Chapter II (2)

Mr. Charles Francis Adams has placed before us, in his life of his grandfather, John Adams, a series of facts bearing upon this point with no ordinary significance. They are not brought forward in support of any such charge, but as raising a question for the consideration of his readers, whether it is not possible that in the pains he took to increase greatly the provisional forces authorized to meet our difficulties with France, and to convert the whole into a permanent military establishment; in the readiness with which he fell in with the scheme of Miranda, to conquer, through the joint operations of Great Britain and the United States, the Floridas, Louisiana, and the South American possessions of Spain, in case of a rupture between us and France; and in his prompt consent to take command of the troops to be so employed, General Hamilton was influenced by a desire to bring about the crisis to which he had always looked as one that would present a fit opportunity for the establishment here of the political institutions he preferred.

These are grave matters, and of a nature calculated to challenge a new and stricter examination of one of those critical periods which have often occurred in our history, and from which we have had so many providential deliverances. The subject is treated with becoming delicacy and great caution by the author, whose conclusion, of which we have only a hint, may possibly have been influenced by family traditions, tinctured unavoidably with strong personal prejudices but never wanting in intelligence. I will not undertake to speculate even as to what General Hamilton might have done or have left undone if he had found himself at the head of a large and permanent military force, and the country convulsed by those popular outbreaks, the expectation of which seems to have been never absent from his mind or from the minds of his disciples. He might have mounted his "hobby"--as Morris termed his passion for monarchical institutions--and have struck a blow in their behalf, acting in the spirit of other "strong minds" who, as Mr. C. F. Adams well and truly says, "seldom fail to associate with dreams of their own glory the modes of exercising power for the good of their fellow-men. Considering their happiness as mainly dependent upon a sense of security from domestic convulsions, his first aim would have been to gain that end at any rate, even if it should be done at some expense of their liberties." But looking at the subject with no other feeling than a sincere desire to arrive at a correct solution of the circumstances narrated by Mr. Adams, I cannot bring my mind to the conclusion referred to.

I can well conceive that Hamilton might have been led to avail himself of such a state of things for a _coup de main_ of some decided character if its existence had been brought about by others, or had been the result of fortuitous circumstances--a contingency which his mind had doubtless often contemplated. But I do not think that he would have planned or contributed to bring about such a state of things involving to so grave an extent the public order and the peace of the country. Such a course would have been at variance with some of his most cherished principles and inconsistent with his personal character. The preservation of order, and a respect for the individual rights of persons and of property, appeared always to be the objects of his greatest solicitude. It was only because he did not think that these could be effectually secured under any other form of government that he preferred monarchical institutions, acknowledging at the same time that they were at war with the principles of natural justice, and only allowable upon that of their absolute necessity to secure society against the occasional waywardness of a majority of its members. It was mainly because of the very erroneous opinions he had formed of the dispositions in this respect of a majority of his adopted countrymen that he was induced to devote his splendid talents to hopeless efforts to sustain principles so irreconcilable with those for which he had periled his life in the war of the Revolution. I say erroneous, not only because I think them such, but because experience, the only unerring test, has so proved them. We are, at the moment when I write, a half century from the transactions which form the subject of our consideration, and I venture nothing in saying that there is no country in Europe in which order has, in the interim, been better preserved, or the rights of persons and property been more secure, than in the United States; none in which the power of government has been more stable or more adequate to the purposes of its institution.

But this is a wide field, for which I have neither space nor time. It becomes me to remember, whilst occupied not without pleasure with these retrospective investigations and meditations, that I have already passed by several cheerful years, the allotted threescore-and-ten,--that period of such solemn import which the undeserved favor of an always kind Providence has permitted me to pass, not only with life but with the means and the faculties to enjoy life,--and that if I hope to complete the work before me I must confine myself more to the highway of my subject, and leave its by-paths to the explorations of younger men.

I cannot, nevertheless, refrain from a brief reference to transactions which have more than once occurred in this country, have made a greater impression on my mind than they seem to have made on others, and which I think have a strong bearing upon the question of the American love of order and respect for property and its rights. Although it is not probable that the facts of these can ever be sufficiently understood abroad to be correctly appreciated, it is otherwise here, and they are well worthy of our profoundest meditations. I allude to scenes which have been presented at San Francisco, which were at the moment of such thrilling interest, but appear already to have sunk into oblivion amid the ceaseless bustle and never-halting progress of American life.

