The Conqueror

XXXVII

The next sev­en years of Hamil­ton's life must be re­viewed very rapid­ly. In­ter­est­ing as they might be made, space di­min­ish­es, and af­ter all they were but the pre­cur­sor of the last great bat­tle of the gi­ants.

In the spring of 1794 the Vir­gini­an ring ral­lied for their fi­nal as­sault in Congress. Their spokesman this time was a worth­less man, named Fraunces, and he brought forth a charge against the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury of un­faith­ful­ness in of­fice. Hamil­ton prompt­ly de­mand­ed an­oth­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The re­sult may be found in the fol­low­ing let­ters from em­inent Fed­er­als in Vir­ginia. The first is from Colonel Car­ring­ton, dat­ed Rich­mond, Ju­ly 9th.

I do not write this let­ter as con­grat­ula­to­ry up­on the fi­nal is­sue of the In­quiry in­to the Trea­sury De­part­ment, as I nev­er con­ceived you ex­posed to re­ceive in­jury there­from. I write to ex­press my most sin­cere wish­es that you will not suf­fer the il­lib­er­al­ity with which you have been treat­ed to de­prive the pub­lic of your ser­vices, at least un­til the storm which hangs over us, and is to be dread­ed, not less from our own fol­lies and vices than the ma­lig­nance and in­trigues of for­eign­ers, blows over. It is true you have been abused, but it has been and still is, the fate of him who was sup­posed out of the reach of all slan­der. It is in­deed the lot, in some de­gree, of ev­ery man amongst us who has the sense or for­ti­tude to speak and act ra­tio­nal­ly, and such men must con­tin­ue so to speak and act if we are saved from an­ar­chy.

On Ju­ly 20th, Thomas Corbin wrote to Hamil­ton de­plor­ing the po­lit­ical con­di­tions in Vir­ginia cre­at­ed by Thomas Jef­fer­son, in which these sig­nif­icant pas­sages oc­cur:--

Calum­ny and mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion are the on­ly weapons made use of by the fac­tion of Vir­ginia. By a dex­ter­ous man­age­ment of these they have brought in­to pop­ular dis­re­pute, and even in­to pop­ular odi­um, some of the wis­est and best char­ac­ters in the Unit­ed States.

War is waged by this fac­tion against ev­ery can­di­date who pos­sess­es the union of req­ui­sites. In­de­pen­dent for­tune, in­de­pen­dent prin­ci­ples, tal­ents, and in­tegri­ty are de­nounced as badges of aris­toc­ra­cy; but if you add to these good man­ners and a de­cent ap­pear­ance, his po­lit­ical death is de­creed with­out the ben­efit of a hear­ing. In short, with a few ex­cep­tions ev­ery­thing that ap­per­tains to the char­ac­ter of a gen­tle­man is os­tra­cized. That your­self and Mr. Jay should be no fa­vorites in Vir­ginia, is not to be won­dered at. But all those whose good opin­ion is worth your ac­cep­tance en­ter­tain for you both the same ven­er­ation and es­teem, and hear the as­per­sions of your en­emies with the same in­dig­na­tion that I do; who, af­ter the clos­est ex­am­ina­tion, and the purest con­vic­tion can con­sci­en­tious­ly sub­scribe my­self etc.

In the au­tumn the whiskey dis­tur­bances in west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia as­sumed such se­ri­ous pro­por­tions that Hamil­ton in­sist­ed up­on re­course to arms. With his usu­al pre­ci­sion he had cal­cu­lat­ed the num­bers of the in­sur­gents, and the amount of troops nec­es­sary to over­whelm them. Wash­ing­ton is­sued req­ui­si­tions for fif­teen thou­sand men, and set out with the troops, his first in­ten­tion be­ing to com­mand in per­son. Hamil­ton ac­com­pa­nied him, and up­on the Pres­ident's re­turn to Philadel­phia, as­sumed the gen­er­al su­per­in­ten­dence of the army, whose com­man­der, Hen­ry Lee, was one of his de­vot­ed ad­her­ents. Many mo­tives have been as­cribed to Hamil­ton for this ex­cep­tion­al pro­ceed­ing, and Wash­ing­ton was bit­ter­ly as­sailed for “not be­ing able to move with­out his favourite Sec­re­tary at his el­bow,” and for giv­ing ad­di­tion­al con­spic­uous­ness to a man whose pow­er al­ready was a “men­ace to Re­pub­li­can lib­er­ties.” Ran­dolph, then the nom­inal Sec­re­tary of State, but quite aware that while Hamil­ton re­mained in the Cab­inet he was but a fig­ure­head, was so wroth, that lat­er, in his fu­tile “Vin­di­ca­tion,” fol­low­ing what prac­ti­cal­ly was his ex­pul­sion from the Cab­inet, he an­imad­vert­ed bit­ter­ly up­on a favour which no one but Hamil­ton would have pre­sumed to ask. Fauchet, the suc­ces­sor of Genet, in the in­ter­cept­ed let­ter to his gov­ern­ment, which brought about the fall of Ran­dolph, con­vict­ing him of cor­rup­tion and treach­ery, has this to say:--

The army marched; the Pres­ident made known that he was go­ing to com­mand it; Hamil­ton, as I have un­der­stood, re­quest­ed to fol­low him; the Pres­ident dared not refuse him. It does not re­quire much, pen­etra­tion to di­vine the ob­ject of this jour­ney. In the Pres­ident it was wise, it might al­so be his du­ty. But in Mr. Hamil­ton it was a con­se­quence of the pro­found pol­icy which di­rects all his steps; a mea­sure dic­tat­ed by a per­fect knowl­edge of the hu­man heart. Was it not in­ter­est­ing for him, for his par­ty, tot­ter­ing un­der the weight of events with­out and ac­cu­sa­tions with­in, to pro­claim an in­ti­ma­cy more per­fect than ev­er with the Pres­ident, whose very name is a suf­fi­cient shield against the most formidable at­tacks? Now, what more ev­ident mark could the Pres­ident give of his in­ti­ma­cy than by suf­fer­ing Mr. Hamil­ton, whose name, even, is un­der­stood in the west as that of a pub­lic en­emy, to go and place him­self at the head of the army which went, if I may use the ex­pres­sion, to cause his sys­tem to tri­umph against the op­po­si­tion of the peo­ple? The pres­ence of Mr. Hamil­ton with the army must at­tach it more than ev­er to his par­ty.

There were depths in Hamil­ton's mind which no wise mor­tal will ev­er at­tempt to plumb. It is safe to say he did noth­ing with­out one eye on a far-​reach­ing pol­icy; and aside from the plea­sure of be­ing in the sad­dle once more, rid­ing over the wild Al­legha­nies in keen Oc­to­ber weath­er, af­ter four years of the stench­es and cli­mat­ic mis­eries of Philadel­phia, aside from his fear of Gov­er­nor Mif­fin's treach­ery, and his lack of im­plic­it con­fi­dence in Lee's judge­ment, it is quite like­ly that he had some un­der­ly­ing mo­tive rel­ative to the ad­van­tage of his par­ty, which had been weak­ened by the in­ces­sant as­saults up­on him­self. By go­ing with the army he not on­ly demon­strat­ed the per­fect con­fi­dence re­posed in him by Wash­ing­ton, and his de­ter­mi­na­tion that his laws should be en­forced, but he gave em­pha­sis to his be­lief that the re­sis­tance to the Ex­cise Law had been de­lib­er­ate­ly in­sti­gat­ed by the Re­pub­li­cans un­der the lead­er­ship of his avowed en­emies. In this con­nec­tion the fol­low­ing ex­tract from Fauchet's let­ter is high­ly in­ter­est­ing, in­ti­mate as he was with the Re­pub­li­can lead­ers.

