Alexander Hamilton was born in the Island of Nevis, in the West Indies, January 11, 1757. His father was a merchant from Scotland; his mother was the daughter of a French Huguenot; and the sons appear to have inherited, in equal measure, the vigour and endurance of the one race and the address and vivacity of the other. His education was not at all systematic, but his active mind instinctively found its proper stimulants, and he began to show his great natural powers at an early age. While attending to his studies at Columbia College, in New York city, the war broke out, and he entered the patriot army as a captain of artillery. In 1777 he was made aide-de-camp to General Washington, and distinguished himself by his ability in correspondence as well as by active personal service in the field. At the close of the war he commenced the practice of law in New York. His chief work, as an author, was a series of papers entitled “The Federalist,” of which he wrote the greater number—an elaborate exposition of the Constitution of the United States. These papers, though necessarily abstruse in character, are perspicuous in style and powerful in reasoning. He was the first secretary of the treasury, and in that position he displayed unrivalled skill…. After six years’ service Hamilton retired from office, and resumed the practice of his profession. As he had opposed Aaron Burr, first in his endeavours to become president, and afterwards in his canvass for the office of governor of New York, that unscrupulous demagogue, maddened by defeat, challenged him to fight a duel. Hamilton fell at the first fire, and died the next day, July 12, 1804.

Personal

  Hamilton has a very boyish, giddy manner.

  In every relation which you have borne to me I have found that my confidence in your talents, exertions, and integrity has been well placed. I the more freely tender this testimony of my approbation because I speak from opportunities of information which cannot deceive me and which furnish satisfactory proof of your title to public regard.

  The son of the camp-girl.

  On my expected interview with Colonel Burr, I think proper to make some remarks explanatory of my conduct, motives, and views. I was certainly desirous of avoiding this interview for the most cogent of reasons. First—My religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice of duelling; and it would ever give me pain to shed the blood of a fellow creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws. Secondly—My wife and children are extremely dear to me, and my life is of the utmost importance to them in various views. Thirdly—I feel a sense of obligation toward my creditors, who, in case of accident to me, by the forced sale of my property, may be in some degree sufferers. I did not think myself at liberty, as a man of probity, lightly to expose them to hazard. Fourthly—I am conscious of no ill-will to Colonel Burr distinct from political opposition, which, as I trust, has proceeded from pure and upright motives. Lastly—I shall hazard much, and can possibly gain nothing, by the issue of the interview…. I have resolved, if our interview is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire, and thus giving a double opportunity to Colonel Burr to pause and reflect. It is not, however, my intention to enter into any explanations on the ground. Apology, from principle, I hope, rather than pride, is out of the question. To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of duelling, may think that I ought on no account to have added to the number of bad examples, I answer that my relative situation, as well in public as private, enforcing all the considerations which constitute what men of the world denominate honor, imposed on me (as I thought) a peculiar necessity not to decline the call.

  Brethren of the Cincinnati—there lies our chief! Let him still be our model. Like him, after long and faithful public services, let us cheerfully perform the social duties of private life. Oh! he was mild and gentle. In him there was no offence; no guile. His generous hand and heart were open to all. Gentleman of the bar—you have lost your brightest ornament. Cherish and imitate his example. While, like him, with justifiable, and with laudable zeal, you pursue the interests of your clients, remember, like him, the eternal principle of justice. Fellow-citizens—you have long witnessed his professional conduct, and felt his unrivalled eloquence. You know how well he performed the duties of a citizen—you know that he never courted your favor by adulation or the sacrifice of his own judgment. You have seen him contending against you, and saving your dearest interests as it were, in spite of yourselves. And you now feel and enjoy the benefits resulting from the firm energy of his conduct. Bear this testimony to the memory of my departed friend. I charge you to protect his fame. It is all he has left—all that these poor orphan children will inherit from their father.

  The tears that flow on this fond recital will never dry up. My heart, penetrated with the remembrance of the man, grows liquid as I write, and I could pour it out like water. I could weep too for my country, which, mournful as it is, does not know the half of its loss. It deeply laments, when it turns its eyes back, and sees what Hamilton was; but my soul stiffens with despair when I think what Hamilton would have been…. No man ever more disdained duplicity, or carried frankness further than he…. Virtue so rare, so pure, so bold, by its very purity and excellence inspired suspicion as a prodigy. His enemies judged of him by themselves; so splendid and arduous were his services, they could not find it in their hearts to believe that they were disinterested…. The name of Hamilton would have honoured Greece in the age of Aristides. May heaven the guardian of our liberty, grant that our country may be fruitful of Hamiltons, and faithful to their glory!

  Melancholy, most melancholy news for America—the premature death of her greatest man, Major-General Hamilton!… His most stupendous talents which set him above rivalship, and his integrity, with which intrigue had not the hardihood to tamper, held him up as the nation’s hope and as the terror of the unprincipled.

