Chapter IV: Part 4

In 1816 the Republican party in Massachusetts, which had once vehemently opposed him as president of the United States, paid him the compliment of placing his name at the head of their list of presidential electors. In 1820 he was chosen a member of the State Convention to revise the constitution of Massachusetts, which body unanimously solicited him to act as their president. This he declined on account of his age, but he was complimented by a vote of the convention acknowledging his great services, for a period of more than half a century, in the cause of his country and of mankind.

The last years of the long life of Mr. Adams were peaceful and tranquil. His mansion was always the abode of elegant hospitality, and he was occasionally enlivened by visits from his distinguished son, whom, in 1825, he had the singular felicity of seeing elevated to the office of President of the United States. At length, having lived to a good old age, he expired, surrounded by his affectionate relatives, on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of that independence which he had done so much to achieve. A short time before his death, being asked to suggest a toast for the customary celebration, he replied, "I will give you--Independence forever." Mr. Jefferson died on the same day. A similar coincidence occurred five years afterward, in the death of President Monroe, July 4, 1831.

Mr. Adams was of middle stature and full person, and when elected president, was bald on the top of his head. His countenance beamed with intelligence, and moral as well as physical courage. His walk was firm and dignified to a late period of his life. His manner was slow and deliberate, unless he was excited, and when this happened he expressed himself with great energy. He was ever a man of purest morals, and is said to have been a firm believer in Christianity, not from habit and example, but from diligent investigation of its proofs.

THOMAS JEFFERSON[5]

By HON. JOHN B. HENDERSON

(1743-1826)

[Footnote 5: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

]

Thomas Jefferson was born April 2, 1743, at Shadwell, Albemarle County, Va. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a descendant of a Welsh family which came to Virginia before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. The father's income was derived from a large farm adjoining that of William Randolph, whose daughter, Jane, he married in 1738. Monticello, the future residence of his son Thomas, was a part of this farm. Peter Jefferson was a leader among the men of his day and received expressions of public confidence from the voters of his county. He died in 1759, having directed that Thomas should complete his education in William and Mary College at Williamsburg, then the capital of the colony.

Thomas entered the college and by assiduous application he soon built upon the learning acquired in the public and private schools of his county, an education quite liberal and advanced for that period.

He was tall, and in youth somewhat awkward in manner. What he lacked, however, in personal grace was at once forgotten in the vivacity of his conversation, made doubly charming by the extent and variety of his learning. During his collegiate days he formed a close friendship with Patrick Henry, John Marshall, and others who afterward became distinguished in American history. He was always welcome in the house of Governor Fauquier, from whom he learned much of the social, political, and parliamentary life of the old world. It was here that he first met George Wythe, a gifted and talented young lawyer, who afterward became Chancellor of the State.

After leaving college he entered upon the study of the law in the office of his friend Mr. Wythe, and with this and the management of his father's estate he found himself abundantly occupied.

In 1767 he was admitted to the bar, and for several years devoted himself to the practice of his profession. It is quite probable that, in consequence of his inability to speak and his utter incapacity for forensic controversy, his career at the bar would not have reached the highest distinction. What he lacked, however, in the power of speech, found ample compensation in the strength, beauty, and elegance of expression which he commanded with the pen. This extraordinary talent was destined soon to find abundant employment in defending the rights of the people against the oppressive acts of the mother-country. Patrick Henry had already argued the "Parsons' Cause" in December, 1763, and Jefferson himself, as a college student at Williamsburg, had listened to the impassioned speech of Henry in the Virginia House of Burgesses against the Stamp Act of Parliament. But the fiery eloquence of his friend Henry only fanned a flame that already burned in the breast of Jefferson. Impulsive by nature, by education and training a democrat, he naturally espoused the cause of his countrymen. The peculiar condition of the colonies furnished the opportunity to Jefferson's wonderful faculty for writing. The orator could not be heard by all the people of the colonies; but the products of the pen could be carried to the most secluded hamlet. And truly in Jefferson's hands the pen was "mightier than the sword."

The first year after opening his law office, at the age of twenty-five, he was elected a member of the House of Burgesses from Albemarle, his native county, and on taking his seat the following May, the controversy between the royal governor and the assembly at once began. Jefferson prepared the resolutions in reply to the executive speech; and on the third day of the session the passage of other resolutions, in the form of a bill of rights, caused the governor to dissolve the assembly. Jefferson was again elected to the House of Burgesses, and in 1774, was elected a delegate to the State convention.

On account of illness he failed to reach the convention, but he prepared and forwarded to its president a draft of instructions which he hoped would be adopted for the guidance of those to be sent by the body as delegates to the General Congress of the colonies. For this paper, afterward published as "A Summary View of the Rights of British America," the name of Jefferson was inserted in a bill of attainder brought into the English Parliament.

After a short detention in the House of Burgesses, in which he drafted the reply of Virginia to the "conciliatory proposition" of Lord North, he proceeded to Philadelphia as a delegate to the General Congress, in which he took his seat on June 21, 1775.