Such there­fore were the parts of the pub­lic grievance, up­on which the west­ern peo­ple most in­sist­ed. Now, these com­plaints were sys­tem­atiz­ing by the con­ver­sa­tions of in­flu­en­tial men, who re­tired in­to those wild coun­tries, and who from prin­ci­ple, or from a se­ries of par­tic­ular heart-​burn­ings, an­imat­ed dis­con­tents al­ready too near to ef­fer­ves­cence. At last the lo­cal ex­plo­sion is ef­fect­ed. The west­ern peo­ple cal­cu­lat­ed on be­ing sup­port­ed by some dis­tin­guished char­ac­ters in the east, and even imag­ined they had in the bo­som of the gov­ern­ment some abet­tors, who might share in their grievance or their prin­ci­ple.

The ri­ot­ers, sobered by the or­ga­nized force and its formidable num­bers, sur­ren­dered with­out blood­shed.

In Jan­uary of the fol­low­ing year Hamil­ton re­signed from the Cab­inet. The press­ing need of his ser­vices was over, and he had many rea­sons for re­tir­ing from of­fice: his health was se­ri­ous­ly im­paired, he had a grow­ing fam­ily of boys to ed­ucate; he ex­pect­ed his fa­ther by ev­ery ship from the Wind­ward Is­lands, to spend his last years in the home to which his son had so of­ten in­vit­ed him; Mrs. Mitchell was now a wid­ow and al­most pen­ni­less; and his dis­gust of of­fice was so un­com­pro­mis­ing that no con­sid­er­ation short of an im­per­ative pub­lic du­ty would have in­duced him to con­tin­ue. But his prin­ci­pal rea­son, as he wrote to Mrs. Church, was that he wished to in­dulge his do­mes­tic hap­pi­ness more freely. Wash­ing­ton let him go with the less re­luc­tance be­cause he promised im­me­di­ate re­sponse to any de­mand the Pres­ident might make up­on him. He went with his wife, An­gel­ica, and the younger chil­dren to Al­bany and the Sarato­ga es­tate, where he re­mained un­til the first of June, en­deav­our­ing to re­gain his health in the for­est and on the riv­er. Young Lafayette lived with him un­til his re­turn to France, in 1798.

Up­on Hamil­ton's re­turn to New York he im­me­di­ate­ly en­gaged in prac­tice, which he sup­ple­ment­ed by coach­ing stu­dents; but he con­tin­ued to be Wash­ing­ton's chief ad­vis­er, and the cor­re­spon­dence was con­tin­uous up­on ev­ery prob­lem which con­front­ed the ha­rassed Pres­ident. In­deed, when one reads its bulk, one won­ders if the Cab­inet did any­thing but ex­ecute Hamil­ton's sug­ges­tions. Ran­dolph kicked his heels in im­po­tent wrath, and his suc­ces­sor's cor­re­spon­dence with Hamil­ton was al­most as vo­lu­mi­nous as Wash­ing­ton's. So was Wol­cott's, who hard­ly can­celled a bond with­out his for­mer chief's ad­vice; William Smith, the au­di­tor-​gen­er­al, was scarce­ly less in­sis­tent for or­ders. Hamil­ton wrote at length to all of them, as well as to the nu­mer­ous mem­bers of Congress who want­ed ad­vice, or an in­ter­pre­ta­tion of some Con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sion hith­er­to on the shelf. What time he had for his prac­tice and stu­dents would re­main a mys­tery, were it not for the man­ifest price he paid in the vigours of all but will and brain.

Dur­ing the sum­mer of 1794 Tal­leyrand vis­it­ed the Unit­ed States. He brought a pack­age from Mrs. Church to Mrs. Hamil­ton, and a cor­dial let­ter from the same im­por­tant source to the states­man whom he ranked high­er than any man of his time. “He im­proves up­on ac­quain­tance,” wrote Mrs. Church to her sis­ter; “I re­gret that you do not speak French.” But her sis­ter's hus­band spoke French bet­ter than any man in Amer­ica, and af­ter the res­ig­na­tion from the Cab­inet, Tal­leyrand spent most of his time in the lit­tle red brick house at 26 Broad­way, where Hamil­ton was work­ing to re­cov­er his lost po­si­tion at the bar. “I have seen the eighth won­der of the world,” wrote the French­man, one morn­ing, af­ter a ram­ble in the small hours, which had tak­en him past the light in Hamil­ton's study, “I have seen the man who has made the for­tune of a na­tion, toil­ing all night to sup­ply his fam­ily with bread.” The men found great de­light in each oth­er's so­ci­ety. Hamil­ton was the most ac­com­plished and ver­sa­tile man in Amer­ica, the most bril­liant of con­ver­sa­tion­ists, the most ge­nial of com­pan­ions, and hos­pitable of hosts. Tal­leyrand epit­omized Eu­rope to him; and the French states­man had met no one in his crowd­ed life who knew it bet­ter. If he gave to Hamil­ton the con­cen­trat­ed essence of all that ar­dent brain had read and dreamed of, of all that fate had de­creed he nev­er should see in the mass, Tal­leyrand placed on record his trib­ute to Hamil­ton's un­mor­tal pow­ers of div­ina­tion, and loved and re­gret­ted him to the close of his life.

Dif­fer­ent as the men were in char­ac­ter, they had two points in com­mon,--a pas­sion­ate pa­tri­otism, and the mem­ory of high ide­als. Pub­lic life had dis­posed of Tal­leyrand's ide­als, and Hamil­ton, af­ter an ed­uca­tion in the weak­ness and wicked­ness of hu­man na­ture which left noth­ing to be de­sired, would have been equal­ly des­ti­tute, had it not been for his tem­per­amen­tal gai­ety and buoy­ant phi­los­ophy. There were times when these de­sert­ed him, and he brood­ed in ray­less depths, but his Celtic in­her­itance and the vast­ness of his in­tel­lect saved him from de­spair un­til the end. Tal­leyrand was by no means an uncheer­ful soul; but his ge­nius, re­mark­able as it was, flowed be­tween nar­row­er lines, and was un­wa­tered by that hu­man­ity which was Hamil­ton's in such vol­ume. Both men had that fac­ul­ty of see­ing things ex­act­ly as they are, which the shal­low call cyn­icism; and those lost con­ver­sa­tions ap­peal to the imag­ina­tion of the searcher af­ter truth.

Jay's treaty was the most formidable ques­tion with which Hamil­ton was called up­on to deal be­fore the re­tire­ment of Wash­ing­ton to pri­vate life, and it gave him lit­tle less trou­ble than if he had re­mained in the Cab­inet.