Look at that young but already large and flourishing city! Regard her as she stood at the commencement of the extraordinary steps that were taken for her relief! Think of the scenes through which she was made to pass, and the condition to which she has been restored! An active and artful portion of her population thoroughly steeped in corruption, vice, and crime; her municipal authorities, the direct offspring of that corruption, not only regardless of duty but fraternizing with criminals, deriding the complaints of the injured, and scoffing at their prayers for official interference; despair succeeding hope, and the opinion that protection is at an end, and that nature may soon reassert her empire at length ripening into conviction in the breasts of the good of all classes; the general meeting of the citizens, and the appointment of the Committee of Vigilance with unlimited powers and subject to responsibility to no other tribunal than to the congregated mass of the people from whom they derive their authority and their power; the regular military organization adopted by the Committee and forthwith called into the field of duty, sufficient in men, arms, and equipments to crush resistance to the authority of the Committee in the city, and to deter the exercise of any other authority at that remote distance that might have a right to claim cognizance of the crimes they seek to suppress; all legal rule superseded by that of the Committee of Vigilance and put down on the instant of its assertion; criminals who had been set at large by the former authorities re-arrested on charges of capital offences, tried before the Committee, informally but honestly and intelligently, found guilty and executed; the functionaries who had connived at those offences arraigned at the bar of the same tribunal and dealt with according to their deserts; crimes detected and felons dragged from their hiding-places to meet a just punishment; men to whom no specific offence could be traced, but who were notorious enemies of order and abettors of crime, banished not to return under penalty of death, and every effort made to resist or defeat the action of the Committee crushed by an all-sufficient military force. The power of the Committee continues in active and constant exercise for nearly three months, when the purification of the city from crime and from criminals being accomplished, the authority of the laws is restored, also the use of the ballot-box which had been desecrated; this restoration is by the order and in pursuance of the authority and power of the Committee which are voluntarily laid down with the approbation and consent of a community consisting of from 25,000 to 30,000 persons.

There is no good reason for saying that during the whole of that period and in the midst of such stirring scenes the power of the Committee was in a single instance exercised to divest any innocent man of his property, or to oppress him in any way, or to interfere with his legal rights further than to compel submission to the temporary supremacy of that body, or to punish the innocent, or to enable the guilty to escape, or to aggrandize the Committee, or to benefit its members, their friends, or its _employées_, or to do an act of intentional injustice to any human being. During the government of the Committee the business concerns of the city and the vocations of its citizens were carried on with at least as much regularity and success as ever. Since its resignation and the consequent dispersion of its power not a banished man has returned contrary to the terms of his expulsion, and no member of the Committee, nor any one who acted by and within its authority, has been called to account for his acts within the bounds either of the city or of the State to which it belongs.

Is it probable that there is any city in Europe of equal size in which its legally established authorities could have been suspended by the irregular action of its own people with similar results,--in which the substituted power could be exercised with equal wisdom and forbearance, and laid down with so few causes for individual complaint? My opportunities for observation, although considerable, have been less than those of some others, and I may be wrong in thinking as I do that such things could not be done by any other people in the world.

The remedy for the social and political crimes which called the Committee of Vigilance into existence was a fearful one, and must be so regarded by all thinking and virtuous minds, and it would seem paradoxical to set up such a crowning act of disorder--that of the subversion of all legal authority, for even the shortest period--as an exhibition of a love of order and respect for the rights of persons and of property on the part of the actors; but I cannot resist the belief that the transaction afforded the strongest proof of the existence of those great principles in their minds, and that a proper sense of them and a determination to maintain them will seldom be wanting on the part of those who can act as did the Committee of San Francisco and its supporters.

But I ask pardon for this digression, and return to my subject. Many considerations besides those suggested by Hamilton's invariable solicitude for the preservation of order and by his constant respect for the individual rights of persons and of property, press themselves upon my mind against the conclusion intimated by Mr. C. F. Adams, and against the probability that General Hamilton ever contemplated the creation of a state of things that would justify or facilitate the employment of force to establish institutions more congenial with his taste and judgment than those we possessed. But I forbear to urge them, partly because I have devoted as much time and space to the subject as I can afford, and also because I am well satisfied that his knowledge of the certain opposition of General Washington to any such scheme or design would have been sufficient to deter him from undertaking either during the lifetime of the General, even if his own disposition had pointed in that direction.

It was at no time the intention of President Washington to give his sanction to the opinions so generally, and as it now appears so justly, attributed to General Hamilton. Never was man more strongly pledged to the support of republican government, or more unchangeably determined to maintain the responsibilities he had incurred in that regard. Embracing with all his heart the Declaration of Independence, in which its principles were delineated with the pencil of truth, he did more than any other man to overthrow the government against which it was hurled, and to open the way for the establishment of a republic in its place. None knew better than he that such was the object of the Revolution, and his resolution was immovable that the sufferings and sacrifices which had been incurred in support of that object should not fail to accomplish it through any act of omission or commission on his part. Every important act in his eventful career shows that he regarded himself on that point as invested by his country with a sacred trust. When the bright prospect which he had largely contributed to open to his countrymen for the realization of their wishes in this respect was in danger of being obscured, if not forever blasted, by means similar to those which have so often prevented or subverted free government, by the violence of an exasperated soldiery, he threw himself into the breach, and saved at the same time by his heroic and patriotic effort their interests and the honor of his brothers-in-arms. When the minds of the earnest and jealous friends of liberty were frenzied by an ill-advised attempt in the same quarter to introduce hereditary distinctions amongst us, he was again found at the post of duty; and, though feelingly indulgent to his military companions, as well as satisfied of the perfect purity of their intentions, he nevertheless promptly and successfully employed the great influence he derived from their respect for his character and their confidence in his friendship to induce them to abandon their project.

