The Conqueror

XV

Hamil­ton, on his way home, stopped in at the cham­bers of Troup.

“Bob,” he said, “you are to wind up my law busi­ness. I am to be Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury.”

Troup half rose with an ex­cla­ma­tion of im­pa­tience. “Good heav­ens!” he ex­claimed. “Have you not an in­tro­duc­to­ry line in your na­ture? It has been bad enough to have been an­tic­ipat­ing this, with­out hav­ing it go straight through one like a can­non-​ball. Of course it is no use to rea­son with you--I gave that up just af­ter I had as­sumed that you were a small boy whom it was the du­ty of a big col­le­gian to pro­tect, and you near­ly de­mol­ished my not too hand­some vis­age with your as­ton­ish­ing fists for con­tra­dict­ing you. But I am sor­ry. Re­main at the bar and you have an im­me­di­ate prospect of wealth, not too many en­emies, and the high­est hon­ours. Five years from now, and you would lead not on­ly the bar of New York but of the whole coun­try. Jay may be the first Chief Jus­tice, but you would be the sec­ond--.”

“Noth­ing would in­duce me to be Chief Jus­tice. I should be bored to death. Can you fan­cy me sit­ting eter­nal­ly and solemn­ly in the mid­dle of a bench, lis­ten­ing to long-​wind­ed lawyers? While I live I shall have ac­tion--.”

“Well, you will have ac­tion enough in this po­si­tion; it will burn you out twen­ty years be­fore your time. And it will be the end of what peace and hap­pi­ness a born fight­er could ev­er hope to pos­sess; for you will raise up en­emies and crit­ics on ev­ery side, you will be hound­ed, you will be the vic­tim of ca­bals, your good name will be as­sailed--.”

“An­swer this: do you know of any­one who could fill this of­fice as ad­van­ta­geous­ly to the coun­try as I?”

“No,” said Troup, un­will­ing­ly. “I do not.”

Hamil­ton was stand­ing by the ta­ble. He laid his hand on a vol­ume of Coke, ex­pand­ing and con­tract­ing it slow­ly. It was per­haps the most beau­ti­ful hand in Amer­ica, and al­most as fa­mous as its own­er. But as Troup gazed at it he saw on­ly its su­per­hu­man sug­ges­tion of strength.

“The fu­ture of this coun­try lies there,” said Hamil­ton. “I know, and you know, that my great­est gift is states­man­ship; my widest, truest knowl­edge is in the de­part­ment of fi­nance; more­over, that noth­ing has so keen and en­dur­ing a fas­ci­na­tion for me. I could no more refuse this in­vi­ta­tion of Wash­ing­ton's than I could clog the wheels of my mind to in­ac­tion. It is like a mag­net to steel. If I were sure of per­son­al con­se­quences the most dis­as­trous, I should ac­cept, and with­out hes­ita­tion. For what else was the pe­cu­liar qual­ity of my brain giv­en me? To what oth­er end have I stud­ied this great ques­tion since I was a boy of nine­teen--wild as I was to fight and win the hon­ours of the field? Was ev­er a man's des­tiny clear­er, or his du­ty?”

“I have no more to say,” said Troup, “but I re­gret it all the same. Have you heard from Mor­ris--Gou­verneur?”

“Oh, yes, I had a long screed, in al­most your words, spiced with his own par­tic­ular im­per­ti­nence. Will you wind up my law busi­ness?”

“Oh, of course,” said Troup.