It had been his idea to send a spe­cial en­voy to Eng­land to re­mon­strate with the British Gov­ern­ment for her abom­inable op­pres­sions and ac­cu­mu­lat­ing out­rages, de­cide if pos­si­ble up­on a treaty with her which would soothe the ex­cite­ment in the Unit­ed States,--as wild in the spring of 1794 as the Ja­cobin fever,--and avert war. It was the de­sire of Wash­ing­ton and the em­inent Fed­er­al­ists that this mis­sion be un­der­tak­en by Hamil­ton, for he had an es­pe­cial fac­ul­ty for get­ting what he want­ed: how­ev­er ob­sti­nate he might be, his diplo­ma­cy was of the first or­der when he chose to use it. But he be­lieved that, hav­ing sug­gest­ed the mis­sion, he could not with pro­pri­ety ac­cept it, and that his ser­vices could be giv­en more ef­fec­tive­ly in the Cab­inet. More­over, the vi­olent op­po­si­tion which the pro­pos­al im­me­di­ate­ly raised among the Re­pub­li­cans, no­tably Ran­dolph and Mon­roe,--the lat­ter so far tran­scend­ing eti­quette as to write to Wash­ing­ton, de­nounc­ing his Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury,--made it prob­able that his en­emies would de­feat his con­fir­ma­tion in the Sen­ate. He sug­gest­ed the name of Chief Jus­tice Jay; and af­ter the usu­al bit­ter pre­lim­inar­ies, that ex­alt­ed but not very forcible per­son­age sailed for Eng­land in the lat­ter part of April, 1794. Ne­go­ti­ations were very slow, for Britain still felt for us a deep and sullen re­sent­ment, nour­ished by our Ja­cobin en­thu­si­asms. In Jan­uary, how­ev­er, news came that the treaty was con­clud­ed; and Hamil­ton, sup­pos­ing that the mat­ter was set­tled, re­signed from the Cab­inet. It has been as­sert­ed that when he read this fa­mous in­stru­ment, he char­ac­ter­ized it as “an old wom­an's treaty,” and it is very prob­able that he did. Nev­er­the­less, when, af­ter a stormy pas­sage through the Sen­ate, it was launched up­on the coun­try, and, sys­tem­at­ical­ly ma­nip­ulat­ed by the prac­tised arts of Ja­cobin­ism, car­ried the Unit­ed States al­most to the verge of civ­il war, Hamil­ton ac­cept­ed the treaty as the best ob­tain­able, and in­finite­ly prefer­able to fur­ther trou­bles. He took up his pen, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly been stoned while at­tempt­ing to speak in its de­fence, and in a se­ries of pa­pers signed “Cat­ul­lus,” wrote as even he had not done since the days of “The Fed­er­al­ist.” Their ef­fect was felt at once; and as they con­tin­ued to is­sue, and Hamil­ton's sway over the pub­lic mind, his ge­nius for mould­ing opin­ion, be­came with each more man­ifest, Jef­fer­son, ter­ri­fied and fu­ri­ous, wrote to Madi­son:--

Hamil­ton is re­al­ly a Colos­sus to the an­ti-​Re­pub­li­can par­ty. With­out num­bers he is a host in him­self. They have got them­selves in­to a de­file where they might be fin­ished; but too much se­cu­ri­ty on the Re­pub­li­can part will give time to his tal­ents and in­de­fati­ga­ble­ness to ex­tri­cate them. We have had on­ly mid­dling per­for­mances to op­pose him. In truth when he comes for­ward there is no one but your­self can meet him.... For God's sake take up your pen and give a fun­da­men­tal re­ply to “Cur­tius” and “Camil­lus.”

But Madi­son had had enough of pen en­counter with Hamil­ton. “He who puts him­self on pa­per with Hamil­ton is lost,” Burr had said; and Madi­son agreed with him, and en­tered the lists no more. The ex­cite­ment grad­ual­ly sub­sid­ed. It left ug­ly scars be­hind it, but once more Hamil­ton had saved his par­ty, and per­haps the Union. In con­nec­tion with the much dis­put­ed au­thor­ship of the Farewell Ad­dress I will mere­ly quote a state­ment, hereto­fore un­pub­lished, made by Mrs. Hamil­ton, in the year 1840.

De­sir­ing that my chil­dren shall be ful­ly ac­quaint­ed with the ser­vices ren­dered by their fa­ther to our coun­try, and the as­sis­tance ren­dered by him to Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton dur­ing his ad­min­is­tra­tions, for the one great ob­ject, the in­de­pen­dence and sta­bil­ity of the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States, there is one thing in ad­di­tion to the nu­mer­ous proofs which I leave them, and which I feel my­self in du­ty bound to state: which is that a short time pre­vi­ous to Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton's re­tir­ing from the Pres­iden­cy, in the year 1796, Gen­er­al Hamil­ton sug­gest­ed to him the idea of de­liv­er­ing a farewell ad­dress to the peo­ple on his with­draw­al from pub­lic life, with which idea Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton was well pleased, and in his an­swer to Gen­er­al Hamil­ton's sug­ges­tion, gave him the heads of the sub­ject on which he would wish to re­mark, with a re­quest that Mr. Hamil­ton would pre­pare a draft for him. Mr. Hamil­ton did so, and the ad­dress was writ­ten prin­ci­pal­ly at such times as his of­fice was sel­dom fre­quent­ed by his clients and vis­itors, and dur­ing the ab­sence of his stu­dents to avoid in­ter­rup­tion; at which times he was in the habit of call­ing me to sit with him, that he might read to me as he wrote, in or­der, as he said, to dis­cov­er how it sound­ed up­on the ear, and mak­ing the re­mark, “My dear Eliza, you must be to me what old Moliere's nurse was to him.”

The whole or near­ly all the “ad­dress” was read to me by him, as he wrote it, and the greater part if not all was writ­ten in my pres­ence. The orig­inal was for­ward­ed to Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton, who ap­proved of it with the ex­cep­tion of one para­graph; of, I think, from four to five lines, which, if I mis­take not, was on the sub­ject of the pub­lic schools; which was strick­en out. It was af­ter­ward re­turned to Mr. Hamil­ton who made the de­sired al­ter­ation, and was af­ter­ward de­liv­ered to Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton, and pub­lished in that form, and has since been known as “Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton's Farewell Ad­dress.” Short­ly af­ter the pub­li­ca­tion of the ad­dress, my hus­band and my­self were walk­ing in Broad­way when an old sol­dier ac­cost­ed him with the re­quest of him to pur­chase Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton's farewell ad­dress, which he did, and turn­ing to me said, “That man does not know he has asked me to pur­chase my own work.”

The whole cir­cum­stances are at this mo­ment so per­fect­ly in my mind that I can call to mind his bring­ing Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton's let­ter to me, who re­turned the ad­dress, and re­marked on the on­ly al­ter­ation which he (Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton) had re­quest­ed to be made.

New York, Aug. 7th, 1840.

ELIZ­ABETH HAMIL­TON. JAMES A. WASH­ING­TON. JA.R. MAC­DON­ALD.

