BOOK V

THE LAST BATTLE OF THE GIANTS AND THE END

I

The sunlight moved along the table and danced on Hamilton's papers,

flecking them and slanting into his eyes. He went to the window to draw

the shade, and stood laughing, forgetting the grave anxieties which

animated his pen this morning. In the garden without, his son Alexander

and young Philip Schuyler, his wife's orphan nephew, who lived with him,

were pounding each other vigorously, while Philip, Angelica, Theodosia

Burr, and Gouverneur Morris sat on the fence and applauded.

"What a blessed provision for letting off steam," he thought, with some

envy. "I would I had Burr in front of my fists this moment. I suppose he

is nothing but the dupe of Jefferson, but he is a terrible menace, all

the same."

The girls saw him, and leaping from the fence ran to the house, followed

more leisurely by Morris.

"You are loitering," exclaimed Angelica, triumphantly, as she entered

the room without ceremony, followed by Theodosia. "And when you loiter

you belong to me."

She had grown tall, and was extremely thin and nervous, moving

incessantly. But her face, whether stormy, dreamy, or animated with the

pleasure of the moment, was very beautiful. Theodosia Burr was a

handsome intellectual girl, with a massive repose; and the two were much

in harmony.

"If I snatch a moment to breathe," Hamilton was beginning, when he

suddenly caught two right hands and spread them open.

"What on earth does this mean?" he demanded. The little paws of the two

most fastidious girls he knew were dyed with ink. Both blushed vividly,

but Angelica flung back her head with her father's own action.

"We are writing a novel," she said.

"You are doing what?" gasped Hamilton.

"Yes, sir. All the girls in New York are. Why shouldn't we? I guess we

inherit brains enough."

"All the girls in New York are writing novels!" exclaimed Hamilton. "Is

this the next result of Jacobinism and unbridled liberty, the next

development of the new Americanism as expounded by Thomas Jefferson?

Good God! What next?"

"You have the prophetic eye," said Morris, who was seated on the edge of

the table, grinning sardonically. (He was bald now, and looked more

wicked than ever.) "What of woman in the future?"

"She has given me sufficient occupation in the present," replied

Hamilton, drily. "Heaven preserve me from the terrors of anticipation."

"Well, finish your novel. If you confine your pens to those subjects of

which you know nothing, you will enjoy yourselves; and happiness should

be sought in all legitimate channels. But as a favour to me, keep your

hands clean."

The girls retired with some hauteur, and Morris said impatiently:--

"I thought I had left that sort of thing behind me in France, where

Madame de Staël drove me mad. I return to find all the prettiest women

running to lectures on subjects which they never can understand, and

scarifying the men's nerves with pedantic allusions. I always believed

that our women were the brightest on the planet, but that they should

ever have the bad taste to become intellectual--well, I have known but

one woman who could do it successfully, and that is Mrs. Croix. What has

she to do with this sudden activity of Burr's? Is he handling French

money?"

"Are you convinced that she is a French spy?"

"I believe it so firmly that her sudden departure would reconcile me to

the Alien law. Where has Burr found the money for this campaign? He is

bankrupt; he hasn't a friend among the leaders; I don't believe the

Manhattan Bank, for all that he is the father of it, will let him

handle a cent, and Jefferson distrusts and despises him. Still, it is

just possible that Jefferson is using him, knowing that the result of

the Presidential election will turn on New York, and that after himself

Burr is the best politician in the country. I doubt if he would trust

him with a cent of his own money, but he may have an understanding with

the Aspasia of Bowling Green. Certainly she must have the full

confidence of France by this time, and she is the cleverest Jacobin in

the country."

