The Conqueror

XVII

The talk in the draw­ing-​room of Mrs. Croix that night was of lit­tle else but the Sec­re­tary's Re­port. Mrs. Croix, so said gos­sip, had con­clud­ed that this was the prop­er time for the demise of her re­cal­ci­trant of­fi­cer, and had re­tired to weeds and a se­mi-​seclu­sion while Mrs. Wash­ing­ton pon­dered up­on the pro­pri­ety of re­ceiv­ing her. Her court cared lit­tle for the facts, and vowed that she nev­er had looked so fair or so proud; Hamil­ton, that she shone with the splen­dour of a crys­tal star on the black vel­vet skies of the Trop­ics. She wore, this evening, a few yards of black gauze which left bare a cres­cent of her shin­ing neck and the low­er arms. Her bright hair was ar­ranged in a mass of ringlets, af­ter a fash­ion ob­tain­ing in Eu­rope, and sur­mount­ed by a small tur­ban of gauze fas­tened with a di­amond sun. Many of the men who vis­it­ed her ha­bit­ual­ly called her La­dy Bet­ty, for she was one of those wom­en who in­vite a cer­tain play­ful fa­mil­iar­ity while re­pelling in­ti­ma­cy. Hamil­ton called her, as the fan­cy moved him, Ege­ria, Boadicea, or La­dy Go­di­va.

Clin­ton came in fum­ing. “It is not pos­si­ble,” he cried, “that the Congress can be so mad as to be hood­winked by this deep po­lit­ical scheme for con­cen­trat­ing the lib­er­ties of the Unit­ed States un­der the ex­ec­utive heel. 'To ce­ment more close­ly the union of the States and to add to their se­cu­ri­ty against for­eign at­tack!' For­sooth! This as­sump­tion plan is noth­ing more nor less than an­oth­er of his das­tard­ly schemes to squeeze out of the poor States what lit­tle lib­er­ty he left them un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion. He could not ob­tain at Philadel­phia all he wished for, but now that Wash­ing­ton has giv­en him both reins, he laughs in our faces. I re­gret that I ev­er of­fered him my hand.”

“Then our par­ty in Congress will fight him on po­lit­ical grounds?” asked Mrs. Croix.

“You may put it that way if you choose. It cer­tain­ly will not be blind­ed by his specious­ness and aid him in his sub­tle monar­chism. 'Con­tribute in an em­inent de­gree to an or­der­ly, sta­ble, and sat­is­fac­to­ry ar­range­ment of the Na­tion's fi­nances!' 'Sev­er­al rea­sons which ren­der it prob­able that the sit­ua­tion of the State cred­itors will be worse than that of the cred­itors of the Union, if there be not a na­tion­al as­sump­tion of the State debts!' And then his plan of deb­it and cred­it, with 'lit­tle doubt that bal­ances would ap­pear in favour of all the States against the Unit­ed States!' My blood has boiled since I read that pa­per. I have feared apoplexy. He is clever, that West In­di­an,--do they grow many such?--but he did not se­lect a coun­try com­posed en­tire­ly of fools to machi­nate in.”

“My dear­est Gov­er­nor,” whis­pered Mrs. Croix, “calm your­self, pray. On­ly you can cope with Mr. Hamil­ton. You must be the colos­sal spir­it with­out the walls of Congress to whom all will look for guid­ance. If you be­come ill, the cause is lost.”

Clin­ton com­posed him­self prompt­ly, and asked El­bridge Ger­ry, of Mas­sachusetts, which, sec­tion of the Re­port he ex­pect­ed to at­tack first. There were no Fed­er­al­ists present.

