Chapter V: Part 5

JAMES DOUGLAS, 4th duke of Hamilton (1658-1712), eldest son of the preceding and of Duchess Anne, succeeded his mother, who resigned the dukedom to him in 1698, and at the accession of Queen Anne he was regarded as leader of the Scottish national party. He was an opponent of the union with England, but his lack of decision rendered his political conduct ineffective. He was created duke of Brandon in the peerage of Great Britain in 1711; and on the 15th of November in the following year he fought the celebrated duel with Charles Lord Mohun, narrated in Thackeray's _Esmond_, in which both the principals were killed. His son, James (1703-1743), became 5th duke, and his grandson James, 6th duke of Hamilton and Brandon (1724-1758), married the famous beauty, Elizabeth Gunning, afterwards duchess of Argyll. James George, 7th duke (1755-1769), became head of the house of Douglas on the death in 1761 of Archibald, duke of Douglas, whose titles but not his estates then devolved on the duke of Hamilton as heir-male. Archibald's brother Douglas (1756-1799) was the 8th duke, and when he died childless the titles passed to his uncle Archibald (1740-1819). His son Alexander, 10th duke (1767-1852), who as marquess of Douglas was a great collector and connoisseur of books and pictures (his collections realized L397,562 in 1882), was ambassador at St Petersburg in 1806-1807. His sister, Lady Anne Hamilton, was lady-in-waiting and a faithful friend to Queen Caroline, wife of George IV.; she did not write the _Secret History of the Court of England ..._ (1832) to which her name was attached. William Alexander, 11th duke of Hamilton (1811-1863), married Princess Marie Amelie, daughter of Charles, grand-duke of Baden, and, on her mother's side, a cousin of Napoleon III. The title of duke of Chatellerault, granted to his remote ancestor in 1548, and claimed at different times by various branches of the Hamilton family, was conferred on the 11th duke's son, William Alexander, 12th duke of Hamilton (1845-1895), by the emperor of the French in 1864. His sister, Lady Mary Douglas-Hamilton, married in 1869 Albert, prince of Monaco, but their marriage was declared invalid in 1880. She subsequently married Count Tassilo Festetics, a Hungarian noble. The 12th duke left no male issue and was succeeded in 1895 by his kinsman, Alfred Douglas, a descendant of the 4th duke. Claud Hamilton, 1st Baron Paisley, brother of the 1st marquess of Hamilton, was, as mentioned above, ancestor of the Abercorn branch of the Hamiltons. His son, who became earl of Abercorn in 1606, received among a number of other titles that of Lord Hamilton. This title, and also that of Viscount Hamilton, in the peerage of Great Britain, conferred on the 8th earl of Abercorn in 1786, are borne by the dukes of Abercorn, whose eldest son is usually styled by courtesy marquess of Hamilton, a title which was added to the other family honours when the 2nd marquess of Abercorn was raised to the dukedom in 1868.

See John Anderson, _The House of Hamilton_ (1825); _Hamilton Papers_,
ed. J. Bain (2 vols., Edinburgh, 1890-1892); Gilbert Burnet, _Lives of
James and William, dukes of Hamilton_ (1677); _The Hamilton Papers
relative to 1638-1650_, ed. S. R. Gardiner for the Camden Society
(1880); G. E. C[okayne], _Complete Peerage_ (1887-1898); an article by
the Rev. J. Anderson in Sir J. B. Paul's edition of the _Scots
Peerage_, vol. iv. (1907).

HAMILTON, ALEXANDER (1757-1804), American statesman and economist, was born, as a British subject, on the island of Nevis in the West Indies on the 11th of January 1757. He came of good family on both sides. His father, James Hamilton, a Scottish merchant of St Christopher, was a younger son of Alexander Hamilton of Grange, Lanarkshire, by Elizabeth, daughter of Sir R. Pollock. His mother, Rachael Fawcett (Faucette), of French Huguenot descent, married when very young a Danish proprietor of St Croix, John Michael Levine, with whom she lived unhappily and whom she soon left, subsequently living with James Hamilton; her husband procured a divorce in 1759, but the court forbade her remarriage.[1] Such unions as hers with James Hamilton were long not uncommon in the West Indies. By her James Hamilton had two sons, Alexander and James. Business misfortunes having caused his father's bankruptcy, and his mother dying in 1768, young Hamilton was thrown upon the care of maternal relatives at St Croix, where, in his twelfth year, he entered the counting-house of Nicholas Cruger. Shortly afterward Mr Cruger, going abroad, left the boy in charge of the business. The extraordinary specimens we possess of his mercantile correspondence and friendly letters, written at this time, attest an astonishing poise and maturity of mind, and self-conscious ambition. His opportunities for regular schooling must have been very scant; but he had cultivated friends who discerned his talents and encouraged their development, and he early formed the habits of wide reading and industrious study that were to persist through his life. An accomplishment later of great service to Hamilton, common enough in the Antilles, but very rare in the English continental colonies, was a familiar command of French. In 1772 some friends, impressed by a description by him of the terrible West Indian hurricane in that year, made it possible for him to go to New York to complete his education. Arriving in the autumn of 1772, he prepared for college at Elizabethtown, N.J., and in 1774 entered King's College (now Columbia University) in New York City. His studies, however, were interrupted by the War of American Independence.