  The model of eloquence and the most fascinating of orators. With all his failings, he possessed a high and ennobled spirit, and acquired an influence from his overwhelming talents which death alone swept away.

  Bastard brat of a Scotch peddler.

  Of Mr. Hamilton I ought, perhaps, to speak with some restraint, though my feelings assure me that no recollection of political collisions could control the justice due to his memory. That he possessed intellectual powers of the first order, and the moral qualifications of integrity and honor in a captivating degree, has been decreed to him by a sufferage now universal.

  He was under middle size, thin in person, but remarkably erect and dignified in his deportment. His bust, seen in so many houses, and the pictures and prints of him, make known, too generally, the figure of his face, to make an attempt at description expedient. His hair was turned back from his forehead, powdered, and collected in a club behind. His complexion was exceedingly fair, and varying from this only by the almost feminine rosiness of his cheeks. His might be considered, as to figure and color, an uncommonly handsome face. When at rest, he had rather a severe and thoughtful expression; but when engaged in conversation, it easily assumed an attractive smile…. The eloquence of Hamilton was said to be persuasive and commanding; the more likely to be so, as he had no guide but the impulse of a great and rich mind, he having had little opportunity to be trained at the bar, or in popular assemblies. Those who could speak of his manner from the best opportunities to observe him in public and private, concurred in pronouncing him a frank, amiable, high-minded, open-hearted gentleman. He was capable of inspiring the most affectionate attachment; but he could make those whom he opposed, fear and hate him cordially. He was capable of intense and effectual application, as is abundantly proved by his public labours. But he had a rapidity and clearness of perception, in which he may not have been equalled. One who knew his habits of study, said of him, that when he had a serious object to accomplish, his practice was to reflect on it previously; and when he had gone through this labour, he retired to sleep, without regard to the hour of the night, and having slept six or seven hours, he rose, and having taken strong coffee, seated himself at his table, where he would remain six, seven, or eight hours; and the product of his rapid pen required little correction for the press…. In private and friendly intercourse, he is said to have been exceedingly amiable, and to have been affectionately beloved.

  Among his brethren Hamilton was indisputably preëminent. This was universally conceded. He rose at once to the loftiest heights of professional eminence, by his profound penetration, his power of analysis, the comprehensive grasp and strength of his understanding, and the firmness, frankness, and integrity of his character. We may say of him, in reference to his associates, as was said of Papinian, omnes longo post se intervallo reliquerit.

  In Hamilton’s death the Federalists and the country experienced a loss second only to that of Washington. Hamilton possessed the same rare and lofty qualities, the same just balance of soul, with less, indeed, of Washington’s severe simplicity and awe-inspiring presence, but with more of warmth, variety, ornament, and grace. If the Doric in architecture be taken as the symbol of Washington’s character, Hamilton belonged to the same grand style as developed in the Corinthian,—if less impressive, more winning. If we add Jay for the Ionic, we have a trio not to be matched, in fact, not to be approached, in our history, if, indeed, in any other. Of earth-born Titans, as terrible as great,—now angels, and now toads and serpents,—there are everywhere enough. Of the serene benign sons of the celestial gods, how few at any time have walked the earth!

  His wife survived him, in widowhood, fifty years. She died on the 9th of November, 1854, at the age of ninety-seven years and three months.

  As General Greene one day, on his way to Washington’s headquarters, was passing through a field,—then on the outskirts of the city, now in the heart of its busiest quarters, and known as “the Park,”—he paused to notice a provincial company of artillery, and was struck with its able performances, and with the tact and talent of its commander. He was a mere youth, apparently about twenty years of age, small in person and stature, but remarkable for his alert and manly bearing. It was Alexander Hamilton.

  Two peculiar charms belong to the life of Hamilton as compared with his contemporary soldiers and statesmen,—his youth and his gifts of expression. The variety of his services, his exalted patriotism, and his untarnished honor endeared his genius to the highest order of minds; while his errors, however they may diminish his glory to the eye of the moralist and the Christian, add yet another effective element to his nature as a subject for delineation. His were errors of passion, not of calculation, and prove him weak, not inhuman. This weakness contrasted with the moral consistency of Washington, this yielding to the wiles of love and the sophistry of a false code of honor, associated as it is with the pre-eminent merits and transcendant abilities of Hamilton, gives an extraordinary pathos to the drama of his life. Circumstances here blend with character, tears and triumph, admiration with sorrow, to produce the highest tragedy of human existence.

  Alexander Hamilton was of small stature, not above five feet five inches, according to my recollection. His countenance, without being handsome, was full of intelligence, and his powers of conversation distinguished. I heard him at the bar on one occasion plead before the Supreme Court of the United States the constitutional right of Congress to tax carriages and other excisable articles, in opposition to a party in Virginia; and no advocate that I ever heard acquitted himself so well. Talleyrand-Périgord sat not far from me as a listener.