In 1797 Hamil­ton was forced by treach­ery and the ma­lig­nan­cy of Ja­cobin­ism in­to the most painful and mor­ti­fy­ing act of his pub­lic ca­reer. He had been hailed by cer­tain en­thu­si­as­tic Fed­er­al­ists as the le­git­imate suc­ces­sor of Wash­ing­ton. It was a no­ble am­bi­tion, and there is no doubt that Hamil­ton would have cher­ished it, had he been less of a philoso­pher, less in the habit of re­gard­ing a de­sire for the im­pos­si­ble as a waste of time. Not on­ly were old­er men in the di­rect line of pro­mo­tion, but he knew that as the au­thor of the Ex­cise Law he was hat­ed by one sec­tion of the Com­mon­wealth, and that as the par­ent of the man­ufac­tur­ing in­ter­est, to say noth­ing of the As­sump­tion mea­sure, he had in­curred the an­tag­onism of the en­tire South. Lest these caus­es for dis­qual­ifi­ca­tion be ob­scured by the bril­lian­cy of his rep­uta­tion, Jef­fer­son's un­rest­ing and ram­ify­ing art had in­deli­bly im­pressed the pub­lic mind with the monar­chi­cal-​aris­to­crat­ical ten­den­cies and de­signs of the for­mer Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury, and of his ha­tred for a beloved cause over­seas. Hamil­ton had giv­en an ab­so­lute neg­ative to ev­ery sug­ges­tion to use his name; but one at least had found its way in­to print, and so ter­ri­fied the en­emy that they de­ter­mined up­on one more pow­er­ful blow at his good name. Mon­roe had a fresh cause for ha­tred in his hu­mil­iat­ing re­call from France, which he as­cribed to the in­flu­ence of Hamil­ton. No doubt the trio were well sat­is­fied for a time with their care­ful­ly con­sid­ered scheme. The pam­phlet pub­lished in 1797, called “The His­to­ry of the Unit­ed States for 1796,” and edit­ed by a dis­rep­utable man named Cal­len­der, was the con­cen­trat­ed essence of Ja­cobini­cal fury and vin­dic­tive­ness against Alexan­der Hamil­ton. It sur­passed any at­tack yet made on him, while clev­er­ly pre­tend­ing to be an ar­raign­ment of the en­tire Fed­er­al­ist par­ty; shriek­ing so loud­ly at times against Wash­ing­ton, Adams, and Jay, that the ca­su­al read­er would over­look the sole pur­port of the pam­phlet. “It is un­gen­er­ous to tri­umph over the ru­ins of de­clin­ing fame,” mag­nan­imous­ly fin­ished its at­tack up­on Wash­ing­ton. “Up­on this ac­count not a word more shall be said!”

It omit­ted a recital of the two Con­gres­sion­al at­tacks up­on Hamil­ton's fi­nan­cial in­tegri­ty, as to re­frain from all men­tion of the vin­di­ca­tions would have been im­pos­si­ble; but it raked up ev­ery­thing else for which it had space, sought to prove him a liar by his de­fence of the Jay treaty in the Camil­lus pa­pers, and made him in­sult Wash­ing­ton in lan­guage so un-​Hamil­to­ni­an that to-​day it ex­cites pity for the des­per­ation of the Vir­gini­ans. When it fi­nal­ly ar­rived at the pith and mar­row of the as­sault, how­ev­er, it was with quite an in­no­cent air. This was a care­ful­ly con­coct­ed ver­sion of the Reynolds af­fair. Cal­len­der had ob­tained pos­ses­sion of the pa­pers which Mon­roe, Muh­len­berg, and Ven­able had pre­pared to sub­mit to the Pres­ident, be­fore hear­ing Hamil­ton's ex­pla­na­tion. He as­sert­ed that this ex­pla­na­tion was a lie, and that the Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury had not on­ly spec­ulat­ed with the pub­lic funds, but that he had made thir­ty thou­sand pounds by the pur­chase of army cer­tifi­cates. It was al­so al­leged that Hamil­ton or­dered his name with­drawn as a Pres­iden­tial can­di­date, in con­se­quence of a threat that oth­er­wise these same pa­pers would be pub­lished.

It is a cu­ri­ous in­stance of the fa­tu­ity of con­tem­po­raries, that Hamil­ton's en­emies reck­oned up­on a sullen si­lence, in the face of damn­ing as­sault, from the great­est fight­er of his time. In­du­bitably, they ar­gued that he would think it best to pass the mat­ter over; no man could be ex­pect­ed to give to the pub­lic the full ex­pla­na­tion. But they reck­oned with an in­suf­fi­cient knowl­edge of this host, as they had done many a time be­fore. Hamil­ton had no de­sire to hold of­fice again, but he was still the great lead­er of a great par­ty, as de­ter­mined as ev­er that at no cost should there be a stain on his pub­lic hon­our. He con­sult­ed with his clos­est friends, among them his wife. As the sin was now five years old--and the wom­an a derelict--Mrs. Hamil­ton found it eas­ier to for­give than an un­con­fessed li­ai­son with the most re­mark­able wom­an of her time. Al­though she an­tic­ipat­ed the mor­ti­fi­ca­tion of the ex­po­sure quite as keen­ly as her hus­band, she cher­ished his good name no less ten­der­ly, and with­out hes­ita­tion coun­selled him to give the facts to the pub­lic. This he did in a pam­phlet which ex­pound­ed the work­ings of the “Ja­cobin Scan­dal Club,” told the un­pleas­ant sto­ry with­out re­serve, and went re­lent­less­ly in­to the de­tails of the part played in it by Mon­roe, Muh­len­berg, and Ven­able. He forced af­fi­davits from those be­wil­dered gen­tle­men, the en­tire cor­re­spon­dence was pub­lished, and the pam­phlet it­self was a mas­ter­piece of bit­ing sar­casm and con­vinc­ing state­ment. It made a tremen­dous sen­sa­tion, but even his en­emies ad­mired his courage. The ques­tion of his fi­nan­cial pro­bity was set­tled for all time, al­though the mis­sile, fail­ing in one di­rec­tion, quiv­ered in the hor­ri­fied brains of many pu­ri­tan­ical vot­ers. Mrs. Reynolds, now liv­ing with Cling­man, made no de­nial, and it is doubt­ful if even she would have echoed the one an­imad­ver­sion of the dis­com­fit­ed en­emy,--that Hamil­ton had giv­en the name of a mis­tress to the pub­lic. It is a weak and dan­ger­ous sen­ti­men­tal­ism which would pro­tect a wom­an of com­merce against the good name of any man. The fi­nan­cial set­tle­ment makes her a par­ty in a con­tract, noth­ing more, and ac­quits the pay­er of all fur­ther re­spon­si­bil­ity. She has no good name to pro­tect; she has asked for noth­ing but mon­ey; she is a pub­lic char­ac­ter, whom to shield would be a thank­less task. When this Reynolds wom­an added the abom­ina­tion of black­mail to her trade, and fur­ther at­tempt­ed the ru­in of the man who had shown her noth­ing but gen­eros­ity and con­sid­er­ation, it need hard­ly be added that Hamil­ton would have been a sen­ti­men­tal fool to have hes­itat­ed on any ground but de­tes­ta­tion of a pub­lic scan­dal.

He nev­er traced the be­tray­al of a se­cret which all con­cerned had promised to keep in­vi­olate, but he had his sus­pi­cions. Mrs. Croix, now liv­ing in a large house on the Bowl­ing Green, was the an­imat­ed and re­source­ful cen­tre of Ja­cobin­ism. She wore a red cap to the the­atre and a tri-​coloured cock­ade on the street. Her _sa­lon_ was the head­quar­ters of the Re­pub­li­can lead­ers, and many a plot was hatched in her in­spir­ing pres­ence. The Vir­gini­an Jun­ta were far too clever to put them­selves in the pow­er of a drunk­ard like Cal­len­der, but they were con­stant­ly in col­lu­sion with Mrs. Croix. They knew that she feared noth­ing un­der heav­en, and that she had de­vot­ed her­self to Hamil­ton's ru­in. Cal­len­der drew up­on her for virus when­ev­er his own sup­ply ran down, and would have hailed the Reynolds con­coc­tion, even had it gone to him naked and beg­ging. Hamil­ton saw the shad­ow of a fair hand through­out the en­tire pam­phlet, and, in­deed, could have traced many an en­ven­omed shaft, since 1793, to a source which once had threat­ened to cloy him with its sweet­ness.