A visit to Boston seems to have thoroughly confirmed the conclusion, to which reason had already led him, that he should cast in his fortunes with the colonists. Into their cause he threw himself with ardour. In 1774-1775 he wrote two influential anonymous pamphlets, which were attributed to John Jay; they show remarkable maturity and controversial ability, and rank high among the political arguments of the time.[2] He organized an artillery company, was awarded its captaincy on examination, won the interest of Nathanael Greene and Washington by the proficiency and bravery he displayed in the campaign of 1776 around New York City, joined Washington's staff in March 1777 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and during four years served as his private secretary and confidential aide. The important duties with which he was entrusted attest Washington's entire confidence in his abilities and character; then and afterwards, indeed, reciprocal confidence and respect took the place, in their relations, of personal attachment.[3] But Hamilton was ambitious for military glory--it was an ambition he never lost; he became impatient of detention in what he regarded as a position of unpleasant dependence, and (Feb. 1781) he seized a slight reprimand administered by Washington as an excuse for abandoning his staff position.[4] Later he secured a field command, through Washington, and won laurels at Yorktown, where he led the American column in the final assault on the British works. In 1780 he married Elizabeth, daughter of General Philip Schuyler, and thus became allied with one of the most distinguished families in New York.

Meanwhile, he had begun the political efforts upon which his fame principally rests. In letters of 1779-1780[5] he correctly diagnoses the ills of the Confederation, and suggests with admirable prescience the necessity of centralization in its governmental powers; he was, indeed, one of the first, if not to conceive, at least to suggest adequate checks on the anarchic tendencies of the time. After a year's service in Congress in 1782-1783, in which he experienced the futility of endeavouring to attain through that decrepit body the ends he sought, he settled down to legal practice in New York.[6] The call for the Annapolis Convention (1786) was Hamilton's opportunity. A delegate from New York, he supported Madison in inducing the Convention to exceed its delegated powers and summon the Federal Convention of 1787 at Philadelphia (himself drafting the call); he secured a place on the New York delegation; and, when his anti-Federal colleagues withdrew from the Convention, he signed the Constitution for his state. So long as his colleagues were present his own vote was useless, and he absented himself for some time from the debates after making one remarkable speech (June 18th, 1787). In this he held up the British government as the best model in the world.[7] Though fully conscious that monarchy in America was impossible, he wished to obtain the next best solution in an aristocratic, strongly centralized, coercive, but representative union, with devices to give weight to the influence of class and property.[8] His plan had no chance of success; but though unable to obtain what he wished, he used his great talents to secure the adoption of the Constitution.

To this struggle was due the greatest of his writings, and the greatest individual contribution to the adoption of the new government, _The Federalist_, which remains a classic commentary on American constitutional law and the principles of government, and of which Guizot said that "in the application of elementary principles of government to practical administration" it was the greatest work known to him. Its inception, and much more than half its contents were Hamilton's (the rest Madison's and Jay's).[9] Sheer will and reasoning could hardly be more brilliantly and effectively exhibited than they were by Hamilton in the New York convention of 1788, whose vote he won, against the greatest odds, for the ratification of the Constitution. It was the judgment of Chancellor James Kent, the justice of which can hardly be disputed, that "all the documentary proof and the current observation of the time lead us to the conclusion that he surpassed all his contemporaries in his exertions to create, recommend, adopt and defend the Constitution of the United States."

When the new government was inaugurated, Hamilton became secretary of the treasury in Washington's cabinet.[10] Congress immediately referred to him a press of queries and problems, and there came from his pen a succession of papers that have left the strongest imprint on the administrative organization of the national government--two reports on public credit, upholding an ideal of national honour higher than the prevalent popular principles; a report on manufactures, advocating their encouragement (e.g. by bounties paid from surplus revenues amassed by tariff duties)--a famous report that has served ever since as a storehouse of arguments for a national protective policy;[11] a report favouring the establishment of a national bank, the argument being based on the doctrine of "implied powers" in the Constitution, and on the application that Congress may do anything that can be made, through the medium of money, to subserve the "general welfare" of the United States--doctrines that, through judicial interpretation, have revolutionized the Constitution; and, finally, a vast mass of detailed work by which order and efficiency were given to the national finances. In 1793 he put to confusion his opponents who had brought about a congressional investigation of his official accounts. The success of his financial measures was immediate and remarkable. They did not, as is often but loosely said, create economic prosperity; but they did prop it, in an all-important field, with order, hope and confidence. His ultimate purpose was always the strengthening of the union; but before particularizing his political theories, and the political import of his financial measures, the remaining events of his life may be traced.

His activity in the cabinet was by no means confined to the finances. He regarded himself, apparently, as premier, and sometimes overstepped the limits of his office in interfering with other departments. The heterogeneous character of the duties placed upon his department by Congress seemed in fact to reflect the English idea of its primacy. Hamilton's influence was in fact predominant with Washington (so far as any man could have predominant influence). Thus it happens that in foreign affairs, whatever credit properly belongs to the Federalists as a party (see also the article FEDERALIST PARTY) for the adoption of that principle of neutrality which became the traditional policy of the United States must be regarded as largely due to Hamilton. But allowance must be made for the mere advantage of initiative which belonged to any party that organized the government--the differences between Hamilton and Jefferson, in this question of neutrality, being almost purely factitious.[12] On domestic policy their differences were vital, and in their conflicts over Hamilton's financial measures they organized, on the basis of varying tenets and ideals which have never ceased to conflict in American politics, the two great parties of Federalists and Democrats (or Democratic-Republicans). On the 31st of January 1795 Hamilton resigned his position as secretary of the treasury and returned to the practice of law in New York, leaving it for public service only in 1798-1800, when he was the active head, under Washington (who insisted that Hamilton should be second only to himself), of the army organized for war against France. But though in private life he remained the continual and chief adviser of Washington--notably in the serious crisis of the Jay Treaty, of which Hamilton approved. Washington's _Farewell Address_ (1796) was written for him by Hamilton.