  He had a good heart, but with it the pride and the natural arrogance of youth, combined with an almost overweening consciousness of his powers, so that he was ready to find fault with the administration of others, and to believe that things might have gone better if the direction had rested with himself. Bold in the avowal of his own opinions, he was fearless to provoke, and prompt to combat opposition. It was not his habit to repine over lost opportunities. His nature inclined him rather to prevent what seemed to him coming evils by timely action.

  It is a highly interesting fact, that A. D. 1797, one of the foremost men of the United States, a person who valued himself upon his moral principle, and was accepted by a powerful party at his own valuation in that particular, should have felt it to be a far baser thing to cheat men of their money than to despoil women of their honor. In this pamphlet he puts his honorable wife to an open shame, and publishes to the world the frailty of the woman who had gratified him; and this to refute a calumny which few would have credited. His conduct in this affair throws light upon his political course. He could be false to women for the same reason that he could disregard the will of the people. He did not look upon a woman as a person and an equal with whom faith was to be kept, any more than he recognized the people as the master and the owner whose will was law. Original in nothing, he took his morals from one side of the Straits of Dover, and his politics from the other.

  I frankly acknowledge that I began this work with a deep admiration both for the character and the intellect of Hamilton, and that sentiment has strengthened as I have proceeded in the study of his career…. Hamilton was a man who excited no moderate feelings either of affection or animosity. His adherents worshipped him as a kind of human deity; his opponents assailed him as if he had been an incarnate fiend. He was loved as man has seldom been loved, and hated as a man free from the charge of any fearful crime against his fellow-men has seldom been hated. The language of moderation has never yet been used concerning him.

  There is something very attractive to us as we contemplate him during those early years of which we have written. We confess that we like to think of him as he there appears,—constant to the purpose of a noble life. The world was all before him. He was not the creature of circumstance, nor its servant. He chose his path, and never turned back. We are pleased when we think of him as the earnest student,—the boy that was willing to risk his life, though not his character, to exalt his station,—as the youth that knew himself, confided in his own understanding and strength, and yet never ventured beyond his ability,—as one who depended not on genius alone, but brought to his aid on every occasion the practical experience of actual knowledge,—and as the friend whose ardor no adversity could chill and whose faithfulness no reverse of fortune could alienate.

  In person Hamilton was well made, of light and active build, but very small, much below the average height. His friends were wont to call him the “little lion;” and it is somewhat remarkable that his stature seems to have interfered so slightly, if at all, with his success as an orator…. The man was impressive. Inches of stature and of girth were lacking, but he was none the less full of dignity. In this, of course, his looks helped him. His head was finely shaped, symmetrical and massive. His eyes were dark, deep-set, and full of light and fire. He had a long, rather sharp nose, a well-shaped, close-set mouth, and a strong, firm jaw. The characteristics of the spare, clean-cut features are penetration and force. There is a piercing look about the face even in repose; and when Hamilton was moved a fire came into his eyes which we are told had a marvellous effect. But it was the soul which shone through his eyes, and animated his mobile countenance, that made him so effective in speech. As men listened to him, they felt profoundly the mastery of the strong nature, the imperious will, and the passionate energy which gave such force to his pathos, to his invective and to the even flow of clear, telling argument…. In private life Hamilton was much beloved and most attractive. He talked well and freely. He was open-hearted and hospitable, full of high spirits and geniality. In his own family he was idolized by wife and children. The affection which he inspired in all who knew him was largely due to the perfect generosity of his nature, for he gave time and money with a lavish hand to all who sought his aid. He carried this habit into his business to his own detriment. He would often refuse to make any charge to poor clients, and never could be persuaded to accept anything beyond a reasonable and modest fee. He had in truth a contempt for money, and while he made a nation’s fortune, he never made his own.

  His temper was gentle; his manner engaging; his spirit, high and resolute, was raised above the influence both of cupidity and of fear; his parts were quick; his industry unwearied; his attainments various. He was at once a skilful officer, a brilliant pamphleteer, an active political leader, an impressive debater, a wise statesman, an able financier, a political economist of rare sagacity. In his veins was mingled the blood of two distinctly opposite races. In his mind and character were combined the choicest traits of each. From his father, a cool, deliberate, calculating Scotchman, he inherited the shrewdness, the logical habits of thought, which constitute the peculiar glory of the Scottish mind. From his mother, a lady of French extraction, and daughter of a Huguenot exile, he inherited the easy manners, the liveliness and vivacity, the keen sense of humor, the desire and ability to please, which so eminently distinguish the children of the Celtic race. Born within fifteen degrees of the equator, the rare powers of his mind ripened in him at a time when, in the natives of a colder climate, they have scarcely begun to bloom. Since the time of William of Orange the world had rarely seen an instance of so mature a mind in so young a lad.