Mean­while John Adams had been elect­ed Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States, and Thomas Jef­fer­son, Vice-​Pres­ident. Hamil­ton had made no se­cret of the fact that he should pre­fer to see Thomas Pinck­ney suc­ceed Wash­ing­ton, for he con­tem­plat­ed the pos­si­bil­ity of Adams in the Ex­ec­utive Chair, with dis­trust and un­easi­ness. In spite of that em­inent states­man's in­tre­pid­ity, in­tegri­ty, and loy­al Fed­er­al­ism, he was, in Hamil­ton's opin­ion, too sus­pi­cious, jeal­ous of in­flu­ence, and hot head­ed, to be a safe lead­er in ap­proach­ing storms. With Pinck­ney as a bril­liant and pop­ular fig­ure­head, Hamil­ton well knew that his own hand would re­main on the helm. With the iras­ci­ble old gen­tle­man from Mas­sachusetts in the Chair, his con­tin­ued pre­dom­inance was by no means cer­tain. Wash­ing­ton once said of Hamil­ton that he un­doubt­ed­ly was am­bi­tious, but that his am­bi­tion was of that laud­able kind which prompts a man to ex­cel in what­ev­er he takes in hand; adding that his judge­ment was in­tu­itive­ly great. The truth was that Hamil­ton re­gard­ed the Unit­ed States as his child. He had made her wealthy and re­spect­ed, he fore­saw a fu­ture im­por­tance for her equal to that of any state in Eu­rope. “I an­tic­ipate,” he wrote to Ru­fus King, “that this coun­try will, ere long, as­sume an at­ti­tude cor­re­spon­dent with its great des­tinies--ma­jes­tic, ef­fi­cient, and op­er­ative of great things. A no­ble ca­reer lies be­fore it.” The first of the “Im­pe­ri­al­ists,” he had striv­en for years to awak­en the Gov­ern­ment to the im­por­tance of ob­tain­ing pos­ses­sion of Louisiana and the Flori­das, and he al­so had his eye on South Amer­ica. Nat­ural­ly, he want­ed no in­ter­rup­tion; the mo­ment the se­cu­ri­ty of the coun­try was threat­ened, he was as alert and anx­ious as if his nurs­ery were men­aced with an In­di­an in­va­sion. With­out con­ceit or van­ity no man ev­er was more con­scious of his great pow­ers; more­over, no Amer­ican had made such sac­ri­fices as he. Wash­ing­ton and al­most all the lead­ing men pos­sessed in­de­pen­dent for­tunes. Hamil­ton had man­ifest­ed his abil­ity from the first to equal the in­come of the wealth­iest, did he give his un­bro­ken ser­vices to the pur­suit of his pro­fes­sion. But he had lived for years up­on a pit­tance, fre­quent­ly driv­en to bor­row small sums from his friends, that he might de­vote his en­er­gies en­tire­ly to his coun­try. And no man ev­er gave more gen­er­ous­ly or with less thought of re­ward; al­though he would have been the last to de­ny his en­joy­ment of pow­er. For a born lead­er of men to care lit­tle whether he had a few trust­ed friends or an army at his back, would mere­ly in­di­cate a weak spot in his brain.

It was quite nat­ural, there­fore, that he thought up­on John Adams's id­iosyn­crasies with con­sid­er­able dis­qui­et. Nev­er­the­less, with the high priest of Ja­cobin­ism in the field, his first ob­ject was to se­cure the of­fice for the Fed­er­al­ist par­ty. The race was too close for se­ri­ous con­sid­er­ation of any oth­er ul­ti­mate. He coun­selled ev­ery Fed­er­al­ist to cast his vote for Adams and Pinck­ney; bet­ter a tie, with the vic­to­ry to Adams, than Thomas Jef­fer­son at the head of the Na­tion. Of course there was a hope that Pinck­ney might car­ry the South. But the Adams en­thu­si­asts dread­ed this very is­sue, and threw away their votes for the Vice-​Pres­iden­cy. Pinck­ney's fol­low­ers in the South pur­sued the same pol­icy. The con­se­quence was that Adams won by three votes on­ly. Again his pride was bruised, and again he at­tribut­ed his mor­ti­fi­ca­tion to Hamil­ton. If he had dis­liked him be­fore, his dis­like in a con­stant state of ir­ri­ta­tion through the as­cen­den­cy and fame of the younger man, he hat­ed him now with a bit­ter­ness which formed a dan­ger­ous link be­tween him­self and the Re­pub­li­can lead­ers. The time came when he was ready to hu­mil­iate his coun­try and ru­in his own chance of re­elec­tion, to de­throne his ri­val from an­oth­er proud em­inence and check his up­ward course. An­oth­er source of bit­ter­ness was Hamil­ton's con­tin­ued lead­er­ship of the Fed­er­al­ist par­ty, when him­self, as Pres­ident, was en­ti­tled to that dis­tinc­tion. But that par­ty was Hamil­ton's; he had cre­at­ed, de­vel­oped it, been its Cap­tain through all its tri­umphant course. Even had he been con­tent to re­sign his com­mis­sion,--which he did not con­tem­plate for a mo­ment,--the great ma­jor­ity of the Fed­er­al­ists would have forced it in­to his hand again. Adams de­clared war. Hamil­ton, al­ways ready for a fight, when no im­me­di­ate act of states­man­ship was in­volved, took up the gaunt­let. Adams might re­sist his in­flu­ence, but the Cab­inet was his, and so were some of the most in­flu­en­tial mem­bers of Congress, in­clud­ing Theodore Sedg­wick of Mas­sachusetts, the pres­ident pro tem. of the Sen­ate. It was some time be­fore Adams re­al­ized the full ex­tent of this in­flu­ence; but when he did dis­cov­er that his Sec­re­tary of State, Tim­othy Pick­er­ing, his Sec­re­tary of the Trea­sury, Oliv­er Wol­cott, and his Sec­re­tary of War, James M'Hen­ry, were in the habit of con­sult­ing Hamil­ton up­on ev­ery pos­si­ble ques­tion be­fore giv­ing the Pres­ident their valu­able opin­ions, and that up­on one oc­ca­sion, at least, a let­ter of Hamil­ton's had been in­cor­po­rat­ed by the Sec­re­tary of War in­to a Pres­iden­tial Mes­sage, he was like to die of apoplexy. He wrote, in his wrath:--

Hamil­ton is com­man­der-​in-​chief of the Sen­ate, of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, of the heads of de­part­ments, of Gen­er­al Wash­ing­ton, and last, and least, if you will, of the Pres­ident of the Unit­ed States!

But the Pres­ident's ad­vis­ers were free to seek ad­vice with­out the Cab­inet if they chose, and Wash­ing­ton had en­cour­aged them to go to Hamil­ton. Hamil­ton was at lib­er­ty to give it, and Adams could find no ev­idence that he had coun­selled re­bel­lion against him­self; nor that he had used his great in­flu­ence for any pur­pose but the hon­our of the coun­try.