After Washington's death the Federalist leadership was divided (and disputed) between John Adams, who had the prestige of a varied and great career, and greater strength than any other Federalist with the people, and Hamilton, who controlled practically all the leaders of lesser rank, including much the greater part of the most distinguished men of the country, so that it has been very justly said that "the roll of his followers is enough of itself to establish his position in American history" (Lodge). But Hamilton was not essentially a popular leader. When his passions were not involved, or when they were repressed by a crisis, he was far-sighted, and his judgment of men was excellent.[13] But as Hamilton himself once said, his heart was ever the master of his judgment. He was, indeed, not above intrigue,[14] but he was unsuccessful in it. He was a fighter through and through, and his courage was superb; but he was indiscreet in utterance, impolitic in management, opinionated, self-confident, and uncompromising in nature and methods. His faults are nowhere better shown than in his quarrel with John Adams. Three times, in order to accomplish ends deemed by him, personally, to be desirable, Hamilton used the political fortunes of John Adams, in presidential elections, as a mere hazard in his manoeuvres; moreover, after Adams became president, and so the official head of the party, Hamilton constantly advised the members of the president's cabinet, and through them endeavoured to control Adams's policy; and finally, on the eve of the crucial election of 1800, he wrote a bitter personal attack on the president (containing much confidential cabinet information), which was intended for private circulation, but which was secured and published by Aaron Burr, his legal and political rival.

The mention of Burr leads us to the fatal end of another great political antipathy of Hamilton's life. He read Burr's character correctly from the beginning; deemed it a patriotic duty to thwart him in his ambitions; defeated his hopes successively of a foreign mission, the presidency, and the governorship of New York; and in his conversations and letters repeatedly and unsparingly denounced him. If these denunciations were known to Burr they were ignored by him until his last defeat. After that he forced a quarrel on a trivial bit of hearsay (that Hamilton had said he had a "despicable" opinion of Burr); and Hamilton, believing as he explained in a letter he left before going to his death--that a compliance with the duelling prejudices of the time was inseparable from the ability to be in future useful in public affairs, accepted a challenge from him. The duel was fought at Weehawken on the Jersey shore of the Hudson opposite the City of New York. At the first fire Hamilton fell, mortally wounded, and he died on the following day, the 12th of July 1804. Hamilton himself did not intend to fire, but his pistol went off as he fell. The tragic close of his career appeased for the moment the fierce hatred of politics, and his death was very generally deplored as a national calamity.[15]

No emphasis, however strong, upon the mere consecutive personal successes of Hamilton's life is sufficient to show the measure of his importance in American history. That importance lies, to a large extent, in the political ideas for which he stood. His mind was eminently "legal." He was the unrivalled controversialist of the time. His writings, which are distinguished by clarity, vigour and rigid reasoning, rather than by any show of scholarship--in the extent of which, however solid in character Hamilton's might have been, he was surpassed by several of his contemporaries--are in general strikingly empirical in basis. He drew his theories from his experiences of the Revolutionary period, and he modified them hardly at all through life. In his earliest pamphlets (1774-1775) he started out with the ordinary pre-Revolutionary Whig doctrines of natural rights and liberty; but the first experience of semi-anarchic states'-rights and individualism ended his fervour for ideas so essentially alien to his practical, logical mind, and they have no place in his later writings. The feeble inadequacy of conception, infirmity of power, factional jealousy, disintegrating particularism, and vicious finance of the Confederation were realized by many others; but none other saw so clearly the concrete nationalistic remedies for these concrete ills, or pursued remedial ends so constantly, so ably, and so consistently. An immigrant, Hamilton had no particularistic ties; he was by instinct a "continentalist" or federalist. He wanted a strong union and energetic government that should "rest as much as possible on the shoulders of the people and as little as possible on those of the state legislatures"; that should have the support of wealth and class; and that should curb the states to such an "entire subordination" as nowise to be hindered by those bodies. At these ends he aimed with extraordinary skill in all his financial measures. As early as 1776 he urged the direct collection of federal taxes by federal agents. From 1779 onward we trace the idea of supporting government by the interest of the propertied classes; from 1781 onward the idea that a not-excessive public debt would be a blessing[16] in giving cohesiveness to the union: hence his device by which the federal government, assuming the war debts of the states, secured greater resources, based itself on a high ideal of nationalism, strengthened its hold on the individual citizen, and gained the support of property. In his report on manufactures his chief avowed motive was to strengthen the union. To the same end he conceived the constitutional doctrines of liberal construction, "implied powers," and the "general welfare," which were later embodied in the decisions of John Marshall. The idea of nationalism pervaded and quickened all his life and works. With one great exception, the dictum of Guizot is hardly an exaggeration, that "there is not in the Constitution of the United States an element of order, of force, of duration, which he did not powerfully contribute to introduce into it and to cause to predominate."