"I wish that dark system could be extirpated, root and branch," said

Hamilton. "I have been too occupied these past two years to watch her,

or Burr either, for that matter. Organizing an army, and working for

your bread in spare moments, gives your enemies a clear field for

operations. I have had enough to do, watching Adams. Burr has stolen a

march that certainly does credit to his cunning. That is the most

marvellous faculty I know. He is barely on speaking terms with a

leader--Jefferson, Clinton, the Livingstons, all turned their backs upon

him long since, as a man neither to be trusted nor used. The fraud by

which he obtained the charter of the Manhattan Bank has alienated so

many of his followers that his entire ticket was beaten at the last

elections. Now he will have himself returned for the Assembly from

Orange, he is manipulating the lower orders of New York as if they were

so much wax, using their secrets, wiping the babies' noses, and hanging

upon the words of every carpenter who wants to talk: and has actually

got Clinton--who has treated him like a dog for years--to let him use

his name as a possible candidate for the Legislature. Doubtless he may

thank Mrs. Croix for that conquest. But his whole work is marvellous,

and I suppose it would be well if we had a man on our side who would

stoop to the same dirty work. I should as soon invite a strumpet to my

house. But I am fearful for the result. With this Legislature we should

be safe. But Burr has converted hundreds, if not thousands, to a party

for which he cares as much as he does for the Federal. If he succeeds,

and the next Legislature is Republican, Jefferson will be the third

President of the Unites States, and then, God knows what. Not immediate

disunion, possibly, for Jefferson is cunning enough to mislead France

for his own purposes; nor can he fail to see that Jacobinism is on the

wane--but a vast harvest of democracy, of disintegration, and

denationalization, which will work the same disaster in the end. If Burr

could be taught that he is being made a tool of, he might desist, for he

would work for no party without hope of reward. He may ruin us and gain

nothing."

"It is a great pity we have not a few less statesmen in our party and a

few more politicians. When we began life, only great services were

needed; and the Opposition, being engaged in the same battle of ideas,

fought us with a merely inferior variety of our own weapons. But the

greatest of our work is over, and the day of the politician has dawned.

Unfortunately, the party of this damned lag-bellied Virginian has the

monopoly. Burr is the natural result and the proudest sample of the

French Revolution and its spawn. But your personal influence is

tremendous. Who can say how many infuscated minds you will illumine when

it comes to speech-making. Don't set your brow in gloom."

"I have not the slightest intention of despairing. The deep and never

ceasing methods of the Jacobin Scandal Club have weakened my influence

with the masses, however; no doubt of that. Its policy is to iterate and

reiterate, pay no attention to denials, but drop the same poison daily

until denial is forgotten and men's minds are so accustomed to the

detraction, belittling, or accusation, that they accept it as they

accept the facts of existence. Jefferson has pursued this policy with my

reputation for ten years. During the last eight he has been ably abetted

by Mrs. Croix, his other personal agents, and those of France. Now they

have enlisted Burr, and there is no better man for their work in the

country."

"They know that if you go, the party follows. That is their policy, and

may they spend the long evening of time in Hell. But I believe you will

be more than a match for them yet; although this is by far the most

serious move the enemy has made." "I wish to Heaven I had persisted in

the Great Convention until I carried my point in regard to having the

electors chosen by the people in districts. Then I should snap my

fingers at Burr in this campaign, for he is an indifferent speaker, and

political manipulation would count for very little. With C.C. Pinckney

in the chair for eight years, I should feel that the country was planted

on reasonably sure foundations. It must be Adams and Pinckney, of

course, but with proper harmony Pinckney will carry the day. Rather

Jefferson in the chair than Adams--an open army that we can fight with a

united front, than a Federal dividing the ranks, and forcing us to

uphold him for the honour of the party--to say nothing of being

responsible for him."

"Jefferson is the less of several evils--Burr, for instance."

"Oh, Burr!" exclaimed Hamilton. "I should be in my dotage if Burr became

President of the United States. Personally, I have nothing against him,

and he is one of the most agreeable and accomplished of men. Theodosia

half lives here. Perhaps no man ever hated another as I hate Jefferson,

nor had such cause. He has embittered my life and ruined my health; he

has made me feel like a lost soul more than once. But better Jefferson a

thousand times than Burr. God knows I hate democracy and fear it, but

Jefferson is timid and cautious, and has some principles and patriotism;

