Alexander Hamilton

“ If he were convinced that a man was in the wrong, he would not take his case at any price. He was delighted to be able to shower benefits upon his little family, and he would have ceased to be Alexander Hamilton had he been content to occupy a second place at the bar, or in any other pursuit which engaged his faculties; but for money itself, he had only contempt. Perhaps that is the reason why he is so out of tune with the present day, and unknown to the average American.
Washington, after the retirement of John Jay, had offered Hamilton the office of Chief Justice of the United States ”

“ As I awoke from my siesta just two hours ago, my brain was illuminated by the idea that one man alone could persuade him; and that was Alexander Hamilton. He likes us, but he loves you. If he has a weak spot, it has yearned over you since you were our infant prodigy in uniform, with your curls in your eyes. ”

“ He and Hamilton had much in common, and to some degree he took Laurens's place; not entirely, for Laurens's idealism gave him a pedestal in Hamilton's memory which no other man but Washington ever approached; and Morris was brutal in his cynicism, placing mankind but a degree higher than the beasts of the forest. But heart and brain endeared him to Hamilton, and no man had a loftier or more burning patriotism. As for himself, he loved and admired Hamilton above all men. He was as strong in his nationalism, believing Union under a powerful central government to be the only hope of the States. ”

“ Had Hamilton been allowed to shape our national polity, it would have worked as successfully for ages as that financial system which he formed has ever worked, and which has never been departed from without the result being most injurious to the country. At this day, when events have so signally justified the views of Alexander Hamilton, and are daily justifying them, [F] it may not be unprofitable to glance over the career of one whose virtues, services, and genius are constantly rising in the estimation of his countrymen and of the world, "the dead growing visible from the shades of time." ”

“ The number of men in this country equal to the great problem of self-government are in a pitiful minority. The anarchic conditions of the States, the disgrace which they have brought upon us, their inefficiency to cope with any problem, the contemptible depths of human nature which they have revealed to the thinking members of the community—all these causes inspire Hamilton, incomparably the greatest brain in the country, with a dread of leaving any power whatever in their hands. He believes firmly in the few of tried brain and patriotism. ”

“ Hamilton understood, and his supper lost its relish. Some time since he had concluded that where Mary Fawcett failed he could not hope to succeed, but he had done his duty and lectured his cousin. He understood human nature from its heights to its dregs, however, and promised Hamilton his unaltered friendship, even while in the flood of remonstrance. He was a philosopher, who invariably held out his hand to the Inevitable, with a shrug of his shoulders, but he loved Rachael, and wished that the ship that brought Levine to the Islands had encountered a hurricane. ”

“ The retreat was under the command of General Putnam, and guided through all the intricacies of those thirteen winding miles by his aide-de-camp, Aaron Burr. The last man in the procession was Alexander Hamilton.
"So, you're covering again, Alexander," said Fish, as he passed him on his way to his own regiment,—the New York, of which he was brigade-major. "You can't complain that your adopted country doesn't make use of you. By the way, Troup is in the Jersey prison-ship, safe and sound."
"Can't we exchange him?" asked Hamilton, eagerly, "Do you think General
Washington would listen to us?" ”

“ Hamilton had been bred in the orthodox religion of his time, and its picturesqueness, including its ultimates of heaven and hell, had taken firm hold of his ardent imagination. But in his cosmic moments the formulations of this planet played no part.
"I have not even a mother-country," he thought. "I am a parent, not a child. My patriotism has been that of a tigress for her young, not of a man for his fatherland. God knows I am willing, and always have been, to die for this country, which is so much my own, but why—why—need I have been made so human? Could I not have understood men as well? ”

“ Alexander Hamilton was a leader of men. He could do the thinking of his time and map out a policy, "arranging every detail for a kingdom." He has been likened to Napoleon in his ability to plan and execute with rapid and marvelous precision, and surely the similarity is striking.
But he was not an adept in the difficult and delicate art of diplomacy—he could not wait. He demanded instant obedience, and lacked all of that large, patient, calm magnanimity so splendidly shown forth since by Abraham Lincoln. Unlike Jefferson, his great rival, he could not calmly and silently bide his time. ”

“ But one January is much like another in the Leeward Islands, and he who has been there can easily imagine the day on which Alexander Hamilton was born. The sky was a deeper blue than in summer, for the sun was resting after the terrific labours of Autumn, and there was a prick in the trade winds which stimulated the blood by day and chilled it a trifle at night. The slave women moved more briskly, followed by a trotting brood of "pic'nees," one or more clinging to their hips, all bewailing the rigours of winter. ”

“ As for the Federalists, they waxed in enthusiasm and devotion. His career was at its zenith. No man in the United States was—nor has been since—so loved and so hated, both in public and in private life. Even Washington's career had not been more triumphant, and hardly so remarkable; for he was an American born, had always had a larger measure of popular approval, and never had discovered the faculty of raising such bitter and powerful enemies. Nor had he won an extraordinary reputation until he was long past Hamilton's present age. Certainly he had never exhibited such unhuman precocity. ”

“ Alexander Hamilton, an American statesman, died of a wound received in a duel with Col. Burr. Hamilton was born on the island of St. Croix 1757, and came to New York in 1773. At the commencement of the war he joined the army, and was an aid-de-camp to Washington, and afterwards a major-general. He continued in the service until the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, where the troops under his command stormed and took the British works. He afterwards commenced the practice of law in New York, and rose to the highest eminence in the profession. ”

