ni­ty of his face re­laxed per­cep­ti­bly.

“Oh!” he said. “I am glad to see you!”

“It is not a re­turn to old times, alas!” said Hamil­ton, gai­ly; “for what we all had to do then was a bagatelle to this, and you have made the supreme sac­ri­fice of your life.”

Wash­ing­ton seat­ed him­self in an arm-​chair, mo­tion­ing Hamil­ton to one op­po­site. “I wrote Knox,” he said, “that I felt as if set­ting out to my own ex­ecu­tion; and I swear to you, Hamil­ton, that if it had not been for you I doubt if my courage would not have failed me at the last mo­ment. I had a mo­ment of ner­vous dread this morn­ing be­fore I opened your let­ter, but I be­lieved that you would not fail me. It is a colos­sal en­ter­prise we are em­barked up­on, this con­struct­ing of a great na­tion for all time. God knows I am not equal to it, and al­though I shall al­ways re­serve to my­self the fi­nal judge­ment, I ex­pect a few of you to think for me--you, in par­tic­ular. Then with the Almighty's help we may suc­ceed, but I can as­sure you that it has cost me many wake­ful nights--and cold sweats.”

He spoke with his usu­al slow im­pres­sive­ness, but he smiled as he watched Hamil­ton's flash­ing eyes and di­lat­ing nos­trils. “You look but lit­tle old­er,” he added. “Not that you still look a stripling, con­trol­ling your tem­per with both hands while I worked you half to death; but you have the ev­er­last­ing youth of ge­nius, I sup­pose, and you look to me able to cope with any­thing.”

Hamil­ton laughed. “I am far old­er in many things, sir. I fear I of­ten seemed un­grate­ful. I have blessed you many times, since, for the dis­ci­pline and the in­valu­able knowl­edge I gained in those years.”

“Ah!” ex­claimed Wash­ing­ton. “Ah! I am very glad to hear you say that. It is like your gen­eros­ity, and I have had many anx­ious mo­ments, won­der­ing if there might not still be a grudge. But not on­ly were your pe­cu­liar gifts in­dis­pens­able to this coun­try, but, I will con­fess, now that it is over, I mor­tal­ly dread­ed that you would lose your life. You and Lau­rens were the most reck­less dev­ils I ev­er saw in the field. Poor Lau­rens! I felt a deep af­fec­tion for him, and his death was one of the bit­ter­est blows of the war. If he were here now, and Lafayette, how many pleas­ant hours I should look for­ward to; but I have you, and God knows I am grate­ful. Lafayette, I am afraid, has un­der­tak­en too great a busi­ness for his ca­pac­ity, which is ad­mirable; but he is not strong enough to be a lead­er of men.”

“I wish he were here, and well out of it.”

“I have not suf­fi­cient­ly thanked you for the let­ter you wrote me last Septem­ber. It was what I had earnest­ly hoped for. My po­si­tion was most dis­tress­ing. It was im­pos­si­ble for me not on­ly to ask the ad­vice of any­one, but the tem­per of the pub­lic mind re­gard­ing my­self. To as­sume that I must be de­sired--but I need not ex­plain to you, who know me bet­ter than any­body liv­ing, the ex­treme del­ica­cy of my po­si­tion, and the tor­ments of my mind. Your let­ter ex­plained ev­ery­thing, told me all I wished to know, made my du­ty clear--painful­ly clear. You di­vined what I need­ed and ex­pressed your­self in your usu­al frank and man­ly way, with­out the least hes­ita­tion or fear. I take this oc­ca­sion to as­sure you again of my deep ap­pre­ci­ation.”

“Oh, sir,” said Hamil­ton, who was al­ways af­fect­ed un­bear­ably by Wash­ing­ton's rare mo­ments of deep feel­ing, “I was mere­ly the se­lect­ed in­stru­ment to give you what you most need­ed at the mo­ment; noth­ing more. This was your des­tiny; you would be here in any case. It is my pride, my re­ward of many years of thought and work, that I am able to be of ser­vice to your ad­min­is­tra­tion, and con­spic­uous enough to per­mit you to call me to your side. Be sure that all that I have or am is yours, and that I shall nev­er fail you.”

“If I did not be­lieve that, I should in­deed be deep in gloomy fore­bod­ings. Jay will of­fi­ci­ate as Sec­re­tary of State for the present; Knox, as Sec­re­tary at War. I con­tem­plate invit­ing Ran­dolph to act as At­tor­ney-​Gen­er­al, and Jef­fer­son as per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary of State, if he will ac­cept; thus di­vid­ing the ap­point­ments be­tween the North and the South. What do you think of the wis­dom of ap­point­ing Mr. Jef­fer­son? He is a man of great abil­ities, and his long res­idence abroad should make him a valu­able Sec­re­tary of State, his con­spic­uous ser­vices ac­cept­able to both sec­tions of the coun­try. It is the se­lec­tion over which I have hes­itat­ed longest, for it is a deep and sub­tle na­ture, a kind I have no love of deal­ing with, but so far as I know it is not a de­vi­ous one, and his tal­ents com­mand my re­spect.”

“I am un­able to ad­vise you, sir, for he is not per­son­al­ly known to me,” said Hamil­ton, who was not long wish­ing that he had had a pre­vi­ous and ex­ten­sive knowl­edge of Thomas Jef­fer­son. “Madi­son thinks well of him--is a close per­son­al friend. He has ren­dered great ser­vices to the State of Vir­ginia, his ex­pe­ri­ence is wide, and he pos­sess­es a bril­liant and facile pen--I can think of no one bet­ter fit­ted for the po­si­tion. His record for per­son­al brav­ery is not un­tar­nished, but per­haps that will in­sure peace in the Cab­inet.”

Wash­ing­ton laughed. “Jef­fer­son would slide un­der the ta­ble if you as­sault­ed him,” he said. “It is you on­ly that I fear, as it is you on­ly up­on whom I thor­ough­ly re­ly, and not for ad­vice in your own de­part­ment alone, but in all. I think it would per­haps be bet­ter not to hold col­lec­tive meet­ings of the Cab­inet, but to re­ceive each of you alone. It is as well the oth­ers do not know that your knowl­edge and judge­ment are my chief re­liance.”