moreover, a desire for fame. Burr has neither patriotism nor a

principle, nor the least regard for his good name. He is bankrupt,

profligate--he has been living in the greatest extravagance at Richmond

Hill, and his makings at the bar, although large, are far exceeded by

his expenses; there is always a story afloat about some dark transaction

of his, and never disproved: he challenged Church for talking openly

about the story that the Holland Land Company had, for legislative

services rendered, cancelled a bond against him for twenty thousand

dollars; but the world doubts Burr's bluster as it doubts his word. At

present he is in a desperate way because Alexander Baring, in behalf of

a friend, I.I. Augustine, is pressing for payment on a bond given to

secure the price of land bought by Burr and Greenleaf, and he has been

offering worthless land claims in settlement, and resorting to every

artifice to avert a crisis. Baring wanted me to take the case, but of

course I wouldn't touch it. I sent him to Rinnan. The man is literally

at the end of his tether. It is a coup or extinction--failure means

flight or debtor's prison. Furthermore, he is a conspirator by nature,

and there is no man in the country with such extravagant tastes, who is

so unscrupulous as to the means of gratifying them. He is half mad for

power and wealth. The reins of state in his hands, and he would stop at

nothing which might give him control of the United States Treasury. To

be President of the United States would mean nothing to him except as a

highway to empire, to unlimited power and plunder. We have been

threatened with many disasters since we began our career, but with no

such menace as Burr. But unless I die between now and eighteen hundred

and one, Burr will lose the great game, although he may give victory to

the Republican party."

"I am not surprised at your estimate and revelations," said Morris, "for

I have heard much the same from others since my return. It was this

certainty that he is bankrupt that led me to believe he was handling

French money in this election--and he is flinging it right and left in a

manner that must gratify his aspiring soul. Considering his lack of

fortune and family influence, he has done wonders in the way of

elevating himself. This makes it the more remarkable that with his great

cleverness he should not have done better--"

"He is not clever; that is the point. He is cunning. His is wholly the

brain of the conspirator. Were he clever, he would, like Thomas

Jefferson, fool himself and the world into the belief that he is honest.

Intellect and statesmanship he holds in contempt. He would elevate

himself by the Catiline system, by the simple method of proclaiming

himself emperor, and appropriating the moneybags of the country. There

is not one act of statesmanship to his credit. To him alone, of all

prominent Americans, the country is indebted for nothing. The other

night at a dinner, by the way, he toasted first the French Revolution,

then Bonaparte. It is more than possible that you are right, for France,

whether Directory or Consulate, is not likely to change her policy

regarding this country. Nothing would please either Talleyrand or

Bonaparte better than to inflame us into a civil war, then swoop down

upon us, under the pretence of coming to the rescue. Burr would be just

the man to play into their hands, although with no such intention.

Jefferson is quite clever enough to foil them, if he found that more to

his interest. Well, neither is elected yet. Let us hope for the best. Go

and ask Angelica to play for you. I have letters to write to leaders all

over the State."

II

Burr was the author of municipal corruption in New York, the noble

grandsire of Tammany Hall. While Hamilton was too absorbed to watch him,

he had divided New York, now a city of sixty thousand inhabitants, into

districts and sections. Under his systematic management the name of

every resident was enrolled, and his politics ascertained. Then Burr and

his committees or sub-committees laid siege to the individual.

Insignificant men were given place, and young fire-eaters, furious with

Adams, were swept in. Hundreds of doubtful men were dined and wined at

Richmond Hill, flattered, fascinated, conquered. Burr knew the private

history, the income, of every man he purposed to convert, and made

dexterous use of his information. He terrified some with his knowledge,

fawned upon others, exempted the stingy from contributions provided he

would work, and the lazy from work provided he would pay. It is even

asserted that he blackmailed the women who had trusted him on paper, and

forced them to wring votes from their men. He drafted a catalogue of

names for the electoral Legislature, calculated to impose the hesitant,

who were not permitted to observe that he smarted and snarled under many

a kick. Strong names were essential if the Republicans were to wrest

New York from the Federals after twelve years of unbroken rule, but

strong men had long since ceased to have aught to do with Burr; although

Jefferson, as Hamilton suspected, had recently extended his politic paw.

But in spite of snubs, curt dismissals, and reiterated intimations that

his exertions were wasting, Burr did at last, by dint of flattery,

working upon the weak points of the men he thoroughly understood,

convincing them that victory lay in his hands and no other,--some of

them that he was working in harmony with Jefferson,--induce Clinton,

Brockholst Livingston, General Gates,--each representing a different

faction,--and nine other men of little less importance, to compose the

city ticket. All manner of Republicans were pleased, and many

discontented Federalists. Burr, knowing that his own election in New

York was hopeless, was a candidate for the Assembly in the obscure

county of Orange; and the Legislature which would elect the next

President was threatened with a Republican majority, which alarmed the

Federalist party from one end of the Union to the other.