The new Congress, made up, though it was, of many of the ablest men in the coun­try, had in­her­it­ed the dila­to­ry meth­ods of the old, and did not pass an act es­tab­lish­ing the Trea­sury De­part­ment un­til the 2d of Septem­ber. Hamil­ton's ap­point­ment to this most im­por­tant port­fo­lio at the dis­pos­al of the Pres­ident was looked up­on as a mat­ter of course. It cre­at­ed lit­tle dis­cus­sion, but so deep a feel­ing of se­cu­ri­ty, that even be­fore the read­ing of his fa­mous Re­port busi­ness had re­vived to some ex­tent. This Re­port up­on the pub­lic cred­it was de­mand­ed of him at once, but it was not un­til the re­cess of Congress that he could work un­in­ter­rupt­ed­ly up­on it; for that body, floun­der­ing in its chaos of in­her­it­ed dif­fi­cul­ties, turned to the new Sec­re­tary for ad­vice on al­most ev­ery prob­lem that be­set it. I can­not do bet­ter here than to quote from the mono­graph on Hamil­ton by Hen­ry Cabot Lodge, who puts with ad­mirable suc­cinct­ness a se­ries of facts im­por­tant to the knowl­edge of ev­ery Amer­ican:--

In the course of a year he was asked to re­port, and did re­port with full de­tails, up­on the rais­ing, man­age­ment, and col­lec­tion of the rev­enue, in­clud­ing a scheme for rev­enue cut­ters; as to the es­ti­mates of in­come and ex­pen­di­ture; as to the tem­po­rary reg­ula­tion of the chaot­ic cur­ren­cy; as to nav­iga­tion laws, and the reg­ula­tion of the coast­ing trade, af­ter a thor­ough con­sid­er­ation of a heap of undi­gest­ed statis­tics; as to the post-​of­fice, for which he draft­ed a bill; as to the pur­chase of West Point; on the great ques­tion of pub­lic lands and a uni­form sys­tem of man­ag­ing them; and up­on all claims against the gov­ern­ment. Rapid­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly the sec­re­tary dealt with all these mat­ters, be­sides draw­ing up as a vol­un­tary sug­ges­tion a scheme for a ju­di­cial sys­tem. But in ad­di­tion to all this mul­ti­plic­ity of busi­ness there were oth­er mat­ters like the tem­po­rary reg­ula­tion of the cur­ren­cy, re­quir­ing peremp­to­ry set­tle­ment. Mon­ey had to be found for the im­me­di­ate and press­ing wants of the new gov­ern­ment be­fore any sys­tem had been or could be adopt­ed, and the on­ly re­sources were the emp­ty trea­sury and bro­ken cred­it of the old con­fed­er­acy. By one in­ge­nious ex­pe­di­ent or an­oth­er, some­times by pledg­ing his own cred­it, Hamil­ton got to­geth­er what was ab­so­lute­ly need­ful, and with­out a mur­mur con­quered those pet­ty trou­bles when he was elab­orat­ing and de­vis­ing a far-​reach­ing pol­icy. Then the whole fi­nan­cial ma­chine of the Trea­sury De­part­ment, and a sys­tem of ac­count­ing, de­mand­ed in­stant at­ten­tion. These in­tri­cate prob­lems were solved at once, the ma­chine con­struct­ed, and the sys­tem of ac­counts de­vised and put in­to op­er­ation; and so well were these dif­fi­cult tasks per­formed that they still sub­sist, de­vel­op­ing and grow­ing with the na­tion, but at bot­tom the orig­inal ar­range­ments of Hamil­ton. These com­pli­cat­ed ques­tions, an­swered so rapid­ly and yet so ac­cu­rate­ly in the first weeks of con­fu­sion in­ci­dent to the es­tab­lish­ment of a new gov­ern­ment, show a fa­mil­iar­ity and prepa­ra­tion, as well as a readi­ness of mind of a most un­usu­al kind. Yet while Hamil­ton was en­gaged in all this be­wil­der­ing work, he was evolv­ing the great fi­nan­cial pol­icy, at once broad, com­pre­hen­sive, and minute, and af­ter the re­cess in Jan­uary he laid his ground plan be­fore Congress in his first re­port on pub­lic cred­it; a state pa­per which marks an era in Amer­ican his­to­ry, and by which the mas­sive cor­ner-​stone, from which the great struc­ture of the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has risen, was se­cure­ly laid.

