BOOK IV

"ALEXANDER THE GREAT"

INCLUDING THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED

STATES

I

It was the autumn of 1786. New York had risen from her charred and

battered ruins. There were cows on her meadows, a lake with wooded

shores as merely traditional, groves, gardens, orchards, fields, and

swamps; but her business houses and public buildings were ambitious once

more, her spires more lofty and enduring, her new dwelling-houses,

whether somewhat crowded in Wall Street and Broadway, or on the terraces

of less busy streets, or along the river fronts and facing a wild and

lovely prospect, were square, substantial, and usually very large. And

every street was an avenue of ancient trees. Mrs. John Jay, with her

experience of foreign courts, her great beauty, and the prestige of her

distinguished husband, was the leader of society, holding weekly

receptions, and the first to receive the many distinguished strangers.

Although society was not quite as gay as it became three years later,

under a more settled government and hopeful outlook, still there was

quiet entertaining by the Hamiltons, who lived at 58 Wall Street, the

Duers, Watts, Livingstons, Clintons, Duanes, Jays, Roosevelts, Van

Cortlandts, and other representatives of old New York families, now

returned to their own. Congress was come to New York and established in

the City Hall in Wall Street. It had given the final impetus to the

city, struggling under the burden of ruins and debt left by the British;

and society sauntered forth every afternoon in all the glory of velvet

and ruffles, three-cornered hats recklessly laced, brocades, hoopskirts,

and Rohan hats, to promenade past the building where the moribund body

was holding its last sessions. The drive was down the Broadway into the

shades of the Battery, with the magnificent prospect of bay and wooded

shores beyond. Politics, always epidemic among men and women alike, had

recently been animated by Hamilton's coup at Annapolis, and the prospect

of a general convention of the States to consider the reorganization of

a government which had reduced the Confederation to a condition

fearfully close to anarchy, the country to ruin, and brought upon the

thirteen sovereign independent impotent and warring States the contempt

of Europe and the threat of its greed.

A group of men, standing on a corner of Wall Street and the Broadway,

were laughing heartily: a watch was dragging off to jail two citizens

who had fallen upon each other with the venom of political antithesis;

the one, a Nationalist, having called Heaven to witness that Hamilton

was a demi-god, begotten to save the wretched country, the other

vociferating that Hamilton was the devil who would trick the country

into a monarchy, create a vast standing army, which would proclaim him

king and stand upon the heads of a people that had fought and died for

freedom, while the tyrant exercised his abominable functions.

The men in the group were Governor Clinton, Hamilton's bitterest

opponent, but sufficiently amused at the incident; William Livingston,

Governor of New Jersey, now with but a few hairs on the top of his head

and a few at the base, his nose more penetrating, his eye more

disapproving, than ever; James Duane, Mayor of New York; John Jay, the

most faultless character in the Confederation, honoured and unloved, his

cold eyes ever burning with an exalted fire; and John Marshall of

Virginia, munching an apple, his attire in shabby contrast to the

fashionable New Yorkers, the black mane on his splendid head unpowdered

and tossing in the ocean breeze.

"I like your Hamilton," he announced, "and I've come to the conclusion

that I think with him on all matters. He's done more to educate the

people up to a rational form of government during the last seven years

than all the rest of us put together. He's shone upon them like a fixed

star. Other comets have come and gone, whirling them forward to

destruction, but they have always been forced to turn and look at him

again and again, and he has always shone in the same place."

"Sir," exclaimed Clinton, who was flushed with rage, "are you aware that

I am present, and that I entirely disapprove of Mr. Hamilton's attempt

to reduce the States to a condition of ignominious subserviency to an

ambitious and tyrannical central power?"

"I had heard of you, sir," replied Marshall, meekly, "and I am glad to

have the opportunity to ask you what _your_ remedy is for the existing

state of things? You will admit that there must be a remedy, and

quickly. If not a common government with a Constitution empowering it to

regulate trade, imposts, reduce the debt, enter into treaties with

foreign powers which will not be sneered at, administer upon a thousand

details which I will not enumerate, and raise the country from its

slough of contempt, then what? As the personage who has taken the most

decided stand against the enlightened and patriotic efforts of Mr.

Hamilton, I appeal to you for a counter suggestion as magnificent as

his. I am prepared, sir, to listen with all humility."

Clinton, whose selfish fear of his own downfall with that of State

supremacy was so well known that a smile wrinkled across the polite

group of gentlemen surrounding him, deepened his colour to purple under

this assault, and stammered: "Sir, have I not myself proposed an

enlargement of the powers of Congress, in order to counteract the

damnable policy of Britain? Did not your Hamilton harangue that crowd I

sanctioned till he got nearly all he asked for?"

"But he knew better than to ask for too much, in the conditions,"

replied Marshall, suavely. "May I suggest that you have not answered my

humble and earnest questions?"

"I answer no questions that I hold to be impertinent and unimportant!"

said Clinton, pompously, and with a dignified attempt to recover his

poise. He swept his hat from his head; the New Yorkers were as

punctilious; Marshall lifted his battered lid from the wild mass

beneath, and the popular Governor sauntered down the street, saluted

deferentially by Nationalists and followers alike. When he had occasion

to sweep his gorgeous hat to his knees, the ladies courtesied to the

ground, their draperies taking up the entire pavement, and His

Excellency was obliged to encounter the carriages in the street.

"If Clinton were sure of figuring as powerfully in a national government

as he does in the state of New York, he would withdraw his opposition,"

said Livingston, contemptuously. "He has been Governor for nine years.

New York is his throne. He is a king among the common people, who will

elect him indefinitely. Were it not for Hamilton, he would be New York,

and the awful possibilities lying hidden in the kernel of change haunt

his dreams at night. You embarrassed him in a manner that rejoiced my

heart, Mr. Marshall. I beg you will do me the honour to dine with me

to-night. I beg to assure you that your fame is as known to me as were I

a Virginian."

"I'll accept the invitation with pleasure," replied Marshall, whose

manners were all that his attire was not. "I shall be glad to talk with

you on many subjects. To-morrow I shall pay my respects to Mr. Hamilton.

His has been a trying but not a thankless task. He has addressed himself

to the right class of men all over the country, winning them to his

sound and enlightened views, giving them courage, consolidating them

against the self-interested advocates of State sovereignty. That he has

so often neglected a legal practice which must bring him a large income,

as well as sufficient personal glory, out of a sincere pity for and

patriotic interest in this afflicted country, gives New York deep cause

for congratulation that she was in such close communication with that

Island of his youth. I wish that fate had steered him to Virginia."

"Surely you have enough as it is," said Duane, laughing: "Washington,

yourself, Patrick Henry, Jefferson, Madison, Randolph. Spare us

Hamilton. We shall need him badly enough. The Clinton faction is very

strong. That the Hamilton embraces the best spirits of the community

means that it is in the minority, and needs the unremitting exercise of

his genius to counteract the disadvantage in numbers."

"I think that what I admire most in Hamilton," remarked a newcomer, a

small dark man of vivid personality, "are his methods of manipulation.

He picks out his own men, Duer, Troup, Malcolm, has them sent to the

legislature, where they blindly and indefatigably obey his behest and

gain the consent of that body to the convention at Annapolis, then see

that he is elected as principal delegate. He goes to Annapolis

ostensibly to attend a commercial convention: while its insufficient

numbers are drowsing, he springs upon them an eloquent proposal for a

national convention for reforming the Union, and forces it through

before they know what they are about. Certainly Mr. Hamilton is a man of

genius."

"Do I understand. Mr. Burr," said Jay, from his glacial height, "that

you are impugning the purity of Mr. Hamilton's motives?"

"No, sir," replied Burr, whom an archangel could not have rebuked. "In

the present condition of things all methods are justifiable. Hamilton is

great but adaptable. I respect him for that quality above all others,

for he is quite the most imperious character in America, and his natural

instinct is to come out and say, 'You idiots, fall into line behind me

and stop twaddling. I will do your thinking; be kind enough not to delay

me further.' On the other hand, he is forced to be diplomatic, to

persuade where he would command, to move slowly instead of charging at

the point of the bayonet. So, although I have no sympathy with his

pronounced monarchical inclinations, I respect his acquired methods of

getting what he wants."

"What do you mean by pronounced monarchical inclinations?" snorted

Governor Livingston, who could not endure Burr.

Burr gave his peculiar sardonic laugh. "Will you deny it, sir?"

"Deny it? I certainly am in Mr. Hamilton's confidence to no such extent,

and I challenge you to indicate one sentence in his published writings

which points to such a conclusion."

"Ah, he is too clever for that; but his very walk, his whole personality

expresses it, to say nothing of the fact that he never thinks of denying

his admiration of the British Constitution. And did he not defend the

Tories after the evacuation, when no other lawyer would touch them? I

admired his courage, but it was sufficient evidence of the catholicity

of his sentiments."

"Mr. Hamilton defended the abstract principle of right against wrong in

defending the wretched Tories against the persecutions of an

unmagnanimous public sentiment," said Jay, witheringly. "I should advise

you, young gentleman, to become a disciple of Mr. Hamilton. I can

recommend no course which would prove so beneficial." And he turned on

his heel.

He had hit Burr. The jealousy born in Albany had thriven with much

sustenance since. Hamilton was by far the most prominent figure at the

New York bar, and was hastening to its leadership. Burr was conspicuous

for legal ability, but never would be first while Hamilton was in the

race. Moreover, although Hamilton had not then reached that dizzy height

from which a few years later he looked down upon a gaping world, he was

the leader of a growing and important party, intelligently followed and

worshipped by the most eminent men in the Confederation, many of them

old enough to be his father; and he was the theme of every drawing-room,

of every coffee-house group and conclave. His constant pamphlets on the

subject nearest to all men's hearts, his eloquent speeches on the same

theme upon every possible occasion, and the extraordinary brilliance of

his legal victories, gave people no time to think of other men. When he

entered a drawing-room general conversation ceased, and the company

revolved about him so long as he remained. When he spoke, all the world

went to hear. For an ambitious young man to be told to attach himself to

the train of this conquering hero was more than poor Burr could stand,

and he replied angrily:--

"I have the privilege of being true to my own convictions, I suppose.

They are not Mr. Hamilton's and never will be. I do not impugn the

purity of his motives, but I have no desire to see George Washington

king, nor Hamilton, neither. I wish you good day, sirs," and he strode

up Broadway to the Fields with dignity in every inch of him.

"This constant talk of Hamilton's monarchical principles makes my gorge

rise," said Livingston. "Did he not fight as hard as he was permitted,

to drive monarchy out of the country? Was he not the first to sound the

call to arms?"

"Hamilton's exact attitude on that question is not clearly understood,"

replied Duane, soothingly, for the heat of Livingston's republicanism

had never abated. "I fancy it is something like this: So far no

constitution has worked so well as the British. Montesquieu knew whereof

he praised. The number of men in this country equal to the great problem

of self-government are in a pitiful minority. The anarchic conditions of

the States, the disgrace which they have brought upon us, their

inefficiency to cope with any problem, the contemptible depths of human

nature which they have revealed to the thinking members of the

community--all these causes inspire Hamilton, incomparably the greatest

brain in the country, with a dread of leaving any power whatever in

their hands. He believes firmly in the few of tried brain and

patriotism. I very much doubt if he has considered the subject of actual

monarchy for a moment, for he is no dreamer, and he knows that even his

followers have been Republicans too long. But that he will fight for the

strongest sort of national government, with the least possible power

vested in the States--oh, no doubt of that."