  Inseparably connected with the political history of the United States—above all other kindred events—is that memorable meeting of Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr at Weehawken (New Jersey) opposite the city of New York, on Wednesday morning, about seven o’clock, July 11, 1804, in which the former received his antagonist’s bullet in a vital part, and from which he died at two o’clock Thursday afternoon. No event of the kind—so far as can be discovered by the author—in America, or elsewhere, ever produced such a general and profound sensation. The intelligence of the fall of the illustrious Hamilton, while it was received with marked feeling in Europe, even, fell like a crushing doom upon the American people. New York City was paralyzed, and the inhabitants of the whole country were plunged into the deepest mourning. Great multitudes of people thronged to New York to witness the melancholy ceremonies, and to take part in the funeral procession—which was very large and very impressive. This took place on Saturday, July 14. The funeral address was delivered by Gouverneur Morris, from a platform in front of Trinity Church, Broadway, in the presence of many thousands of grief-stricken people, among whom were four of the sons of the deceased, the eldest of whom was sixteen and the youngest between six and seven…. The weapons used by Hamilton and Burr are at present in the possession of a citizen of Rochester (New York). For more than fifty years they were in possession of the descendants of Hamilton, who gave them to the mother of the present possessor, also a descendant of Hamilton. In appearance they are very formidable. They are “horse-pistols” of English manufacture, and are exactly alike, so far as an ordinary observer can discover. The one from which Burr fired the fatal missile is marked by a cross filed under the lower part of the barrel. They do not in any respect resemble any modern arm. In handling them one is strongly impressed with the idea that they were evidently intended for use in duels where the participants “shot to kill” and not to obtain newspaper notoriety without the disagreeable shedding of blood. Although they evidently could not be manipulated so rapidly as the modern double-acting, self-cocking pistol, they are capable of fatal execution, as they carry a bullet of 56 calibre. They are sixteen inches long.

  To the student, however, the military services of Alexander Hamilton shine out like new stars, giving an added lustre to his fame. He sees him in the fog and darkness covering that masterful retreat from Long Island. He hears him ask permission of his chief to retake Fort Washington with but a handful of men. Again he appears at Monmouth, correcting Lee’s blunders and winning victory from defeat. Finally at Yorktown, with the dash of Ney, the magnetism of Napoleon, and the coolness of his own great Washington, he captures a redoubt with the loss of scarcely a man, and makes the surrender of Cornwallis a necessity. Such is the brief history of the “little lion” of Nevis on the field of battle. And this was accomplished while in stature and in age he was yet a boy.

  No name from the rolls of our struggle for independence and our binding together as a nation awakens more intense interest or opens wider fields for consideration than that of Hamilton. From the first appearance of the youthful student, to the tragic hour on the heights of Weehawken, the story has the attraction of romance, and in it can be found the kindling of influences potent not only for then but for all time. In the very beginning of his plan to found an institution of learning, Samuel Kirkland sought the counsel of Hamilton and received his approval. Hamilton was one of the first trustees, and in recognition of his encouragement the institution received his name. It is fitting that this College should call special attention to Alexander Hamilton. Soon after the establishment of prizes for English essays, the Faculty announced as a subject for the Senior class, “Alexander Hamilton as a Constitutional Statesman.” The prize on this subject was awarded in a vigorous competition to Franklin H. Head of the Class of 1856, who evinced in College the marked ability he has shown so fully since. In 1863, the Senior prizes for essays having been withdrawn, Mr. Head established the prize called by his name, designating that the subject for this Prize Oration year by year should have reference to the character and career of Alexander Hamilton…. It is believed that these efforts grouped about the life of Hamilton will be of interest to many and will at least show how constant Hamilton College is to the memory of the great leader.

  The funeral took place from the house of John Church, in Robinson Street, near the upper Park. Express messengers had dashed out from New York the moment Hamilton breathed his last, and every city tolled its bells as it received the news. People flocked into the streets, weeping and indignant to the point of fury. Washington’s death had been followed by sadness and grief, but was unaccompanied by anger, and a loud desire for vengeance. Moreover, Hamilton was still a young man. Few knew of his feeble health; and that dauntless resourceful figure dwelt in the high light of the public imagination, ever ready to deliver the young country in its many times of peril. His death was lamented as a national calamity. On the day of the funeral, New York was black. Every place of business was closed. The world was in the windows, on the housetops, on the pavements of the streets through which the cortège was to pass: Robinson, Beekman, Peal, and Broadway to Trinity Church. Those who were to walk in the funeral procession waited, the Sixth Regiment, with the colours and music of the several corps, paraded, in Robinson Street, until the standard of the Cincinnati, shrouded in crêpe, was waved before the open door of Mr. Church’s house. The regiment immediately halted and rested on its reversed arms, until the bier had been carried from the house to the centre of the street, when the procession immediately formed…. When the procession after its long march reached Trinity Church the military formed in two columns, extending from the gate to the corners of Wall Street, and the bier was deposited before the entrance. Morris, surrounded by Hamilton’s boys, stood over it, and delivered the most impassioned address which had ever leapt from that brilliant but erratic mind. It was brief, both because he hardly was able to control himself, and because he feared to incite the people to violence, but it was profoundly moving…. The bells tolled until sundown. The city and the people wore mourning for a month, the bar for six weeks. In due time the leading men of the parish decided upon the monument which should mark to future generations the cold and narrow home of him who had been so warm in life, loving as few men had loved, exulted in the wide greatness of the empire he had created.