Hamilton had never been more alert. The moment he was awake to the

danger his mind closed to every other demand upon it, and he flung

himself into the thick of the fight. He would have none of Burr's

methods, but he spoke daily, upon every least occasion, and was ready to

consult at all hours with the distracted leaders of his party. Morris,

Troup, Fish, and other Federalists, accustomed to handling the masses,

also spoke repeatedly. But Adams had given the party a terrible blow,

scattering many of its voters far and wide. They felt that the country

had been humiliated, that it was unsafe in the hands of a man who was

too obstinate to be advised, and too jealous to control his personal

hatreds for the good of the Union; the portent of tyranny in the Alien

and Sedition laws had terrified many, and the promises of the

Republicans were very alluring. The prospect of a greater equality, of a

universal plebeianism, turned the heads of the shopkeepers, mechanics,

and labouring men, who had voted hitherto with the Federalist party

through admiration of its leaders and their great achievements. In vain

Hamilton reminded them of all they owed to the Federalists: the

Constitution, the prosperity, the _peace_. He was in the ironical

position of defending John Adams. They had made up their minds before

they went to hear him speak, and they went because to hear him was a

pleasure they never missed. Upon one occasion a man rushed from the

room, crying, "Let me out! Let me out! That man will make me believe

anything." Frequently Hamilton and Burr spoke on the same platform, and

they were so polite to each other that the audience opened their mouths

and wondered at the curious ways of the aristocracy. It was a period of

great excitement. Men knocked each other down daily, noses were

pulled,--a favourite insult of our ancestors,--and more than one duel

was fought in the woods of Weehawken.

The elections began early on the 29th of April and finished at sunset on

May 2d. Hamilton and Burr constantly addressed large assemblages. On the

first day Hamilton rode up to the poll in his district to vote, and was

immediately surrounded by a vociferating crowd. Scurrilous handbills

were thrust in his face, and his terrified horse reared before a hundred

threatening fists. A big carter forced his way to its side and begged

Hamilton to leave, assuring him there was danger of personal violence,

and that the men were particularly incensed at his aristocratic manner

of approaching the polls.

"Thank you," said Hamilton, "but I have as good a right to vote as any

man, and I shall do it in the mode most agreeable to myself."

"Very well, General," said the carter. "I differ with you in politics,

but I'll stick by you as long as there is a drop of blood in my body."

Hamilton turned to him with that illumination of feature which was not

the least of his gifts, then to the mob with the same smile, and lifted

his hat above a profound bow. "I never turned my back upon my enemy," he

said, "I certainly shall not flee from those who have always been my

friends."

The crowd burst into an electrified roar. "Three cheers for General

Hamilton!" cried the carter, promptly, and they responded as one man.

Then they lifted him from his horse and bore him on their shoulders to

the poll. He deposited his ballot, and after addressing them to the

sound of incessant cheering, was permitted to ride away. The incident

both amused and disgusted him, but he needed no further illustrations of

the instability of the common mind.

The Republicans won. On the night of the 2d it was known that the

Federalists had lost the city by a Republican majority of four hundred

and ninety votes.

A few weeks before, when uncertainties were thickest, Hamilton had

written to William Smith, who was departing for Constantinople: "... You

see I am in a humour to laugh. What can we do better in _this best of

all possible worlds?_ Should you ever be shut up in the seven towers, or

get the plague, if you are a true philosopher you will consider this

only as a laughing matter."

He laughed--though not with the gaiety of his youth--as he walked home

to-night through the drunken yelling crowds of William Street, more than

one fist thrust in his face. His son Philip was with him, and his

cousin, Robert Hamilton of Grange, who had come over two years before to

enlist under the command of the American relative of whom his family

were vastly proud. A berth had been found for him in the navy, as better

suited to his talents, and he spent his leisure at 26 Broadway. Both the

younger men looked crestfallen and anxious. Philip, who resembled his

father so closely that Morris called him "his heir indubitate," looked,

at the moment, the older of the two. Ill health had routed the robust

appearance of Hamilton's early maturity, and his slender form, which had

lost none of its activity or command, his thin face, mobile, piercing,

fiery, as ever, made him appear many years younger than his age.