"Our people are hopeless, I fear," said Livingston, with a sigh. "This

period of independency seems to have demoralized them when it should

have brought out their best elements. Well, Mr. Marshall, what say you?

You have been modestly silent, and we have been rudely voluble when so

distinguished a guest should have had all the floor."

"I have been deeply entertained," replied Marshall, with a grin. "My

visit to New York is by no means wasted. I envy Mr. Hamilton; but let

him look out for Mr. Burr. There are just five feet seven inches of

jealous hate in that well-balanced exterior, and its methods would be

sinuous, I fancy, but no less deadly. But Hamilton has had many escapes.

What was that atrocious story I heard of a duelling cabal? When the

rolling stone of gossip reaches Virginia from New York, it has gathered

more moss than you would think."

"It would be difficult to exaggerate that story," snorted Livingston."

Hamilton defended his course in regard to the Tories in two pamphlets,

signed 'Phocion.' They were answered by a Mr. Ledyard, who signed

himself 'Mentor,' and was a conspicuous advocate of the damnable spirit

of revenge possessing this country. It is a bold man indeed who enters

into a conflict of the pen with Hamilton, and 'Mentor' was left without

a leg to stand on. Forthwith, a club of Ledyard's friends and

sympathizers, enraged by defeat, and fearing the growing ascendency of

Hamilton over men's minds, deliberately agreed to challenge him in turn

until he was silenced forever. This atrocious project would undoubtedly

have been carried out, had not Ledyard himself repudiated it with

horror. Can you show me a greater instance of the depravity of human

nature, sir?"

"We are in a ferment of bitter passions," said Marshall, sadly, "and I

fear they will be worse before they are better. I only hope that

Hamilton will not be swept into their current, for upon his keeping his

balance depends the future greatness of this country. I am at your

service, sir, for I will confess my two legs are tired."

II

As the three men turned into Broadway they saluted a man who was

entering Wall Street. It was Hamilton, hastening home to his family

after the day's work. He had lost his boyish slenderness; his figure had

broadened and filled out sufficiently to add to his presence while

destroying nothing of its symmetry or agile grace, and it was dressed

with the same care. His face was as gay and animated as ever, responded

with the old mobility to every passing thought, but its lines and

contours showed the hard work and severe thought of the last four years.

When he was taking a brief holiday with his friends, or tumbling about

the floor with his little brood, he felt as much a boy as ever, but no

one appreciated more fully than he the terrible responsibility of his

position in the Confederation. His abilities, combined with his

patriotism, had forced him to the head of the Nationalist Party, for

whose existence he was in greatest measure responsible; and he hardly

dared to think of his personal ambitions, nor could he hesitate to

neglect his lucrative practice whenever the crying needs of the country

demanded it. He had also given much time to the creating and

organization of the Bank of New York. But Burr was not far wrong when he

accused him of impatience. His bearing was more imperious, his eye

flashed more intolerantly, than ever. To impute to him monarchical

ambitions was but the fling of a smarting jealousy, but it is quite true

that he felt he knew what was best for the country, and would have liked

to regulate its affairs without further hindrance.

His house, beyond the dip of Wall Street and within sight of the bay,

was of red brick, and as unbeautiful architecturally as other New York

houses which had risen at random from the ruins. But within, it was very

charming. The long drawing-room was furnished with mahogany, and

rose-coloured brocade, with spindle-legged tables and many bibelots sent

by Angelica Church, now living in London. The library was filling with

valuable books, and the panelled whiteness of the dining room glittered

with silver and glass, which in quantity or value was not exceeded in

the home of any young couple in America; the world had outdone itself at

the most interesting wedding of the Revolution. Betsey's sitting room

was behind the drawing-room, and there Hamilton found her counting the

moments until his return. She had lost nothing of her slimness, and

except on dress occasions wore her mass of soft black hair twisted in a

loose knot and unpowdered. She looked younger and prettier than with

powder or wig, and Hamilton begged her to defy the fashion; but yielding

in all else, on this point she was inflexible. "I am wiser than you in

just a few things," she would say, playfully, for she firmly believed

him infallible; "my position would suffer, were I thought eccentric. You

cannot stand in rank without a uniform. I shall not yield to Sarah Jay

nor even Kitty Duer. I am a little Republican, sir, and know my rights.

And I know how to keep them."

To-day, after her usual prolonged and unmitigated greeting, she

remarked: "Speaking of eccentric people, I met to-day, at Lady

Sterling's, that curious person, Mrs. Croix, or Miss Capet, as some will

call her. Her hair was built up quite a foot and unpowdered. On top of

it was an immense black hat with plumes, and her velvet gown was at

least three yards on the floor. She certainly is the handsomest creature

in town, but, considering all the gossip, I think it odd Lady Sterling

should take her up, and I believe that Kitty is quite annoyed. But Lady

Sterling is so good-natured, and I am told that Dr. Franklin went

personally and asked her to give this lady countenance. He calls her his

Fairy Queen, and to-day saluted her on the lips before all of us. Poor

dear Dr. Franklin is by now quite in the class with Caesar's wife, but

still I think his conduct rather remarkable."

"Who is this woman?" asked Hamilton, indifferently.

"Well!" exclaimed his wife, with a certain satisfaction, "you _are

busy_. She has been the talk of the town for quite three months,

although she never went _anywhere_ before to-day."

"I hear all my gossip from you," said Hamilton, smiling from the hearth

rug, "and considering the labours of the past three months--but tell me

about her. I believe I love you best when gossiping. Your effort to be

caustic is the sweetest thing in the world."

She threw a ball of wool at him, which he caught and pulled apart, then

showered on her head. It was yellow wool, and vastly becoming on her

black hair. "You must have a yellow hat at once, with plumes," he said,

"but go on."

"You shall wind that this evening, sir. Well, she came here about three

months ago with Captain Croix of the British army, and rumour hath it

that he left a wife in England, and that this lady's right to the royal

name of Capet is still unchallenged. The story goes that she was born

about eighteen years ago, on a French frigate bound for the West Indies,

that her mother died, and that, there being no one else of that royal

name on board, the Captain adopted her; but that a baby and a ship being

more than he could manage, he presented the baby to a humble friend at

Newport, by the name of Thompson, who brought her up virtuously, but

without eradicating the spirit of the age, and one fine day she

disappeared with Colonel Croix, and after a honeymoon which may have

been spent in the neighbourhood of any church between here and Rhode

Island, or of none, they arrived in New York, and took the finest

lodgings in town. I suppose Dr. Franklin was a friend of her humble

guardian, he is so philanthropic, and that he is willing to take my

lady's word that all is well--and perhaps it is. I feel myself quite

vicious in repeating the vaguest sort of gossip--active, though. Who

knows, if she had worn a wig, or an inch of powder, and employed the

accepted architect for her tower, she would have passed without

question? Another pillar for my argument, sir."

"As it is, you are even willing to believe that she is a daughter of the

house of France," said Hamilton, with a hearty laugh. "Would that the

world were as easily persuaded of what is good for it as of what tickles

its pettiness. Shall you ask this daughter of the Capets to the house?"

"I have not made up my mind," said Mrs. Hamilton, demurely.

The two older children, Philip and Angelica, came tumbling into the

room, and Hamilton romped with them for a half-hour, then flung them

upon their mother, and watched them from the hearth rug. Betsey was

lovely with her children, who were beautiful little creatures, and

Hamilton was always arranging them in groups. The boy and girl pulled

down her hair with the yellow wool, until all her diminutive figure and

all her face, but its roguish black eyes, were extinguished; and

Hamilton forgot the country.

Elizabeth Schuyler was a cleverer woman than her meed of credit has led

the world to believe. She understood Hamilton very well even then,

although, as his faults but added to his fascination in the eyes of

those that loved him, the knowledge did not detract from her happiness.

In many ways she made herself necessary to him; at that time she even

kept his papers in order. He talked to her freely on every subject that

interested him, from human nature to finance, taxes, and the law, and

she never permitted a yawn to threaten. He read aloud to her every line

he wrote, and while she would not have presumed to suggest, her sympathy

was one of his imperative needs. When his erratic fancy flashed him into

seductive meshes, she pulled a string and back he came. Perhaps this is

the reason why no specific account of his numerous alleged amours have

come down to us. He is vaguely accused of being the Lothario of his

time, irresistible and indefatigable; but of all famous men whose names

are enlivened with anecdotes of gallantry in the vast bulk of the

world's unwritten history, he alone is the hero of much mysterious

affirmation but of no particular romance. The Reynolds affair is open

history and not a case in point. It is probable that, owing to inherent

fickleness and Betsey's gentle manipulation, his affairs rarely lasted

long enough to attract attention. It is one of the accidents of life

that the world barely knew of his acquaintance with Eliza Croix, she who

has come down to us as Madame Jumel; and such a thing could not happen

twice. But whether or not he possessed in all their perfection the

proclivities of so great and impetuous and passionate a genius, it is

certain that he loved his wife devotedly, and above all other women, so

long as his being held together. His home was always his Mecca, and he

left it only when public duty compelled his presence in exile.

III

In February he went to the Assembly to fight Clinton's opposition to the

harassing need of conferring a permanent revenue upon Congress. He had

already written a memorial, distributed over the State, setting forth

the dangerous position of the country. But Clinton was lord of the

masses, and their representatives in the Legislature had been trained to

think as he thought. They honoured him because he had made New York the

greatest State in the Union, not yet realizing that he had brought her

into disrepute at home and abroad, and that his selfish policy was now

hastening her to her ruin. To increase the power of Congress was to

encourage the spirit of Nationalism, and that meant the sure decline of

the States and of himself. The fight was hot and bitter. Clinton won;

but the thinking men present took Hamilton's words home and pondered

upon them, and in time they bore fruit.

After many delays the Convention was summoned to meet at Philadelphia on

the 14th of May. History calls it the Constitutional Convention, but its

promoters were careful to give the States-right people no such guide to

contravention. The violent oppositionists of all change slumbered

peacefully, while the representatives of the more enlightened were

appointed to the Convention under moderately worded and somewhat vague

resolutions; and some of them went as vaguely. Congress, after a

characteristic and selfish hesitation, and a thorough fright induced by

the Massachusetts rebellion, was finally persuaded to give her official

sanction to the proposed Convention. Hamilton secured his appointment as

a delegate,--after a hard fight to have New York represented at

all,--and found himself saddled with two Clintonians, Robert Yates and

John Lansing, Jr. But the first great step for which he had struggled,

since his Morristown letter to the Financier of the Revolution seven

years before, was assured at last.

Shortly before the Convention opened, Gouverneur Morris and James

Madison, Jr. met by appointment at Hamilton's house to discuss the plan

of campaign and make sure of their leader's wishes. General Schuyler

and Robert Troup were also present.

Morris was a delegate from Pennsylvania, but was about to return to New

York, having bought the family estate at Morrisania from his brother,

Staats Long Morris, and was involved in business enterprises which

resulted in a large fortune. He awaited the settlement of the country's

affairs before sailing for Europe in his private interests. Troup, now a

successful lawyer at the New York bar, was an able politician and

devoted to Hamilton's interests. Philip Schuyler was entirely in his

son-in-law's confidence, working for and with him always, occupying the

double position of adviser and follower. Madison, who had forced the

Convention at Annapolis, had had his breath taken away by Hamilton's

coup, but now was delighted that he had been the instrument which made

it possible. He had composed his somewhat halting mind to the

determination to concentrate his energies upon wringing from the

Convention a national scheme of government after Hamilton's model,

provided that model were not too extreme: he was no monarchist, and knew

the people very thoroughly. But he was deeply anxious to have Hamilton's

views and plans for his guidance, even if modification were necessary.