The exception, as American history showed, was American democracy. The loose and barren rule of the Confederation seemed to conservative minds such as Hamilton's to presage, in its strengthening of individualism, a fatal looseness of social restraints, and led him on to a dread of democracy that he never overcame. Liberty, he reminded his fellows, in the New York Convention of 1788, seemed to be alone considered in government, but there was another thing equally important: "a principle of strength and stability in the organization ... and of vigour in its operation." But Hamilton's governmental system was in fact repressive.[17] He wanted a system strong enough, he would have said, to overcome the anarchic tendencies loosed by war, and represented by those notions of natural rights which he had himself once championed; strong enough to overbear all local, state and sectional prejudices, powers or influence, and to control--not, as Jefferson would have it, to be controlled by--the people. Confidence in the integrity, the self-control, and the good judgment of the people, which was the content of Jefferson's political faith, had almost no place in Hamilton's theories. "Men," said he, "are reasoning rather than reasonable animals." The charge that he laboured to introduce monarchy by intrigue is an under-estimate of his good sense.[18] Hamilton's thinking, however, did carry him foul of current democratic philosophy; as he said, he presented his plan in 1787 "not as attainable, but as a model to which we ought to approach as far as possible"; moreover, he held through life his belief in its principles, and in its superiority over the government actually created; and though its inconsistency with American tendencies was yearly more apparent, he never ceased to avow on all occasions his aristocratic-monarchical partialities. Moreover, his preferences for at least an aristocratic republic were shared by many other men of talent. When it is added that Jefferson's assertions, alike as regards Hamilton's talk[19] and the intent and tendency of his political measures, were, to the extent of the underlying basic fact--but discounting Jefferson's somewhat intemperate interpretations--unquestionably true,[20] it cannot be accounted strange that Hamilton's Democratic opponents mistook his theoretic predilections for positive designs. Nor would it be a strained inference from much that be said, to believe that he hoped and expected that in the "crisis" he foresaw, when democracy should have caused the ruin of the country, a new government might be formed that should approximate to his own ideals.[21] From the beginning of the excesses of the French Revolution he was possessed by the persuasion that American democracy, likewise, might at any moment crush the restraints of the Constitution to enter on a career of licence and anarchy. To this obsession he sacrificed his life.[22] After the Democratic victory of 1800, his letters, full of retrospective judgments and interesting outlooks, are but rarely relieved in their sombre pessimism by flashes of hope and courage. His last letter on politics, written two days before his death, illustrates the two sides of his thinking already emphasized: in this letter he warns his New England friends against dismemberment of the union as "a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages, without any counterbalancing good; administering no relief to our real disease, which is democracy, the poison of which, by a subdivision, will only be more concentrated in each part, and consequently the more virulent." To the end he never lost his fear of the states, nor gained faith in the future of the country. He laboured still, in mingled hope and apprehension, "to prop the frail and worthless fabric,"[23] but for its spiritual content of democracy he had no understanding, and even in its nationalism he had little hope. Yet probably to no one man, except perhaps to Washington, does American nationalism owe so much as to Hamilton.

In the development of the United States the influence of Hamiltonian nationalism and Jeffersonian democracy has been a reactive union; but changed conditions since Hamilton's time, and particularly since the Civil War, are likely to create misconceptions as to Hamilton's position in his own day. Great constructive statesman as he was, he was also, from the American point of view, essentially a reactionary. He was the leader of reactionary forces--constructive forces, as it happened--in the critical period after the War of American Independence, and in the period of Federalist supremacy. He was in sympathy with the dominant forces of public life only while they took, during the war, the predominant impress of an imperfect nationalism.[24] Jeffersonian democracy came into power in 1800 in direct line with colonial development; Hamiltonian Federalism was a break in that development; and this alone can explain how Jefferson could organize the Democratic Party in face of the brilliant success of the Federalists in constructing the government. Hamilton stigmatized his great opponent as a political fanatic; but actualist as he claimed to be,[25] Hamilton could not see, or would not concede, the predominating forces in American life, and would uncompromisingly have minimized the two great political conquests of the colonial period--local self-government and democracy.

Few Americans have received higher tributes from foreign authorities. Talleyrand, personally impressed when in America with Hamilton's brilliant qualities, declared that he had the power of divining without reasoning, and compared him to Fox and Napoleon because he had "devine l'Europe." Of the judgments rendered by his countrymen, Washington's confidence in his ability and integrity is perhaps the most significant. Chancellor James Kent, and others only less competent, paid remarkable testimony to his legal abilities. Chief-justice Marshall ranked him second to Washington alone. No judgment is more justly measured than Madison's (in 1831): "That he possessed intellectual powers of the first order, and the moral qualities of integrity and honour in a captivating degree, has been awarded 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."

In person Hamilton was rather short and slender; in carriage, erect, dignified and graceful. Deep-set, changeable, dark eyes vivified his mobile features, and set off his light hair and fair, ruddy complexion. His head in the famous Trumbull portrait is boldly poised and very striking. The captivating charm of his manners and conversation is attested by all who knew him, and in familiar life he was artlessly simple. Friends he won readily, and he held them in devoted attachment by the solid worth of a frank, ardent, generous, warm-hearted and high-minded character. Versatile as were his intellectual powers, his nature seems comparatively simple. A firm will, tireless energy, aggressive courage and bold self-confidence were its leading qualities; the word "intensity" perhaps best sums up his character. His Scotch and Gallic strains of ancestry are evident; his countenance was decidedly Scotch; his nervous speech and bearing and vehement temperament rather French; in his mind, agility, clarity and penetration were matched with logical solidity. The remarkable quality of his mind lay in the rare combination of acute analysis and grasp of detail with great comprehensiveness of thought. So far as his writings show, he was almost wholly lacking in humour, and in imagination little less so. He certainly had wit, but it is hard to believe he could have had any touch of fancy. In public speaking he often combined a rhetorical effectiveness and emotional intensity that might take the place of imagination, and enabled him, on the coldest theme, to move deeply the feelings of his auditors.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Hamilton's _Works_ have been edited by H. C. Lodge (New
York, 9 vols., 1885-1886, and 12 vols., 1904); all references above
are first to the latter edition, secondly (in brackets) to the former.
There are various additional editions of _The Federalist_, notably
those of H. B. Dawson (1863), H. C. Lodge (1888), and--the most
scholarly--P. L. Ford (1898); cf. _American Historical Review_, ii.
413, 675. See also James Bryce, "Predictions of Hamilton and de
Tocqueville," in _Johns Hopkins University Studies_, vol. 5
(Baltimore, 1887); and the capital essay of Anson D. Morse in the
_Political Science Quarterly_, v. (1890), pp. 1-23. For a bibliography
of the period see the _Cambridge Modern History_, vol. vii. pp.
780-810. The unfinished _Life of Alexander Hamilton, by his Son_, J.
C. Hamilton, going only to 1787 (New York, 2 vols., 1834-1840), was
superseded by the same author's valuable, but partisan and uncritical
_History of the Republic ... as traced in the Writings of Alexander
Hamilton_ (New York, 7 vols., 1857-1864; 4th ed., Boston, 1879).
Professor W. G. Sumner's _Alexander Hamilton_ (Makers of America
series, New York, 1890) is appreciative, and important for its
criticism from the point of view of an American free-trader; see also,
on Hamilton's finance and economic views, Prof. C. F. Dunbar,
_Quarterly Journal of Economics_, iii. (1889), p. 32; E. G. Bourne in
ibid. x. (1894), p. 328; E. C. Lunt in _Journal of Political Economy_,
iii. (1895), p. 289. Among modern studies must also be mentioned J. T.
Morse's able _Life_ (1876); H. C. Lodge's (in the American Statesmen
series, 1882); and G. Shea's two books, his _Historical Study_ (1877)
and _Life and Epoch_ (1879). C. J. Riethmuller's _Hamilton and his
Contemporaries_ (1864), written during the Civil War, is sympathetic,
but rather speculative. The most vivid account of Hamilton is in Mrs
Gertrude Atherton's historical romance, _The Conqueror_ (New York,
1902), for the writing of which the author made new investigations
into the biographical details, and elucidated some points previously
obscure; see also her _A Few of Hamilton's Letters_ (1903). F. S.
Oliver's brilliant _Alexander Hamilton: An Essay on American Union_
(London, 1906), which uses its subject to illustrate the necessity of
British imperial federation, is strongly anti-Jeffersonian, but no
other work by a non-American author brings out so well the wider
issues involved in Hamilton's economic policy. (F. S. P.; H. Ch.)