In the full possession of such claims to the esteem, gratitude, and trust of his countrymen, superadded to those which were due for his military services, he closed the first great period of his splendid life by presiding over the Federal Convention, and by assenting to, and recommending to the favor of the people, a Constitution eminently republican in its form, and in the principles upon which it was founded. So far was he from encouraging the spread of opposite sentiments that there is, on the contrary, much reason to believe that it was by making his views of the subject known to those about him that the anti-republican tone which Jefferson found, on his arrival from France, so prevalent in social and political circles at the seat of government, was kept in check until public opinion became strong enough to extinguish it altogether. Speaking to this point, Mr. Jefferson says, "The truth is that the Federalists, pretending to be the exclusive friends of General Washington, have ever done what they could to sink his character by hanging theirs on it, and by representing as the enemy of Republicans, him who of all men is best entitled to the appellation of the father of that Republic which they were endeavoring to subvert, and the Republicans to maintain. They cannot deny, because the elections proclaimed the truth, that the great body of the nation approved the republican measures. General Washington was himself sincerely a friend to the republican principles of the Constitution. His faith perhaps in its duration might not have been as confident as mine; but he repeatedly declared to me that he was determined it should have a fair chance of success, and that he would lose the last drop of his blood in its support against any attempt which might be made to change it from its republican form. He made these declarations the oftener because he knew my suspicions that Hamilton had other views, and he wished to quiet my jealousies upon the subject."[13]

[13] See Appendix.

Independently of his principles, which were the main source, doubtless, of the personal solicitude he often manifested upon this point, General Washington was a man of too much sense and reflection not to know that the world would in all future time hold him responsible for the overthrow of the republican principle here, if its extinguishment occurred in his day, and he was too careful of his well-earned fame, and anticipated too correctly the elevation it was destined to reach in connection with the history of his country, not to do all in his power to guard it from detriment upon a point at once so delicate and so momentous. Hamilton was the first man to whom he would make his sentiments known, and I can find nothing in the positions which they occupied toward each other which would induce me to entertain the opinion that Hamilton would have ventured on an attempt to shake his patriotic resolutions on that point through the influence he was supposed to possess over the actions of Washington in other respects.

There is, I am quite sure, nothing more essential to a right appreciation of many of the most important incidents in our political history, than a correct understanding of the relations that existed between those distinguished men. It cannot fail to shed considerable light on much that occurred during the government of the Confederation, and is perhaps the only touchstone by which the measures of government and many other public transactions between 1789 and 1799--between the organization of the new government and the death of Washington--can be safely tested.

I will give my interpretation of the character of those relations, fully aware of the misrepresentations and misunderstandings to which they have been subjected, and from which no subject connected with partisan conflicts can, it appears, be entirely free, but conscious of a single desire to state things truly, and of an inability to do intentional injustice to either. It will be for others to judge of my success.

Mr. Charles F. Adams, in the work to which I have referred,[14] says, "Without much hold upon the judgment or affections of the people at large, he (Hamilton) had yet by the effect of his undisputed abilities and his masculine will gained great sway over the minds of the intelligent merchants along the Atlantic border. His previous doctrines, in unison with the feelings and interests of the most conservative class, had drawn to him their particular confidence, whilst his position in the first administration had facilitated the establishment by him of a chain of influence resting for its main support on _his power over the mind of Washington himself_, but carried equally through all the ramifications of the executive department. _Thus it happened that even after he ceased to be personally present his opinions continued to shape the policy of Washington's second administration, and even that of his successor._" This declaration extending so far would have been deemed quite credible at the period to which it relates, and, coming from the grandson of that "_successor_"--himself the undisguised enemy of Hamilton--was probably called forth by the recent publication of the private papers of the latter.

[14] _Life of John Adams._ The _italics_ are my own.