Ger­ry shrugged his shoul­ders and shot a nar­row glance of con­tempt at the Gov­er­nor. “Give me time, your Ex­cel­len­cy, pray. Mr. Hamil­ton's pa­per has the thought of a decade in it. It mer­its at least a week of thought on our part. I nev­er could agree with him in all things, but in some I am at one with him; and I ac­knowl­edge my­self deeply in his debt, in­so­much as he has taught me, among thou­sands of oth­ers, to 'think con­ti­nen­tal­ly,' I cer­tain­ly agree with him that to pay to present hold­ers the full val­ue of their cer­tifi­cates, with­out dis­crim­ina­tion, is a mat­ter of con­sti­tu­tion­al law, a vi­ola­tion of which would be a men­ace to the new gov­ern­ment. I shall sup­port him on that point at the risk of be­ing ac­cused of spec­ula­tion.”

Stone, of Mary­land, was strid­ing up and down, but a de­gree less ag­itat­ed than the Gov­er­nor of New York.

“The man is clev­er­er than all the rest of us put to­geth­er!” he ex­claimed. “Let us not for­get that for an in­stant. A greater thought than this of as­sump­tion has nev­er been de­vised by man. If it be car­ried in­to ex­ecu­tion,--which God for­bid,--it will prove a wall of adamant to the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment, im­preg­nable to any at­tempt on its fab­ric or op­er­ations.”

“Oh, is it so bad as that?” asked Ger­ry. “Ev­ery fort falls if the siege be suf­fi­cient­ly pro­longed. I ap­pre­hend no such dis­as­ter, and I con­fess I see much promise in at least two of Mr. Hamil­ton's schemes. Af­ter all, the re­demp­tion of the coun­try is what we must look to first.”

“You are a trim­mer. Can­not you see that if the whole rev­enue of the States be tak­en in­to the pow­er of Congress, it will prove a band to draw us so close to­geth­er as not to leave the small­est in­ter­stice for sep­ara­tion?”

“But do you med­itate sep­ara­tion?” asked Mrs. Croix. “Sure­ly that would be as great a crime as Mr. Hamil­ton's monar­chi­cal ma­noeu­vres--if it be true he prac­tis­es such.”

“He is bold enough about them,” snort­ed Clin­ton. “I do the man jus­tice to rec­og­nize his in­so­lent frank­ness.”

“Those I can­not say I have ob­served,” said Ger­ry. “Nor do I think that we med­itate sep­ara­tion. We are strug­gling out of one pit. It would be fol­ly to dig a deep­er. And Mas­sachusetts has a great debt, with de­creas­ing rev­enue for in­ter­est and re­demp­tion. I am not sure that as­sump­tion would not be to her ad­van­tage. She stood the brunt of the war. It is but fair that she should have re­lief now, even at the ex­pense of oth­er States whose debt is in­signif­icant; and she is able to take care of her­self against the Fed­er­al gov­ern­ment--”

“The brunt of the war!” ex­claimed the At­tor­ney-​Gen­er­al of the Cab­inet, who, with the Speak­er of the House, had just en­tered, and who had con­trolled him­self with dif­fi­cul­ty for sev­er­al sec­onds. “I beg to as­sure you, sir, that Vir­ginia may claim that hon­our. Her glo­ri­ous pa­tri­otism, her con­tri­bu­tions in men and mon­ey--they ex­ceed­ed those of any State in the Union, sir.”

Ger­ry laughed. “I have no means of com­par­ison by which pa­tri­otism may be mea­sured, Mr. Ran­dolph,” he said. “But we can pro­duce fig­ures, if nec­es­sary, to prove our ti­tle to suprema­cy in the oth­er mat­ters you men­tion. As you have re­duced your debt, how­ev­er, by an al­most to­tal re­pu­di­ation of your pa­per mon­ey--”

“How about Mr. Madi­son?” asked Mrs. Croix, hur­ried­ly. “He is your fel­low-​states­man, Mr. Ran­dolph, but he is Mr. Hamil­ton's de­vot­ed friend and fol­low­er. Vir­ginia may be sad­ly di­vid­ed.”

“My fears have de­creased on that point,” said Ran­dolph, dri­ly. “Mr. Madi­son's loy­al­ty to­ward his State in­creas­es dai­ly.”