FOOTNOTES:

[1] These facts were first definitely determined by Mrs Gertrude
Atherton from the Danish Archives in Denmark and the West Indies; see
article in _North American Review_, Aug. 1902, vol. 175, p. 229; and
preface to her _A Few of Hamilton's Letters_ (New York, 1903).

[2] These were written in answer to the widely read pamphlets
published over the _nom de plume_ of "A Westchester Farmer," and now
known to have been written by Samuel Seabury (q.v.). Hamilton's
pamphlets were entitled "A Full Vindication of the Measures of the
Congress from the Calumnies of their Enemies," and "The Farmer
Refuted." Concerning them George Ticknor Curtis (_Constitutional
History of the United States_, i. 274) has said, "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 honour
to any man at any age. To say that they evince precocity of intellect
gives no idea of their main characteristics. They show great
maturity--a more remarkable maturity than has ever been exhibited by
any other person, at so early an age, in the same department of
thought."

[3] George Bancroft was the first to point out that there is small
evidence that Hamilton ever really appreciated Washington's great
qualities; but on the score of personal and Federalist indebtedness
he left explicit recognition.

[4] For Hamilton's letter to General Schuyler on this episode--one of
the most important letters, in some ways, that he ever wrote--see the
_Works_, ix. 232 (8: 35).

[5] Especially the letter of September 1780 to James Duane, _Works_,
i. 213 (1: 203); also the "Continentalist" papers of 1781.

[6] His most famous case at this time (_Rutgers_ v. _Waddington_) was
one that well illustrated his moral courage. Under a "Trespass Law"
of New York, Elizabeth Rutgers, a widow, brought suit against one
Joshua Waddington, a Loyalist, who during the war of American
Independence, while New York was occupied by the British, had made
use of some of her property. In face of popular clamour, Hamilton,
who advocated a conciliatory treatment of the Loyalists, represented
Waddington, who won the case, decided in 1784.

[7] As Mr Oliver points out (_Alexander Hamilton_, p. 156),
Hamilton's idea of the British constitution was not a correct picture
of the British constitution in 1787, and still less of that of the
20th century. "What he had in mind was the British constitution as
George III. had tried to make it." Hamilton's ideal was an elective
monarchy, and his guiding principle a proper balance of authority.

[8] Briefly, he proposed a governor and two chambers--an Assembly
elected by the people for three years, and a Senate--the governor and
senate holding office for life or during good behaviour, and chosen,
through electors, by voters qualified by property; the governor to
have an unqualified veto on federal legislation; state governors to
have a similar veto on state legislation, and to be appointed by the
federal government; the federal government to control all militia.
See _Works_, i. 347 (1: 331); and cf. his correspondence, which is
scanty, _passim_ in later years, notably x. 446, 431, 329 (8: 606,
596, 517), and references below.

[9] Nearly all the papers in _The Federalist_ first appeared (between
October 1787 and April 1788) in New York journals, over the signature
"Publius." Jay wrote only five. The authorship of twelve of them is
uncertain, and has been the subject of much controversy between
partisans of Hamilton and Madison. Concerning _The Federalist_
Chancellor James Kent (_Commentaries_, i. 241) said: "There is no
work on the subject of the Constitution, and on republican and
federal government generally, that deserves to be more thoroughly
studied. 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.... 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."

[10] The position was offered first to Robert Morris, who declined
it, expressing the opinion that Hamilton was the man best fitted to
meet its problems.

[11] Hamilton's _Report on Manufactures_ (1791) by itself entitles
him to the place of an epoch-maker in economics. It was the first
great revolt from Adam Smith, on whose _Wealth of Nations_ (1776) he
is said to have already written a commentary which is lost. In his
criticism on Adam Smith, and his arguments for a system of moderate
protective duties associated with the deliberate policy of promoting
national interests, his work was the inspiration of Friedrich List,
and so the foundation of the economic system of Germany in a later
day, and again, still later, of the policy of Tariff Reform and
Colonial Preference in England, as advocated by Mr Chamberlain and
his supporters. See the detailed account given in the article
PROTECTION.