New York, mean­while, had blos­somed to her full. Hous­es had been ren­ovat­ed, and with all the el­egance to be com­mand­ed. Many had been let, by the less am­bi­tious, to the Mem­bers of Congress from oth­er States, and all were en­ter­tain­ing. Gen­er­al Schuyler oc­cu­pied a house close to Hamil­ton, and his daugh­ters Cor­nelia and Peg­gy--Mrs. Stephen Van Rens­se­laer--were live­ly mem­bers of so­ci­ety. The Vice-​Pres­ident had tak­en the great house at Rich­mond Hill, and Gen­er­al Knox as im­pos­ing a man­sion as he could find. Wash­ing­ton, af­ter a few months, moved to the Mc­Comb house in low­er Broad­way, one of the largest in town, with a re­cep­tion room of su­perb pro­por­tions. Here Mrs. Wash­ing­ton, stand­ing on a dais, usu­al­ly as­sist­ed by Mrs. Adams and Mrs. Hamil­ton, re­ceived, with the rigid for­mal­ity of for­eign courts, all who dared to at­tend her lev­ees. She had dis­card­ed the sim­plic­ity of cam­paign­ing days, and at­tired her­self with a mag­nif­icence which was em­ulat­ed by her “Court.” It was yet too soon to break from tra­di­tion, and the Wash­ing­tons con­duct­ed them­selves in ac­cor­dance with their strong aris­to­crat­ic pro­cliv­ities. Nor did it oc­cur to any­one, even the most ar­dent Re­pub­li­can, that dig­ni­ty and splen­dour were in­con­sis­tent with a free and en­light­ened Re­pub­lic, un­til Jef­fer­son be­gan his steady and suc­cess­ful sys­tem of ple­beian­iz­ing the coun­try.

Wash­ing­ton's lev­ees were frigid; but I have not ob­served any spe­cial warmth at the White House up­on pub­lic oc­ca­sions in my own time. The Pres­ident, af­ter the com­pa­ny had as­sem­bled, en­tered in full of­fi­cial cos­tume: black vel­vet and satin, di­amond knee-​buck­les, his hair in a bag and tied with rib­bons. He car­ried a mil­itary hat un­der his arm, and wore a dress sword in a green sha­green scab­bard. He made a tour of the room, ad­dress­ing each guest in turn, all be­ing ranged ac­cord­ing to their rank. At his wife's lev­ees he at­tend­ed as a pri­vate in­di­vid­ual and min­gled more freely with the guests; but his pres­ence al­ways low­ered ev­ery voice in the room, and wom­en trem­bled with anx­iety lest he should not en­gage them in con­ver­sa­tion, while dread­ing that he might. The un­par­al­leled dig­ni­ty, the icy re­serve of his per­son­al­ity, had al­ways af­fect­ed the tem­per­ature of the gath­er­ings he hon­oured; but at this time, when to the height of a colos­sal and unique rep­uta­tion was added the first in­cum­ben­cy of an of­fice, be­stowed by a unan­imous sen­ti­ment, which was to raise the Unit­ed States to the plane of the great na­tions of Eu­rope, he was in­stinc­tive­ly re­gard­ed as su­per­hu­man, rather as a hu­man em­bod­iment of the Pow­er be­yond space. He was deeply sen­si­tive to the de­press­ing ef­fect he pro­duced, and not a lit­tle bored by the open-​mouthed cu­rios­ity he ex­cit­ed. A young­ster, hav­ing run af­ter him for quite a block, one day, pant­ing from his ex­er­tions, Wash­ing­ton wheeled about sud­den­ly, and made a bow so pro­found and satir­ical that his pur­suer fled with a yell of ter­ror.