Statesman

  At the time when our government was organized we were without funds, though not without resources. To call them into action and establish order in the finances, Washington sought for splendid talents, for extensive information, and, above all, he sought for sterling, incorruptible integrity. All these he found in Hamilton.

  I would hope and may not disbelieve, that Mr. Hamilton’s attachment to the Union was of that stubborn, inflexible character which under no circumstances would have found him arrayed in arms against it. But in the events of Mr. Hamilton’s life a comparison of his conduct with his opinions, in more than one instance, exhibits him in that class of human characters whose sense of rectitude itself is swayed by the impulses of the heart, and the purity of whose virtue is tempered by the baser metal of the ruling passion. This conflict between the influence of the sensitive and the reasoning faculty was perhaps never more strikingly exemplified than in the catastrophe which terminated his life, and in the picture of his soul unveiled by this posthumous paper.

  This naturally brought Hamilton into his [Talleyrand] thoughts, and of him he spoke willingly, freely, and with great admiration. In the course of his remarks, he said that he had known, during his life, many of the more marked men of his time, but that he had never, on the whole, known one equal to Hamilton. I was much surprised, as well as gratified, by the remark; but still feeling that, as an American, I was, in some sort, a party concerned by patriotism in the compliment, I answered,—with a little reserve, perhaps with a little modesty,—that the great military commanders and the great statesmen of Europe had dealt with much larger masses of men, and much wider interests than Hamilton ever had. “Mais, monsieur,” the Prince instantly replied, “Hamilton avait deviné l’Europe.”

  That he possessed intellectual powers of the first order, and the moral qualifications of integrity and honour in a captivating degree, has been decreed to him by a suffrage now universal. If his theory of government deviated from the republican standard, he had the candour to avow it, and the greater merit of co-operating faithfully in maturing and supporting a system which was not his choice.

  He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva from the brain of Jove was hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial system of the United States as it burst forth from the conception of Alexander Hamilton.

  Hamilton must be classed among the men who have best known the vital principles and fundamental conditions of a government,—not of a government such as this (France), but of a government worthy of its mission and of its name. There are not in the constitution of the United States an element of order, of force, or of duration, which he has not powerfully contributed to introduce into it and caused to predominate.

  Among all the remarkable men of the Revolution, we know of no one, who, for the attributes which usually mark genius, was more distinguished. He was endowed with a singularly comprehensive mind, which enabled him to originate forms of government and systems of administration, whilst he united with it an intrepidity and an energy equal to the task of putting them in execution. He was a politician and a statesman, without possessing those finer and more delicate feelings of lofty morality, which, while they do honor to a public man, sometimes go far to impair his means of usefulness. To Hamilton, men appeared always as instruments to be moved, and not as accountable beings, and theories of government or modes of policy were regarded simply with reference to the ends which might be attained by applying them. The consequence was, that however bold the features of his system were, and however decidedly beneficial in its application to the interests of the country, there was always a slight taint of earthly morality about it, which deprived him of the share in the public confidence, which he may now be regarded as having deserved. Peculiarly fitted for the difficult duty of calling a government into being, he was capable, at the same time, of understanding the bearings, of the most comprehensive principles and of entering into its minutest practical detail. Yet there is this remarkable peculiarity about the history of Mr. Hamilton, that, whilst he acted a most important and honourable part in a critical period of our national affairs, there was not, probably, an instant of his life in which he enjoyed the perfect sympathy of the mass of the people of the United States.

  Where, among all the speculative philosophers in political science whom the world has seen, shall we find a man of greater acuteness of intellect, or more capable of devising a scheme of government which should appear theoretically, perfect? Yet Hamilton’s unquestionable genius for political disquisition and construction was directed and restrained by a noble generosity, and an unerring perception of the practicable and the expedient, which enabled him to serve mankind without attempting to force them to his own plans, and without compelling them into his own views.

  In the career of Hamilton we trace the progress of the Constitution, from its first germ in the mind of the young soldier, through all the difficulties of its establishment, and the trials of its early years, until its administration passes from the control of its authors, to fall into the hands of the champions of an absolute democracy. But, apart from all political speculations, the story of Hamilton himself, his character, his services, and his fate, are well worthy of record and ought to be better known than they have hitherto been—especially in that England which he understood with the instinct of genius, and loved with the enthusiasm of a high and generous nature. Such knowledge can only tend to the honour of his name, and to the growth of kindly feelings between his country and our own.