[12] That is, while Jefferson hated British aristocracy and
sympathized with French democracy, Hamilton hated French democracy
and sympathized with British aristocracy and order; but neither
wanted war; and indeed Jefferson, throughout life, was the more
peaceful of the two. Neutrality was in the line of commonplace
American thinking of that time, as may be seen in the writings of all
the leading men of the day. The cry of "British Hamilton" had no good
excuse whatever.

[13] e.g. his prediction in 1789 of the course of the French
Revolution; his judgments of Burr from 1792 onward, and of Burr and
Jefferson in 1800.

[14] After the Democrats won New York in 1799, Hamilton proposed to
Governor John Jay to call together the out-going Federalist
legislature, in order to choose Federalist presidential electors, a
suggestion which Jay simply endorsed: "Proposing a measure for party
purposes which it would not become me to adopt."--_Works_, x. 371 (8:
549). Compare also with later developments of ward politics in New
York City, Hamilton's curious suggestions as to Federalist charities,
&c., in connexion with the Christian Constitutional Society proposed
by him in 1802 to combat irreligion and democracy (_Works_, x. 432
(8: 596).

[15] Hamilton's widow, who survived him for half a century, dying at
the age of ninety-seven, was left with four sons and four daughters.
He had been an affectionate husband and father, though his devotion
to his wife had been consistent with occasional lapses from strict
marital fidelity. One intrigue into which he drifted in 1791, with a
Mrs Reynolds, led to the blackmailing of Hamilton by her husband; and
when this rascal, shortly afterwards, got into trouble for fraud, his
relations with Hamilton were unscrupulously misrepresented for
political purposes by some of Hamilton's opponents. But Hamilton
faced the necessity of revealing the true state of things with
conspicuous courage, and the scandal only reacted on his accusers.
One of them was Monroe, whose reputation comes very badly out of this
unsavoury affair.

[16] In later years he said no debt should be incurred without
providing simultaneously for its payment.

[17] He warmly supported the Alien and Sedition Laws of 1798 (in
their final form).

[18] The idea, he wrote to Washington, was "one of those visionary
things none but madmen could undertake, and that no wise man will
believe" (1792). And see his comments on Burr's ambitions, _Works_,
x. 417, 450 (8: 585, 610). We may accept as just, and applicable to
his entire career, the statement made by himself in 1803 of his
principles in 1787: "(1) That the political powers of the people of
this continent would endure nothing but a representative form of
government. (2) That, in the actual situation of the country, it was
itself right and proper that the representative system should have a
full and fair trial. (3) That to such a trial it was essential that
the government should be so constructed as to give it all the energy
and the stability reconcilable with the principles of that theory."

[19] Cf. Gouverneur Morris, _Diary and Letters_, ii. 455, 526, 531.

[20] Cf. even Mr Lodge's judgments, pp. 90-92, 115-116, 122, 130,
140. When he says (p. 140) that "In Hamilton's successful policy
there were certainly germs of an aristocratic republic, there were
certainly limitations and possibly dangers to pure democracy," this
is practically Jefferson's assertion (1792) that "His system flowed
from principles adverse to liberty"; but Jefferson goes on to add:
"and was calculated to undermine and demolish the republic." As to
the intent of Hamilton to secure through his financial measures the
political support of property, his own words are honest and clear;
and in fact he succeeded. Jefferson merely had exaggerated fears of a
moneyed political engine, and seeing that Hamilton's measures of
funding and assumption did make the national debt politically useful
to the Federalists in the beginning he concluded that they would seek
to fasten the debt on the country for ever.

[21] Cf. Gouv. Morris, _op. cit._ ii. 474.

[22] He dreamed of saving the country with an army in this crisis of
blood and iron, and wished to preserve unweakened the public
confidence in his personal bravery.

[23] His own words in 1802. In justification of the above statements
see the correspondence of 1800-1804 _passim_--_Works_, vol. ix.-x.
(or 7-8); especially x. 363, 425, 434, 440, 445 (or 8: 543, 591, 596,
602, 605).

[24] Cf. Anson D. Morse, article cited below, pp. 4, 18-21.

[25] Chancellor Kent tells us (_Memoirs and Letters_, p. 32) that in
1804 Hamilton was planning a co-operative Federalist work on the
history and science of government on an inductive basis. Kent always
speaks of Hamilton's legal thinking as deductive, however (ibid. p.
290, 329), and such seems to have been in fact all his political
reasoning: i.e. underlying them were such maxims as that of Hume,
that in erecting a stable government every citizen must be assumed a
knave, and be bound by self-interest to co-operation for the public
good. Hamilton always seems to be reasoning deductively from such
principles. He went too far and fast for even such a Federalist
disbeliever in democracy as Gouverneur Morris; who, to Hamilton's
assertion that democracy must be cast out to save the country,
replied that "such necessity cannot be shown by a political
ratiocination. Luckily, or, to speak with a reverence proper to the
occasion, providentially, mankind are not disposed to embark the
blessings they enjoy on a voyage of syllogistic adventure to obtain
something more beautiful in exchange. They must feel before they will
act" (_op. cit._ ii. 531).