When Jefferson entered the Congress, conditions existing between the mother country and the colonies had already reached the point of open rebellion. It is true that the taxes had all been repealed except the import tax on tea, but the repeals had been invariably accompanied with the assertion of an unlimited right to tax without the consent of the colonies. English troops had been quartered in Boston, and English war-ships occupied its harbor. The right of deportation to, and trial in, England for offences committed in America, was still claimed by both king and Parliament. The battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill had now been fought, and Washington had already been commissioned as commander-in-chief of the colonial armies.

In this condition of affairs Massachusetts and Virginia, in which had been most keenly felt the oppressive acts of the mother country, were quite ready for open and avowed rebellion. But in many of the other colonies the sense of loyalty and the ties of friendship were yet sufficiently strong to induce the hope of continued union.

It was therefore not until June 7, 1776, that Virginia, through Richard Henry Lee, introduced into Congress at Philadelphia the resolutions for a final separation; and a few days thereafter a committee was appointed to prepare the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson was placed at the head of this committee, his colleagues consisting of Adams, Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. The declaration was prepared by Jefferson, and when submitted to Dr. Franklin and John Adams for criticism, some verbal amendments suggested by them were made. It was then reported to Congress on June 28th, and after debate and other slight amendments by the body itself, it was adopted and signed on July 4, 1776.

Whatever the merits or demerits of the paper, it is essentially the work of Jefferson. It has been much criticised, both in its substance and its form. It is quite certain, however, that since its promulgation there has been, not only in the United States but abroad, a continually increasing tendency to accept and apply its principles in the practical affairs of government. As an eloquent arraignment of tyranny, a denunciation of oppression and an inspiration to resistance, it stands perhaps unequalled among the products of human intellect. As appropriately said by another, the paper is "consecrated in the affections of Americans and praise may seem as superfluous as censure would be unavailing."

So soon as the colonies had become united in the cause of forcible resistance, Jefferson returned to his own State to commence perhaps the most useful and beneficent work of his life. He had again been elected to Congress, but with the prescience of the seer, he chose the seemingly less important place of representative to the Legislature of his State. He took his seat on October 7, 1776. On the 11th of the same month he asked leave to present a bill to establish courts of justice in the State of Virginia; on the next day, to authorize tenants _en tail_ to convey their estates in fee simple. This was immediately followed by other bills for the utter overthrow of primogeniture and the whole law of entails.

His reformatory spirit did not stop with these radical measures. He found another danger in the conservatism and aristocratic tendencies of the established church of the State. In his judgment the whole body of law and custom inherited from England must be thoroughly exterminated, to the end that English influence might be driven from the land. In his judgment English institutions had been cunningly devised in the interest of monarchy. Their purpose, he believed, was to create and maintain distinctions in society, and to perpetuate and strengthen an aristocratic caste as the ally and support of the crown. So long as they existed there was constant danger of relapse from the high purposes of the rebellion. In Jefferson's regard, they were inconsistent with the principles of the revolution now proclaimed, and sooner or later would be found its open or secret enemies.

For these reforms the old aristocracy of his State denounced him as a Jacobin, and the established church denounced him as an infidel.

Jefferson continued to serve in the House of Delegates during the years 1777 and 1778, and in addition to the measures already named, he secured laws to establish elementary and collegiate education in the State, and to prohibit the further importation of slaves into Virginia. He also sought to inaugurate a system of gradual emancipation; but slavery was already so thoroughly engrafted on the social system of the people, that even Jefferson, Wythe, and Mason could not dislodge it. Jefferson, in 1821, referring to his failure in this regard, said: "it was found that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it bear it, even to this day; yet the day is not distant, when it must bear and adopt it, or worse will, follow. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free."

On retiring from the Legislature he was elected governor of the State. The period of his service in this position was unfortunate for his fame. He was essentially a civilian, neither having, nor pretending to have, military skill or knowledge. The war had now been transferred to the Southern States. Cornwallis had overrun Georgia and South Carolina, defeated Gates at Camden, and was pushing north for the desolation of Virginia. The State had already become impoverished by its liberal contributions of money, men, and arms to the general cause, and was now powerless for its own defence. The hated Benedict Arnold was able to ascend the James River to Richmond, dispersing the Legislature and burning the town. Tarleton afterward penetrated as far as Charlottesville--Jefferson and the Legislature narrowly escaping capture. Jefferson felt keenly the situation, and at the expiration of his term retired to Monticello, humiliated and overwhelmed by unjust criticism and undeserved censure. His gloom and melancholy were made still more sad at this period, by the death of his wife, whom he had married in 1772. But the privilege of neither obscurity nor rest was reserved for him. The winter session of 1783 found him again in the General Congress abolishing the English system of coinage and providing for the government of the Northwestern territory, which had been ceded to the confederation by Virginia.

In 1784 he was named as a minister plenipotentiary to Europe at large, to assist Adams and Franklin in the negotiation of commercial treaties. In 1785 he became minister to France in the place of Dr. Franklin, who had resigned; and in March, 1790, in pursuance of a previous acceptance, he entered the Cabinet of President Washington as Secretary of State.