  It is idle to speculate on what “might have been;” but we may be permitted to conjecture that, had Hamilton lived, many of the evils which it has taxed the vitality of the States to survive, and others of equal magnitude, against which they still are struggling, would have been averted or mitigated. But when he fell, in a half-personal, half-political quarrel, in his thirty-fifth year [?] (1804), by the bullet of the infamous demagogue Aaron Burr, a blow was dealt to Western civilisation, only less vital and lasting than to that of Scotland by the assassination of the greatest of the Stuart kings; for Hamilton had no worthy successor, and the victory lay henceforth with the unscrupulous man of genius who, without serious let or hindrance, assumed the control of the national destinies.

  Like Napoleon, Pitt, and so many others of his great contemporaries, Hamilton, instead of working his way slowly up, established his hold upon the government and direction of affairs from the day that he was admitted to a share in them, and leaped at a bound into a position which in quieter times men attain only after long years of patient struggle. His influence seems to have been due in great measure to the remarkable sincerity of his mind. His nature was profoundly truthful.

  There is one man in the political history of the United States whom Daniel Webster regarded as his intellectual superior. And this man was Alexander Hamilton; not so great a lawyer or orator as Webster, not so broad and experienced a statesman, but a more original genius, who gave shape to existing political institutions. He was one of those fixed stars which will forever blaze in the firmament of American lights, like Franklin, Washington, and Jefferson; and the more his works are critically examined, the brighter does his genius appear. No matter how great this country is destined to be,—no matter what illustrious statesmen are destined to arise, and work in a larger sphere with the eyes of the world upon them,—Alexander Hamilton will be remembered and will be famous for laying one of the corner-stones in the foundation of the American structure.

  Alexander Hamilton was, next to Franklin, the most consummate statesman among the band of eminent men who had been active in the Revolution, and who afterward labored to convert a loose confederation of States into a national government. His mind was as plastic as it was vigorous and profound. It was the appropriate intellectual expression of a poised nature whose power was rarely obtrusive, because it was half concealed by the harmonious adjustment of its various faculties. It was a mind deep enough to grasp principles, and broad enough to regard relations, and fertile enough to devise measures. Indeed, the most practical of our early statesmen was also the most inventive. He was as ready with new expedients to meet unexpected emergencies as he was wise in subordinating all expedients to clearly defined principles. In intellect he was probably the most creative of our early statesmen, as in sentiment Jefferson was the most widely influential.

  One cannot note the disappearance of this brilliant figure, to Europeans the most interesting in the early history of the Republic, without the remark that his countrymen seem to have never, either in his lifetime or afterwards, duly recognized his splendid gifts.

  Hamilton’s work went to the making of the American State, but personally he may be said to have failed; for when death overtook him he had no political future, and could have had none, unless he could have readjusted himself entirely to the conditions of American public life.

  There are two points which should be clearly understood; the first, that Hamilton’s character as a private individual was corrupt, and as a politician full of plots, and bitterness, and not always free from treachery; the second, and his views of government and democratic institutions were such that, had they secured predominance, would have been fatal to the Republic. At the present moment the tendencies most likely to work mischief are Hamiltonian.

  No emergency found him at a loss, and his creative intellect brought victory out of disaster. The symmetry of his nature and the genuine modesty of his character veiled the extent and power of his resources; he sought not his own prosperity, but that of the measures in which he believed, and was careless though others got the credit of his success. Practical in his objects and clear in their expounding, he conquered opposition, partly by lucid and temperate reasoning, and partly by a magnetic force of intellectual passion.

  His promptness rivalled occasion, and serried obstinacy yielded to his intrepid assaults. It was not his own success he sought, but the triumph of a mighty cause. Had he preferred power, which is transient, to influence, which endures; had he been a partisan rather than a patriot, a self-seeker rather than the trustee of a future beyond even his hope or ken; had he been duplex, where he was open, lucid and sincere; then he had not impressed his individuality upon a whole America as the truest translator of her predestinate nationality…. He was neither sophist nor paralogist. He dwelt above manipulation, and compromise, and expedient, and formula, and all mere passports. He sought the underlying principles and the ultimate reality. His soul went into his plea. With warmth and grace, but with a peculiar logical simplicity—a clearness that became clarity—and with the unshaken courage of one compelled by conviction, he summoned his facts and marshaled his reasons. His was the strategy of unambushed truth and the elastic energy of a direct will…. With pen as with voice he was a chief of assemblies. He was a sharp sword and two-edged. He was the exponent and champion of frank and fearless argument. Malignity might vituperate, but he did not pause. Malice might misrepresent him, but he never sulked. Cunning was not in him, nor little envy, nor treachery. He met each new issue as it arose, and his enemies themselves being judges he was never put to the worst in free and open encounter…. Life, fortune, honor were to that sacredly rendered, ungrudgingly, unweariedly, unregrettingly, and, thank God, with absolute success. He had no secrets from his country!