HAMILTON, ANTHONY, or ANTOINE (1646-1720), French classical author, was born about 1646. He is especially noteworthy from the fact that, though by birth he was a foreigner, his literary characteristics are more decidedly French than those of many of the most indubitable Frenchmen. His father was George Hamilton, younger brother of James, 2nd earl of Abercorn, and head of the family of Hamilton in the peerage of Scotland, and 6th duke of Chatellerault in the peerage of France; and his mother was Mary Butler, sister of the 1st duke of Ormonde. According to some authorities he was born at Drogheda, but according to the London edition of his works in 1811 his birthplace was Roscrea, Tipperary. From the age of four till he was fourteen the boy was brought up in France, whither his family had removed after the execution of Charles I. The fact that, like his father, he was a Roman Catholic, prevented his receiving the political promotion he might otherwise have expected on the Restoration, but he became a distinguished member of that brilliant band of courtiers whose chronicler he was to become. He took service in the French army, and the marriage of his sister Elizabeth, "la belle Hamilton," to Philibert, comte de Gramont (q.v.) rendered his connexion with France more intimate, if possible, than before. On the accession of James II. he obtained an infantry regiment in Ireland, and was appointed governor of Limerick and a member of the privy council. But the battle of the Boyne, at which he was present, brought disaster on all who were attached to the cause of the Stuarts, and before long he was again in France--an exile, but at home. The rest of his life was spent for the most part at the court of St Germain and in the _chateaux_ of his friends. With Ludovise, duchesse du Maine, he became an especial favourite, and it was at her seat at Sceaux that he wrote the _Memoires_ that made him famous. He died at St Germain-en-Laye on the 21st of April 1720.

It is mainly by the _Memoires ducomte de Gramont_ that Hamilton takes rank with the most classical writers of France. It was said to have been written at Gramont's dictation, but it is very evident that Hamilton's share is the most considerable. The work was first published anonymously in 1713 under the rubric of Cologne, but it was really printed in Holland, at that time the great patroness of all questionable authors. An English translation by Boyer appeared in 1714. Upwards of thirty editions have since appeared, the best of the French being Renouard's (1812), forming part of a collected edition of Hamilton's works, and Gustave Brunet's (1859), and the best of the English, Edwards's (1793), with 78 engravings from portraits in the royal collections at Windsor and elsewhere, A. F. Bertrand de Moleville's (2 vols., 1811), with 64 portraits by E. Scriven and others, and Gordon Goodwin's (2 vols., 1903). The original edition was reprinted by Benjamin Pifteau in 1876. In imitation and satiric parody of the romantic tales which Antoine Galland's translation of _The Thousand and One Nights_ had brought into favour in France, Hamilton wrote, partly for the amusement of Henrietta Bulkley, sister of the duchess of Berwick, to whom he was much attached, four ironical and extravagant _contes_, _Le Belier_, _Fleur d'epine_, _Zeneyde_ and _Les Quatre Facardins_. The saying in _Le Belier_' "Belier, mon ami, tu me ferais plaisir si tu voulais commencer par le commencement," has passed into a proverb. These tales were circulated privately during Hamilton's lifetime, and the first three appeared in Paris in 1730, ten years after the death of the author; a collection of his _Oeuvres diverses_ in 1731 contained the unfinished _Zeneyde_. Hamilton was also the author of some songs as exquisite in their way as his prose, and interchanged amusing verses with the duke of Berwick. In the name of his niece, the countess of Stafford, Hamilton maintained a witty correspondence with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.

See notices of Hamilton in Lescure's edition (1873) of the _Contes_,
Sainte-Beuve's _Causeries du lundi_, tome i., Sayou's _Histoire de la
litterature francaise a l'etranger_ (1853), and by L. S. Auger in the
_Oeuvres completes_ (1804).

HAMILTON, ELIZABETH (1758-1816), British author, was born at Belfast, of Scottish extraction, on the 21st of July 1758. Her father's death in 1759 left his wife so embarrassed that Elizabeth was adopted in 1762 by her paternal aunt, Mrs Marshall, who lived in Scotland, near Stirling. In 1788 Miss Hamilton went to live with her brother Captain Charles Hamilton (1753-1792), who was engaged on his translation of the _Hedaya_. Prompted by her brother's associations, she produced her _Letters of a Hindoo Rajah_ in 1796. Soon after, with her sister Mrs Blake, she settled at Bath, where she published in 1800 the _Memoirs of Modern Philosophers_, a satire on the admirers of the French Revolution. In 1801-1802 appeared her _Letters on Education_. After travelling through Wales and Scotland for nearly two years, the sisters took up their abode in 1803 at Edinburgh. In 1804 Mrs Hamilton, as she then preferred to be called, published her _Life of Agrippina, wife of Germanicus_; and in the same year she received a pension from government. _The Cottagers of Glenburnie_ (1808), which is her best-known work, was described by Sir Walter Scott as "a picture of the rural habits of Scotland, of striking and impressive fidelity." She also published _Popular Essays on the Elementary Principles of the Human Mind_ (1812), and _Hints addressed to the Patrons and Directors of Public Schools_ (1815). She died at Harrogate on the 23rd of July 1816.

_Memoirs of Mrs Elizabeth Hamilton_, by Miss Benger, were published in
1818.