Already the germs of two great conflicting parties had been sown. The debates in the convention that framed the Constitution, and still more manifestly the controversies in the State Conventions called to consider the adoption of the instrument, had developed the differences, which, in theory at least, have distinguished political parties ever since. The colonies had been chiefly settled by Englishmen. No people are more tenacious than they of preconceived opinions, or more averse to the abandonment of ancient forms and customs. A strong attachment to the institutions of England still remained with the people of the colonies. With many of them the whole object of the revolution was political separation from the mother country. They heartily desired independence and freedom, and they had willingly risked their lives to secure them. But the freedom they sought was the right, if they chose, to establish and perpetuate those cherished institutions of the mother-country for themselves. They would enjoy them still, and make them a lasting inheritance for their posterity, but free from the power and dominion of Europe.

Such persons had revolted not against England, but against England's wrongful acts; not against the authority of law, but against the perversion of law. To them the Declaration of Independence was a splendid piece of rhetoric intended only to inflame the mind with a sense of injury, and to nerve the heart to determined resistance. Like the Marseillaise hymn, it was merely to be repeated on entering the battle. Like the bugle blast, it served only to stimulate the soul and shut out all other sounds while the contest lasted. Not so with Jefferson and his followers. The Declaration of Independence truly reflected their political sentiments. To them the revolution meant something more than mere separation. It looked to the total repudiation of the English system of government, and the substitution of the rule of the people. They admitted the inefficiency of the articles of confederation, and were willing to accept nationality in a modified form. But to them the Constitution as framed in 1787 was armed with the most dangerous powers. They accepted it merely as a choice of evils, trusting by strict construction and future amendment to give it eventually the form and mould of their own views.

The President, in selecting his ministers, sought to compromise these antagonisms by giving the parties equal representation in his Cabinet. Between two such men, however, as Jefferson, his Secretary of State, and Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury, there could be no permanent co-operation. So eager, indeed, was Jefferson to inaugurate the controversy, that he really began the battle of strict construction before his peculiar principles had been seriously invaded. Time has long since demonstrated that, in his opposition to Hamilton's financial measures, he was clearly wrong. The truth seems to be, that in this branch of politics, Jefferson was without knowledge or practical skill.

In his discussions with the English minister touching violations of the late treaty of peace, and in the controversy with Spain in respect to the right of navigating the Mississippi River through her territory to the Gulf, Jefferson displayed his usual ability.

The declaration of war by France, now a republic, against England, precipitated upon the Government of the United States a number of difficult and troublesome questions of international law. They were especially irritating because of the personal feelings involved in their discussion and settlement. A profound sense of gratitude to France for assistance in the late revolutionary struggle, was felt by all classes in America, while the Republicans were especially open and undisguised in their expressions of sympathy for the French people. And but for the imprudent conduct of the French minister, Genet, the supremacy of the Federal party might have been seriously jeopardized in the beginning of Washington's second term. The conduct of this functionary was so insolent and exacting as to excite disgust for himself, and to cool in a marked degree the zeal of the Republicans in their support of the new republic.

While Jefferson's sympathy with France was perhaps too manifest, and while his personal conduct in the Cabinet touching this question was not altogether kind to the president, and in other respects liable to criticism, his correspondence with the French Government, when finally published, was found to have been based upon the highest principles of international right and dictated by a proper sense of the dignity and character of his own country.

Jefferson's proud nature had for several years, chafed under the continued success of Federal measures. Washington had manifestly ignored his counsel in the Cabinet, and favored Hamilton in the administration of the Government. Jefferson was piqued and chagrined beyond further endurance. He hated Hamilton with an intensity due only to an open enemy of the country.

In this state of mind, on December 31, 1793, he resigned from the Cabinet, and again sought the seclusion and quiet of his farm at Monticello. But his pen was never idle. He was untiring in the dissemination of his peculiar views of government. With emotions intensified by strong convictions of right his contributions to the political literature of the day were vigorous and peculiarly attractive. He continued to be the acknowledged leader of the Republican party, and was promptly named as its candidate for president in 1796, to succeed General Washington, who had declined a third term. Between him and John Adams, the candidate of the Federal party, the vote was very close, Adams receiving 71 electoral votes and Jefferson 68. Under the provisions of the Constitution as they existed at the time, Adams became President and Jefferson Vice-President.

During Adams' term were passed the Alien and Sedition laws, as well as others, unnecessary and of doubtful constitutionality, which proved to be fatal and ruinous mistakes of the Federal party. Jefferson and Madison's threats of State repudiation against Federal legislation, as enunciated in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions, furnished good arguments, of course, for the continued existence of a truly national party. But the seeds of decay had been sown. Adams was vain, impulsive, rash, and violent. Jefferson was far more deliberate, with larger views of statesmanship and a better knowledge of the people. He had abundant cunning and the ready adaptation of partisan skill.

In a contest of four years between such leaders, it is not strange that when the election of 1800 came on, Jefferson should receive 73 electoral votes while Adams received but 65.

Although Jefferson was elected over Adams, he was not yet elected over Aaron Burr, who had received an equal number of votes for president with himself. In reality no vote had been intended for Burr as President--the purpose being to elect Jefferson President and Burr Vice-President.

Under the constitutional provision already referred to, the election was remitted to the House of Representatives. Finally, by the aid of Hamilton, who only hated Jefferson less than he hated Burr, the controversy was decided in favor of the former.