And nev­er had the coun­try need­ed his ser­vices more. When Adams, grim and ob­sti­nate, stepped for­ward as head of the Na­tion, he found him­self con­front­ed with the men­ace of France. In re­tal­ia­tion for Genet's dis­grace, the Rev­olu­tion­ists had de­mand­ed the re­call of Gou­verneur Mor­ris, whose bare­ly dis­guised con­tempt, and pro­tec­tion of more than one roy­al­ist, had brought him per­ilous­ly near to the guil­lo­tine. Burr had de­sired the va­cant mis­sion, and his pre­ten­sions were urged by Mon­roe and Madi­son. Wash­ing­ton rec­og­nized this as a de­vice of the Op­po­si­tion to em­bar­rass him, and he had the low­est opin­ion of Burr's rec­ti­tude and in­tegri­ty. Pres­sure and wrath pro­duced no ef­fect, but he of­fered to ap­point Mon­roe. It might be wise to send a Ja­cobin, and the Pres­ident hoped that am­bi­tion would pre­serve this one from com­pro­mis­ing the coun­try. He made the mis­take of not weigh­ing Mon­roe's men­tal ca­pac­ity more stu­dious­ly. The least said of the wild gal­lop in­to diplo­ma­cy of our fifth Pres­ident the bet­ter. He was re­called, and Charles Cotesworth Pinck­ney sent in his place. The French, who had found Mon­roe en­tire­ly to their taste, re­fused to re­ceive the dis­tin­guished lawyer and sol­dier. To es­cape in­dig­ni­ty he was forced to re­tire to Hol­land. The new Re­pub­lic vi­olat­ed her treaties with in­creas­ing in­so­lence, and Bona­parte was thun­der­ing on his tri­umphant course. France was mock­ing the world, and in no hu­mour to lis­ten to the in­dig­nant protests of a young and dis­tant na­tion. To dis­mem­ber her by fan­ning the spir­it of Ja­cobin­ism, and, at the ripe mo­ment,--when in­ter­nal war­fare had suf­fi­cient­ly weak­ened her,--re­duce her to a French colony, was a plot of which Hamil­ton, Ru­fus King, then min­is­ter to Eng­land, and oth­er as­tute states­men more than sus­pect­ed her. But al­though Hamil­ton ab­horred France and was out­raged at her at­ti­tude, the spir­it of mod­er­ation which had reg­ulat­ed all his acts in pub­lic life suf­fered no fluc­tu­ation, and he im­me­di­ate­ly coun­selled the send­ing of a com­mis­sion to make a fi­nal at­tempt be­fore re­course to arms. War, if in­evitable, but peace with hon­our if pos­si­ble; it was not fair to dis­turb the pros­per­ity of the young coun­try ex­cept as a last re­sort. For once he and Adams were agreed. Hamil­ton sug­gest­ed Jef­fer­son or Madi­son as a sop to the Rev­olu­tion­ists, with two Fed­er­al­ists to keep him in or­der. But the Pres­ident would have his own com­mis­sion­ers or none. He despatched Mar­shall and Ger­ry and or­dered C.C. Pinck­ney to join them. Tal­leyrand re­fused them of­fi­cial re­cep­tion, and sent to them, in se­cret, name­less min­ions--known of­fi­cial­ly, lat­er on, as X.Y.Z.--who made shame­ful pro­pos­als, large­ly con­sist­ing of in­or­di­nate de­mand for trib­ute. Mar­shall and Pinck­ney threw up the com­mis­sion in dis­gust. The Op­po­si­tion in Congress de­mand­ed the cor­re­spon­dence; and Adams, with his grimmest smile, sent it to the Sen­ate. It was a ter­ri­ble blow to the Ja­cobins, not on­ly the man­ner in which France had prej­udiced her in­ter­ests in this coun­try; some of the dis­clo­sures were ex­treme­ly painful to pon­der up­on. “Per­haps,” one of the back­stairs am­bas­sadors had re­marked, “you be­lieve that, in re­turn­ing and ex­pos­ing to your coun­try­men the un­rea­son­able­ness of the de­mands of this Gov­ern­ment, you will unite them in re­sis­tance to those de­mands. You are mis­tak­en. You ought to know that the diplo­mat­ic skill of France, and the means she pos­sess­es in your coun­try, are suf­fi­cient to en­able her, with _the French par­ty in Amer­ica_, to throw the blame, which will at­tend the rup­ture, on the Fed­er­al­ists, as you term your­selves, but the British par­ty, as France terms you; and you may as­sure your­selves this will be done.” Jef­fer­son re­tired to weep alone. Sev­er­al of the fac­tion re­signed from Congress. Hamil­ton pub­lished his pam­phlets, “The Stand,” “France,” and “The An­swer,” and the whole coun­try burst in­to a roar of vengeance, echo­ing Pinck­ney's part­ing shot: “Mil­lions for de­fence, not a cent for trib­ute!” “Hail Columbia” was com­posed, and in­flamed the pop­ular ex­cite­ment. Fed­er­al­ist clubs pa­rad­ed, wear­ing a black cock­ade, and one street ri­ot fol­lowed an­oth­er. Brock­holst Liv­ingston had his nose pulled, and killed his man. With the ex­cep­tion of the ex­treme Ja­cobins, who nev­er swerved from their de­vo­tion to France and the prin­ci­ples she had pro­mul­gat­ed with the guil­lo­tine, the coun­try was for war to a man, and the Pres­ident in­un­dat­ed with let­ters and memo­ri­als of en­cour­age­ment. The im­me­di­ate re­sult was the aug­men­ta­tion of the Fed­er­al­ist par­ty, and the de­cline of Ja­cobin­ism.

For a long while past, Hamil­ton had been urg­ing naval and mil­itary prepa­ra­tions. A bold front, he thought, would be more ef­fec­tive than diplo­ma­cy; and the se­quel proved his wis­dom. When the cri­sis came a bill for a Pro­vi­sion­al Army was passed at once, an­oth­er for the in­crease of the Navy, and lib­er­al ap­pro­pri­ations were made. The pro­posed al­liance with Great Britain, Hamil­ton ef­fec­tu­al­ly op­posed, for he was al­most as ex­as­per­at­ed with Eng­land as with France; in her fear that the French par­ty in the Unit­ed States would tri­umph and de­clare war up­on her, she had re­newed her depre­da­tions up­on our com­merce.