"Why do you laugh, sir?" asked Philip, as they turned into Wall Street,

"I feel as if the end of the world had come."

"That is the time to laugh, my dear boy. When you see the world you have

educated scampering off through space, the retreat led by the greatest

rascal in the country, your humour, if you have any, is bound to

respond. Moreover, there is always something humorous in one's downfall,

and a certain relief. The worst is over."

"But, Cousin Alexander," said Robert Hamilton, "surely this is not

ultimate defeat for you? You will not give up the fight after the first

engagement--you!"

"Oh, no! not I!" cried Hamilton. "I shall fight on until I have made

Thomas Jefferson President of the United States. Should I not laugh? Was

any man ever in so ironical a situation before? I shall move heaven and

America to put Pinckney in the chair, and I shall fail; and to save the

United States from Burr I shall turn over the country I have made to my

bitterest enemy."

"That would not be my way of doing, sir," said Robert. "I'd fight the

rival chieftain to his death. Perhaps this Burr is not so real a

Catiline as you think him. Nobody has a good word for him, but I mean he

may not have the courage for so dangerous an act as usurpation."

"Courage is just the one estimable if misdirected quality possessed by

Burr, and, whetted by his desperate plight, no length would daunt him. A

year or two ago he hinted to me that I had thrown away my opportunities.

Pressed, he admitted that I was a fool not to have changed the

government when I could. When I reminded him that I could only have done

such a thing by turning traitor, he replied, 'Les grands âmes se

soucient peu des petits moraux.' It was not worth while to reason with a

man who had neither little morals nor great ones, so I merely replied

that from the genius and situation of the country the thing was

impracticable; and he answered, 'That depends on the estimate we form of

the human passions, and of the means of influencing them.' Burr would

neither regard a scheme of usurpation as visionary,--he is sanguine and

visionary to a degree that will be his ruin,--nor be restrained by any

reluctance to occupy an infamous place in history."

They had reached his doorstep in the Broadway. The house was lighted.

Through the open windows of the drawing-room poured a musical torrent.

Angelica, although but sixteen, shook life and soul from the cold keys

of the piano, and was already ambitious to win fame as a composer.

To-night she was playing extemporaneously, and Hamilton caught his

breath. In the music was the thunder of the hurricane he so often had

described to his children, the piercing rattle of the giant castinets

[sic], the roar and crash of artillery, the screaming of the trees, the

furious rush of the rain. Robert Hamilton thought it was a battlepiece,

but involuntarily he lifted his hat. As the wonderful music finished

with the distant roar of the storm's last revolutions, Hamilton turned

to his cousin with the cynicism gone from his face and his eyes

sparkling with pride and happiness.

"What do I care for Burr?" he exclaimed. "Or for Jefferson? Has any man

ever had a home, a family, like mine? Let them do their worst. Beyond

that door they cannot go."

"Burr can put a bullet into you, sir," said Robert Hamilton, soberly.

"And he is just the man to do it. Jefferson is too great a coward. For

God's sake be warned in time."

Hamilton laughed and ran up the stoop. His wife was in the drawing-room

with Angelica, who was white and excited after the fever of composition.

Mrs. Hamilton, too, was pale, for she had heard the news. But mettle had

been bred in her, and her spirits never dropped before public

misfortune. She had altered little in the last seven years. In spite of

her seven children her figure was as slim as in her girlhood, her hair

was as black, her skin retained its old union of amber and claret. The

lingering girlishness in her face had departed after a memorable

occasion, but her prettiness had gained in intellect and character;

piquant and roguish, at times, as it still was. It was seven years since

she had applied her clever brain to politics and public affairs

generally--finance excepting--and with such unwearied persistence that

Hamilton had never had another excuse to seek companionship elsewhere.