The moment Jefferson became president his whole character seemed to be changed. Instead of the relentless partisan of the past, he became the apostle of benevolence and charity. His inaugural address, in that florid rhetoric of which he was master, enunciated principles of government to which no friend of human liberty could object. The spirit of conciliation breathed in every sentence. "Every difference of opinion," he said, "is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principles. We are all Republicans--we are all Federalists.... Let us then, with courage and confidence, pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to our Union and representative government."

The short-lived peace of Europe had re-established American commerce on the ocean, and general prosperity pervaded all departments of business. Indeed, the wise moderation of the president had brought the most agreeable disappointment to his enemies. Federalists were not removed from office for political reasons, and the country settled down into the conviction that Republican success after all, might prove to be a beneficent change.

As already stated, the Northwest territory, extending from the Ohio to the Mississippi River, had formerly belonged to Virginia, and perhaps no public man of his day so well understood as did Jefferson, the importance and needs of that vast domain. Spain, as the owner of Louisiana, held supreme control of New Orleans and the lower Mississippi.

While Secretary of State under Washington, Jefferson would have been content with the acquisition of the Island of New Orleans, and the free navigation of the Mississippi River. Circumstances had now changed. He was himself president. Spain had suddenly conveyed Louisiana to France, and Napoleon was meditating the abrogation of the peace of Amiens and the declaration of war against England. In such a war France could not well retain her distant possessions against the superior naval power of her old and grasping enemy. Napoleon had a property which in case of war, he was likely to lose. He had resolved on war, and for that purpose needed money, which, fortunately, the American Treasury could furnish at once.

Instead of the Island of New Orleans the President's dream now embraced the whole of the Louisiana purchase, extending from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean.

Livingston, of New York, the associate of Jefferson, in 1776, on the Committee to frame the Declaration of Independence, was now Minister to France, but he was unfortunately embarrassed by his committal to the acquisition of New Orleans alone. Monroe's term, as Governor of Virginia, had just expired. He had formerly served the country most acceptably at the French court. He was the devoted friend, personally and politically, of Jefferson. They were both committed to the "strict construction" theory of the Constitution. This narrow view of the instrument, on which their party had come into power, absolutely forbade the acquisition of territory by purchase. But Louisiana was necessary not only to the growth, but to the maintenance of the Union. It mattered not that the professions of the Republican party had to be violated. The prize outweighed the virtue of party consistency. Jefferson himself was forced to admit the want of power, but having resolved on the act, he said: "The less that is said about any constitutional difficulty the better." Again he said: "It will be desirable for Congress to do what is necessary in silence."

With these views he despatched Monroe to Paris. For obvious reasons written instructions were avoided; but it is quite certain that unlimited discretion to the Minister had resulted from a careful comparison of views.

It was under these circumstances that in 1803 the vast domain known as "The Louisiana Purchase" was obtained by the United States for the paltry consideration of fifteen million dollars.

This of itself added immensely to Jefferson's popularity. Internal taxation had been abolished. Rigid economy of administration had been introduced. The public debt was in the course of rapid extinction. The rigorous ceremonials of former administrations had given place to the simplest forms, and the temples of power had been made accessible to the humblest citizen. The country enjoyed great prosperity, and a spirit of contentment pervaded the land.

Jefferson's second election, in 1804, was almost without opposition--his vote being 162 to 14 for C. C. Pinckney, the Federal candidate.

The second term of the President was far less successful than the first. A political exigency in France had forced the sale of Louisiana, and its opportune purchase had given Jefferson unbounded popularity, and linked his name with the future greatness of his country. But the impending hostilities producing that exigency had now been declared. France and England were again in open war, and each, to wound the other, had recklessly trampled upon the rights of the United States. English orders in council blockaded the ports of France, and Napoleon's Berlin decrees equally closed those of England against neutral commerce. The right of search was claimed by both powers, and offensively exercised by England. Time had now brought its inevitable revenges. Jefferson was again confronted by conditions in which he manifested more or less of weakness and incapacity. In peace his statesmanship was always creditable, and at times, truly magnificent. In the presence of war he was too often vacillating and incompetent. The embargo on the commerce of his own country, which he suggested, was hardly less injurious than the wrongs of which he complained. The remedy was worse, if possible, than the disease.

Aaron Burr, in contesting for the presidency in 1801, had forfeited the confidence of his own party, and for killing Hamilton in a duel in 1804, he had incurred the hatred of the Federalists, and lost the respect of all parties. In his desperation he had organized an expedition to proceed down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers with a view, as was supposed, of invading Mexico, or segregating from the United States a portion of its territory. He was arrested for treason and brought to Richmond, where he was finally tried for a high misdemeanor in organizing forces against Spain within the United States. In this prosecution, as in the impeachment of Judge Chase of the Supreme Court, executive encouragement and aid were offensively open and notorious.

When the embargo had almost ruined the commercial States of the Union, it was modified by a non-intercourse act with France and England, to take effect on March 4, 1809, the last day of Jefferson's term.

At the close of his second term Jefferson permanently retired from office, and spent his remaining years at Monticello.

By a singular coincidence both he and John Adams died on July 4, 1826, just fifty years after they had signed the Declaration of Independence.