As far as Mr. Adams affirms that the policy of Washington's administration, and also, in many very important respects, that of his successor, were guided by the opinions of Hamilton, his declaration has my full concurrence. No candid and intelligent man can, I think, read the evidence which has recently appeared, in connection with facts previously known, without acknowledging the undeniable truth of these positions. But I do not by any means intend to concede the control of Hamilton over the mind of Washington which is implied by the terms employed by Mr. Adams without qualifications which limit and very materially change its character. The policy of both administrations was guided by the opinions of Hamilton, but those opinions received their influence through different channels, and were enforced in very different ways. Hamilton's opinions, when known as his, had very little weight with the successor of Washington, save, in many cases, to secure a bad reception for themselves; but that successor had little if any control over, or influence with, the members of his own cabinet, and not much with Congress or the Federal party, by whom the policy of his administration was shaped. With them Hamilton's opinions established the rule of action. In respect to the two latter, this arose mainly from the sway he was capable of exerting over them by the force of his great talents, and from a general concurrence in his views. In respect to the prominent members of Mr. Adams's cabinet his control arose from the power he had in part acquired over their minds whilst they were also members of General Washington's administration. Timothy Pickering, who, after the retirement of Mr. Jefferson and the brief term of Randolph, was Secretary of State under both Presidents, was a remarkable man, sincere and honest, I am willing to believe, in his political opinions, but savagely bitter in his feelings toward his opponents. It seemed pretty much a matter of course in him to hate those to whose political course he was opposed, and, as is usually the case with minds thus constituted, he was equally bigoted in his devotion to those with whom he agreed and acted.

General Hamilton was his _beau ideal_ of a politician and statesman, and it would not have been an easy matter in him to have dissented from any opinion positively advanced by Hamilton, whatever his own first impressions on the subject might have been. Mr. McHenry, Secretary of War in both cabinets, was undoubtedly an honorable and well-disposed gentleman. He was, in the opinion of those who had the best opportunities for judging, including Washington and Hamilton, not entirely competent for the duties of his office, and that circumstance drove him the more to rely for support on Hamilton, for whom he cherished an early and ardent friendship. His personal devotion to Hamilton was such as to prevent Mr. Adams from longer overlooking his incompetency, as Washington had done, and precipitated his resignation. Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, the member of his cabinet most trusted by President Adams because the least suspected, was, notwithstanding, the one among his official advisers who went the greatest lengths to testify his entire allegiance to Hamilton, who had been the artificer of his political fortunes from the beginning and by whose influence he had been advanced to the high position he occupied. Throughout he advised with and was assisted by Hamilton in the performance of his official duties. Such was Hamilton's "power over his mind" that he was applied to successfully by the former for evidence of facts to be derived from the treasury archives to sustain an attack that Hamilton contemplated making upon the President--an attack that he did make, although he acknowledged to Wolcott that it would not be regarded as proper that he should have received the evidence at his hands, and that that fact ought not therefore to be known.

No one can read the correspondence between General Hamilton and Mr. Wolcott, as recently published with Hamilton's Works, without regretting that the parties to it should have been so forgetful of the proprieties due to the occasions to which it relates, or without a disposition to excuse the strong expression of Mr. Charles F. Adams, in speaking of his grandfather's cabinet, applied to Mr. Wolcott "as the most venomous serpent of them all."

Mr. Charles F. Adams places Hamilton's sway over the mind of Washington upon the same footing with that which he exerted over the executive department, composed principally of the members of his second cabinet of whom we have been speaking. From this view I entirely dissent. If Hamilton possessed any power over the mind of Washington, it was of a very different character from that which he exercised over those members. Washington was to an unusual extent free from the weakness of overrating his own powers; with just conceptions of his capacities for public service he was always ready to place them at the public disposal, but he was very far from pretending to qualifications which he did not possess. No one was more sensible than he that the science of civil government--the construction of constitutions and the administration of the civil affairs of the State--were not best learned in the camp, where so large a portion of his life had been spent. He therefore, as we have seen, selected two of the ablest statesmen in the country, particularly versed in those portions of the public business which he devolved upon them. They differed irreconcilably in respect to the policy of the administration, and in the performance of his duty he decided between their conflicting opinions in favor of those of Hamilton. Preferring the policy of the latter he adopted the measures he recommended to carry it out, which happened also to appertain principally to Hamilton's department, and sustained him in their execution. In doing so he but sustained the measures of his administration and views which were either originally his own or made such upon conviction. Participating in the general opinion in favor of Hamilton's remarkable talents, having full opportunities to judge of his character, and confiding in his integrity, he extended to him, it is true, but with the purest motives, the degree of countenance and trust which established his extraordinary power and influence. Of the consequences, as well to his administration as to the country, we will have much to say hereafter. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that there ever was a period at which, or a transaction between them in which, their relative positions, rights, and duties were either forgotten or disregarded. It was well understood that the degree of weight to be attached to Hamilton's advice would depend upon the unbiased opinion which Washington himself should form of its soundness, influenced as he naturally would be, and always was, by a conviction of Hamilton's undoubted integrity, and his superior capacity for the decision of the question under consideration. There certainly never was a time when the slightest indication of a desire or design on the part of Hamilton to sway the mind of Washington in his official acts through his personal influence, or by any considerations which did not point distinctly and exclusively to the public good, would not have been peremptorily and indignantly repelled. It is evident from the whole tenor of Washington's life that no man ever lived who was more tenacious of self-respect, or more absolute in his reservation of the right to judge for himself of what belonged to his individual independence and personal dignity, or more prompt to resist every attempt to encroach upon either. No one understood his temperament in that respect better than General Hamilton, or would have been less likely to bring himself in conflict with it. Many indications of this understanding and of its effects are to be found in the accounts of their personal intercourse. The correspondence between them in regard to the discreditable use that Washington thought was being made in Congress of the sufferings and dissatisfaction of the army, already referred to, will be found to throw much light upon the sense of both as to the nature of their personal relations.