  Certainly one of the greatest figures in our history is the figure of Alexander Hamilton. American historians, though compelled always to admire him, often in spite of themselves, have been inclined, like the mass of men in his own day, to look at him askance. They hint, when they do not plainly say, that he was not “American.” He rejected, if he did not despise, democratic principles; advocated a government as strong, almost, as a monarchy; and defended the government which was actually set up, like the skilled advocate he was, only because it was the strongest that could be had under the circumstances. He believed in authority, and he had no faith in the aggregate wisdom of masses of men. He had, it is true, that deep and passionate love of liberty, and that steadfast purpose in the maintenance of it, that mark the best Englishmen everywhere; but his ideas of government stuck fast in the old-world politics, and his statesmanship was of Europe rather than of America. And yet the genius and the steadfast spirit of this man were absolutely indispensable to us. No one less masterful, no one less resolute than he to drill the minority, if necessary, to have their way against the majority, could have done the great work of organization by which he established the national credit, and with the national credit the national government itself.

  The most precocious statesman of America, if not of the world.

The Federalist

  No constitution of government ever received a more masterly and successful vindication. I know not, indeed, of any work on the principles of free government that is to be compared, in instruction and intrinsic value, to this small and unpretending volume of the Federalist; not even if we resort to Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavel, Montesquieu, Milton, Locke, or Burke. It is equally admirable in the depth of its wisdom, the comprehensiveness of its views, the sagacity of its reflections, and the fearlessness, patriotism, candour, simplicity, and elegance, with which its truths are uttered and recommended. Mr. Justice Story acted wisely in making the Federalist the basis of his Commentary.

  His are easily distinguished by their superior comprehensiveness, practicalness, originality, and condensed and polished diction.

  The Federalist originally appeared in the columns of the New York Daily Advertiser. The papers were collected and published in two neat duodecimo volumes, by J. & A. M’Lean, New York, 1788; another edition appeared during Hamilton’s lifetime, in 1802, from the press of George F. Hopkins, New York. The papers were also included in an edition of Hamilton’s works, in three vols., by Williams & Whiting, New York, 1810. In 1818, an edition was published by Jacob Gideon at Washington, which embraced the revisions by Madison of his papers.

  It was from him that the Federalist derived the weight and the power which commanded the careful attention of the country, and carried conviction to the great body of intelligent men in all parts of the Union.

  On the whole, the “Federalist” is a very remarkable instance of statesmanlike ability, in which a certain amount of pedantry and affectation may well be pardoned in consideration of the clearness with which the conditions of a great political crisis are appreciated. Hamilton, whose influence is most perceptible, was by far the ablest representative of what may be called the English theory of government in the United States; and took no inconsiderable share in carrying into execution the plan which he had so ably defended.

  These are, perhaps, the ablest political essays in the English language; and they are like some of the great speeches of Burke, in that they were intended to effect an immediate purpose only and yet have served ever since as a perpetual storehouse of political wisdom.

  The effect was immediate and far-reaching. The “Federalist” did more than any other writing to secure the adoption and support of the Constitution throughout the country. It is a profound disquisition on the principles of our government, and has since been quoted as of the highest authority on constitutional questions. But it is more than a political and controversial treatise. Its masterly style raises it to the rank of real literature. Most of the controversial writings of the Revolutionary Period have been forgotten. Having served their temporary purpose, they have been swept into oblivion. But the “Federalist” endures as one of the masterpieces of the human reason. Its sustained power is wonderful. The argument, clothed in elevated, strong, and sometimes eloquent language, moves forward with a mighty momentum that sweeps away everything before it. It is hardly surpassed in the literature of the world as a model of masterful popular reasoning. By this production Hamilton won for himself a foremost place in the literature of his time.

  As a series of formal essays, the “Federalist” groups itself roughly with the “Tatler,” the “Spectator,” and those numerous descendants of theirs which fill the literary records of eighteenth-century England. It differs, however, from all these, in both substance and purpose. The “Tatler,” the “Spectator,” and their successors dealt with superficial matters in a spirit of literary amenity: the “Federalist” deals, in an argumentative spirit as earnest as that of any Puritan divine, with political principles paramount in our history; and it is so wisely thoughtful that one may almost declare it the permanent basis of sound thinking concerning American constitutional law. Like all the educated writing of the eighteenth century, too, it is phrased with a rhythmical balance and urbane polish which gave it claim to literary distinction. After all, however, one can hardly feel it much more significant in a history of pure letters than are the opinions in which a little later Judge Marshall and Judge Story developed and expounded the constitutional law which the “Federalist” commented on. Its true character appears when we remember the most important thing published in England during the same years,—the poetry of Robert Burns. The contrast between Burns and the “Federalist” tells the whole literary story. Just as in the seventeenth century the only serious literature of America was a phase of that half-historical, half-theological sort of work which had been a minor part of English literature generations before; so in the eighteenth century the chief product of American literature was an extremely ripe example of such political pamphleteering as in England had been a minor phase of letters during the period of Queen Anne. Pure letters in America were still to come.