The brief facts already recited clearly indicate the character of the man. He was a bold and original thinker. With him mere precedent was without weight. By nature he was a democrat, plain, simple, and unostentatious. He not only believed in the capacity of the people for self-government, but in their honest wish to govern aright. In the struggle of the Revolution his devotion to the rights of the people against English tyranny took the form of religious enthusiasm. In France he witnessed the sufferings and misery of the down-trodden poor, whose wild vengeance he believed to be justified by the long ages of oppression and wrong under which they had groaned.

He distrusted power and naturally sought to restrict its exercise. Hating monarchy, he feared to delegate large powers of government even in republican forms. Hating an aristocracy, he encouraged the masses to demand equality in civil, political, and social rights.

His political inconsistencies resulted from the usual impossibility of reconciling theory and practice. When his opponents were in power, their purposes, he thought, were accomplished through violations of the constitution. An equally dangerous exercise of power by his friends failed to excite his alarm. Feeling conscious within himself of an honest purpose to subserve the good of the people and to perpetuate their liberties, he found ready justification for every act having, in his judgment, those ends in view.

America has produced no man so dear to the masses of its people as Thomas Jefferson. He was an iconoclast, but the images broken by him were the idols of a past age, and no longer deserved the worship of a free people.

[Signature of the author.]

ALEXANDER HAMILTON

(1757-1804)

]

The parentage of Alexander Hamilton is given by his son and biographer as of mingled Scottish and French ancestry--Scottish on the father's side, Huguenot on the mother's. Students of the doctrine of temperaments may find something to ponder over in such a fusion under the genial ray of the southern sun. Given the key, they may unlock with it many cabinets in the idiosyncrasy of the future Hamilton; Scottish perseverance and integrity, French honor and susceptibility, tropical fervor. Be that as it may, Alexander Hamilton first saw the light in the West India island, St. Christopher, January 11, 1757. His father was a trader or captain, sailing between the islands of the archipelago, whose business brought him into relation with Nicholas Cruger, a wealthy merchant of Santa Cruz, in intimate relation with New York, in whose counting-house the son was placed at the age of twelve. He was a boy of quick intellect, in advance of his years, and had already made much of limited opportunities of instruction, as we may learn from an exceedingly well-penned epistle, addressed thus early to a school-fellow who had found his way to New York. In this remarkable letter, the boy seems to have written with prophetic instinct. "To confess my weakness, Ned," he says, "my ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though not my character, to exalt my station.... I mean to prepare the way for futurity.... I shall conclude by saying, I wish there was a war." This may be regarded as a boyish rhapsody; but all boys are not given to such rhapsodies.

The clerk had his hours for study as well as for the counting-room, and doubtless practised his pen in composition, for we hear of his writing an account of a fearful hurricane which visited the island, a narrative which appears to have been published, since it attracted the attention of the governor. These evidences of talent determined his friends to send him to New York to complete his education. He came, landing at Boston in the autumn of 1772, and was received at New York by the correspondents of Dr. Knox, a clergyman who had become interested in his welfare in Santa Cruz. He was immediately introduced to the school of Francis Barber, at Elizabethtown, where he enjoyed the society of the Boudinots, Livingstons, and other influential people of the colony. He studied early, and at the close of the year presented himself to Doctor Witherspoon, at Princeton, with a request to be permitted to overleap some of the usual collegiate terms according to his qualifications. As this was contrary to the usage of the place, he entered King's College, now Columbia, in New York, with the special privileges he desired. In addition to the usual studies, he attended the anatomical course of Clossey. Colonel Troup, at this time his room-fellow, testifies to his earnest religious feeling, a very noticeable thing in a youth of his powers. He wrote verses freely--among them doggerel burlesques of the productions of the ministerial writers of the day.

The Revolution was now fairly getting under way, and in the opening tumultuous scenes in New York, strong hands were wanted at the wheel. Hamilton, at the age of seventeen, in 1774, did not hesitate in making his decision. He entered the field against the dashing young president of the college, Myles Cooper, of convivial memory, in a reply in Holt's _Gazette_ to some Tory manifesto of that divine. About this time, after the adjournment of Congress, at the close of the year, he also published a pamphlet in vindication of the measures of Congress, against the attacks of Seabury and Wilkins. The contest, however, was one which was not to be decided by the pen alone. The old prerogative lawyers and divines were not to be shaken out of their seats by the constitutional arguments of such young counsellors as Hamilton and Jay. The hard hands of the committee of mechanics were much more demonstrative. Myles Cooper, Seabury, and their brethren very naturally suspected the logic, and laughed at the novel measures of the day by which the popular party in their restrictive, non-importation measures proposed to dispense with the wisdom of Lords and Commons, and starve themselves into independence. It is well sometimes to look at that side of the question, too.