Few be­lieved that Wash­ing­ton would serve again, and the Na­tion turned nat­ural­ly to Hamil­ton as its Gen­er­al-​in-​chief. He had man­ifest­ly been born to ex­tri­cate them from dif­fi­cul­ties. Even the Pres­iden­tial fac­tion put their pride in their pock­ets, and agreed that he was the one man in the coun­try of match­less re­source and mil­itary ge­nius; they passed over the vet­er­ans of the war with­out con­tro­ver­sy. But there was one man who nev­er put his pride in his pock­et, and that was John Adams. Rather than present to Alexan­der Hamil­ton an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty for dis­tinc­tion and pow­er, he would him­self cull fresh lau­rels for George Wash­ing­ton; the sup­ply of his old ri­val was now so abun­dant that new ones would add noth­ing. Hamil­ton al­ready had writ­ten to Wash­ing­ton as peremp­to­ri­ly as on­ly he dared, urg­ing that he must come forth once more and with­out hes­ita­tion. Wash­ing­ton replied that he would as cheer­ful­ly go to the tombs of his an­ces­tors, but ad­mit­ted the obli­ga­tion, and asked Hamil­ton would he serve with him? Hamil­ton an­swered that he would on con­di­tion that he be sec­ond in com­mand to him­self; he would make no fur­ther sac­ri­fice for an in­con­sid­er­able re­ward. When Wash­ing­ton, there­fore, re­ceived Adams's in­vi­ta­tion, he made his ac­cep­tance con­di­tion­al up­on be­ing giv­en the pow­er to ap­point his gen­er­als next in rank. Adams, mean­while, with­out wait­ing for his an­swer, had sent his name to the Sen­ate, and it had been con­firmed as a mat­ter of course. Wash­ing­ton was ir­ri­tat­ed, but per­sist­ed in his con­di­tion, and sent in the names of Alexan­der Hamil­ton for In­spec­tor-​Gen­er­al, with the rank of Ma­jor-​Gen­er­al, C.C. Pinck­ney and Knox for Ma­jor-​Gen­er­als, and a list of Brigadiers and Ad­ju­tant-​Gen­er­als. Adams, fum­ing, sent the names to the Sen­ate, and they were con­firmed in the or­der in which Wash­ing­ton had writ­ten them; but when they came back, jeal­ousy and tem­per mas­tered him, and he com­mit­ted the in­tem­per­ate act which tolled the death-​knell of the Fed­er­al­ist par­ty: he or­dered the com­mis­sions made out with Hamil­ton's name third on the list. Knox and Pinck­ney, he de­clared, were en­ti­tled to prece­dence; and so the or­der should stand or not at all. He had not an­tic­ipat­ed an out­cry, and when it arose, an­gry and de­ter­mined, he was star­tled but un­shak­en. The lead­ing men in Congress wait­ed up­on him; he re­ceived a new del­uge of let­ters, and the most point­ed of them was from John Jay. Hamil­ton alone held his peace. He saw the ter­ri­ble mis­take Adams had made, and dread­ed the re­sult. He wrote to Wash­ing­ton that he should be gov­erned en­tire­ly by his wish­es, that he should not em­bar­rass him in any man­ner, and that it nev­er should be said of him­self that his am­bi­tion or in­ter­est had stood in the way of the pub­lic wel­fare. But when Adams stood with his head down, like an an­gry bull, and it was plain to be seen that his as­ton­ish­ing at­ti­tude was prompt­ed by per­son­al ha­tred alone, when the Cab­inet and all the em­inent men in the Na­tion, with the ex­cep­tion of the Re­pub­li­can lead­ers, faced him with an equal­ly de­ter­mined front, there was noth­ing for Hamil­ton to do but to stand his ground; and he stood it. Wash­ing­ton put an end to the un­for­tu­nate con­tro­ver­sy. He gave Adams his choice be­tween sub­mis­sion or the se­lec­tion of an­oth­er Gen­er­al-​in-​chief. Adams sub­mit­ted, but Hamil­ton had in him an en­emy no less ma­lig­nant than Thomas Jef­fer­son him­self. Adams had roused the deep im­pla­ca­bil­ity of Hamil­ton's na­ture. All hope of even an armed truce for par­ty ad­van­tage be­tween the two great Fed­er­al­ists was over. Hamil­ton had one cause for re­sent­ment which alone would have made him ar­dent­ly de­sire re­tal­ia­tion: Gen­er­al Knox, who had loved him de­vot­ed­ly for twen­ty years, was bit­ter­ly alien­at­ed, and the breach was nev­er healed.

Hamil­ton made his head­quar­ters in New York, where he could, af­ter a fash­ion, at­tend to his law prac­tice,--he was now the lead­ing coun­sel at the bar,--but he en­tered up­on his new du­ties with all his old spir­it and pas­sion­ate en­er­gy. Al­though France might be dis­com­fit­ed by the readi­ness and re­source of the Unit­ed States, the im­pos­ing front erect­ed by a uni­ver­sal in­dig­na­tion, there were rea­sons which made the re­verse pos­si­ble; and Hamil­ton thrilled with all the mil­itary ar­dours of his youth at the prospect of re­al­iz­ing those half-​for­got­ten am­bi­tions. He had, in those days, sac­ri­ficed his burn­ing de­sire for ac­tion and glo­ry to a sense of du­ty which had ruled him through life like a tyran­ni­cal de­ity. Was he to reap the re­ward at this late hour? fin­ish his life, per­haps, as he had planned to be­gin it? Once more he felt a bound­less grat­itude for the best friend a mor­tal ev­er made. Wash­ing­ton passed Hamil­ton over the heads of those su­pe­ri­or in mil­itary rank, be­cause he knew that he alone was equal to the great task for which him­self was too old and in­firm; but Hamil­ton nev­er doubt­ed that he did it with a deep sense of sat­is­fied jus­tice and of grat­itude.

Nev­er had Hamil­ton's con­spic­uous tal­ent for de­tail, un­lim­it­ed ca­pac­ity for work, ge­nius for cre­at­ing some­thing out of noth­ing, mar­shalled for more ac­tive ser­vice than now. He with­held his per­son­al su­per­vi­sion from noth­ing; plan­ning forts, prepar­ing codes of tac­tics, or­ga­niz­ing a com­mis­sari­at de­part­ment, draft­ing bills for Congress, ad­vis­ing M'Hen­ry up­on ev­ery point which puz­zled that un­fin­ished states­man, were but a few of the ex­er­cis­es de­mand­ed of the or­ga­niz­er of an army from raw ma­te­ri­al. The leg­is­la­tion up­on one of his bills fi­nal­ly ma­tured a pet project of many years, the Mil­itary Acade­my at West Point. Philip Church, the old­est son of An­gel­ica Schuyler, was his aide; John Church, af­ter a bril­liant ca­reer as a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, hav­ing re­turned to Amer­ican cit­izen­ship, his wife to as pow­er­ful a po­si­tion as she had held in Lon­don.

It is hard­ly nec­es­sary to in­form any one who has fol­lowed the for­tunes of Hamil­ton as far as this that he pur­posed to com­mand an army of ag­gres­sion as well as de­fence. A war with France un­rolled in­fi­nite pos­si­bil­ities. Louisiana and the Flori­das should be seized as soon as war was de­clared, and he lent a kind­ly ear to Mi­ran­da, who was for over­throw­ing the in­hu­man rule of Spain in South Amer­ica. “To ar­rest the progress of the rev­olu­tion­ary doc­trines France was then prop­agat­ing in those re­gions, and to unite the Amer­ican hemi­sphere in one great so­ci­ety of com­mon in­ter­ests and com­mon prin­ci­ples against the cor­rup­tion, the vices, the new the­ories of Eu­rope,” was an al­lur­ing prospect to a man who had giv­en the broad­est pos­si­ble in­ter­pre­ta­tion to the Con­sti­tu­tion, and whose ev­ery con­cep­tion had borne the stamp of an im­pe­ri­al­is­tic bold­ness and am­pli­tude.

But these last of his dreams end­ed in na­tion­al hu­mil­ia­tion. This time he had sac­ri­ficed his pri­vate in­ter­ests, his vi­tal forces, for worse than noth­ing. One en­emy worked his own ru­in, and Louisiana was to add to the lau­rels of Jef­fer­son.

Tal­leyrand, as­ton­ished and ir­ri­tat­ed by these war­like prepa­ra­tions and the en­thu­si­asm of the in­fant coun­try, wise­ly de­ter­mined to with­draw with grace while there was yet time. He sent a cir­cuitous hint to Pres­ident Adams that an en­voy from the Unit­ed States would be re­ceived with prop­er re­spect. For months Adams had been tor­ment­ed with the vi­sion of Hamil­ton borne on the shoul­ders of a tri­umphant army straight to the Pres­iden­tial chair. His Cab­inet were bit­ter­ly and un­com­pro­mis­ing­ly for war; Hamil­ton had with dif­fi­cul­ty re­strained them in the past. Adams, with­out giv­ing them an inkling of his in­ten­tion, sent to the Sen­ate the name of William Vans Mur­ray, min­is­ter res­ident at The Hague, to con­firm as en­voy ex­traor­di­nary to France.

For a mo­ment the coun­try was stu­pe­fied, so firm and un­com­pro­mis­ing had been the Pres­ident's at­ti­tude hith­er­to. Then it arose in wrath, and his pop­ular­ity was gone for ev­er. As for the Fed­er­al­ist par­ty, it di­vid­ed in­to two hos­tile fac­tions, and nei­ther had ev­er faced the Re­pub­li­cans more bit­ter­ly. A third of the par­ty sup­port­ed the Pres­ident; the rest were for de­feat­ing him in the Sen­ate, and hu­mil­iat­ing him in ev­ery pos­si­ble way, as he had hu­mil­iat­ed the coun­try by kiss­ing the con­temp­tu­ous hand of France the mo­ment it was half ex­tend­ed.