He knew Hamilton's complete mastery of the science of government, and

that his broad structure was bound to be right, no matter what its

frills.

The company assembled in the library, whose open windows overhung a

garden full of lilacs, dogwood, and maples. There was a long table in

the room, about which the guests mechanically seated themselves, so

accustomed were they to the council table. Hamilton had greeted them in

the hall, and sent them on to the library, while he went to fetch some

papers his wife had promised to copy for him.

"So this is the room in which the government of the United States is to

be born," said Troup, glancing about at the familiar books and at the

desk stuffed with papers. "I shall always smell lilacs in the new

Constitution."

"If we get one," observed Morris. "'Conceive' would be a better word

than 'born,' Twelve states,--for my part I am glad the refusal of Rhode

Island to send delegates makes one less,--each wanting its own way, and

the North inevitably pitted against the South: I confess that

'still-born' strikes me as a better word than any."

"We'll have a Constitution," said Madison, doggedly, "I've made up my

mind to that. There are a sufficient number of able and public-spirited

men on their way to Philadelphia to agree upon a wise scheme of

government and force it through--besides Hamilton and ourselves there

are Washington, Governor Randolph, William Livingston, Rufus King, Roger

Sherman, Dr. Franklin, James Wilson, George Wythe, the Pinckneys, Hugh

Williamson--to mention but a few."

"They are not a bad lot," admitted Morris, "if they had all seen more of

the world and less of their native or adopted State--all this State

patriotism makes me sick. Half were not born in the State they

vociferate about, are not certain of ending their days in it, nor of

which their children may adopt as intemperately."

"Travel is not the only cure for provincialism," said General Schuyler.

"Dr. Franklin, I happen to know, is bent upon a form of government

little firmer than the one now existing; and Hamilton, whose travels are

limited to campaigning in the different States, has a comprehensive

grasp of European political machinery, and the breadth of vision such

knowledge involves, which could gain nothing by personal contact."

"Dr. Franklin was too long a mendicant at foreign courts not to be

besottedly in love with their antithesis, and Hamilton has a brain power

and an intellectual grasp which quite remove him from the odiums of

comparison," said Morris. "I think myself he is fortunate in never

having visited Europe, deeply as he may regret it; for with his faculty

of divination he goes straight for what is best only--or most essential.

Had he lived there, the details and disappointments might have blocked

his vision and upset the fine balance of his mind. There she is!"

He was at the window as quickly as he could have flung a book to the

lilacs, despite his wooden leg; and he was followed by Troup and

General Schuyler, demanding "Who?"

"Mrs. Croix--there. Did anything so lovely ever dawn upon a distracted

American's vision? 'Tis said she is an unregistered daughter of the

house of Capet, and I vow she looks every inch a princess. I stared at

her so long last night in Vauxhall that she was embarrassed; and I never

saw such poise, such royal command of homage. How has she developed it

at the age of eighteen? I half believe this tale of royal birth;

although there are those who assert that she is nothing less than the

daughter of our highest in honour."

"'Tis said that she had an opportunity to acquire her aplomb in the

village of Rutland, Massachusetts, where for some years she enlivened

the exile and soothed the domestic yearnings of many British officers,"

said Troup. "One told me that he would vow she was none other than the

famous vagrant 'Betsey.'"

"But I am told that she comes of a respectable Rhode Island family named

Bowen," observed General Schuyler, who was not romantic. "That she was

wayward and ran off with Colonel Croix, of whose other wife there is no

proof, but that none of these fancy stories are true."

"Then wherein lies her claim to the name of Capet?" demanded Morris.

"'Twould be nothing remarkable were she a daughter of Louis V., and I'm

told she signs her name Eliza Capet Croix."

"I don't know," said Schuyler, meekly. "'Tis easy enough to assume a

name, if you have it not. I am told that Lady Sterling is assured of her

respectability. She certainly shines upon us like a star at this moment.

I did not know that women had such hair."

"Is this what we came here to discuss?" asked a voice, dropped to the

register of profound contempt. They turned about with a laugh and faced

Madison's ascetic countenance, pale with disgust. "We have the most

important work to do for which men ever met together, and we stand at

the window and talk scandal about a silly woman and her hair."

"You did not, my dear James," said Morris, lightly; "and thereby you

have missed the truly divine stimulus for the day's work. Don't you

realize, my friend, that no matter how hard a man may labour, some woman

is always in the background of his mind? She is the one reward of

virtue."

"I know nothing of the sort," replied Madison, contemptuously. "I can

flatter myself that I at least am independent of what appears to men

like you to be the only motive for living."

"Right, my boy, but great as you are, you don't know what you might have

been."

The door opened, and Hamilton entered the room, his hands full of

papers, his face as gay and eager as if he were about to read to his

audience a poem or a lively tale. Perhaps one secret of his ascendency

over those who knew him best was that he never appeared to take himself

seriously, even when his whole being radiated power and imperious

determination. When he descended to the depths of seriousness and his

individuality was most overwhelming, his unsleeping sense of humour

saved him from a hint of the demagogue.

"While my wife was finishing, I heard you gossiping from the window

above," he said, "but I had by far the best view. The lilac bushes--"

"Do you know her?" asked Morris, eagerly.

"Alas, I do not. It is incalculable months since I have had time to look

so long at a woman. What is the matter, Madison?"

"I am nauseated. I had thought that _you_--"

Here even General Schuyler laughed, and Hamilton hurriedly arranged his

papers.

He sat down when he began to talk, but was quickly on his feet and

shaking his papers over the table. To him, also, the council table was

the most familiar article of furniture in his world, but he was usually

addressing those it stood for, and he was too ardent a speaker, even

when without the incentive of debate, to keep to his chair.

"I know what you are wondering," he said. "No, it is not the British

Constitution. What I have done so distempered as to impress people with

the belief that I am blind to the spirit of this country, I am at a loss

to conjecture. The British Constitution is the best form which the world

has yet produced; in the words of Necker, it is the only government

'which unites public strength with individual security,' Nevertheless,

no one is more fully convinced than I that none but a republican

government can be attempted in this country, or would be adapted to our

situation. Therefore, I propose to look to the British Constitution for

nothing but those elements of stability and permanency which a

republican system requires, and which may be incorporated into it

without changing its characteristic principles. There never has been,

and there never will be, anything in my acts or principles inconsistent

with the spirit of republican liberty. Whatever my private

predilections, it would be impossible for me, understanding the people

of this country as I do, to fail to recognize the authority of that

people as the source of all political power. Therefore you will find

many departures from the British Constitution in the rough draft I am

about to read. I have neither the patience nor the temper to dogmatize

upon abstract theories of liberty, and our success will lie in adapting

to our particular needs such principles of government as have been tried

and not found wanting, our failure in visionary experiments. The best

and wisest effort we can make will be a sufficient experiment, for whose

result we must all tremble.

"It is going to be difficult to persuade this Convention to unite upon

any constitution very much stronger than the one Dr. Franklin will

propose, or to accomplish its ratification afterward. Nevertheless, I

have prepared a draft of the strongest constitution short of monarchy

which it is possible to conceive, and which I shall propose to the

Convention for reasons I will explain after I have read it to you. Do

you care to listen?"

"Hurry up!" exclaimed Morris. The audience leaned forward. Madison shook

his head all through the reading; Morris jerked his with emphatic

approval.

The radical points in which Hamilton's constitution differed from that

under which we live, was in the demand for a President, to be elected by

property holders, and who should hold office during good behaviour;

senators possessing certain property qualifications and elected on the

same principle; and governors of States appointed and removable by the

President. Practically the author of the dual government, he believed

emphatically in subserving the lesser to the greater, although endowing

the States with sufficient power for self-protection. The Executive was

to be held personally responsible for official misconduct, both he and

the senators subject to impeachment and to removal from office. The

whole scheme was wrought out with the mathematical complexity and

precision characteristic of Hamilton's mind.

"Would that it were possible," exclaimed Morris, when Hamilton had

finished. "But as well expect the Almighty to drive the quill. You will

weaken your influence, Hamilton, and to no effect."

"Ah, but I have calculated upon two distinct points, and I believe I

shall achieve them. I have not the most distant hope that this paper

will be acceptable to five men in the Convention,--three, perhaps, would

round the number,--Washington, yourself, myself. Nevertheless, I shall

introduce it and speak in its favour with all the passion of which I am

master, for these reasons: I believe in it; its energy is bound to give

a tone that might be lacking otherwise; and--this is the principal

point--_there must be something to work back from_. If I alarm with the

mere chance of so perilous a menace to their democratic ideals, they

will go to work in earnest at _something_ in order to defeat me, and

they will not go back so far in the line of vigour as if I had suggested

a more moderate plan; for, mark my words, they would infallibly incline

to weaker measures than _any_ firm government which should first be

proposed. In the management of men one of the most important things to

bear in mind is their proneness to work forward from the weak, and

backward from the strong. On the quality of the strength depends its

magnetism over the weak. All reformers are ridiculed or outlawed, and

their measures are never wholly successful; but they awaken men's minds

to something of approximate worth, and to a desire for a divorce from

the old order of things. So, while I expect to be called a monarchist, I

hope to instil subtly the idea of the absolute necessity of a strong

government, and implant in their minds a distrust of one too weak."

"Good," said Morris. "And it is always a delight to see your revelation

of yourself in a new light. I perceive that to your other

accomplishments you add the cunning of the fox."

"You are right to call it an accomplishment," retorted Hamilton. "We

cannot go through life successfully with the bare gifts of the Almighty,

generous though He may have been. If I find that I have need of cunning,

or brutality,--than which nothing is farther from my nature,--or even

nagging, I do not hesitate to borrow and use them."

"Let us call this sagacity," said Troup. "'Tis a prettier word. Or the

canniness of the Scot. But there is one thing I fear," he added

anxiously. "You may injure your chances of future preferment. Your

ambition will be thought too vaulting, particularly for so young a man,

and, besides, you may be thought a menace to the commonwealth."

"That is a point to be considered, Hamilton," said General Schuyler.

"I have an end to gain, sir, and I mean to gain it. Moreover, this is no

time to be considering private interests. If this be not the day for

patriotism to stifle every personal ambition, then there is little hope

for human nature. I believe the result of this paper will be a

constitution of respectable strength, and I shall use all the influence

I wield to make the people accept it. So, if you worry, consider if the

later effort will not outweigh the first."

"Hamilton," said Madison, solemnly, "you are a greater man even than I

thought you. You have given me a most welcome hint, and I shall take

upon myself to engineer the recession from your constitution. I shall

study its effect with the closest attention and be guided accordingly, I

am heart and soul in this matter, and would give my life to it if

necessary. I never should have thought of anything so astute," he added,

with some envy, "but perhaps if I had, no one else would be so

peculiarly fitted as myself to work upon its manifold suggestions. I

hope I do not strike you as conceited," he said, looking around

anxiously, "but I _feel_ that it is in me to render efficient service in

the present crisis."

Before Morris could launch his ready fling, Hamilton hastened to assure

Madison of his belief that no man living could render services so great.

He underrated neither Madison's great abilities nor the danger of

rankling arrows in that sensitive and not too courageous spirit. They

then discussed a general plan of campaign and the best methods of

managing certain members of the Convention. Morris was the first to

rise.

"Adieu," he said. "I go to ruminate upon our Captain's diplomacy, and to

pursue the ankle of Mrs. Croix. Be sure that the one will not interfere

with the other, but will mutually stimulate."

The other gentlemen adjourned to the dining room.

