George Hamilton

“ 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 ”

“ He dissuaded Robert Morris from resigning, and introduced a resolution in eulogy of Washington's management of his officers in the most critical hour of the Union's history. But his immediate accomplishment was small and discouraging, although his foresight may have anticipated what George Ticknor Curtis wrote many years later:—
The ideas of a statesman like Hamilton, earnestly bent on the discovery and inculcation of truth, do not pass away. ”

“ George's dragon rather than the girl standing before him.
Hamilton bowed with humility and said: "Please do not fear. Sit down and hear me out. I shall not detain you long."
She sat down, seeming to feel that notwithstanding her recent admission, there was no danger of further unseemly demonstration on Hamilton's part.
"I want to say," continued Hamilton, "that while Baron Ned spoke the truth, I have never been guilty of the crimes which it is said some of my friends have committed. I am unworthy enough in every respect, but I am innocent of murder and robbery. ”

“ But he was only in the preface of his speech, when he reminded her so ludicrously of Buckingham's mimicry of him that she burst into a peal of laughter in his very face, and rushed stifling from the room. Thus ignominiously was sounded the death-knell of Arlington's hopes!"
George Hamilton, one of the most handsome and fascinating men in England, fared better, but retired from the pursuit of so seductive and tantalising a maid. Still Hamilton was the most congenial playfellow of them all. He was a madcap like herself, always ripe for fun and frolic ”

“ Hamilton feigned to reflect.
“To-night? Why, the truth is——”
Chesterfield, breaking into a chuckle, nudged him roguishly.
“Hey-hey! I see: an assignation. Well, another night.”
“Nay; to prove you’re wrong, I’ll come.”
It so happened that, passing along a corridor that afternoon, Hamilton encountered the Duke of York, who took his arm and held him in friendly talk as he paced the matting with him up and down. His Royal Highness was in a suit of plain black, which became his sombre visage very well, and wore no ornament but the “George” suspended from his neck by a blue ribbon. ”

“ He had seen him leave his side in a tempest of boyish rage, and he had watched him charging with splendid gallantry the Yorktown redoubts. He was familiar with Hamilton's extraordinary mastery of financial and political problems, and he had found him a powerful leader in the work of forming the Constitution. He understood Hamilton's strength, and he knew where his dangers lay. Now he called him to his cabinet, and gave into his hands the department on which the immediate success of the government hinged. ”

“ In the former station, the danger to which the independence of his country was exposed from the imbecility of the government was perpetually before his eyes; and, in the latter, his attention was forcibly directed towards the loss of its reputation, and the sacrifice of its best interests, which were to be ascribed to the same cause. Mr. Hamilton, therefore, was the friend of a government which should possess, in itself, sufficient powers and resources to maintain the character, and defend the integrity of the nation. ”

“ Undoubtedly, Hamilton, as I have said, was in favor of bestowing upon the national government full power to legislate upon all subjects; and to this extent, and in this sense, he proposed the abolition of the State governments. But any one who will attend carefully to the course of his argument,—imperfectly as it has been preserved,—will find that it embraces the following course of reasoning. All federal governments are weak and distracted. In order to avoid the evils incident to that form, the government of the American Union must be a national representative system. ”

“ But with whatever melancholy interest we may pursue such a suggestion of what Hamilton might have done, it needs but to be made, in order to show how far he stood above the reach of such a temptation. From his first entrance, in boyhood, into public life, his patriotism had comprehended nothing less than the whole of the United States. Whatever may be thought of his policy, either before or after the Constitution was established, no just man will deny its comprehensive nationality. He now saw that no partial confederacy of the States could be of any permanent value. ”

“ Still the protective idea was there; it was recognized in the preamble of the act, and the constitutionality of the policy was affirmed by the framers and contemporaries of the Constitution.
Hamilton, of course, watched all these movements intently. His guiding thought in all things was the creation of a great nation. For this he strove for national unity and national sentiment, and he saw of course that one essential condition of national greatness was industrial independence, in addition to the political independence already won. ”

“ Hamilton was one of those statesmen who trust to the efficacy of the press for the advancement and inculcation of correct principles of public policy, and who desire to accomplish important results mainly through the action of an enlightened public opinion. That he had faith in the intelligence and honesty of his countrymen, is proved by the numerous writings which he constantly addressed to their reason and good sense, in the shape of essays or letters, from the beginning to the end of his career, upon subjects on which it was important that they should act with wisdom and principle. ”

“ As a statesman, he is to be ranked, by a long interval, after Hamilton; but he was a man of eminent talent, always free from local prejudices, and sincerely studious of the welfare of the whole country. His perception of the principles essential to the continuance of the Union and to the safety and prosperity of the States, was accurate and clear. His studies had made him familiar with the examples of ancient and modern liberty, and he had carefully reflected upon the nature of the government necessary to be established. ”

“ Hamilton, therefore, I conceive, proved himself early to be a statesman of greater talent and power than the celebrated English minister whose youthful success was in the eyes of the world so much more brilliant, and whose early death was no less disheartening ”

“ All his sympathies and tastes were those of a man of refined mind, and of a lover of scholarship and sound learning. Naturally a very modest man, and utterly devoid of any pretense, he underrated, as a matter of fact, his own accomplishments. He distrusted himself so much that he always turned to Hamilton, both during the Revolution and afterwards, as well as in the preparation of the farewell address, to aid him in clothing his thoughts in a proper dress, which he felt himself unable to give them. ”