In June, 1793, Hamilton announced to President Washington, that considerations relative both to the public interest and _his own dignity_ had brought his mind to the conclusion to resign his office at the termination of the close of the next session of Congress, and one of the reasons he assigned for delaying his final retirement to that period was to give Congress an opportunity to complete the investigation that had been instituted in regard to his official conduct. In March thereafter Hamilton informed the President that the committee charged to inquire, among other things, "into the authority of the President respecting the making and disbursement of the loans under certain acts of Congress," were about to meet. He sent to him at the same time, a copy of a paper he had presented to the committee, containing his opinion in relation to the proper limits of a legislative inquiry, but said that he deemed it expedient to fix in advance, with the President, on the true state of facts, of which he proceeded to make a statement, and requested the President to sanction it. General Washington soon thereafter made a declaration, in the form of a letter to Hamilton, of his recollections and opinions in respect to the matter. The latter, in reply, protested vehemently against the sufficiency of the declaration for the protection of his honor, and in a letter of considerable length, written with his usual ability, undertook to show that the character of the President's declaration would enable, his (Hamilton's) enemies to say that "the reserve of the President is a proof that he does not think that Hamilton's representations are true, else his justice would have led him to rescue the officer concerned even from suspicion upon the point."

The subject of loans and their frequency produced much excitement in Congress, and not a few calls upon the President and the Secretary of the Treasury for information in regard to them. It does not appear from the published works of Hamilton, that any answer was made by General Washington to his letter, or any other explanation of the subject; and no one, I think, can read the correspondence without feeling that the interpretation I give to its abrupt termination is the correct one, viz.: that Washington intended by his silence to reprove the freedom of Hamilton's letter. The resignation of the latter was deferred, with the approbation of the President, till January, 1795, when it was accepted in a letter from General Washington, containing an approval of Hamilton's official conduct as full as words could make it.[15]

[15] Hamilton's _Works_, Vol. IV. pp. 436, 510, 516, 562; Vol. V.
pp. 74, 78.

The construction I have placed upon the character of their personal relations is also sustained by a correspondence between them in May, 1798, after Hamilton's retirement from office, which will be found in the sixth volume of Hamilton's "Works," at p. 289. Hamilton's object appears to have been to impress the mind of Washington with a proper sense of the dangerous crisis which had arrived in the condition of public affairs. His letter contains the following extraordinary paragraph: "I am sincere in declaring my full conviction, as the result of a long course of observation, that the faction which has for years opposed the government are ready to remodel our Constitution under the influence or _coercion_ of France, to form with her a perpetual alliance, _offensive and defensive_, and to give her a monopoly of our trade, by _peculiar_ and exclusive privileges. This would be in substance, whatever it might be in name, to make this country a province of France. Neither do I doubt that her standard displayed in this country would be directly or indirectly seconded by them in pursuance of the project I have mentioned."

In such a state of things it was impossible, he said, not to look up to him, (Washington,) and to wish that his influence might, in some proper way, be brought into direct action, and he added: "Among the ideas that have passed through my mind for this purpose, I have asked myself whether it might not be expedient for you to make a circuit through Virginia and North Carolina under some pretense of health, &c. This would call forth addresses, public dinners, &c., which would give an opportunity of expressing sentiments in answers, toasts, &c., which would throw the weight of your character into the scale of the government, and revive enthusiasm for your person which might be turned into the right channel."

Although Washington himself had been highly excited, by the course of events, against those to whom Hamilton attributed such treasonable designs, he was yet enabled by his good sense and by his knowledge of his countrymen to see at a glance the reckless extravagance of Hamilton's imputations, and he was doubtless dissatisfied with the uses, little creditable, which it was proposed to make of himself. His answer was a truly imposing production. It narrowed Hamilton's description of the portions of his countrymen whose course he deemed objectionable, virtually disapproved his charges by giving his own views of the extent of the danger which was to be apprehended from those whose patriotism Hamilton so grossly impeached, and placed the objectionable character of the course recommended to him in a striking light by showing that, his health never having been better, he would be obliged to commence his journey with the propagation of a falsehood.