IV

The story of the Convention has been told so often that only the merest

outline is necessary here; those who have not before this read at least

one of the numberless reports, would be the last to wish its

multigenerous details. To the students of history there is nothing new

to tell, as may be the case with less exploited incidents of Hamilton's

career. Someone has said that it was an assemblage of hostile camps, and

it certainly was the scene of intense and bitter struggles, of a

heterogeneous mass blindly striving to cohere, whilst a thousand

sectional interests tugged at the more familiar of the dual ideal; of

compromise after compromise; of a fear pervading at least one-half that

the liberties of republicanism were menaced by every energetic

suggestion; of the soundest judgement and patriotism compelled to

truckle to meaner sentiments lest they get nothing; of the picked men of

the Confederacy, honourable, loyal, able, and enlightened, animated in

the first and last instance by a pure and common desire for the highest

welfare of the country, driven to war upon one another by the strength

of their conflicting opinions; ending--among the thirty-nine out of the

sixty-one delegates who signed the Constitution--in a feeling as closely

resembling general satisfaction as individual disappointments would

permit.

At first so turbulent were the conditions, that Franklin, who troubled

the Almighty but little himself, arose and suggested that the meetings

be opened with prayer. After this sarcasm, and the submission of his

mild compromise with the Confederation, he sat and watched the painted

sun behind Washington's chair, pensively wondering if the artist had

intended to convey the idea of a rise or a setting. Hamilton presented

his draft at the right moment, and the startled impression it made quite

satisfied him, particularly as his long speech to the Committee of the

Whole was received with the closest attention. Nothing could alter his

personal fascination, and even his bitterest enemies rarely left their

chairs while he spoke. The small figure, so full of dignity and

magnetizing power that it excluded every other object from their vision,

the massive head with a piercing force in every line of its features,

the dark eyes blazing and flashing with a fire that never had been seen

in the eyes of a mere mortal before, the graceful rapid gestures, and

the passionate eloquence which never in its most apparently abandoned

moments failed to be sincere and logical, made him for the hour the

glory of friend and enemy alike, although the reaction was

correspondingly bitter. Upon this occasion he spoke for six hours

without the interruption of a scraping heel; and what the Convention did

not know about the science of government before he finished with them,

they never would learn elsewhere. Although he made but this one speech,

he talked constantly to the groups surrounding him wherever he moved. To

his original scheme he had too much tact to make further allusion; but

his general opinions, ardently propounded, his emphatic reiteration of

the demoralized country's need for a national government, and of the

tyrannies inherent in unbridled democracies, wedged in many a chink.

Nevertheless, he was disgusted and disheartened when he left for New

York, at the end of May. The Convention was chaos, but he could

accomplish nothing more than what he hoped he might have done; the

matter was now best in the hands of Madison and Gouverneur Morris, and

his practice could no longer be neglected.

But although he returned to a mass of work,--for he handled most of the

great cases of the time,--he managed to mingle daily with the crowd at

Fraunces' and the coffee-houses, in order to gauge the public sentiment

regarding the proposed change of government, and to see the leading men

constantly. On the whole, he wrote to Washington, he found that both in

the Jerseys and in New York there was "an astonishing revolution for the

better in the minds of the people."

Washington replied from the depths of his disgust:--

... In a word I almost despair of seeing a favourable issue to the

proceedings of the Convention, and do, therefore, repent having any

agency in the business. The men who oppose a strong and energetic

government are, in my opinion, narrow-minded politicians, or are

under the influence of local views. The apprehension expressed by

them that the _people_ will not accede to the form proposed, is the

_ostensible_, not the real cause of the opposition; but admitting

that _present_ sentiment is as they prognosticate, the question

ought nevertheless to be, is it, or is it not, the best form? If

the former, recommend it, and it will assuredly obtain, maugre

opposition. I am sorry you went away; I wish you were back.

To Washington, who presided over that difficult assemblage with a

superhuman dignity, to Hamilton who breathed his strong soul into it, to

Madison who manipulated it, to Gouverneur Morris, whose sarcastic

eloquent tongue brought it to reason again and again, and whose

accomplished pen gave the Constitution its literary form, belong the

highest honours of the Convention; although the services rendered by

Roger Sherman, Rufus King, James Wilson, R.R. Livingston, and Charles

Cotesworth Pinckney entitle them to far more than polite mention.

When Hamilton signed the Constitution, on the 17th of September, it was

by no means strong enough to suit him, but as it was incomparably better

than the Articles of Confederation, which had carried the country to the

edge of anarchy and ruin, and was regarded by a formidable number of

people and their leaders as so strong as to be a menace to the liberties

of the American citizen, he could with consistency and ardour exert

himself to secure its ratification. After all, it was built of his

stones, chipped and pared though they might be; had he not gone to the

Convention, the result might have been a constitution for which his pen

would have refused to plead.

Manhattan Island, Kings and Westchester counties had long since accepted

his doctrines, and they stood behind him in unbroken ranks; but the

northern counties and cities of New York, including Albany, were still

under the autocratic sway of Clinton. Hamilton's colleagues, Yates and

Lansing, had resigned their seats in the Great Convention. Among the

signatures to the Constitution his name stood alone for New York, and

the fact was ominous of his lonely and precarious position. But

difficulties were ever his stimulant, and this was not the hour to find

him lacking in resource.

"The Constitution terrifies by its length, complexity, frigidity, and

above all by its novelty," he said to Jay and Madison, who met by

appointment in his library. "Clinton, in this State, has persuaded his

followers that it is so many iron hoops, in which they would groan and

struggle for the rest of their lives. To defeat him and this pernicious

idea, we must discuss the Constitution publicly, in the most lucid and

entertaining manner possible, lay every fear, and so familiarize the

people with its merits, and with the inseparable relation of its

adoption to their personal interests, that by the time the elections for

the State Convention take place, they will be sufficiently educated to

give us the majority. And as there is so much doubt, even among members

of the Convention, as to the mode of enacting the Constitution, we must

solve that problem as quickly as possible. My purpose is to publish a

series of essays in the newspapers, signed, if you agree with me,

Publius, and reaching eighty or ninety in number, which shall expound

and popularize the Constitution of the United States; and if you will

give me your inestimable help, I am sure we shall accomplish our

purpose."

"If you need my help, I will give it to you to the best of my ability,

sir," said Jay, "but I do not pretend to compete with your absolute

mastery of the complex science of government, and I fear that my weaker

pen may somewhat counteract the vigour of yours; but, I repeat, I will

do my best with the time at my disposal."

Hamilton laughed, "You know how anxious I am to injure our chances of

success," he said. "I hope all things from your pen."

Jay bowed formally, and Hamilton turned to Madison. "I know you must

feel that you have done your share for the present," he said, "and there

is hard work awaiting you in your State Convention, but the subject is

at your finger tips; it hardly can be too much trouble."

"I am not very well," said Madison, peevishly, "but I realize the

necessity,--and that the papers should be read as extensively in

Virginia as here. I will write a few, and more if I can."

But, as it came to pass, Madison wrote but fourteen separate papers of

the eighty-five, although he collaborated with Hamilton on three others,

and Jay wrote five only. The remaining sixty-three, therefore, of the

essays, collected during and after their publication under the title of

"The Federalist," which not only did so much to enlighten and educate

the public mind and weaken the influence of such men as Clinton, but

which still stand as the ablest exposition of the science of government,

and as the parent of American constitutional law, were the work of

Hamilton.

"It is the fortunate situation of our country," said Hamilton, a few

months later, at Poughkeepsie, "that the minds of the people are

exceedingly enlightened and refined." Certainly these papers are a great

tribute to the general intelligence of the American race of a century

and more ago. Selfish, petty, and lacking in political knowledge they

may have been, but it is evident that their mental _tone_ was high, that

their minds had not been vulgarized by trash and sensationalism.

Hamilton's sole bait was a lucid and engaging style, which would not

puzzle the commonest intelligence, which he hoped might instruct without

weighing heavily on the capacity of his humbler readers. That he was

addressing the general voter, as well as the men of a higher grade as

yet unconvinced, there can be no doubt, for as New York State was still

seven-tenths Clintonian, conversion of a large portion of this scowling

element was essential to the ratification of the Constitution. And yet

he chose two men of austere and unimaginative style to collaborate with

him; while his own style for purity, distinction, and profundity

combined with simplicity, has never been excelled.

Betsey was ailing, and her doors closed to society; the children romped

on the third floor or on the Battery. Hamilton wrote chiefly at night,

his practice occupying the best of the hours of day, but he was sensible

of the calm of his home and of its incentive to literary composition; it

never occurred to him to open his office in the evening. Betsey, the

while she knitted socks, listened patiently to her brilliant husband's

luminous discussions on the new Constitution--which she could have

recited backward--and his profound interpretation of its principles and

provisions. If she worried over these continuous labours she made no

sign, for Hamilton was racing Clinton, and there was not a moment to

lose. Clinton won in the first heat. After a desperate struggle in the

State Legislature the Hamiltonians succeeded in passing resolutions

ordering a State Convention to be elected for the purpose of considering

the Constitution; but the result in April proved the unabated power and

industry of Clinton,--the first, and not the meanest of New York's

political "bosses,"--for two-thirds of the men selected were his

followers. The Convention was called for the 17th of June and it was

rumoured that the Clintonians intended immediately to move an

adjournment until the following year. According to an act of Congress

the ratification of only nine States was necessary to the adoption of

the Constitution. The others could come into the Union later if they

chose, and there was a disposition in several States to watch the

experiment before committing themselves. Hamilton, who knew that such a

policy, if pursued by the more important States, would result in civil

war, was determined that New York should not behave in a manner which

would ruin her in the present and disgrace her in history, and wrote on

with increasing vigour, hoping to influence the minds of the

oppositionists elected to the Convention as well as the people at large.

Even he had never written anything which had attracted so wide admiring

and acrimonious attention. The papers were read in all the cities of the

Confederation, and in such hamlets as boasted a mail-bag. When they

reached England and France they were almost as keenly discussed. That

they steadily made converts, Hamilton had cause to know, for his

correspondence was overwhelming. Troup and General Schuyler attended to

the greater part of it; but only himself could answer the frequent

letters from leaders in the different states demanding advice. He

thought himself fortunate in segregating five hours of the twenty-four

for sleep. The excitement throughout the country was intense, and it is

safe to say that nowhere and for months did conversation wander from the

subject of politics and the new Constitution, for more than ten minutes

at a time. In New York Hamilton was the subject of constant and vicious

attack, the Clintonians sparing no effort to discredit him with the

masses. New York City was nicknamed Hamiltonopolis and jingled in

scurrilous rhymes. In the midst of it all were two diversions: the

fourth of his children, and a letter which he discovered before General

Schuyler or Troup had sorted his mail. As the entire Schuyler family

were now in his house, and his new son was piercingly discontented with

his lot, he took refuge in his chambers in Garden Street, until Betsey

was able to restore peace and happiness to his home. The postman had

orders to bring his mail-bag thither, and it was on the second morning

of his exile that the perfume of violets caused him to make a hasty

journey through the letters.

He found the spring sweetness coincidentally with a large square,

flowingly superscribed. He glanced at the clock. His devoted assistants

would not arrive for half an hour. He broke the seal. It was signed

Eliza Capet Croix, and ran as follows:--

MY DEAR SIR: Do you care anything for the opinion of my humble sex,

I wonder? The humblest of your wondering admirers is driven beyond

the bounds of feminine modesty, sir, to tell you that what you do

not write she no longer cares to read. I was the first to detect--I

claim that honour--such letters by Publius as were not by your

hand, and while I would not disparage efforts so conscientious,

they seem to me like dawn to sunrise. Is this idle flattery? Ah,

sir! I too am greatly flattered. I do not want for admirers. Nor

can I hope to know--to know--so great and busy a man. But my

restless vanity, sir, compels me to force myself upon your notice.