“ 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 sudden and tragic death of Alexander Hamilton produced a universal feeling of sympathy and sorrow. As the leader of the bar, the advocate of the Constitution, the statesman who had given the law to American commerce, the most accomplished soldier in the army, and connected with the still recent glories of the Revolution,—his name had become familiar to every ear, and was associated with every subject of popular interest. ”

“ Laurens, Tilghman, Harrison, Greene, André, Sterling, Duane, Duer, Steuben,—Washington. They looked at him as affectionately as the living, but without tears or the rigid features of extremest grief. It is a terrible expression to see on the faces of men long intimate with life, and Hamilton closed his eyes, withdrawing his last glance from Morris and Troup. ”

“ Hamilton sprang to his feet impetuously. "Oh, sir!" he exclaimed, "I don't want to leave the regular line of promotion! I don't want to leave my men. I'm much attached to them. And I'll not deny my ambition, sir; I want opportunities to distinguish myself. I've already refused two generals. This war will last for years. There is no reason in the world why I should not be a general in three."
"No," said Washington, "there is none; there is every possibility of your becoming one of the most brilliant figures on the revolutionary battlefields. I admit that, and I understand your ambition. ”

“ Alexander Hamilton, an illustrious American statesman, was born in the Island of Nevis, West Indies, January 11, 1757, and died near New York, July 12, 1804. His “Collected Works,” appeared in 1851.
The effect of every burden laid down is to leave us relieved; and when the soul has laid down that of its faults at the feet of God, it feels as though it had wings. ”

“ The active and profound statesman, the learned and eloquent lawyer, would probably have disappeared in a great degree before the character of the sage and philosopher, instructing mankind by his wisdom, and elevating the country by his example.
[Ambrose Spencer, Attorney General of the State,—afterward Chief Justice,—who did not love him, having received the benefit of Hamilton's scathing sarcasm more than once, has this to say.] Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country ever produced. ”

“ As Hamilton was absent from Headquarters but seldom during General Schuyler's sojourn, the lovers met almost every evening, and occasionally Washington, who possessed certain sympathies based on long experience, would give Hamilton a morning free, and suggest a ride through the woods. Never were two people happier nor more inherently suited. Hamilton's instinct had guided him safely past more brilliant women to one who willingly would fold herself round his energetic individuality of many parts, fitting into every division and crevice. ”

“ He was not the only brilliant young man in the army, for Troup, Fish, Burr, Marshall, were within a few months or, at most, a year or two of his age, and there were many others; men had matured early in that hot period before the Revolution, when small boys talked politics, and even the women thought of little else; but Hamilton, through no fault of his, had inspired his friends with the belief that he was something higher than human, and they never tired of sounding his praises. ”

“ He did for England what Alexander Hamilton did for the United States in matters of finance, although as inferior to Hamilton in original genius as he was superior to him in general knowledge and purity of moral character. No one man can be everything, even if the object of unbounded admiration. To every great man a peculiar mission is given,--to one as lawgiver, to another as conqueror, to a third as teacher, to a fourth as organizer and administrator ”

“ And his all-accomplished rival and adversary, Alexander Hamilton,—is he not substantially the same at twenty-five as at forty-five? Though he has not yet imprinted his mind on the constitution and practical working of the government, the qualities are still there:—the poised nature whose vigor is almost hidden in its harmony; the power of infusing into other minds ideas which they seem to originate ”

“ And even if this indisputable information were not accessible, it is incredible to me that any one capable of understanding Hamilton even a little should believe that so contemptible a quality as ingratitude had any place in his nature. The most impetuous, generous, honest, and tender of men, he was the last person to turn his back upon those who had befriended and supported him in his precarious youth. ”

“ It was months since he had seen the gay sparkle in Hamilton's eyes, humour and sweetness curving his mouth. When Hamilton's mouth was not as hard as iron, it relaxed to cynicism or contempt. He was so thin that the prominence of the long line from ear to chin and of the high hard nose, with its almost rigid nostrils, would have made him look more old Roman coin than man, had it not been for eyes like molten steel. "Politics and ambition!" thought Troup. "What might not the world be without them?" ”

“ Every year, we believe, the name of Alexander Hamilton is becoming dearer to the American People. The prejudices occasioned by some of his unpopular and perhaps erroneous political opinions are passing away, and all men are beginning to look upon his great qualities and important services with candor, and consequent admiration and gratitude. ”

“ But his intellect is in the rank which stands just beneath that of the men of genius revealed by history, and he hangs like a silver star of the tropics upon the sometimes dubious fields of our ancestral heavens. Nevertheless, he frequently inspired Hamilton with so poignant a longing for Laurens that our impetuous hero was tempted to wish for an exchange of fates.
"In the millennium we will all tell the truth and hate each other," answered Hamilton. "And we either shall all be fools, or those irritants will be extinct; in any case we shall be happy, particularly if we have someone to hate." ”

“ If I do not mistake, you have the greatest battle of your career, past or present, immediately ahead of you—and it means so much to all of us—I fear—I fear—"
"I will listen to no fears," cried Hamilton, who at all events had no mind to be tormented by any but his own. "Are we not alive? Are we not in health? Are not our intellectual powers at their ripest point of development? Can Clinton, Melancthon Smith, Yates, Lansing, Jones, make a better showing?" ”