Those who wish to read these letters will do well to look for them in Hamilton's "Works," as I am sorry to say that in Mr. Sparks's "Writings of Washington" the above extract from Hamilton's letter, containing his suggestion of an electioneering tour in the South by Washington, is omitted, and the whole paragraph in Washington's reply, in which he rejects and virtually rebukes it, suppressed. Neither is that part of Hamilton's letter given in which he denounces "the powerful faction which has for years opposed the government" with fanatical violence, (for his description of them deserves no other name,) whilst what Washington says upon that point is set forth with considerable aggravation. The results of those omissions and suppressions are not only to conceal the fact that such a proposition was made to Washington, and the grounds upon which he declined to adopt it, but his remarks, condemnatory of a portion of his fellow-citizens, are left to stand as voluntary denunciations of his own instead of, as they in truth were, modifications of the charges to which Hamilton had called his attention.

I have thus selected a few transactions between these great men, occurring at long intervals and embracing the entire period of their intercourse, to show that the influence which it must be conceded Hamilton exercised over Washington's conduct in the civil service of his country was not of the character which is commonly understood and intended by the imputation of it in the case of high official personages, and which necessarily involves the sacrifice of personal independence and, at least in some degree, of self-respect on the part of the person influenced.

Anecdotes of distinguished men are always interesting, although their accuracy is not so reliable, of course, as that of statements substantiated by their own writings. I was told of one, several years since, which struck me as throwing light upon this subject of the personal relations between Washington and his immediate associates and friends. So thinking, and especially as General Hamilton was in one sense a party concerned, I have recently obtained reliable testimony of its authenticity. Judge Fine, the writer of the following note, is well known in New York, and not a little in other States; he has been a State Senator, a Representative in Congress, a State Judge, &c., &c., and is regarded as a gentleman of the utmost probity and of superior intelligence. Judge Burnet, with whom I have served in the United States Senate, was also well known as a gentleman in whose statements entire confidence might be placed, and was, withal, a Hamiltonian Federalist, and never, politically, any thing else; in whose eyes, I am very sure, any statement disparaging to the memory of either Washington or Hamilton would have appeared a grave offense against morality and truth.

FROM JOHN FINE.

OGDENSBURG, N. Y., _April 30, 1857_.

Hon. M. VAN BUREN:

DEAR SIR,--During the session of the Presbyterian General Assembly
in Cincinnati--May, 1852--I dined twice at the hospitable mansion of
Hon. Jacob Burnet, now deceased. He was born in Newark, New Jersey,
in 1770, and was the son of Dr. William Burnet, who was in the
medical service of his country through the Revolution.

Judge Burnet was acquainted with our early distinguished statesmen,
and his conversation was rich in the recollection of their manners
and characters. He related an anecdote of Washington which he had
from the lips of Alexander Hamilton.

When the Convention to form a Constitution was sitting in
Philadelphia in 1787, of which General Washington was President, he
had stated evenings to receive the calls of his friends. At an
interview between Hamilton, the Morrises, and others, the former
remarked that Washington was reserved and aristocratic even to his
intimate friends, and allowed no one to be familiar with him.
Gouverneur Morris said that was a mere fancy, and he could be as
familiar with Washington as with any of his other friends. Hamilton
replied, "If you will, at the next reception evening, gently slap
him on the shoulder and say, 'My dear General, how happy I am to see
you look so well!' a supper and wine shall be provided for you and a
dozen of your friends."

The challenge was accepted. On the evening appointed a large number
attended, and at an early hour Gouverneur Morris entered, bowed,
shook hands, laid his left hand on Washington's shoulder, and said:
"My dear General, I am very happy to see you look so well!"
Washington withdrew his hand, stepped suddenly back, fixed his eye
on Morris for several minutes with an angry frown, until the latter
retreated abashed and sought refuge in the crowd. The company looked
on in silence.

At the supper which was provided by Hamilton, Morris said: "I have
won the bet but paid dearly for it, and nothing could induce me to
repeat it."

Yours truly,
JOHN FINE.

Better proof of the truth of this statement could not, at this day, be expected or desired, and assuming it to be substantially true, the transaction, in my estimation, illustrates the character of the personal relations that existed between Washington and the two distinguished men, Hamilton and Morris, who, in respect to the management of public affairs, enjoyed perhaps his fullest confidence.