I should die if I passed another day unknown to the man who gives

me the greatest pleasures of my life--I have every line you have

had printed that can be found, and half the booksellers in the

country searching for the lost copies of the _Continentalist_--I

should die, I say, if you were longer ignorant that I have the

intelligence, the ambition, and the erudition to admire you above

all men, living or dead. For that is my pride, sir. Perchance I was

born for politics; at all events you have made them my passion, and

I spend my days converting Clintonians to your cause. Do not scorn

my efforts. It is not every day that a woman turns a man's thoughts

from love to patriotism; I have heard that 'tis oftenest the other

way. But I take your time, and hasten to subscribe myself, my dear

sir,

Your humble and obd't servant

ELIZA CAPET CROIX.

The absence of superfluous capitals and of underscoring in this letter,

alone would have arrested his attention, for even men of a less severe

education than himself were liberal in these resources, and women were

prodigal. The directness and precision were also remarkable, and he

recalled that she was but nineteen. The flattery touched him, no doubt,

for he was very human; and despite the brevity of his leisure, he read

the note twice, and devoted a moment to conjecture.

"She is cleverer, even, than Lady Kitty, or Susan and Kitty Livingston,

by this," he mused. "She would be worth knowing, did a driven mortal but

have the time to idle in the wake of so much intelligence--and beauty.

Not to answer this were unpardonable--I cannot allow the lady to die."

He wrote her a brief note of graceful acknowledgement, which caused Mrs.

Croix to shed tears of exultation and vexation. He acknowledged her but

breathed no fervid desire for another letter. It is not to be expected

that maturest nineteen can realize that, although a busy man will find

time to see a woman if it be worth his while, the temptations to a

romantic correspondence are not overwhelming.

Hamilton tore up the letter and threw it into the waste basket. Its

perfume, delicate but imperious, intruded upon his brief. He dived into

the basket as he heard Troup's familiar whistle, and thrust the pieces

into a breast pocket. In a moment he remembered that Betsey's head would

be pillowed upon that pocket at five in the afternoon, and he hastily

extracted the mutilated letter, and applied a match to it, consigning

women to perdition. Troup sniffed as he entered the room.

"Violets and burnt paper," remarked he. "'Tis a combination I have

noticed before. I wonder will some astute perfumer ever seize the idea?

It would have its guilty appeal for our sex--perchance for t'other;

though I'm no cynic like you and Morris."

"Shut up," said Hamilton, "and get to work if you love me, for I've no

time to write to St. Croix, much less waste five seconds on any woman."

That afternoon he wasted half an hour in search of a bunch of redolent

violets to carry home to his wife. He pinned three on his coat.

V

When the 17th of June approached, Hamilton, John Jay, Chancellor

Livingston, and James Duane, started on horse for Poughkeepsie, not

daring, with Clinton on the spot, and the menace of an immediate

adjournment, to trust to the winds of the Hudson. General Schuyler had

promised to leave even a day sooner from the North, and the majority of

Federal delegates had gone by packet-boat, or horse, in good season.

The old post road between New York and Albany was, for the greater part

of the way, but a rough belt through a virgin forest. Occasionally a

farmer had cleared a few acres, the lawns of a manor house were open to

the sun, the road was varied by the majesty of Hudson and palisade for a

brief while, or by the precipitous walls of mountains, so thickly wooded

that even the wind barely fluttered their sombre depths. Man was a

moving arsenal in those long and lonely journeys, for the bear and the

panther were breeding undisturbed. But the month was hot, and those

forest depths were very cool; the scenery was often as magnificent as

primeval, and a generous hospitality at many a board dispelled, for an

interval, the political anxiety of Hamilton and his companions.

Hamilton, despite a mind trained to the subordination of private

interests to public duty, knew that it was the crisis of his own destiny

toward which he was hastening. He had bound up his personal ambitions

with the principles of the Federalist party--so called since the

publication in book form of the Publius essays; for not only was he

largely responsible for those principles, but his mind was too well

regulated to consider the alternative of a compromise with a possibly

victorious party which he detested. Perhaps his ambition was too

vaulting to adapt itself to a restricted field when his imagination had

played for years with the big ninepins of history; at all events, it was

inseparably bound up with nationalism in the boldest sense achievable,

and with methods which days and nights of severe thought had convinced

him were for the greatest good of the American people. Union meant

Washington in the supreme command, himself with the reins of government

in both hands. The financial, the foreign, the domestic policy of a

harmonious federation were as familiar to his mind as they are to us

to-day. Only he could achieve them, and only New York could give him

those reins of power.

It is true that he had but to move his furniture over to Philadelphia to

be welcomed to citizenship with acclamation by that ambitious town; but

not only was his pride bound up in the conquest of New York from

Clintonism to Federalism, but New York left out of the Union, dividing

as she did New England from the South and North, of the highest

commercial importance by virtue of her central position and her harbour,

meant civil war at no remote period, disunion, and the undoing of the

most careful and strenuous labours of the nation's statesmen. That New

York should be forced into the Union at once Hamilton was determined

upon, if he had to resort to a coup which might or might not meet with

the approval of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, he looked forward

to the next few weeks with the deepest anxiety. An accident, an illness,

and the cause was lost, for he made no mistake in estimating himself as

the sole force which could bear Clinton and his magnificent organization

to the ground. Hamilton was no party manipulator. He relied upon his

individual exertions, abetted by those of his lieutenants,--the most

high-minded and the ablest men in the country,--to force his ideas upon

the masses by their own momentum and weight. Indeed, so individual did

he make the management of the Federalist party, that years later, when

the "Republican" leaders determined upon its overthrow, they aimed all

their artillery at him alone: if he fell the party must collapse, on top

of him; did he retain the confidence of the people, he would magnetize

their obedience, no matter what rifts there might be in his ranks.

He had established a horse-express between Virginia and Poughkeepsie,

and between New Hampshire and the little capital. Eight States having

ratified, the signature of New Hampshire, the next in order, would mean

union and a trial of the Constitution, a prospect which could not fail

to influence the thinking men of the anti-Federal party; but it was from

the ratification of Virginia that he hoped the greatest good. This State

occupied much the same position in the South that New York did in the

North, geographically, commercially, historically, and in the

importance of her public men. And she was as bitterly opposed to union,

to what a narrow provincialism held to be the humiliation of the States.

Patrick Henry, her most powerful and eloquent leader, not through the

selfish policy of a Clinton, but in the limitations of a too narrow

genius, was haranguing with all his recuperated might against the

sinister menace to the liberties of a people who had freed themselves of

one despotism so dearly; and even Randolph, with characteristic

hesitancy when approaching a point, was deficient in enthusiasm,

although he intimated that he should vote for the unconditional adoption

of the Constitution he had refused to sign. He and Marshall were

Madison's only assistants of importance against the formidable opponent

of union, and it was well understood among leaders that Jefferson, who

was then American minister in France, gave the Constitution but a

grudging and inconsistent approval, and would prefer that it failed,

were not amendments tacked on which practically would nullify its

energies. But although Hamilton had such lieutenants as John Jay, Philip

Schuyler, Duane, and Robert Livingston, Madison had the inestimable,

though silent, backing of Washington. The great Chief had, months since,

forcibly expressed his sentiments in a public letter; and that colossal

figure, the more potent that it was invisible and mute, guided as many

wills as Madison's strenuous exertions and unanswerable dispassionate

logic.

But Washington, although sufficiently revered by New Yorkers, was not

their very own, as was he the Virginians'; was by no means so impinging

and insistent as his excellency, Governor Clinton, he whose powerful

will and personality, aided by an enterprise and wisdom that were not

always misguided, for eleven years had compelled their grateful

submission. It was difficult to convince New Yorkers that such a man was

wholly wrong in his patriotism, particularly when their own interests

seemed bound so firmly to his. It was this dominant, dauntless,

resourceful, political nabob that Hamilton knew he must conquer

single-handed, if he conquered him at all; for his lieutenants, able as

they were, could only second and abet him; they had none of his

fertility of resource. As he rode through the forest he rehearsed every

scheme of counterplay and every method that made for conquest which his

fertile brain had conceived. He would exercise every argument likely to

appeal to the decent instincts of those ambitious of ranking as

first-class citizens, as well as to the congenital selfishness of man,

which could illuminate the darker recesses of their Clintonized

understandings, and effect their legitimate conversion; then, if these

higher methods failed, coercion.

"What imperious method are you devising, Hamilton?" asked Livingston.

"Your lips are set; your eyes are almost black. I've seen you like that

in court, but never in good company before. You look as if considering a

challenge to mortal combat."

Hamilton's brow cleared, and he laughed with that mercurial lightness

which did more to preserve the balance of what otherwise would have been

an overweighted mind than any other quality it possessed.

"Well, am I not to fight a duel?" he asked. "Would that I could call

Clinton out and settle the question as easily as that. I disapprove of

duelling, but so critical a moment as this would justify anything short

of trickery. We'll leave that to Clinton; but although there is no vast

difference between my political and my private conscience, there are

recourses which are as fair in political as in martial warfare, and I

should be found ingenuous and incapable did I fail to make use of them."

"Well, you love a fight," said Jay, without experiencing the humour of

his remark. "I believe you would rather fight than sit down in good

company at any time, and you are notoriously convivial. But easy

conquest would demoralize you. If I do not mistake, you have the

greatest battle of your career, past or present, immediately ahead of

you--and it means so much to all of us--I fear--I fear--"

"I will listen to no fears," cried Hamilton, who at all events had no

mind to be tormented by any but his own. "Are we not alive? Are we not

in health? Are not our intellectual powers at their ripest point of

development? Can Clinton, Melancthon Smith, Yates, Lansing, Jones, make

a better showing?"

"We are nineteen against forty-six," said Jay, with conceivable gloom.

"True. But there is no reason why we should not shortly be forty-six

against nineteen."

"We certainly are Right against the most unstatesman-like Selfishness

the world has ever seen," observed Duane.

"Would that experience justified us in thinking well enough of the human

race to gather courage from that fact," replied Hamilton. "It is to the

self-interest of the majority we shall have to appeal. Convince them

that there is neither career nor prosperity for them in an isolated

State, and we may drag them up to a height which is safer than their

mire, simply because it is better, or better because it is safer. This

is a time to practice patriotism, but not to waste time talking about

it."

"Your remarks savour of cynicism," replied Jay, "but I fear there is

much truth in them. It is only in the millennium, I suppose, that we

shall have the unthinkable happiness of seeing on all sides of us an

absolute conformity to our ideals."

In spite of the close, if somewhat formal, friendship between Jay and

Hamilton, the latter was often momentarily depressed by the resemblance

of this flawless character to, and its rigid contrasts from, his dead

friend Laurens. Jay was all that Laurens had passionately wished to be,

and apparently without effort; for nature had not balanced him with a

redeeming vice, consequently with no power to inspire hate or love. Had

he been a degree greater, a trifle more ambitious, or had circumstances

isolated him in politics, he would have been an even lonelier and

loftier figure than Washington, for our Chief had one or two redeeming

humanities; as it was, he stood to a few as a character so perfect that

they marvelled, while they deplored his lack of personal influence. But

his intellect is in the rank which stands just beneath that of the men

of genius revealed by history, and he hangs like a silver star of the

tropics upon the sometimes dubious fields of our ancestral heavens.