But all the pooh-poohing in the world over the best wine in the colony, was not to stop the affair which had commenced. Volunteers were drilling, men of sound heads and stout hearts were getting ready for action. There were certain cannon to be removed from the Battery; Hamilton was engaged in the duty with his comrades, "Hearts of oak" they called themselves; a boat approached from the man-of-war Asia, in the harbor; the citizens fired; the fire was returned from the ship, and one of Hamilton's company was killed. The Liberty Boys spread the alarm and gathered in a mob, threatening to attack the college and seize its president, Myles Cooper. Hamilton, who was no friend to riot, little as he was afraid of discussion or of force, interposed with a speech from the college steps, while the president, roused from his bed, half naked, took refuge on the shore, wandering over the island in the night to the old Stuyvesant mansion, whence he was the next day finally removed from America in his Majesty's vessel, the Kingfisher. The royal governor, Tryon, took refuge in the Asia shortly after.

Hamilton now turned his attention in earnest to military affairs, making choice of the artillery service, in which he gained some instruction from a British soldier, and by aid of the popular leader, McDougal, received from the convention the appointment of captain of the Provincial Company of Artillery. He had only recently completed his nineteenth year. It was early, but not so very early for a man of genius; for the child in such cases is the father of the man, and youth is an additional spur to exertion. But this was not all. The young captain was engaged, not only in the gymnastics of drilling recruits, but he was reading, thinking, and working out problems in political economy for himself--and the future. Dr. Johnson said that he learned little after eighteen; Hamilton would seem to have laid the foundation at least, of all his knowledge before twenty. "His military books of this period," says his son, "give an interesting exhibition of his train of thought. In the pay-book of his company, amid various general speculations and extracts from the ancients, chiefly relating to politics and war, are intermingled tables of political arithmetic, considerations on commerce, the value of the relative productions which are its objects, the balance of trade, the progress of population, and the principles on which depends the value of a circulating medium; and among his papers there remains a carefully digested outline of a plan for the political and commercial history of British America, compiled at this time." There is the germ in all this of the Secretary of the Treasury.

The battle of Long Island now ensued on the vain attempt to resist the landing of Howe and his British troops, followed by the masterly retreat of Washington, in which Hamilton brought up the rear. The subsequent American proceedings in the evacuation of the city, the passage from the island to Westchester, and the subsequent retreat before Cornwallis through the Jerseys under Washington, if they had little of glory, at least required their full share of military determination and endurance. Hamilton was active throughout the campaign. At White Plains and on the Raritan, at Trenton and Princeton, his artillery did good service. When he entered Morristown, his original company of a hundred was reduced by the accidents of war to twenty-five. Here, on March 1, 1777, leaving the line of the army, he became attached to the staff of Washington as his aid. This was the commencement of that half military, half civil relation which identified Hamilton in joint labors and councils with the Father of his Country.

Hamilton became, in fact, the right-hand man of Washington, not only during the war, but throughout his subsequent political career, and no better proof than this can be had at once of the sagacity of Washington in selecting his instruments, and of the honor and worth of Hamilton in so long and so successfully maintaining this distinguished position. In the staff of the commander-in-chief, Hamilton, we are told, acquired the title, "The Little Lion." His spirit and courage were shown in numerous instances, particularly in the battle of Monmouth, where Lee exposed bravery to such violent hazards, an affair out of which grew a duel between that officer and Colonel John Laurens, one of Washington's aids, in which Hamilton was the second of his friend and associate. Nor was Hamilton's counsel less serviceable in interviews with the French officers, and those frequent negotiations with the different portions of the army, and with Congress, which were among the hardest necessities of Washington's campaigns.

The relation of Hamilton to Washington, as a member of his military family, was suddenly brought to a termination at head-quarters on the Hudson, in February, 1781. The difference arose in a momentary forgetfulness of temper on the part of Washington. For some purpose of consultation he required the presence of Hamilton, who was detained from keeping the appointment on the instant, for it appears to have been a delay of but a few moments. Washington, however, was impatient, and meeting Hamilton at the head of the stairs, angrily exclaimed, "Colonel Hamilton, you have kept me waiting at the head of the stairs these ten minutes; I must tell you, sir, you treat me with disrespect." Hamilton firmly replied, "I am not conscious of it, sir; but since you have thought it necessary to tell me so, we part." "Very well, sir," said Washington, "if it be your choice," or something to that effect, and the friends separated. Washington immediately opened the way for the Secretary's continuance at his post, but, without any feeling of asperity, the overture was declined. Hamilton, however, proffered his services and counsel. With no other man than Washington, indeed, could the subordinate relation have continued so long, and Hamilton had often thought of renouncing it; but he saw in Washington the man for the times, the great representative of a great cause, for which minor considerations must be sacrificed. Writing at this moment to Schuyler, he says, "The General is a very honest man; his competitors have slender abilities and less integrity. His popularity has often been essential to the safety of America, and is still of great importance to it. These considerations have influenced my past conduct respecting him, and will influence my future. I think it is necessary he should be supported."

Hamilton was now desirous to resume active service in the line, and after some discussion as to rank, received the command of a New York battalion of light infantry, which he led right manfully at the siege of Yorktown. He was anxious to signalize himself at this crowning act of the war by some distinguished exercise of bravery, and when, at an advanced period of the approaches, a redoubt was to be stormed, he eagerly solicited the forlorn hope from Washington. Advancing to the charge with characteristic spirit, at the point of the bayonet, exposed to a heavy fire, he struggled through the ditch, and surmounting the defences, took the work in the most brilliant manner. He gallantly arrested the slaughter at the first moment, and thus placed his humanity upon a level with his bravery.