Hamil­ton was fu­ri­ous. He had been in mighty tem­pers in his life, but this undig­ni­fied and mor­ti­fy­ing act of the Pres­ident strained his states­man­ship to the ut­most. It stood the strain, how­ev­er; he warned the Fed­er­al­ist lead­ers that the step tak­en was be­yond re­call and known to all the world. There was noth­ing to do but to sup­port the Pres­ident. He still had an op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­venge while open­ly pro­tect­ing the hon­our of the Na­tion. Did Mur­ray, a man of in­suf­fi­cient cal­ibre and pres­tige, go alone, he must fail; Adams would be dis­graced; war in­evitable, with glo­ry, and greater glo­ry, for him­self. But when cir­cum­stances com­mand­ed his states­man­ship, he ceased to be an in­di­vid­ual; per­son­al re­sent­ments slum­bered. He in­sist­ed that Mur­ray be but one of a com­mis­sion, and Adams, now cooled and as dis­qui­et­ed as that in­domitable spir­it could be, saw the wis­dom of the ad­vice; Oliv­er Ellsworth and Gen­er­al Davie, con­spic­uous and in­flu­en­tial men, were despatched. Once more Hamil­ton had saved his par­ty from im­me­di­ate wreck; but the strength which it had gath­ered dur­ing the war fever was dis­si­pat­ed by the hos­tile camps in­to which it was di­vid­ed, and by the match­less op­por­tu­ni­ty which, in its brief pe­ri­od of nu­mer­ical strength, it had giv­en to Thomas Jef­fer­son.

The Fed­er­al­ist par­ty had ruled the coun­try by virtue of the pre­pon­der­ance of in­tel­lect and ed­ucat­ed tal­ents in its ranks, and the mas­ter­ly lead­er­ship of Alexan­der Hamil­ton. The Re­pub­li­can par­ty num­bered few men of first-​rate tal­ents, but the up­per grade of the Fed­er­al­ist was set thick with dis­tin­guished pa­tri­ots, all of them lead­ers, but all de­fer­ring with­out ques­tion to the ge­nius of their Cap­tain. For years the har­mo­nious work­ings of their sys­tem, al­lied to the ag­gre­gate abil­ity of their per­son­nel, and the watch­ful eye and re­source­ful mind of Hamil­ton, the silent but sym­pa­thet­ic fig­ure of Wash­ing­ton in the back­ground, had en­abled them to win ev­ery hard-​fought bat­tle in spite of the of­ten su­pe­ri­or num­bers of the Op­po­si­tion. That Jef­fer­son was able in the face of this vic­to­ri­ous and dis­cour­ag­ing army to form a great par­ty out of the rag-​tag and bob­tail el­ement, an­imat­ing his pol­icy of de­cen­tral­iza­tion in­to a vir­ile and in­deli­ble Amer­ican­ism, proved him to be a man of ge­nius. His­to­ry shows us few men so con­temptible in char­ac­ter, so low in tone; and no man has giv­en his bi­og­ra­phers so dif­fi­cult a task. But those who de­spise him most who op­pose the most de­ter­mined front to the ul­ti­mates of his work, must ac­knowl­edge that for­ma­tion­al qual­ity in his of­ten du­bi­ous in­tel­lect which ranks him a man of ge­nius.

His par­ty was threat­ened with dis­or­ga­ni­za­tion when the shame­ful con­duct of the France he adored unit­ed the coun­try in a de­mand for vengeance, and in ad­mi­ra­tion for the un­com­pro­mis­ing at­ti­tude of the Gov­ern­ment. Not un­til the Fed­er­al­ists, car­ried away by the rapid re­cruit­ing to their ranks, passed the Alien and Sedi­tion laws, did Jef­fer­son find am­mu­ni­tion for his next cam­paign. As one reads those Res­olu­tions to-​day, one won­ders at the in­dis­cre­tion of men who had kept the blood out of their heads dur­ing so many pre­car­ious years. Three-​quar­ters of a cen­tu­ry lat­er the Chi­nese Ex­clu­sion Act be­came a law with in­signif­icant protest; the mis­take of the Fed­er­al­ists lay in ig­nor­ing the fears and rag­ing jeal­ousies of their time. If Hamil­ton re­al­ized at once that Jef­fer­son would be quick to seize up­on their ap­par­ent un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity and con­vert it in­to po­lit­ical cap­ital, he seems to have stood alone, al­though his protests re­sult­ed in the mod­ifi­ca­tion of both bills.

Let us not es­tab­lish a tyran­ny! [he wrote to Wol­cott]. En­er­gy is a very dif­fer­ent thing from vi­olence. If we make no false step we shall be es­sen­tial­ly unit­ed; but if we push things to an ex­treme, we shall then give to fac­tion body and so­lid­ity.

In their mod­ified form they were suf­fi­cient­ly men­ac­ing to demo­crat­ic ide­als, and Jef­fer­son could have asked for noth­ing bet­ter. He im­me­di­ate­ly draft­ed his fa­mous Ken­tucky Res­olu­tions, and the obe­di­ent Madi­son did a like ser­vice for Vir­ginia. The Res­olu­tions of Madi­son, al­though con­tain­ing all the seeds of nul­li­fi­ca­tion and se­ces­sion, are tame in­deed com­pared with the per­for­mance of a man who, en­veloped in the friend­ly mists of anonymi­ty, was as ag­gres­sive and valiant as Hamil­ton on the warpath. These Res­olu­tions protest­ed against the un­con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment in ex­il­ing for­eign­ers, and curb­ing the lib­er­ty of the press, in ar­ro­gat­ing to it­self the rights of the States, and as­sum­ing the pre­rog­atives of an ab­so­lute monar­chy. If Jef­fer­son did not ad­vise nul­li­fi­ca­tion, he in­formed the States of their in­alien­able rights, and coun­selled them to re­sist the cen­tral­iz­ing ten­den­cy of the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment be­fore it was too late. Even in the some­what mod­ified form in which these Res­olu­tions passed the Ken­tucky leg­is­la­ture, and al­though re­ject­ed by the States to which they were despatched, they cre­at­ed a sen­sa­tion and ac­com­plished their pri­ma­ry ob­ject. The war ex­cite­ment had threat­ened to shove the Alien and Sedi­tion laws be­yond the range of the pub­lic ob­ser­va­tion. The Ken­tucky and Vir­ginia Res­olu­tions roused the coun­try, and sent the Re­pub­li­cans scam­per­ing back to their watch­ful shep­herd. It is one of the mas­ter-​strokes of po­lit­ical his­to­ry, and Jef­fer­son culled the fruits and suf­fered none of the odi­um. That these his­toric Res­olu­tions con­tained the fe­cun­dat­ing germs of the Civ­il War, is by the way.

Such was the sit­ua­tion on the eve of 1800, the eve of a Pres­iden­tial elec­tion, and of the death strug­gle of the two great par­ties.

It was in De­cem­ber of this year of 1799 that Hamil­ton bent un­der the most crush­ing blow that life had dealt him. He was stand­ing on the street talk­ing to Sedg­wick, when a mount­ed couri­er dashed by, cry­ing that Wash­ing­ton was dead. The street was crowd­ed, but Hamil­ton broke down and wept bit­ter­ly. “Amer­ica has lost her saviour,” he said; “I, a fa­ther.”