Nevertheless, he frequently inspired Hamilton with so poignant a longing

for Laurens that our impetuous hero was tempted to wish for an exchange

of fates.

"In the millennium we will all tell the truth and hate each other,"

answered Hamilton. "And we either shall all be fools, or those irritants

will be extinct; in any case we shall be happy, particularly if we have

someone to hate."

"Ah, now you jest," said Duane, smiling. "For you are logical or

nothing. _You_ may be happy when on the warpath, but the rest of us are

not. And you are the last man to be happy in a millennium by yourself."

They all laughed at this sally, for Hamilton was seldom silent. He

answered lightly:--

"Someone to fight. Someone to love. Three warm friends. Three hot

enemies. A sufficiency of delicate food and wine. A West Indian

swimming-bath. Someone to talk to. Someone to make love to. War.

Politics. Books. Song. Children. Woman. A religion. There you have the

essence of the millennium, embroider it as you may."

"And scenery," added Jay, devoutly.

The road for the last quarter of an hour had led up a steep hill, above

which other hills piled without an opening; and below lay the Hudson. As

they paused upon the bare cone of the elevation, the river looked like a

chain of Adirondack lakes, with dense and upright forests rising tier

beyond tier until lost in the blue haze of the Catskills. The mountains

looked as if they had pushed out from the mainland down to the water's

edge to cross and meet each other. So close were the opposite crags that

the travellers could see a deer leap through the brush, the red of his

coat flashing through the gloomy depths. Below sped two packet-boats in

a stiff breeze.

"Friends or enemies?" queried Livingston. "I wish I were with them, for

I must confess the pleasures of horse travel for seventy-five miles must

be the climax of a daily habit to be fully appreciated. It is all very

well for Hamilton, who is on a horse twice every day; but as I am ten

years older and proportionately stiffer, I shall leave patriotism to the

rest of you for a day or two after our arrival."

Hamilton did not answer. He had become conscious of the delicate yet

piercing scent of violets. Wild violets had no perfume, and it was long

past their season. He glanced eagerly around, but without realizing what

prompted a quick stirring of his pulses. There was but one tree on the

crag, and he stood against it. Almost mechanically his glance sought its

recesses, and his hand reached forward to something white. It was a

small handkerchief of cambric and lace. The other men were staring at

the scenery. He hastily glanced at the initials in the corner of the

scented trifle, and wondered that he should so easily decipher a tangled

E.C.C. But he marvelled, nevertheless, and thrust the handkerchief into

his pocket.

They reached Poughkeepsie late in the afternoon. Main Street, which was

the interruption of the post road, and East Street, which terminated the

Dutchess turnpike, were gaily decorated with flags and greens, the

windows and pavements crowded with people whose faces reflected the

nervous excitement with which the whole country throbbed. The capital

for ten years, the original village had spread over the hills into a

rambling town of many avenues, straight and twisted, and there were

pretentious houses and a certain amount of business. Hamilton and his

party were stared at with deep curiosity, but not cheered, for the town

was almost wholly Clintonian. The Governor had his official residence on

the Dutchess turnpike, a short distance from town; and this was his

court. Nevertheless, it was proudly conscious of the dignity incumbent

upon it as the legislative centre of the State, and no matter what the

suspense or the issue, had no mind to make the violent demonstrations of

other towns. Nearly every town of the North, including Albany, had

burned Hamilton in effigy, albeit with battered noses, for he had his

followers everywhere; but here he was met with a refreshing coolness,

for which the others of his party, at least, were thankful.

They went first to Van Kleek's tavern, on the Upper Landing Road, not

far from the Court-house, to secure the rooms they had engaged; but

finding an invitation awaiting them from Henry Livingston to make use of

his house during the Convention, repaired with unmixed satisfaction to

the large estate on the other side of the town. The host was absent, but

his cousin had been requested to do the honours to as many as he would

ask to share a peaceful retreat from the daily scene of strife.

"And it has the advantage of an assured privacy," said Hamilton. "For

here we can hold conference nightly with no fear of eavesdropping.

Moreover, to get a bath at Van Kleek's is as easy as making love to

Clinton."

General Schuyler joined them an hour later. He had been in town all day,

and had held several conferences with the depressed Federalists, who,

between a minority which made them almost ridiculous, and uncomfortable

lodgings, were deep in gloomy forebodings. As soon as they heard of

their Captain's arrival they swarmed down to the Livingston mansion.

Hamilton harangued them cheerfully in the drawing-room, drank with them,

in his host's excellent wine, to the success of their righteous cause;

and they retired, buoyant, confirmed in their almost idolatrous belief

in the man who was responsible for all the ideas they possessed.

VI

Although Hamilton and Clinton had no liking for each other, they were

far from being the furious principals in one of those political hatreds

which the times were about to engender,--an intellectual cataclysm which

Hamilton was to experience in all its blackness, of which he was to be

the most conspicuous victim. He had by no means plumbed his depths as

yet. So far he had met with few disappointments, few stumbling blocks,

never a dead wall. Life had smiled upon him as if magnetized. At home he

found perfect peace, abroad augmenting ranks of followers, sufficient

work to use up his nervous energies, and the stimulant of enmity and

opposition that he loved. It was long since he had given way to rage,

although he flew into a temper occasionally. He told himself he was

become a philosopher, and was far from suspecting the terrible passions

which the future was to undam. His mother, with dying insight, had

divined the depth and fury of a nature which was all light on the

surface, and in its upper half a bewildering but harmonious

intermingling of strength, energy, tenderness, indomitability,

generosity, and intense emotionalism: a stratum so large and so

generously endowed that no one else, least of all himself, had suspected

that primeval inheritance which might blaze to ashes one of the most

nicely balanced judgements ever bestowed on a mortal, should his enemies

combine and beat his own great strength to the dust.

But when Hamilton and Clinton approached the Court-house from opposite

directions, on the morning of the 17th, they did not cross the street to

avoid meeting, although they bowed with extreme formality and measured

each other with a keen and speculative regard. Clinton was now

forty-nine years old, his autocratic will, love of power, and knowledge

of men, in their contemptuous maturity. He was a large man, with the

military bearing of the born and finished martinet, a long hard nose,

and an irritated eye. The irritation kindled as it met Hamilton's, which

was sparkling with the eager determination of a youth which, although

desirable in itself, was become a presumption when pitted against those

eighteen additional distinguished years of the Governor of New York.

That there was a twinkle of amusement in the Federalist's eye was also

to his discredit.

"The young fop," fumed Clinton, as he brushed a fleck of mud from his

own magnificent costume of black ducape, "he is the _enfant gâté_ of

politics, and I shall settle him here once for all. It will be a public

benefaction."

The Court-house, which stood halfway up the hill, on the corner of Main

and East streets, and was surrounded by the shade of many maples, was a

two-story building of rough stones welded together by a ruder cement.

The roof sloped, and above was a belfry. The Convention was held in the

upper story, which was unbroken by partition; and with the windows open

upon what looked to be a virgin forest, so many were the ancient trees

remaining in the little town, the singing of birds, the shrilling of

crickets, the murmur of the leaves in an almost constant breeze, the old

Court-house of Poughkeepsie was by no means a disagreeable

gathering-place. Moreover, it was as picturesque within as it was

arcadian without; for the fine alert-looking men, with their powdered

hair in queues, their elaborately cut clothes of many colours, made for

the most part of the corded silk named ducape, their lawn and ruffles,

made up the details of a charming picture, which was far from appealing

to them, but which gives us a distinct pleasure in the retrospect.

Governor Clinton was elected the President of the Convention. On the

right of the central table sat his forty-five henchmen, with Melancthon

Smith, one of the most astute and brilliant debaters of the time, well

to the front. Opposite sat Hamilton, surrounded by General Schuyler,

Jay, Duane, and Robert Livingston, the rest of his small following close

to the windows, but very alert, their gaze never ranging far from their

leader. Beyond the bar crowded the invited guests, many of them women in

all the finery of the time.

If the anti-Federalists had entertained the idea of an immediate and

indefinite adjournment, they appear to have abandoned it without waste

of time; perhaps because long and tedious journeys in midsummer were not

to be played with; perhaps because they were sure of their strength;

possibly because Clinton was so strongly in favour of arranging

Hamilton's destinies once for all.

Certainly at the outset the prospects of the Federalists were almost

ludicrous. The anti-Federalists were two-thirds against one-third,

fortified against argument, uncompromisingly opposed to union at the

expense of State sovereignty, clever and thinking men, most of them,

devoted to Clinton, and admirably led by an orator who acknowledged no

rival but Hamilton. The latter set his lips more than once, and his

heart sank, but only to leap a moment later with delight in the mere

test of strength.

Clinton's first move was to attempt a vote at once upon the Constitution

as a whole, but he was beaten by Hamilton and many in his own ranks, who

were in favour of the fair play of free debate. The Governor was forced

to permit the Convention to go into a Committee of the Whole, which

would argue the Constitution section by section. Hamilton had gained a

great point, and he soon revealed the use he purposed to make of it.

It is doubtful if his own followers had anticipated that he would speak

almost daily for three weeks, receiving and repelling the brunt of every

argument; and certainly Clinton had looked for no such feat.

The contest opened on the Clintonian side, with the argument that an

amended Confederation was all that was necessary for the purposes of a

more general welfare. The plan advanced was that Congress should be

given the power to compel by force the payment of the requisitions which

the States so often ignored. Hamilton demolished this proposition with

one of his most scornful outbursts.

Coerce the States! [he cried]. Never was a madder project devised!

Do you imagine that the result of the failure of one State to

comply would be confined to that State alone? Are you so willing to

hazard a civil war? Consider the refusal of Massachusetts, the

attempt at compulsion by Congress. What a series of pictures does

this conjure up? A powerful State procuring immediate assistance

from other States, particularly from some delinquent! A complying

State at war with a non-complying State! Congress marching the

troops of one State into the bosom of another! This State

collecting auxiliaries and forming perhaps a majority against its

Federal head! And can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a

government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting

itself?--a government that can exist only by the sword? And what

sort of a State would it be which would suffer itself to be used as

the instrument of coercing another? ... A Federal standing army,

then, must enforce the requisitions or the Federal treasury will be

left without supplies, and the government without support.... There

is but one cure for such an evil--to enable the national laws to

operate on individuals like the laws of the States. To take the old

Confederation as the basis of a new system, and to trust the sword

and the purse to a single assembly organized upon principles so

defective, giving it the full powers of taxation and the national

forces, would result in what--Despotism! To avoid the very issue

which appears to be held in such abject terror, a totally different

government from anything into which the old Confederation can be

twisted, or fitted out with wings and gables, must be established

with proper powers and proper checks and balances.

His words created a palpable uneasiness. The outburst was the more

effective for following and preceding close passionless and pointed

reasoning, a trenchant review of other republics ancient and modern, and

an elaborate argument in favour of the representation prescribed by the

new Constitution.

Hamilton was not only the most brilliant, resourceful, and unanswerable

orator of his time, but he was gifted with an almost diabolical power

over the emotions of men, which he did not hesitate to use. At this

momentous assembly he kept them in exercise; when he chose, he made his

audience weep; and the Clintonians weakened daily. Had not many years of

trouble and anxiety made their emotions peculiarly susceptible, Hamilton

would have attempted their agitation more sparingly; and had he been

theatrical and rhetorical in his methods, he would have lost his control

of them long before the end of the session. But he rarely indulged in a

trope or a flight, never in bathos nor in bursts of ill-balanced appeal.