The war being now brought to an end, Hamilton turned his attention to the law, and in a few months' ardent devotion--the devotion of Hamilton was always ardent--at Albany to the study with the aid of his friend, Colonel Troup, and the stimulus of his recent marriage, qualified himself thoroughly for the practice of the profession. He was admitted to the Supreme Court at its July term, 1782. About the same time, at the solicitation of Robert Morris, the financier of Congress, he accepted the appointment of receiver of the continental taxes in the State of New York, with the understanding that his exertions were to be employed in impressing upon the Legislature the wants and objects of the Government. In pursuance of this, he urged resolutions which were unanimously adopted in July, 1782, recommending the call of a convention for the purpose of revising and amending the Articles of Confederation. He was also elected by the Legislature of this year a member of Congress. He bore an active part in its debates, and was greatly employed in its important financial measures.

On the final departure of the British from New York, in 1783, Hamilton became a resident of the city with his family, and devoted himself assiduously to the practice of his profession. He was constantly, however, looked to as a public man. We find him, in 1784, appealing to the public under the signature of Phocion, in favor of more liberal and enlightened views in regard to the loyalists of the late Revolution, and their rights of property. In 1786 he is a member of the State Assembly, and in September of the same year among the delegates of the five States which, at the instance of Virginia, met at Annapolis to confer on the commercial interests of the country; a too limited representation, indeed, to achieve the objects in view, but the precursor of the great Federal Convention at Philadelphia of the following year.

We have seen Hamilton's early studies of the theoretical workings of government. His practical experience, in the army of Washington, of the imperfections of Congress and the defects of the old confederation, was not likely to let him forget the subject. Authority in government, rules in legislation, financial measures, taxes, loans, and a bank, were topics constantly before his mind. The Convention of 1787 gave him, at length, the wished-for opportunity to enter upon a full discussion of his plans in a cause and before an audience worthy of his powers. Washington was the presiding officer, Franklin was in attendance; it was a congregation of notables--Rufus King, Oliver Ellsworth, Roger Sherman, William Livingston, Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris, John Dickinson, Luther Martin, James Madison, George Wythe, John Rutledge, and others as worthy. Much has been said of Hamilton's course in this Convention, and of his advocacy of monarchical views. It is true that a plan of government which he supported in a speech of length and eloquence, provided several features, as the life tenure of the President and senators, and the appointment of State officers by the General Government, which, in the interpretation of some minds, as Patrick Henry used to express it, "was an awful squinting toward monarchy;" but, on the other hand, it should be remembered that the Convention was a meeting for consultation, with closed doors, in a committee of the whole, in which perfect freedom in the interchange of views was desirable; that, in the view of our own day, other members displayed heresies quite as obnoxious, and that in the final resolves of the Constitution, Hamilton, with the others, yielded his prejudices, and became the firm defender of the instrument as it was adopted, and substantially now stands.

Remember the age of Hamilton at this time--twenty-nine; a greater prodigy in the Convention at Philadelphia than the youth in the army of Washington. To no one probably are we more indebted for the Constitution than to Hamilton. The Convention which laid the instrument before the country for its adoption had scarcely adjourned, when, in company with Madison and Jay, he took up the pen in its explanation and defence, in the celebrated series of papers, "The Federalist," originally published in the New York _Daily Advertiser_. Hamilton began and closed the work. Of its eighty-five papers much the greater portion, it is believed, were written by him.

The discussion of the financial and military powers, the executive and the judiciary, fell to his pen. In the New York Convention he was again the efficient advocate of the adoption of the Constitution. In a separate series of papers, signed Philo Publius, published in another journal, Hamilton, assisted by his friends, met various objections, the discussion of which would have marred the unity of "The Federalist," which was thus left a classical commentary upon the Constitution.

Having been thus instrumental in forming the Constitution, Hamilton was destined to be one of the most active agents of its powers. When the new government went into operation, under its provisions he was summoned by Washington, to the discharge of one of the most onerous duties of the department, in his appointment as Secretary of the Treasury. He continued in office six years, marking his administration--for such it was in his province--by his report and measures for the funding of the public debt, the excise revenue system, which he was called upon to assert in arms during the insurrection of Western Pennsylvania, and the creation of a National Bank. His reports on these subjects, and on manufactures, in which he advocated protection, are among the most important contributions of their kind to our national archives. In allusion to the financial measures of Hamilton, and their success at the time in the welfare of the country, Daniel Webster, in a speech at New York, half a century afterward, exclaimed: "He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the public, and it sprung upon its feet."

The measures of Hamilton, however, were not adopted without opposition. Jefferson was their persistent opponent; local interests and State pretensions arose to thwart the measures of Government, and gave birth to the party feuds of Federalism and its opponents. A growing element of disaffection was added to the political caldron in the relations with England and the disturbing influences of the principles of the French Revolution. Hamilton bore the brunt of much of this popular opposition, which came to a crisis in the discussions attending the British Treaty of Jay, in 1794, as he defended its provisions in the papers signed "Camillus," while it was before the country, and advocated its leading neutrality principles in "The Letters of Pacificus," published by him the previous year. When France had wearied out all indulgence by her aggressions on the high seas, and by her treatment of our ministers at Paris, and Washington was again called to the field in anticipation of an expected invasion, Hamilton was appointed second in command, and now employed himself in the organization of the army. On the death of Washington he became commander-in-chief. On the conclusion of a treaty with France the army disbanded.