Moreover, she had returned to her former care of his papers, she

encouraged him to read to her whatever he wrote, and was necessary to

him in all ways. She loved him to the point of idolatry, but she kept

her eye on him, nevertheless, and he wandered no more. When he could not

accompany her to Saratoga in summer, she sent the children with one of

her sisters, and remained with him, no matter what the temperature, or

the age of a baby. But she made herself so charming that if he suspected

the surveillance he was indifferent, and grateful for her companionship

and the intelligent quality of her sympathy. Elizabeth Hamilton never

was a brilliant woman, but she became a remarkably strong-minded and

sensible one. Femininely she was always adorable. Although relieved of

the heavier social duties since the resignation from the Cabinet,

Hamilton's fame and the popularity of both forced them into a prominent

position in New York society. They entertained constantly at dinner, and

during the past seven years many distinguished men besides Talleyrand

had sat at their hospitable board: Louis Philippe d'Orleans,--supported

for several years by Gouverneur Morris,--the Duc de Montpensier, the

Duke of Kent, John Singleton Copley, subsequently, so eminent as jurist

and statesman, Kosciusko, Count Niemcewicz, the novelist, poet,

dramatist, and historian, were but a few. All travellers of distinction

brought letters to Hamilton, for, not excepting Washington, he was to

Europeans the most prosilient of Americans. If there had been little

decrease of hard work during these years, there had been social and

domestic pleasures, and Hamilton could live in the one or the other with

equal thoroughness. He was very proud of his wife's youthful appearance,

and to-night he reproached her for losing so many hours of rest.

"Could anyone sleep in this racket?" she demanded, lightly. "You must be

worn out. Come into the dining room and have supper."

And they all enjoyed their excellent meal of hot oysters, and dismissed

politics until the morrow.

III

But if Hamilton consigned politics to oblivion at midnight and slept for

the few hours demanded by outraged nature, he plunged from the crystal

of his bath into their reeking blackness early in the morning. He had

laughed the night before, but he was in the worst of tempers as he shut

his study door behind him. For the first time in his life he was on a

battle-ground with no sensation of joy in the coming fight. The business

was too ugly and the prospect was almost certain defeat. Were the first

battle lost, he knew that a sharper engagement would immediately

succeed: his political foresight anticipated the tie, and he alone had a

consummate knowledge of the character of Burr. That the Republicans

would offer Burr the office of Vice-President was as positive as that

Jefferson would be their first and unanimous choice. Clinton and

Chancellor Livingston might be more distinguished men than the little

politician, but the first was in open opposition to Jefferson, and the

second was deaf. Burr's conquest of New York entitled him to reward, and

he would accept it and intrigue with every resource of his cunning and

address for the larger number of votes, regardless of the will of the

people. If the result were a tie, the Federals would incline to anybody

rather than Jefferson, and Hamilton would be obliged to throw into the

scale his great influence as leader of his party for the benefit of the

man he would gladly have attached to a fork and set to toast above the

coals of Hell. He had no score to settle with Burr, but to permit him to

become President of the United States would be a crime for which the

leader of the Federalist party would be held responsible. When the

inevitable moment came he should hand over the structure he had created

to the man who had desired to rend it from gable to foundation; both

because it was the will of the people and because Jefferson was the

safer man of the two.

So far his statesmanship triumphed, as it had done in every crisis which

he had been called upon to manipulate, and as it would in many more.

But for once, and as regarded the first battle, it failed him, and he

made no attempt to invoke it. This was the blackest period of his inner

life, and there were times when he never expected to emerge from its

depths. The threatened loss of the magnificent power he had wielded, the

hatreds that possessed and overwhelmed him, the seeming futility of

almost a lifetime of labour, sacrifices without end and prodigal

dispensing of great gifts, the constant insults of his enemies, and the

public ingratitude, had saturated his spirit with a raging bitterness

and roused the deadliest passions of his nature. The marah he had passed

through while a member of the Cabinet was shallow compared to the depths

in which he almost strangled to-day. Not only was this the final

accumulation, but the inspiring and sustaining affection, the

circumscribing bulwark, of Washington was gone from him. "He was an

Aegis very essential to me," he had said sadly, and he felt his loss

more every day that he lived.

He knew there was just one chance to save the Presidency to the

Federalist party. Did he employ the magic of his pen to recreate the

popularity of John Adams, it was more than possible that thousands would

gladly permit the leader they had followed for years to persuade them

they had judged too hastily the man of whom they had expected too much.