Nothing ever was drier than the subjects he elucidated day after day for

three weeks: for he took the Constitution to pieces bit by bit, and

compelled them to listen to an analysis which, if propounded by another,

would have bored them to distraction, vitally interested as they were.

But he not only so illuminated the cold pages of the Constitution that

while they listened they were willing to swear it was more beautiful

than the Bible, but the torrent of his eloquence, never confusing, so

sharp was every feature of the Constitution to his own mind, the magic

of his personality, and his intense humanity in treating the driest

sections of the document, so bewitched his audience that, even when he

talked for six hours without pausing on the subject of taxation, perhaps

the baldest topic which the human understanding is obliged to consider,

there was not a sign of impatience in the ranks of the enemy.

He by no means harrowed them daily; he was far too astute for that.

There were days together when he merely charmed them, and they sat with

a warm unconscious smile while he demolished bit by bit one of

Melancthon Smith's clever arguments, in a manner so courteous that even

his victim could only shrug his shoulders, although he cursed him

roundly afterward. Then, when his audience least expected an assault, he

would treat them to a burst of scorn that made them hitch their chairs

and glance uneasily at each other, or to a picture of future misery

which reduced them to pulp.

Clinton was infuriated. Even he often leaned forward, forgetting his own

selfish ambitions when Hamilton's thrilling voice poured forth a rapid

appeal to the passions of his hearers; but he quickly resumed the

perpendicular, and set his lips to imprison a scarlet comment. He saw

that his men were weakening, and as much to the luminous expounding of

the Constitution, to the logic of the orator, as to a truly satanic

eloquence and charm. He held long private sessions at his mansion on the

turnpike, where he was assisted by much material argument. But even

Melancthon Smith, who distinguished himself in almost daily debate,

acknowledged more than once that Hamilton had convinced him; and others

asserted, with depression, that their minds, which they had supposed to

be their own,--or Clinton's,--seemed to be in a process of remaking.

After all, for the most part, they were sincere and earnest; and

although it is difficult for us of the present day to comprehend that

enlightened men ever could have been so mad as to believe that the

country would prosper without union, that a mere State should have been

thought to be of greater importance than a Nation, or that a democratic

constitution, which permits us to coddle anarchists in our midst, and

the lower orders to menace the liberties of the upper, was ever an

object of terror to men of bitter republican ideals, yet the historic

facts confront us, and we wonder, when reading the astonishing

arguments of that long and hard-fought contest, if Hamilton's

constitution, had it passed the Great Convention, would not have

ratified with a no more determined opposition.

Melancthon Smith was one of the brightest and most conspicuous men of

his time, but his name is forgotten to-day. He was sincere; he was, in

his way, patriotic; he was a clever and eloquent orator. Moreover, he

was generous and manly enough to admit himself beaten, as the sequel

will show. To insure greatness, must the gift of long foreknowledge be

added to brilliant parts and an honest character? If this be the

essential, no wonder Melancthon Smith is forgotten. We have him

asserting that in a country where a portion of the people live more than

twelve hundred miles from the centre, one body cannot legislate for the

whole. He apprehends the abolition of the State constitutions by a

species of under-mining, predicts their immediate dwindling into

insignificance before the comprehensive and dangerous power vested in

Congress. He believes that all rich men are vicious and intemperate, and

sees nothing but despotism and disaster in the Federal Constitution.

But, like most of the speakers of that day, he was trenchant and

unadorned, so that his speeches are as easy reading as they must have

been agreeable to hear. It is a curious fact that the best speakers of

to-day resemble our forefathers in this respect of trenchant simplicity.

Mediocrity for half a century has ranted on the stump, and given

foreigners a false impression of American oratory. Those who indulge in

what may be called the open-air metaphor, so intoxicating is our

climate, may find consolation in this flight of Mr. Gilbert Livingston,

who had not their excuse; for the Court-house of Poughkeepsie was hot

and crowded. He is declaiming against the senatorial aristocrats lurking

in the proposed Constitution. "What," he cries, "what will be their

situation in a Federal town? Hallowed ground! Nothing so unclean as

State laws to enter there, surrounded as they will be by an impenetrable

wall of adamant and gold, the wealth of the whole country flowing into

it!" "_What_? What WALL?" cried a Federal. "A wall of gold, of adamant,

which will flow in from all parts of the continent." The joyous roar of

our ancestors comes down to us.

Hamilton's speech, in which he as effectually disposed of every argument

against the Senate as Roger Sherman had done in the Great Convention, is

too long to be quoted; but it is as well to give the precise words in

which he defines the vital difference between republics and democracies.

It has been observed by an honourable gentleman [he said] that a

pure democracy, if it were practicable, would be the most perfect

government. Experience has proved that no position in politics is

more false than this. The ancient democracies, in which the people

themselves deliberated, never possessed one feature of good

government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure

deformity. When they assembled, the field of debate presented an

ungovernable mob, not only incapable of deliberation, but prepared

for every enormity. In these assemblies the enemies of the people

brought forward their plans of ambition systematically. They were

opposed by their enemies of another party; and it became a matter

of contingency, whether the people subjected themselves to be led

blindly by one tyrant or another.

Again he says, in reply to Melancthon Smith:--

It is a harsh doctrine that men grow wicked as they improve and

enlighten their minds. Experience has by no means justified us in

the supposition that there is more virtue in one class of men than

in another. Look through the rich and the poor of this community,

the learned and the ignorant--Where does virtue predominate? The

difference indeed consists not in the quantity, but kind of vices

which are incident to various classes; and here the advantage of

character belongs to the wealthy. Their vices are probably more

favourable to the prosperity of the State than those of the

indigent; and partake less of moral depravity.

More than once Hamilton left his seat and went up to the belfry to

strain his eyes down the Albany post road or over the Dutchess turnpike,

and every afternoon he rode for miles to the east or the south, hoping

to meet an express messenger with a letter from Madison, or with the

good tidings that New Hampshire had ratified. Madison wrote every few

days, sometimes hopefully, sometimes in gloom, especially if he were not

feeling well. Each letter was from ten to twelve days old, and it seemed

to Hamilton sometimes that he should burst with impatience and anxiety.

On the 24th of June, as he was standing in the belfry while Chancellor

Livingston rained his sarcasms, he thought he saw an object moving

rapidly down the white ribbon which cut the forest from the East. In

five minutes he was on his horse and the Dutchess turnpike. The object

proved to be the messenger from Rufus King, and the letter which

Hamilton opened then and there contained the news of the adoption of the

Constitution by New Hampshire.

There was now a Nation, and nine States would be governed by the new

laws, whether New York, Virginia, North Carolina, and Rhode Island

sulked unprotected in the out-skirts, or gracefully entered the league

before dragged in or driven. It was a glittering and two-edged weapon

for Hamilton, and he flashed it in the faces of the anti-Federalists

until they were well-nigh blinded. Nevertheless, he did not for a moment

underrate Clinton's great strength, and he longed desperately for good

news from Virginia, believing that the entrance of that important State

into the Union would have more influence upon the opposition than all

the arts of which he was master.

VII

And through it all Hamilton was sensible that someone was working for

him, and was not long attributing the influence to its proper source.

Mysterious hints were dropped of political reunions in a house on a

thickly wooded hill, a quarter of a mile behind the Governor's, the

fortunate guests to which enchanted abode being sworn to secrecy. That

it was the nightly resort of Clintonians was an open secret, but that

Federalism was being intelligently interpreted, albeit with deepest

subtlety, was guessed by few of the visitors themselves, and Hamilton

divined rather than heard it. If converts were not actually made, they

were at least undergoing a process of education which would make them

the more susceptible to Hamilton's final effort. Even before he caught a

glimpse of radiant hair among the maples, when riding one day along the

lane at the foot of the hill, he suspected that Mrs. Croix had preceded

the Convention with the deliberate intention of giving him the precious

assistance of a woman with a talent for politics and a genius for men.

He was touched, interested, intrigued, but he resisted the temptation to

precipitate himself into the eddies of her magnetism. Croix was in

England, but even before his departure, which among men was regarded as

final, she had achieved a reputation as a lady of erratic impulse and

imperious habit. That she was also the most brilliant and fascinating

woman in America, as well as the most beautiful, were facts as publicly

established. Hamilton had resisted the temptation to meet her, the

temptation receiving no help from indifference on the part of the lady;

he had answered more than one note of admirable deftness. But he had no

intention of being drawn into an intrigue which would be public gossip

in a day and ruin the happiness of his wife. To expect a man of

Hamilton's order of genius to keep faith with one woman for a lifetime

would be as reasonable as to look for such genius without the

transcendent passions which are its furnace; but he was far from being a

man who sought adventure. Under certain conditions his horizon abruptly

contracted, and life was dual and isolated; but when the opportunity had

passed he dismissed its memory with contrite philosophy, and was so

charming to Betsey that he persuaded himself, as her, that he wished

never to behold the face of another woman. Nor did he--overwhelming

temptation being absent: he was the most driven man in the United

States, with no time to run about after women, had such been his

proclivity; and his romantic temperament, having found high satisfaction

in his courtship and marriage with one of the most bewitching and

notable girls in America, was smothered under a mountain of work and

domestic bliss. So, although well aware that his will must perish at

times in the blaze of his passions, he was iron against the temptation

that held itself sufficiently aloof. To an extreme point he was master

of himself. He knew that it would be no whirlwind and forgetting with

this mysterious woman, who had set the town talking, and yet whose

social talents were so remarkable that she managed women as deftly as

she did men, and was a welcome guest in many of the most exclusive

houses in New York; the men were careful to do none of their gossiping

at home, and the women, although they criticised, and vowed themselves

scandalized, succumbed to her royal command of homage and her air of

proud invincibility. That she loved him, he had reason to know, and

although he regarded it as a young woman's romantic passion for a public

man focussing the attention of the country, and whom, from pressure of

affairs, it was almost impossible to meet, still the passion existed,

and, considering her beauty and talents, was too likely to communicate

itself to the object, were he rash enough to create the opportunity.

Hamilton's morals were the morals of his day,--a day when aristocrats

were libertines, receiving as little censure from society as from their

own consciences. His Scotch foundations had religious shoots in their

grassy crevices, but religion in a great mind like Hamilton's is an

emotional incident, one of several passions which act independently of

each other. He avoided temptation, not because he desired to shun a

torment of conscience or an accounting with his Almighty,--to Whom he

was devoted,--but because he was satisfied with the woman he had married

and would have sacrificed his ambitions rather than deliberately cause

her unhappiness. Had she been jealous and eloquent, it is more than

probable that his haughty intolerance of restraint would have driven him

to assert the pleasure of his will, but she was only amused at his

occasional divagations, and had no thought of looking for meanings which

might terrify her. He was quite conscious of his good fortune and too

well balanced to risk its loss. So Mrs. Croix might be driven to rest

her hopes on a trick of chance or a _coup de théâtre_. But she was a

very clever woman; and she was not unlike Hamilton in a quite phenomenal

precocity, and in the torrential nature of her passions.

Having a considerable knowledge of women and some of Mrs. Croix, he

inferred that sooner or later she would cease to conceal the light of

her endeavour. Nevertheless, he was taken aback to receive one day a

parcel, which, in the seclusion of his room, he found to contain a

dainty scented handkerchief, the counterpart of the one hidden in the

tree by the post road.

"Can she have put it there on purpose?" he thought. "Did she take for

granted that I would pause to admire the scenery, and that I would

recognize the perfume of her violets? Gad! she's deeper than I thought

if that be true. The wider the berth, the better!"

He gave no sign, and, as he had expected, a note arrived in due course.

It ran:--

THE MAPLES, 8th July--4 in the morning.

