The Conqueror

XVI

Congress re­assem­bled, and on the 2d of Jan­uary Hamil­ton sent in his Re­port on Pub­lic Cred­it. By this time ex­cite­ment and anx­iety, to say noth­ing of cu­pid­ity, were risen to fever pitch. All re­al­ized that they were well in the midst of a na­tion­al cri­sis, for the coun­try was bankrupt, and her for­eign and do­mes­tic debts foot­ed up to quite eighty mil­lions of dol­lars--a stu­pen­dous sum in the in­fan­cy of a na­tion, when there was lit­tle specie in the coun­try, and an in­cal­cu­la­ble amount of worth­less pa­per, with long ar­rears of in­ter­est be­sides. If Hamil­ton could cope with this great ques­tion, and if Congress, with its de­ter­mined an­ti-​gov­ern­ment par­ty, would sup­port him, the Union and its long-​suf­fer­ing pa­tri­ots would en­ter up­on a sea­son of pros­per­ity and hap­pi­ness. If the one were in­ad­equate to meet the sit­ua­tion, or the oth­er failed in its na­tion­al du­ty, the con­se­quences must be deep­er wretched­ness and dis­as­ter than any­thing they yet had en­dured. The con­fi­dence in Hamil­ton was very widespread, for not on­ly were his great abil­ities ful­ly rec­og­nized, but his gen­er­al opin­ions on the sub­ject had long been known, and ap­proved by all but the politi­cians on the wrong side. The con­fi­dence had been man­ifest­ed in a man­ner lit­tle to his lik­ing: spec­ula­tors had scoured the coun­try, buy­ing up gov­ern­ment se­cu­ri­ties at the rate of a few shillings on the pound, tak­ing ad­van­tage of needy hold­ers, who dwelt, many of them, in dis­tricts too re­mote from the cen­tre of ac­tion to know what the Gov­ern­ment was about. And even be­fore this “sig­nal in­stance of moral turpi­tude,” the fact that so many old sol­diers who had gone home with no oth­er pay than gov­ern­ment se­cu­ri­ties, to be ex­changed for specie at the plea­sure of a gov­ern­ment which no­body had trust­ed, had sold out for a small sum, was one of the ag­itat­ing themes of the coun­try; and opin­ion was di­vid­ed up­on the right of the as­signees to col­lect the full amount which the new gov­ern­ment might be pre­pared to pay, while the moral rights of the wor­thy and orig­inal hold­er were ig­nored. It was un­der­stood, how­ev­er, that Hamil­ton had giv­en no more search­ing thought to any sub­ject than to this.

The pub­lic was not ad­mit­ted to the gal­leries of Congress in those days, but a great crowd packed Wall and Broad streets while the Re­port was read­ing and un­til some hint of its con­tents fil­tered through the guard­ed doors. Hamil­ton him­self was at home with his fam­ily, en­joy­ing a day of rest. It is one of the most cu­ri­ous in­ci­dents in his ca­reer, as well as one of the high­est trib­utes to his pow­er over men, that Congress, af­ter ma­ture de­lib­er­ation, de­cid­ed that it would be safer to re­ceive his Re­port in writ­ing than in the form of a per­son­al ad­dress from a man who played so dan­ger­ous­ly up­on the nerve-​board of the hu­man na­ture. There hard­ly could be any hid­den witch­ery in a long pa­per deal­ing with so un­emo­tion­al a sub­ject as fi­nance; but no man could fore­see what might be the ef­fect of the Sec­re­tary's voice and en­thu­si­asm,--which was per­ilous­ly com­mu­ni­ca­ble,--his in­evitable bursts of spon­ta­neous elo­quence. But Hamil­ton had a pen which served him well, when he was forced to sub­sti­tute it for the charm of his per­son­al­ity. It was so point­ed, sim­ple, and pow­er­ful, it clas­si­fied with such clar­ity, it ex­pressed his con­vic­tions so un­mis­tak­ably, and con­veyed his sub­tle ap­peals to hu­man pas­sions so obe­di­ent­ly, that it rarely failed to quiver like an ar­row in the brain to which it was di­rect­ed. And this par­tic­ular re­port was vi­tal­ized by the au­thor's over­whelm­ing sense of the great cri­sis with which he was deal­ing. Read­ing it to-​day, a hun­dred and eleven years af­ter it was writ­ten, and close to the top of a twelve-​sto­ry build­ing, which is a sym­bol of the in­dus­try and progress for which he more than any man who has ev­er ded­icat­ed his tal­ents to the Unit­ed States is re­spon­si­ble, it is so fresh and con­vinc­ing, so earnest, so in­sis­tent, so cour­te­ous­ly peremp­to­ry, that the great cen­tu­ry which lies be­tween us and that em­pire-​mak­ing pa­per laps­es from the mem­ory, and one is in that anx­ious time, in the very study of the yet more anx­ious states­man; who, on a trop­ical is­land that most of his coun­try­men nev­er will see, came in­to be­ing with the seed of an unimag­ined na­tion in his brain.

To con­dense Hamil­ton is much like at­tempt­ing to in­crease the den­si­ty of a stone, or to re­duce the al­pha­bet to a tabloid. I there­fore shall make no ef­fort to add an­oth­er fail­ure to the sev­er­al ab­stracts of this Re­port. The heads of his propo­si­tions are suf­fi­cient. The Re­port is ac­ces­si­ble to all who find the sub­ject in­ter­est­ing. The main points were these: The ex­plod­ing of the dis­crim­ina­tion fal­la­cy; the as­sump­tion of the State debts by the Gov­ern­ment; the fund­ing of the en­tire amount of the pub­lic debt, for­eign, do­mes­tic, and State; three new loans, one to the en­tire amount of the debt, an­oth­er of $10,000,000, a third of $12,000,000; the prompt pay­ment of the ar­rears and cur­rent in­ter­est of the for­eign loan on the orig­inal terms of the con­tract; the seg­re­gat­ing of the post-​of­fice rev­enue, amount­ing to about a mil­lion dol­lars, for a sink­ing fund, that the cre­ation of a debt should al­ways be ac­com­pa­nied by the means of ex­tin­guish­ment; in­creased du­ties on for­eign com­modi­ties, that the gov­ern­ment might be able to pay the in­ter­est on her new debts and meet her cur­rent ex­pens­es; and more than one ad­mo­ni­tion for prompt ac­tion, as the cred­it of the na­tion was reach­ing a low­er lev­el dai­ly, be­sides sink­ing more hope­less­ly in­to debt through ar­rears of in­ter­est. The in­debt­ed­ness he di­vid­ed as fol­lows: The for­eign debt, $10,070,307, with ar­rears of in­ter­est amount­ing to $1,640,071. The liq­ui­dat­ed do­mes­tic debt, $27,383,917, with ar­rears of in­ter­est amount­ing to $13,030,168. The unliq­ui­dat­ed part he es­ti­mat­ed at $2,000,000, and the ag­gre­gate debt of the State at $25,000,000; mak­ing a to­tal of near­ly $80,000.000.

He al­so hint­ed at his long-​cher­ished scheme of a Na­tion­al Bank, and a pos­si­ble ex­cise law, and gave con­sid­er­able space to the mis­er­able con­di­tion of land­ed prop­er­ty and the meth­ods by which it might be re­stored to its due val­ue.