“So does his am­bi­tion,” ob­served Muh­len­berg. “If I am not mis­tak­en, he has be­gun to chafe at Hamil­ton's ar­range­ment of his des­tinies--and a na­ture like that is not with­out deep and sullen jeal­ousies. To be a lead­er of lead­ers re­quires a sleep­less art; to lead the mass­es is play by com­par­ison. Hamil­ton is a ma­gi­cian, but he is ar­ro­gant and im­pa­tient. With all his art and con­trol of men's minds, he will lose a fol­low­er now and again, and not the least im­por­tant would be--will be--Madi­son.”

“Have you proof?” asked Clin­ton, ea­ger­ly. “He would be of in­com­pa­ra­ble val­ue in our ranks. By the way, Aaron Burr is work­ing to the front. He is a born politi­cian, if I am not mis­tak­en, and is in a rapid pro­cess of ed­uca­tion. I feel sure that I have at­tached him to our cause by ap­point­ing him At­tor­ney-​Gen­er­al of the Staite. He should make an in­valu­able par­ty man.”

“He will be at­tached to no cause,” said Ger­ry. “He is, as you say, a politi­cian. There is not a germ of the states­man in him; nor of the hon­est man, ei­ther, un­less I am deeply mis­tak­en. He is the on­ly man of note in the coun­try who has not one pa­tri­ot­ic act to his cred­it. He fought, but so did ev­ery ad­ven­tur­ous youth in the coun­try; and had there been any­thing more to his in­ter­est to do at the time, the Rev­olu­tion could have tak­en care of it­self. But dur­ing all our try­ing des­per­ate years since--did he go once to Congress? Did he in­ter­est him­self in the Con­sti­tu­tion, ei­ther at Philadel­phia or Pough­keep­sie? What record did he make in the State Leg­is­la­ture dur­ing his one term of in­fre­quent at­ten­dance? While oth­er men, no­tably Hamil­ton, of whom he be­trays an ab­surd jeal­ousy, have been ne­glect­ing their pri­vate in­ter­ests in the pub­lic cause, he has been dis­tin­guish­ing him­self as a fe­mal­ist, and think­ing of noth­ing else but mak­ing mon­ey at the bar. I ad­mit his bril­lian­cy, his in­tre­pid­ity, and the exquisite qual­ity of his ad­dress, but I don't be­lieve that an hon­est man who comes in­to con­tact with him in­stinc­tive­ly trusts him.”

“Oh, let us not in­dulge in such bit­ter per­son­al­ities,” cried Mrs. Croix, who took no in­ter­est at that time in the tem­po­rary hus­band of her old age. “Sure­ly this com­ing leg­is­la­tion should com­pel ev­ery fac­ul­ty. What of the oth­er debts?--of fund­ing? Or, if it is still too soon to talk of these mat­ters with equi­lib­ri­um,” she added hasti­ly, as Clin­ton turned pur­ple again, “pray tell me that the great ques­tion of de­cid­ing up­on a site for the Cap­ital is near­ing a so­lu­tion. It has been such a source of bit­ter ag­ita­tion. I wish it were set­tled.”

“The House may or may not pass this bill for ten years in Philadel­phia, and the banks of the Po­tomac there­after,” growled the Sen­ator from North Car­oli­na. “The Fed­er­al­ists have the ma­jor­ity, and they are de­ter­mined to keep the seat of gov­ern­ment in the North, as they are de­ter­mined to have their monar­chi­cal will in ev­ery­thing. Madi­son hopes for some for­tu­itous co­in­ci­dence, but I con­fess I hard­ly know what he means.”

Ger­ry laughed. “When Madi­son takes to ver­biage,” he said, “I should re­sort to a plum­met and line.”

“Sir!” cried Ran­dolph, limp­ing to­ward the door in an­gry haste. “Mr. Madi­son is one of the lofti­est states­men in the coun­try!”

“Has been. Cen­trifu­gal forces are in mo­tion.”

“How ev­ery­body in pol­itics does hate ev­ery­body else!” said Mrs. Croix, with a pa­tient sigh.