In the intervals of these public duties, Hamilton was actively employed in his profession in the higher courts of the State. The late Chancellor Kent afterward recalled his "clear, elegant, and fluent style and commanding manner. He never made any argument in court without displaying his habit of thinking and resorting at once to some well-founded principle of law, and drawing his deductions logically from his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science, founded on established principles. His manners were gentle, affable, and kind. He appeared to be frank, liberal, and courteous in all his professional intercourse."

The last important trial in which Hamilton was engaged, the case of the People against Harry Croswell, in the Supreme Court, a few months before his untimely death, is memorable also for his maintenance of the right of juries to determine the law as well as the fact in cases of libel.

The party politics of the time had been broken up in the simplicity of their outline by the administration of John Adams. Aaron Burr was the most prominent intriguer in the field. He had attained the vice-presidency, and the choice hung for a while suspended between him and Jefferson for the presidency. Between the two, Hamilton, who had formed an unfavorable opinion of the character of Burr, preferred his old antagonist, Jefferson, and cast his influence accordingly. When Burr afterward sought the office of Governor of New York, in a contest with a member of his own Republican party, in which he relied upon the support of the Federalists, he was defeated by Hamilton, who made no secret of his opposition. Smarting under the failure of his intrigue, Burr determined to challenge the honest man who stood in his way to power. He had no ground of personal offence bringing Hamilton within any justifiable pretensions even of the lax code of the duellist. The expressions which he called upon him to avow or disavow, were vague, and were based upon the report of a person who specified neither time, place, nor the words. It was a loose matter of hearsay which was alleged--evidently a wanton provocation to a murderous duel. Burr demanded so broad a retraction from Hamilton of all he might have said, that compliance was impossible. It was an attempt to procure an indorsement of his character at the cost of the moral character of the indorser. Hamilton despised the manoeuvre, but perceiving that a meeting was forced upon him, and unhappily determining, contrary to his better judgment, that his usefulness would be destroyed in the public affairs of the times if he avoided the contest, fell into the fatal snare.

He executed his will, in which he made provision for his family and creditors, thinking tenderly of his wife, enjoining his children to bear in mind she had been to them the most devoted and best of mothers. On the night preceding the appointment he wrote a paper declaring his intention to throw away his fire, and acquitting himself before the world of the malice of the duellist, while he rested his conduct upon his usefulness to his country. The next morning, July 11th, they met at Weehawken; the weapons were pistols, the distance ten paces. The duel was fought within a few feet of the shore, in a woodland scene beneath the cliff opposite the present inhabited portion of New York, at a spot now traversed or closely approached by the river road, but then readily accessible only by water. Hamilton fell at the first fire, mortally wounded, his pistol-shot striking at random a twig some seven feet above the head of his antagonist. Burr fled, a wanderer over the earth. Hamilton was carried across the river, supported by Pendleton and Dr. Hosack, to the house of his friend, Mr. Bayard, at Greenwich. He was there enabled to take farewell of his family, and receive the last consolations of religion from the hands of Bishop Moore. He died on the afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 1804.

The reception of the fatal news sent a thrill of horror through the community. The brilliant, fiery youth of Hamilton, which had lighted his countrymen to victory and a place among the nations--Hamilton, the counsellor of Washington, the consummate statesman of the Constitution, the reliance of the State, the hope of the future: visions such as these were contrasted in the popular mind with his wretched fall. We perhaps darken the shades of the picture, for time and proof have added to the greatness of Hamilton, and Burr waited not for death to exhibit the penury of his fame. But the men who knew the heart of Hamilton, who saw in him the bulwark of the State, his contemporaries, wept his fate with no common lamentation. New York gave her public honors to his grave. Gouverneur Morris, with strenuous words, delivered the funeral oration by the side of his bier, under the portico of old Trinity; and Mason, the pulpit orator of his time, thundered his strong sentences at the crime which had robbed the world of Hamilton.

COUNT DE MIRABEAU[6]

By CHARLES S. HATHAWAY

(1749-1791)

[Footnote 6: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

]

Honore Gabriel Riquetti, Count de Mirabeau, one of the most eminent among the great authors, orators, and statesmen of France, was born on March 9, 1749 on his father's estate at Bignon, near Nemours.

The earliest of Mirabeau's ancestors of whom there is any notable record, was Jean Riquetti, a prominent merchant at Marseilles, who, in 1570, bought the chateau and estate of Mirabeau, near Pertuis, from the well-known Provencal family of Barras and who, a few years later, acquired the title of Esquire.

In 1685, one hundred and fifteen years after the purchase above mentioned, Honore Riquetti, lineal descendant of the Marseilles merchant, obtained the title of Marquis de Mirabeau, and there was born to this marquis a son, Jean Antoine Riquetti, who achieved a worthy record as a soldier, but whose prominent place in history is due to the fact that he was the grandfather of the great Mirabeau.