General

  That great man, whose remarkable career was finished at the point when most men are just ready for action, was a reader and inquirer in political economy in his twentieth year. In his twenty-fifth year, in such leisure as the camp of the Revolution afforded, he matured a scheme for a Bank of the United States, and became a correspondent of Morris on that subject. And, finally, at the age of thirty-four, he produced, as Secretary of the Treasury, his great reports on the Public Credit, on a National Bank, and on Manufactures, the most powerful and comprehensive discussion of the national finances every made under our government, and the subject, it may be remembered, of one of Mr. Webster’s noblest periods. Those reports bear the evidence throughout of much reading and reflection upon the experiences of nations, and of careful meditation on the speculations and theories of previous writers…. Both the knowledge of economic questions and the power of dealing with them exhibited by Hamilton in these discussions warrant us in setting him down as a writer who, under other conditions and freed from the pressure of public business, might have been expected to make some positive contribution to the development of economic theory. But his few crowded years left him little opportunity for such pursuits, and it would now be hard to say that he left any impression on the thought of the world, by his dealing with this subject. His reports have continued to be the arsenal from which the advocates of special measures have again and again drawn forth weapons now well worn; but systematic political economy cannot be said to owe to him any recognized principle, any discovery in method, or indeed any influence save the stimulus which his example must always afford to the student of financial history.

  The greatness of his political has obscured the memory of his literary fame: he was one of the best writers of his time. He wrote in the periodic style, sonorous, often weighty and austere. He was only forty-seven when he died; yet his literary productions fill many volumes, his clear intelligence instructed his age. He helped to form the Constitution, and, although not pleased with some of its provisions, defended it in the “Federalist” with great force and propriety. His pen was never at rest; he spared few of his contemporaries; his integrity was undoubted, his patriotism sincere; his influence upon the fate of his country incalculable.

  During our rapid advance in wealth and influence they [Hamilton’s writings] have shown the adaptive power which belongs to principles rather than expedients. Their effect has been far-reaching and permanent, and the memory of their author shall be as lasting as the Union which he helped to form.

  If we compare Hamilton with the other writers of that period when every distinguished man did more or less political writing, and when there was no other native literature, it is a simple matter to fix his position. He was easily first. Not only have his writings alone survived for the general reader out of the wilderness of essays and pamphlets of the last century on similar subjects, but the “Federalist” has become a text-book in America and an authority in Europe. Hamilton, in this capacity, will, however, bear a severer test,—that of abstract merit. His writings deal exclusively with the great questions of that day, and have lost their living interest. Yet as specimens of political literature, as disquisitions on constitutions and the art of government, and as masterpieces of reasoning, they are not only the best produced here, but they will take high rank among the best efforts of other countries. One quality which raised Hamilton in this regard beyond his contemporaries on both sides of the Atlantic was his freedom from the didactic tone which so mars the writings of the latter half of the last century. His style was simple, nervous, and modern in feeling, and anyone who has tried to condense one of his arguments will appreciate the statement that the thought is compressed to the last point consistent with clearness. Yet forcible and convincing as all Hamilton’s essays are, pure as is the style, and vigorous and rapid as is the flow of thought, they are hard reading. Admiring them as models in their way and as great intellectual efforts, one is forced to confess them dry to the last degree.

  The writings of Hamilton, like those of nearly all the politicians whose names are here under consideration, had no real literary motive. They were produced in the course of the life of a statesman, and all, whether written with greater or less care, were designed to further the ends of statecraft or of political management…. His rank as an author depends finally upon his contributions to “The Federalist”—a weighty and potent book, which, however, like Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations,” scarcely belongs within the borderline of true literature.

  In the exposition of his views touching the several vast fields of thought here brought under consideration,—constitutional law, municipal law, the long line of colonial charters, colonial laws and precedents, international polity as affecting the chief nations of Christendom, justice in the abstract and justice in the concrete, human rights both natural and conventional, the physical and metaphysical conditions underlying the great conflict then impending,—it must be confessed, that this beardless philosopher, this statesman not yet out of school, this military strategist scarcely rid of his roundabout, exhibits a range and precision of knowledge, a ripeness of judgment, a serenity, a justice, a massiveness both of thought and of style, which would perhaps make incredible the theory of his authorship of these pamphlets, were not this theory confirmed by his undoubted exhibition in other ways, at about the same period of his life, of the same astonishing qualities: as in his “Remarks on the Quebec Bill,” published in 1775; in his letters under the signature of “Publius,” published in 1778; in his essays over the signature of “The Continentalist,” published in 1781; above all, in his personal letter to James Duane written in 1780, and containing a powerful statement of the defects of the articles of confederation, and an almost miraculous forecast of the very incidents and sequences of the process by which, some seven or eight years afterward, the articles of confederation were actually developed into the constitution of the United States.

  From his time to the present, in peace and war, notwithstanding temporary embarrassments and occasional panics, the finances of the government have been sound, and its obligations accepted wherever offered. In the long line of honest and able secretaries who have administered the treasury, Hamilton stands as the first and greatest financier.