DEAR SIR: I fear I am a woman of little purpose, for I intended to

flit here like a swallow and as noiselessly flit again,

accomplishing a political trifle for you meanwhile, of which you

never should be the wiser. But alas! I am tormented by the idea

that you never _will_ know, that in this great crisis of your

career, you think me indifferent when I understand so well your

terrible anxieties, your need for stupendous exertion, and all that

this convention means to this great country and to yourself; and

heart and soul and brain, at the risk of my popularity,--that I

love, sir,--and of a social position grudgingly acquired me, but

which I demand by right of an inheritance of which the world knows

less than of my elevation by Colonel Croix,--at the risk of all, I

am here and working for you. Perhaps I love power. Perhaps this

country with its strange unimaginable future. Perhaps I merely love

politics, which you have glorified--perhaps--well, when we do meet,

sir, you will avoid me no longer. Do you find me lacking in pride?

Reflect how another woman would have pursued you with love-letters,

persecuted you. I have exercised a restraint that has left its

mark, not only out of pride for myself, but out of a deep

understanding of your multitude of anxieties and interests; nor

should I dare to think of you at all were I not so sure of my power

to help you--now and always. Think, sir, of what such a

partnership--of which the world should never be cognizant--would

mean. I purpose to have a _salon_, and it shall be largely composed

of your enemies. Not a secret but that shall yield to me, not a

conspiracy but that you shall be able to forestall in time. I

believe that I was born devoted to your interests. Heart and soul I

shall be devoted to them as long as I live, and whether I am

permitted to know you or not. I could ruin you if I chose. I feel

that I have the power within me even for that. But God forbid! I

should have gone mad first. But ask yourself, sir, if I could not

be of vital assistance to your career, did we work in common. And

ask yourself other things--and truthfully. E.C.C

P.S. In a meeting held here last night the two generals poured

vials of their own molten iron into the veins of the rank and file,

belted them together in a solid bunch, vowed that you were a dealer

in the black arts and reducing them to knaves and fools. Their

words sank, no doubt of that. But I uprooted them, and blew them

away. For I professed to be seized with an uncontrollable fit of

laughter at the nonsense of forty-seven men--_the flower of the

State_--terrified of a bare third, and of a man but just in his

thirties. I rapidly recounted your failures in your first Congress,

dwelling on them, harping on them; and then I stood up like a

Chorus, and proclaimed the victories of C's career. C, who had

scowled when I went off into hysterics, almost knelt over my hand

at parting; and the rest departed secure in your fancied destiny,

their waxen brains ready for your clever fingers. At least you will

acknowledge the receipt of this, sir? Conceive my anxiety till I

know it has not fallen into the wrong hands!

A messenger brought the note directly after breakfast, and Hamilton

hastily retreated with it to the privacy of his room. His horse awaited

him, but he read the epistle no less than four times. Once he moved

uneasily, and once he put his hand to his neck as if he felt a silken

halter. He smiled, but his face flushed deeply. Her bait, her veiled

threat, affected him little. But all that was unsaid pulled him like a

powerful magnet. He struggled for fully twenty minutes with the

temptation to ride to that paradise on the hill as fast as his horse

would carry him. But although he usually got into mischief when absent

from Betsey, contradictorily he was fonder of his wife when she was

remote; moreover, her helplessness appealed to him, and he rejected the

idea of deliberate disloyalty, even while his pulses hammered and the

spirit of romance within him moved turbulently in its long sleep. He

glanced out of the window. Beyond the tree-tops gleamed the river; above

were the hills, with their woods and grassy intervals. It was an

exquisite country, green and primeval; a moderate summer, the air warm

but electric. The nights were magnificent. Hamilton dreamed for a time,

then burned the letter in a fit of angry impatience.

"I have nothing better to do!" he thought. "Good God!"

An answer was imperative. He took a long ride first, however, then

scrawled a few hasty lines, as if he had found just a moment in which to

read her letter, but thanking her warmly for her interest and

information; ending with a somewhat conscience-stricken hope for the

instructive delight of her personal acquaintance when he should find the

leisure to be alive once more. So rested the matter for a time.

VIII

That afternoon the very memory of Eliza Croix fled before a mounted

messenger, who came tearing into town with word of Virginia's

ratification, of the great excitement in the cities of Richmond,

Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New York, the processions in honour of this

important conquest. There were tales also of fray and bloodshed, in

which the Federals had retained the field; but, on the whole, the

country seemed wild with delight.

But although this news did not produce the visible effect upon the

opposition for which Hamilton had hoped, the anti-Federalist leaders

were as fearful of hurrying the matter to the final vote as the

Constitutionalists. Clinton stood like a rock, but he feared defections

at the last moment, was conscious that his dominance over the minds of

the men who had come to the Convention believing implicitly in his

doctrine that union was unnecessary, concurring in his abhorrence of the

new Constitution, was snapping daily, as Hamilton's arguments and acute

logic fermented in their clarifying brains. Many began to avoid their

chief. They talked in knots by themselves. They walked the forest roads

alone for hours, deep in thought. It was evident that Hamilton had

liberated their understandings from one autocrat, whether he had brought

them under his own despotic will or not.

There was no speaking, and little or no business for several days. A few

more amendments would be suggested, then an adjournment. It was like the

lull of the hurricane, when nervous people sit in the very centre of the

storm, awaiting the terrors of its final assault.

Hamilton had much leisure for several days, but he was too deeply

anxious to give more than a passing thought to Mrs. Croix, although he

was grateful for the help he knew she was rendering him. "If we were

Turks," he thought once, "she would be an invaluable member of a harem.

She never could fill my domestic needs, which are capacious; most

certainly I should never, at any time, have chosen her for the mother of

my children; but as an intellectual and political partner, as a

confidante and counsellor, she would appeal to me very keenly. I talk to

Betsey, dear child, because I must talk, because I have an egotistical

craving for response, but I must bore her very often, and I am not

conscious of ever having received a suggestion from her--however, God

knows I am grateful for her sympathy. As the children grow older I shall

have less and less of her; already I appreciate the difference. She will

always have the core of my soul and the fealty of my heart, but it is

rather a pity that man should be given so many sides with their

corresponding demands, if no one woman is to be found able to respond to

all. As for this remarkable creature, I could imagine myself in a state

of mad infatuation, and seeking her constantly for the delight of mental

companionship besides; but the highest and best, if I have them--oh, no!

Perhaps the Turks are wiser than we, after all, for their wives suffer

only from jealousy, while--most men being Turks on one plan or

another--the women of the more advanced races suffer from humiliation,

and are wounded in their deepest sentiments. All of which goes to prove,

that the longer I delay a meeting with this high-priestess the better."

In a day or two he was hard at work again fighting the last desperate

battle. The oppositionists had brought forward a new form of conditional

ratification, with a bill of rights prefixed, and amendments subjoined.

This, it would seem, was their proudest achievement, and, in a long and

adroit speech, Melancthon Smith announced it as their final decision.

That was at midday. Hamilton rose at once, and in one of the most

brilliant and comprehensive speeches he had yet made, demonstrated the

absurdity of conditional ratification, or the power of Congress to

indorse it. It was a close, legal, and constitutional argument, and with

the retorts of the anti-Federalists occupied two days, during which

Hamilton stood most of the time, alert, resourceful, master of every

point of the vast subject, to which he gave an almost embarrassing

simplicity. On the third day occurred his first signal triumph and the

confounding of Clinton: Melancthon Smith stood up and admitted that

Hamilton had convinced him of the impossibility of conditional

ratification. Lansing immediately offered as a substitute for the motion

withdrawn, another, by which the State ratify but reserve to itself the

right to secede after a certain number of years, unless the amendments

proposed should previously be submitted to a general convention.

Adjournment followed, and Hamilton and his leaders held a long

consultation at the Livingston mansion, as a result of which he wrote

that night to Madison, now in New York, asking his advice as to the sort

of ratification proposed by the enemy. It was a course he by no means

approved, but it seemed the less of two evils; for if, by hook or crook,

the Constitution could be forced through, the good government which

would ensue was bound to break up the party of the opposition. He had a

trump, but he hesitated to resort to a coercion so high-handed and

arbitrary. His supposed monarchical aspirations were hurled at him

daily, and he must proceed with the utmost caution, lest his future

usefulness be impaired at the outset.

Madison replied at once that such a proposition could not be considered,

for only unconditional ratification was constitutional; but before his

letter arrived Hamilton and Smith had had another hot debate, at the end

of which the anti-Federalist leader declared himself wholly beaten, and

announced his intention to vote for the unconditional acceptance of the

Constitution.

But although there was consternation in the ranks of the

anti-Federalists at this momentous defection, Clinton stood like an old

lion at bay, with his other leaders behind him, his wavering ranks still

coherent under his practised manipulation. For several days more the

battle raged, and on the night before what promised to be the day of the

final vote, Hamilton received a note from Mrs. Croix.

July 24.

DEAR SIR: The case is more desperate than you think. The weakening

caused by the defection of the great Lieutenant has been

counteracted in large measure by the General. His personal

influence is enormous, his future like yours is at stake; he is

desperate. It all rests with you. Make your great and final effort

to-morrow. It is a wonderful responsibility, sir--the whole future

of this country dependent upon what flows from your brain a few

hours hence, but as you have won other great victories by efforts

almost unprecedented, so you will win this. I am not so

presumptuous as to write this to inspire you, merely to assure you

of a gravity, which, after so long and energetic a contest, you

might be disposed to underrate.

Hamilton was very grateful for this note, and answered it more warmly

than had been his habit. His friends were deep in gloomy

prognostications, for it was impossible to delay twenty-four hours

longer. He had made converts, but not enough to secure a majority; and

his followers did not conceive that even he could put forth an effort

more convincing or more splendid than many of his previous achievements.

In consequence, his susceptible nature had experienced a chill, for he

was Gallic enough to compass greater things under the stimulus of

encouragement and prospective success; but this unquestioning belief in

him by a woman for whose mind he was beginning to experience a profound

admiration, sent his quicksilver up to a point where he felt capable of

all things. She had scored one point for herself. He felt that it would

be unpardonable longer to accept such favours as she showered upon him

unsought, and make no acknowledgment beyond a civil note: he expressed

his desire to call upon her when they were both in New York once more.

"But not here in Arcadia!" he thought. "I'll call formally at her

lodgings and take Troup or Morris with me. Morris will doubtless abduct

her, and that will be the end of it."

IX

On the following day every shop was closed in Poughkeepsie. The men,

even many of the women, stood for hours in the streets, talking little,

their eyes seldom wandering from the Court-house, many of them crowding

close to the walls, that they might catch a ringing phrase now and

again. By this time they all knew Hamilton's voice, and they confessed

to a preference for his lucid precision. In front of the Court-house,

under a tree, an express messenger sat beside his horse, saddled for a

wild dash to New York with the tidings. The excitement seemed the more

intense for the heat of the day, which half suppressed it, and all

longed for the snap of the tension.

Within the upper room of the Court-house the very air vibrated. Clinton,

who always grunted at intervals, and blew his nose stentoriously when

fervescent, was unusually aggressive. Beyond the bar men and women

stood; there was no room for chairs, nor for half that desired

admittance. In the very front stood the only woman whose superb physique

carried her through that trying day without smelling-salts or a friendly

shoulder. She was a woman with the eyes of an angel, disdainful of men,

the mouth of insatiety, the hair and skin of a Lorelei, and a patrician

profile. Her figure was long, slender, and voluptuous. Every man within

the bar offered her his chair, but she refused to sit while other women

stood; and few were the regrets at the more ample display of her

loveliness.