But by this time there was one man Hamilton hated more implacably than

Jefferson, and that was John Adams. Besides the thorough disapproval of

the Administration of Adams, which, as a statesman, he shared with all

the eminent Federals in the country, his personal counts with this enemy

piled to heaven. Adams had severed the party he had created, endeavoured

to humiliate him before the country, refused, after Washington's death,

to elevate him to his rightful position as General-in-chief of the army

he had organized, alienated from him one of the best of his friends, and

primarily was answerable for the crushing defeat of yesterday. With one

of the Pinckneys at the helm, Hamilton could have defied Jefferson and

kept the Democrats out of power; but the man next in eminence to himself

in his own party had given his supremacy its death-blow, and it is

little wonder if his depths resembled boiling pitch, if the heights of

his character had disappeared from his vision. He was, above all things,

intensely human, with all good and all evil in him; and although he

conquered himself at no very remote period, he felt, at the present

moment, like Lucifer whirling through space.

Troup, now a retired judge of the U.S. District Court of New York, and a

man of some fortune, ready as of old to be Hamilton's faithful

lieutenant, entered and looked with sympathy and more apprehension at

his Chief.

"I've not come to bemoan this bad business," he said, sitting down at a

desk and taking up his pen. "What next? It looks hopeless, but of course

you'll no more cease from effort than one of your Scotch ancestors would

have laid down his arms if a rival chieftain had appeared on the warpath

with the world at his back. Is it Adams and C.C.P. to the death?"

"It is Pinckney; Adams only in so far as he is useful. He still has his

following in the New England States. The leaders in those States, first

and second, must be persuaded to work unanimously for Adams and

Pinckney, with the distinct understanding that in other States votes for

Adams will be thrown away. This, after I have persuaded them of Adams's

absolute unfitness for office. If we carry and it comes to a tie, there

is no doubt to whom the House will give the election."

Troup whistled. "This is politics!" he said. "I never believed you'd go

down to your neck. I wish you'd throw the whole thing over, and retire

to private life."

"I shall retire soon enough," said Hamilton, grimly. "But Adams will go

first."

Troup knew that it was useless to remonstrate further. He had followed

this Captain to the bitter end too often. Underneath the immense sanity

of Hamilton's mind was a curious warp of obstinacy, born of

implacability and developed far beyond the normal bounds of

determination. When this almost perverted faculty was in possession of

the brain, Hamilton would pursue his object, did every guardian in his

genius, from foresight to acuteness, rise in warning. His present

policy if a failure might be the death of the Federalist party, but the

flashing presentiment of that historic disaster did not deter him for a

moment.

"It is the time for politics," Hamilton continued. "Statesmanship goes

begging. I shall be entirely frank about it, for that matter. There will

be no underhand scheming, Adams is welcome to know every step I take.

The correspondence must begin at once. I'll make out a list for you. I

shall begin with Wolcott."

IV

When the tidings of the New York election reached Philadelphia, the

Federals of the House met in alarmed and hurried conference. In their

desperation they agreed to ask Hamilton to appeal to the Governor of New

York, John Jay, to reconvene the existing legislature that it might

enact a law authorizing in that State the choice of Presidential

electors in districts. Why they did not send a memorial to Jay

themselves, instead of placing Hamilton in a position to incur the full

odium of such a suggestion, can only be explained by the facts that

during the entire span of the party's existence, their leader had

cheerfully assumed the responsibility in every emergency or crisis, and

that if the distinguished formalist in the Executive Mansion of New York

had a weak spot in him, it was for Hamilton.

When Hamilton read this portentous letter, he flushed deeply and then

turned white. The expedient had not occurred to him, but it was too near

of kin to his disapproval of a provision which had delivered the State

into the hands of an industrious rascal, not to strike an immediate

response; especially in his present frame of mind. He was alone with his

wife at the moment, and he handed her the letter. She read it twice,

then laid it on the table. "It savours very much of fraud, to me," she

said. "Why do politics so often go to the head?"

"Sometimes one sort rises as an antidote to another. There comes a time

in human affairs when one is forced into a position of choosing between

two evils; a time when the scruples of delicacy and propriety, as

relative to a common course of things, ought to yield to the

extraordinary nature of the crisis."

"Right is right, and wrong is wrong," said Betsey, with her Dutch

sturdiness. "This measure--were it adopted by Mr. Jay--would merely mean

that the party in power was taking an unconstitutional advantage of its

situation to nullify the victories gained by the other."

"The victories you speak of were won by fraud and every unworthy device.