“ But the same men, who were most conspicuous for these brilliant gifts and acquirements, for their profound theories and their acute perception of principles, were happily the most marked, in that assembly, for their comprehensive patriotism, their justice, their unselfishness and magnanimity. Take, for instance, Hamilton. 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? ”

“ The death of such a man, under such circumstances, cast a deep gloom over the face of society; and Hamilton was mourned by his contemporaries with a sorrow founded on a just appreciation of his greatness, and of what they owed to his intellect and character. ”

“ Hamilton has left nothing behind him to warrant the brilliant reputation which he undoubtedly acquired during his life. Though he never spoke in the house after his return from Ireland, yet he contrived to retain his fame as an orator ”

“ The King in reply sharply reprimanded his undutiful Councillors, and ordered three of them, the Duke of Hamilton, Sir George Lockhart, and General Drummond, to attend him at Westminster. Hamilton's abilities and knowledge, though by no means such as would have sufficed to raise an obscure man to eminence, appeared highly respectable in one who was premier peer of Scotland. ”

“ The revenue system, the public lands, the arrangement of loans, the mint, all alike met with his active concurrence. He was too great a man not to value rightly Hamilton's work, and the way in which that work brought order, credit, honor, and prosperity out of a chaos of debt and bankruptcy appealed peculiarly to his own love for method, organization, and sound business principles. He met every criticism on Hamilton's policy without concession, and defended it when it was attacked. ”

“ Hamilton quickly became an active member of the opposition, and took a frequent part in the debates. He was an ardent advocate of political reform and a determined opponent of every kind of injustice and abuse. ”

“ As in the case of Spain, he was resolved to send a special envoy to make a treaty. His first choice for this important mission was Hamilton, which, like most of his selections, would have been the best choice that could have been made. Hamilton, however, was so conspicuous as the great leader of the party which supported both the foreign and domestic policy of the administration, and he was so hated by the opposition, that a loud outcry was at once raised against his appointment. ”

“ Hamilton's entry into Congress in 1782 marks the commencement of his public efforts to develop the idea of a general government, whose organs should act directly, and without the intervention of any State machinery. He first publicly propounded this idea in the paper which he prepared, as chairman of a committee, to be addressed to the legislature of Rhode Island, in answer to the objections of that State to the revenue system proposed in 1781. ”

“ Hamilton's preference was for the first of these courses, as the one that admitted of the application of those principles of government which he was endeavoring to introduce into the federal system; for he saw that in the theory of the Confederation there was an inherent inequality, which would constantly [212] increase in practice, and which must either be removed, or destroy the Union. He maintained, that, where there are considerable differences in the relative wealth of different communities, the proportion of those differences can never be ascertained by any common measure ”

“ On this day, they were driven out of men's thoughts by the glow of that public enthusiasm which banishes [595] the spirit of party, and touches and opens the inmost fountains of patriotism. Hamilton had rendered a series of great services to his country, which had culminated in the adoption of the Constitution by the State of New York ”

“ Washington, Madison, Jay, Knox, Edmund Randolph, have all left upon record the evidence of their doubts and their fears, as well as of their convictions of the necessity for this last effort in favor of the preservation of a republican form of government. [388] Hamilton advanced to meet [374] the crisis, with perhaps less hesitation than any of the Revolutionary statesmen. His great genius for political construction; his large knowledge of the means by which a regulated liberty may be secured ”

“ England, however, was a monarchy; and monarchy was the system which they both desired, and were obliged, to avoid. If it was within the range of human possibility to establish a system of republican government, which would fulfil its appropriate duties, over this vast and rapidly extending country, that they felt, one and all, to be their great task. On the other hand, they knew that, if to that form they could not succeed in giving due stability and wisdom, it would be, in the words of Hamilton, "disgraced and lost among ourselves, disgraced and lost to mankind for ever." ”

“ These essays appeared in 1774, in answer to certain pamphlets on the Tory side of the controversy; and in them Hamilton reviewed and vindicated the whole of the proceedings of the first Continental Congress. There are displayed in these papers a power of reasoning and sarcasm, a knowledge of the principles of government and of the English Constitution, and a grasp of the merits of the whole controversy, that would have done honor to any man at any age, and in a youth of seventeen are wonderful. To say that they evince precocity of intellect, gives no idea of their main characteristics. ”

“ Convinced, at length, that no temporary expedients would meet the wants of the country, and that a radical reform of its constitution could alone preserve the Union from dissolution, Hamilton surveyed the Confederation in all its parts, and determined to lay before the country its deep defects, with a view to the establishment of a government with proper departments and adequate powers. ”

“ Hamilton's protegé, George Eglisham, unwarrantably charged Buckingham, in his 'Prodromus Vindictæ,' 1626, with having poisoned his patron. Sir Philip Warwick describes Hamilton as 'a goodly, proper, and graceful gentleman' (Memoirs, p. 102) , and Chamberlain, the letter-writer, says that he was 'held the gallantest gentleman of both nations,' and 'the flower of that nation' (Scotland) (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1617-25) . Chamberlain also says that the Scots wished the marquis to marry Elizabeth, eldest daughter of King James (ib. 1612) ”