It is without doubt true, that in his intercourse with public men Washington observed an extraordinary degree of dignified reserve, and there is every reason to believe that this invariable habit was natural to him, and in no degree assumed for effect. We indeed know nothing of his character if he was at all capable of practicing the low device of hiding mental deficiencies under a wise look and a mysterious manner, which is sometimes the resort of meaner minds; but some such foundation (or some degree of it) for his habit must have been presupposed by the very unusual proceeding of Morris and it is quite impossible to believe that a man was in danger of being unduly influenced by his personal friends who could thus, by the power of his eye and the solemnity of his countenance, abash and punish the presumption of a man of Morris's standing, confessedly the sauciest man in his society, without causing the slightest confusion or excitement in the surrounding company.

He had nothing to conceal; he never desired to pass for more than he was worth, and there have been few men who formed a juster estimate of their own qualifications and capacities. In respect to military affairs he was evidently self-reliant, but not more so than was justified by his large experience and by the success which had crowned his efforts; but neither in that nor in any other department was he above receiving advice. In the intricate and complex affairs of civil administration, and in grave questions of constitutional construction and of national law, he felt that his experience and study had been much less than those of some who were associated with him in the public service, and he did not hesitate to recognize the difference. The principal aid he could bring to the settlement of such questions consisted of a clear head, a sound judgment, and an honest heart. These he never failed to apply after such questions had been prepared for decision by the previous examination and discussions of those of his cabinet whose attention had been more directed to them than his own. To secure these prerequisites he had, as I have said before, availed himself of the highest talent which the country afforded, without reference to distinctions of party.

This was the way in which he dealt with the grave questions that arose during the early stages of his administration, touching the numerous and complicated difficulties between us and our old friend and ally France, the reception and treatment of her ministers, Genet and his successor Adet, our assumption of a neutral position between European belligerents, the claims of France under the treaty of alliance and guaranty, the powers of Congress under the Constitution in relation to a national bank, and other subjects. In respect to the first of these matters he went so far as to consult Hamilton by letter on the question of his own personal demeanor at a Presidential levee toward the French minister, by whose conduct he had been offended. Whatever may be our regret at finding the confidential note asking that advice preserved to so late a period and now recklessly published, we may yet be satisfied that the step itself only affords additional evidence of the prudence and manliness of Washington's character. Few men stood less in need of advice in respect to his treatment of those who had given him offense in a matter purely personal; but it was natural for him to assume that the usages of diplomacy had settled rules for the action of the heads of government in such cases, of which he was not informed and in respect to which he was not ashamed to ask advice and information from proper sources. The constancy with which he invoked the aid of his cabinet upon all questions of the general character to which I have alluded, the unreserved manner in which he submitted them to their consideration, the delicacy with which he withheld his opinions until theirs were pronounced, and the spirit in which these were received, whether agreeing with or differing from his own, were above all praise. The information we possess of the details of those interesting proceedings is principally derived from Mr. Jefferson, and in all that he has written or in all that we have understood him to have said upon the subject no word of complaint or allegation at variance with the description here given of them is to be found. The idea that Washington ever sought to advance his objects by indirect or exceptionable means, or that he was actuated in his public measures by any other motive than an honest desire to promote the good of his country, seems never to have presented itself to Mr. Jefferson's mind, however erroneous he considered some of those measures. I spent some days with him, as I have elsewhere described,[16] two years before his death, and in the course of our repeated conversations he dwelt long and particularly upon these early transactions. I attributed the circumstance at the time to a desire, consistent with his very genial disposition, to gratify my curiosity, which was strong and not concealed; and it did not occur to me that he might have had other views, until, after my return home, I received his long letter avowedly written for the purpose for which I now use it, "to throw light on history, and to recall that into the path of truth when he was no more, nor those whom it might offend." In all that he said--and he spoke with perfect freedom of men and things--there was nothing inconsistent with the inference I have here drawn from his writings, but much to confirm it. The President's decisions upon cabinet questions were generally in favor of Hamilton's views; but that circumstance, very much to his credit, was not permitted to influence Jefferson's estimate of motives, but was regarded as the natural result of Washington's general sympathy with Hamilton's political opinions, and his confidence in his ability and integrity,--a sympathy, however, that never even approached the subject of a change in the existing form of our Government. That was a question as to which we have the best reason to believe that Washington would have never taken counsel except from his God and his conscience. He more than once declared to Jefferson "that he was determined that the republican form of our Government should have a fair chance of success, and that he would, if necessary, spill the last drop of his blood in its defense,"--a resolution, and the likelihood of its being sustained, that no one understood better than Hamilton.

[16] See Note on page 9.

By these repeated declarations to Mr. Jefferson, Washington only renewed to a civilian, whose character and position made them the more significant and impressive, a pledge which he had given to the world at Newburgh in the presence of the companions of his glory, yet with arms in their hands--that his name should never be added to the list of those who, having done much to emancipate a people from thralldom, were the first to blast their hopes and sacrifice their dearest interests at the promptings of selfish and unhallowed passions. They only proved that the flattery of the world during the ten intervening years had not corrupted his heart nor endangered the observance of a pledge which had derived its value from the character of the man who gave it, and on whose continued fidelity to the principle it involved the future liberties and welfare of his country were in so large a degree dependent.