The Pres­ident was very fond of the the­atre, and in­vit­ed a par­ty once a week to ac­com­pa­ny him to John Street. He en­ter­tained at ta­ble con­stant­ly, and dined out for­mal­ly and in­ti­mate­ly. Congress, he at­tend­ed in great state. He had brought to New York six white hors­es of the finest Vir­gini­an breed, and a mag­nif­icent cream-​coloured coach, or­na­ment­ed with cu­pids and fes­toons. For state oc­ca­sions the hors­es were cov­ered over night with a white paste, and pol­ished next morn­ing un­til they shone like sil­ver. The hoofs were paint­ed black. When Wash­ing­ton drove through the city on his way to Congress, at­tend­ed by pos­til­ions and out­rid­ers, it is lit­tle won­der that he had a roy­al progress through proud and sat­is­fied throngs.

The Adamses, who had coun­selled all the us­ages of for­eign courts, but had been out­vot­ed by Hamil­ton and Jay, en­ter­tained but lit­tle less than the Pres­ident; and so did the Schuylers, Liv­ingstons, Jays, and half the town. The Hamil­tons, of ne­ces­si­ty, en­ter­tained far more sim­ply; but Bet­sey re­ceived ev­ery Wednes­day evening, when her rooms were a crush of fash­ion and pol­itics, ea­ger for a glimpse of Hamil­ton and to do court to her pop­ular self. They gave at least one din­ner a week, but Bet­sey as a rule went out with her par­ents, for her hus­band was too busy for so­ci­ety.

The world saw lit­tle of Hamil­ton at this time, and Bet­sey but lit­tle more. He worked in his li­brary or of­fice for four­teen hours of the day, while the coun­try teemed with con­jec­tures of his com­ing Re­port. A dis­po­si­tion to spec­ulate up­on it was al­ready man­ifest, and more than one friend en­deav­oured to gain a hint of its con­tents. Not even Madi­son, to whom he had talked more freely than to any­one, knew aught of the de­tails of that mo­men­tous Re­port, what rec­om­men­da­tions he ac­tu­al­ly should make to Congress; for none knew bet­ter than he that a hint de­rived from him which should lead to prof­itable spec­ula­tion would tar­nish his good name ir­re­triev­ably. Care­less in much else, on the sub­ject of his pri­vate and pub­lic in­tegri­ty he was rigid; he would not have yield­ed a point to re­tain the af­fec­tion of the best and most val­ued of his friends. Fas­tid­ious by na­ture on the ques­tion of his hon­our, he knew, al­so, that oth­er ac­cu­sa­tions, even when ver­ified, mat­tered lit­tle in the long run; a man's ac­tu­al po­si­tion in life and in his­to­ry was de­ter­mined by the weight of his brain and the spot­less­ness of his pub­lic char­ac­ter. He worked in se­cret, with no help from any­one; nor could blan­dish­ments ex­tract a hint of his pur­pose. Against the rock of his in­tegri­ty pas­sion availed noth­ing. As for Bet­sey, be­tween her grow­ing chil­dren, the del­ica­cy which had fol­lowed the birth of her last child, and her heavy so­cial du­ties, she would have had lit­tle time to as­sist him had he con­fid­ed even in her. More­over, to keep up a dig­ni­fied po­si­tion up­on $3500 a year cost her clever lit­tle Dutch head much anx­ious thought. It is true that some mon­ey had been put aside from the in­come of her hus­band's large prac­tice, but he was the most care­less and gen­er­ous of men, al­ways re­fus­ing the fees of peo­ple poor­er than him­self, and with no tal­ent for per­son­al, great as was his mas­tery of po­lit­ical, econ­omy. If Gen­er­al Schuyler of­ten came to the res­cue his son-​in-​law nev­er knew it. Hamil­ton had a vague idea that Bet­sey could man­age some­how, and was far too ab­sorbed to give the mat­ter a thought. Bet­sey, it would seem, had her own lit­tle rep­uta­tion, for it was about this time that M'Hen­ry fin­ished a let­ter to Hamil­ton, as fol­lows:--

Pray present me to Mrs. Hamil­ton. I have learned from a friend of yours that she has, as far as the com­par­ison will hold, as much mer­it as your trea­sur­er as you have as trea­sur­er of the wealth of the Unit­ed States.