HAMILTON, EMMA, LADY (c. 1765-1815), wife of Sir William Hamilton (q.v.), the British envoy at Naples, and famous as the mistress of Nelson, was the daughter of Henry Lyon, a blacksmith of Great Neston in Cheshire. The date of her birth cannot be fixed with certainty, but she was baptized at Great Neston on the 12th of May 1765, and it is not improbable that she was born in that year. Her baptismal name was Emily. As her father died soon after her birth, the mother, who was dependent on parish relief, had to remove to her native village, Hawarden in Flintshire. Emma's early life is very obscure. She was certainly illiterate, and it appears that she had a child in 1780, a fact which has led some of her biographers to place her birth before 1765. It has been said that she was first the mistress of Captain Willet Payne, an officer in the navy, and that she was employed in some doubtful capacity by a notorious quack of the time, Dr Graham. In 1781 she was the mistress of a country gentleman, Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh, who turned her out in December of that year. She was then pregnant, and in her distress she applied to the Hon. Charles Greville, to whom she was already known. At this time she called herself Emily Hart. Greville, a gentleman of artistic tastes and well known in society, entertained her as his mistress, her mother, known as Mrs Cadogan, acting as housekeeper and partly as servant. Under the protection of Greville, whose means were narrowed by debt, she acquired some education, and was taught to sing, dance and act with professional skill. In 1782 he introduced her to his friend Romney the portrait painter, who had been established for several years in London, and who admired her beauty with enthusiasm. The numerous famous portraits of her from his brush may have somewhat idealised her apparently robust and brilliantly coloured beauty, but her vivacity and powers of fascination cannot be doubted. She had the temperament of an artist, and seems to have been sincerely attached to Greville. In 1784 she was seen by his uncle, Sir William Hamilton, who admired her greatly. Two years later she was sent on a visit to him at Naples, as the result of an understanding between Hamilton and Greville--the uncle paying his nephew's debts and the nephew ceding his mistress. Emma at first resented, but then submitted to the arrangement. Her beauty, her artistic capacity, and her high spirits soon made her a great favourite in the easy-going society of Naples, and Queen Maria Carolina became closely attached to her. She became famous for her "attitudes," a series of _poses plastiques_ in which she represented classical and other figures. On the 6th of September 1791, during a visit to England, she was married to Sir W. Hamilton. The ceremony was required in order to justify her public reception at the court of Naples, where Lady Hamilton played an important part as the agent through whom the queen communicated with the British minister--sometimes in opposition to the will and the policy of the king. The revolutionary wars and disturbances which began after 1792 made the services of Lady Hamilton always useful and sometimes necessary to the British government. It was claimed by her, and on her behalf, that she secured valuable information in 1796, and was of essential service to the British fleet in 1798 during the Nile campaign, by enabling it to obtain stores and water in Sicily. These claims have been denied on the rather irrelevant ground that they are wanting in official confirmation, which was only to be expected since they were _ex hypothesi_ unofficial and secret, but it is not improbable that they were considerably exaggerated, and it is certain that her stories cannot always be reconciled with one another or with the accepted facts. When Nelson returned from the Nile in September 1798 Lady Hamilton made him her hero, and he became entirely devoted to her. Her influence over him indeed became notorious, and brought him much official displeasure. Lady Hamilton undoubtedly used her influence to draw Nelson into a most unhappy participation in the domestic troubles of Naples, and when Sir W. Hamilton was recalled in 1800 she travelled with him and Nelson ostentatiously across Europe. In England Lady Hamilton insisted on making a parade of her hold over Nelson. Their child, Horatia Nelson Thompson, was born on the 30th of January 1801. The profuse habits which Emma Hamilton had contracted in Naples, together with a passion for gambling which grew on her, led her into debt, and also into extravagant ways of living, against which her husband feebly protested. On his death in 1803 she received by his will a life rent of L800, and the furniture of his house in Piccadilly. She then lived openly with Nelson at his house at Merton. Nelson tried repeatedly to secure her a pension for the services rendered at Naples, but did not succeed. On his death she received Merton, and an annuity of L500, as well as the control of the interest of the L4000 he left to his daughter. But gambling and extravagance kept her poor. In 1808 her friends endeavoured to arrange her affairs, but in 1813 she was put in prison for debt and remained there for a year. A certain Alderman Smith having aided her to get out, she went over to Calais for refuge from her creditors, and she died there in distress if not in want on the 15th of January 1815.

AUTHORITIES.--_The Memoirs of Lady Hamilton_ (London, 1815) were the
work of an ill-disposed but well-informed and shrewd observer whose
name is not given. _Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson_, by J. C. Jefferson
(London, 1888) is based on authentic papers. It is corrected in some
particulars by the detailed recent life written by Walter Sichel,
_Emma, Lady Hamilton_ (London, 1905). See also the authorities given
in the article NELSON. (D. H.)

HAMILTON, JAMES (1769-1831), English educationist, and author of the Hamiltonian system of teaching languages, was born in 1769. The first part of his life was spent in mercantile pursuits. Having settled in Hamburg and become free of the city, he was anxious to become acquainted with German and accepted the tuition of a French emigre, General d'Angelis. In twelve lessons he found himself able to read an easy German book, his master having discarded the use of a grammar and translated to him short stories word for word into French. As a citizen of Hamburg Hamilton started a business in Paris, and during the peace of Amiens maintained a lucrative trade with England; but at the rupture of the treaty he was made a prisoner of war, and though the protection of Hamburg was enough to get the words _efface de la liste des prisonniers de guerre_ inscribed upon his passport, he was detained in custody till the close of hostilities. His business being thus ruined, he went in 1814 to America, intending to become a farmer and manufacturer of potash; but, changing his plan before he reached his "location," he started as a teacher in New York. Adopting his old tutor's method, he attained remarkable success in New York, Baltimore, Washington, Boston, Montreal and Quebec. Returning to England in July 1823, he was equally fortunate in Manchester and elsewhere. The two master principles of his method were that the language should be presented to the scholar as a living organism, and that its laws should be learned from observation and not by rules. His system attracted general attention, and was vigorously attacked and defended. In 1826 Sydney Smith devoted an article to its elucidation in the _Edinburgh Review_. As text-books for his pupils Hamilton printed interlinear translations of the Gospel of John, of an _Epitome historiae sacrae_, of Aesop's _Fables_, Eutropius, Aurelius Victor, Phaedrus, &c., and many books were issued as Hamiltonian with which he had nothing personally to do. He died on the 31st of October 1831.

See Hamilton's own account, _The History, Principles, Practice and
Results of the Hamiltonian System_ (Manchester, 1829; new ed., 1831);
Alberte, _Uber die Hamilton'sche Methode_; C. F. Wurm, _Hamilton und
Jacotot_ (1831).