It has always been believed that if Washington had inclined a favorable ear to the suggestions of the Newburgh letters, and in due season had given his name and influence to the counter-revolution they were intended to promote, it might have been made successful, and the system which the Revolution had overthrown might have been in some modified form restored. The disparity between the means which were at his disposal when propositions looking to such a result were thrown before the army at Newburgh and those within his reach when the declarations to Mr. Jefferson were made was not as great as might be supposed. At the former period it is true that the army of the Revolution was yet in the field, mortified, irritated, and indeed highly inflamed by the assumed injustice and ingratitude of their country, and in all probability prepared to follow his lead in furtherance of any views he might disclose which did not exceed the proposed limits; and the government to be overthrown was feeble, distracted, destitute of the sinews of war, and with but a slight hold upon the confidence and affections of the people. But it must also be remembered that the fervor and spirit of the Revolution--that intense hatred of royalty and monarchical institutions in any shape--which had roused the country to the contest, had as yet in no sensible degree abated amongst the masses, neither had they surrendered those sanguine anticipations of the blessings and advantages of republican government by which their hearts had been fortified and their arms strengthened for the struggle. That any attempt to bring about a counter-revolution under such circumstances, however popular the name and character of him by whom it was sanctioned, or however imposing the means by which it was sustained, would meet with a formidable opposition from the great body of the people was certain; and it was not easy to estimate the nature and extent of the resistance that might spring from the sources to which I have referred to confront an army which had so lately been the object of their unalloyed admiration and affection.

In the lapse of time between that period and the one at which Mr. Jefferson received the assurances he describes great changes had taken place in respect to all these matters, but, as I have said, not so adverse as might on first impression be supposed to the practicability of an attempt such as Washington referred to. The army of the Revolution had indeed been dissolved, and, in regard to the elements of which it was principally composed, beyond recall; but its officers, who, next to Washington, were capable of giving a tone and direction to the spirit of the troops, were alive, several of them again under his command, not a few about his person, and all filled with unabated admiration and affection for their idolized chief. If the account given us by Mr. Jefferson of the feelings he found most prevalent in our principal cities and at the seat of government on his return from France and in his progress to Philadelphia, to take upon himself the office of Secretary of State, is to be relied upon,--and many important contemporaneous occurrences corroborate his statement,--sad changes had taken place in the public opinion and feeling, of absorbing interest in this connection. "The President," he says, "received me cordially, and my colleagues and the circle of principal citizens apparently with welcome. The courtesies of dinner-parties given me, as a stranger newly arrived among them, placed me at once in familiar society. But I cannot describe the wonder and mortification with which the table conversations filled me. Politics were the chief topic, and a preference of kingly over republican governments was evidently the favorite sentiment." In his description of what he heard and saw there can be no mistake; but it is more than probable that changes among the people at large, upon the point spoken of, had not occurred to any thing like the same extent as among those portions of society to which he more particularly refers. Still it is undeniably true that from the influence of examples set by men in high places, from the difficulties under which the late government had labored, and from other causes, there had been at that moment a falling off from the true faith respecting governments and the administration of them which could now be scarcely credited. Add to these favoring circumstances the fact that the man, without whose countenance or coöperation no reactionary attempt would have been thought of even by the rankest advocate for monarchical institutions, was at the head of the Government to be overthrown, and the unquestioned object of the national confidence and affection, and the scheme, with his coöperation, was not likely to be then regarded as so impracticable as it would now certainly be considered. If such a work were at this day thought of by any man or men, however elevated in position or loved by the people, they could reap no other harvest than contempt and derision; but the single fact that Washington, who always handled serious matters seriously, and who was not liable to be alarmed by "false fires," treated the subject as he did, is sufficient to mark the difference between the condition of the country and of the public mind then and now.

But happily for us he was the same man in 1793 that he was in 1783. The principle upon which he acted upon both occasions was maintained through life without spot or blemish. The world believed, and for the best reasons, that he had refused to become the master of a people, whose liberties he had, through the favor of God and the fortitude and bravery of his countrymen, been made instrumental to establish, because he deemed it a higher honor to be their servant. It compared his acts with those of the Cæsars, of Cromwell, and of Napoleon, and glorified his name above that of any other mortal man. Such has been his reward for his faithfulness to the most sacred of human trusts--a reward and a fidelity unparalleled! Services have been rendered in every age which entitled the actors in them to the gratitude of their country, and to the thanks of mankind, but lacking the distinguishing feature of Washington's, their traces have become fainter with the lapse of time, whilst the remembrance of his unequaled merits grows more distinct and strong with each revolving year.