I am not arguing that, such being the case, we are justified in turning

their weapons upon them, but that for the good of the country the enemy

should be suppressed before they are able to accomplish its

demoralization, if not its ruin. The triumph of Jefferson and

Jacobinism, the flourishing of Democracy upon the ruins of Federalism,

too long a taste of power by the States rights fanatics, means, with the

weak spots in our Constitution, civil war. Burr has sowed the seeds of

municipal corruption, which, if the sower be rewarded by the second

office in the gift of the people, will spread all over the Union. That

many in the ranks of Democracy are in the pay of France, and design the

overthrow of the Government, there is not a shadow of doubt. If

Jefferson should die in office, or a tie, in spite of all I could do,

should give the Presidency to Burr, there is nothing that man's

desperate temper would not drive him to accomplish during the time

remaining to him--for he will never be the first choice of the

Democrats. Therefore, I shall propose this measure to Jay in the course

of the next two or three days, unless upon mature deliberation I alter

my present opinion that the grave crisis in national affairs justifies

it, or I conceive something better."

"You will violate your higher principles," said his wife, who had

matured in a previous era. "And it will be a terrible weapon for your

enemies."

"I have now reached that happy point where I am entirely indifferent to

the broadsides of my enemies; and I believe that if I conclude to take

this step, my conscience--and history--will justify me." "If you

succeed," said Betsey, shrewdly. "But Mr. Jay is very rigid, and he

lacks your imagination, your terrible gift of seeing the future in a

flash."

"It is quite true that I have little hope of persuading Jay; as little

as I have of endowing him with the gift of foresight. But, if I think

best, I shall make the attempt, and whatever the consequences, I shall

not regret it."

Betsey said no more. She knew the exact amount of remonstrance Hamilton

would stand, and she never exceeded it. When his fighting armour was on,

no human being could influence him beyond a certain point, and she was

too wise to risk her happiness. Although he was too careful of her to

let her suspect the hideous conflicts which raged in his soul, she was

fully aware of his bitter obstinacy, and that he was the best hater in

the country. She had many gloomy forebodings, for she anticipated the

terrible strain on what was left of his constitution.

There was one person who, through her inherited intuitions, understood

Hamilton, and that was Angelica. He had kept her at arm's length, great

as the temptation to have a sympathetic confidant had been, particularly

after he had withdrawn from the intimate companionship of Washington;

she was so highly wrought and sensitive, so prone to hysteria, that he

had never yielded for a moment, even when she turned her head slowly

toward him and stared at him with eyes that read his very soul. On the

evening after the elections he had played and sung with her for an hour,

then talked for another with Philip, who was the most promising student

of Columbia College, a youth of fine endowments and elevated character.

He was the pride and delight of Hamilton, who could throttle both

apprehensions and demons while discussing his son's future, and

listening to his college trials and triumphs. Upon this particular

evening Angelica had suddenly burst into tears and left the room. The

next morning Hamilton sent her to Saratoga; and, much as he loved her,

it was with profound relief that he arranged her comfortably on the deck

of the packet-boat.

On the 7th he wrote to the Governor; but, as he had feared, Jay would

take no such audacious leap out of his straight and narrow way. The

letter was published in the _Aurora_ before it reached Albany, and

Hamilton had reason to believe that Burr had a spy in the post-office.

Hamilton executed the orders for disbanding the army, then made a tour

of several of the New England States, holding conferences and speaking

continually. He found the first-class leaders at one with him as to the

danger of entrusting the Executive office to Adams a second time, and

favourably inclined to Pinckney. But the second-rate men of influence

were still enthusiastic for the President, and extolling him for saving

the country from war. Hamilton listened to them with no attempt to

conceal his impatience. He pointed out that if Talleyrand had made up

his mind that it was best to avoid a war, he would have made a second

and regular overture, which could have been accepted without humiliation

to the country, and the severance of the Federalist party.

As if Adams had not done enough to rouse the deadly wrath of Hamilton,

he announced right and left that the Federalist defeat in New York had

been planned by his arch enemy, with the sole purpose of driving himself

from office; that there was a British faction in the country and that

Hamilton was its chief. He drove Pickering and M'Henry from his Cabinet

with contumely, as the only immediate retaliation he could think of, and

Wolcott would have followed, had there been anyone to take his place.

Franklin once said of Adams that he was always honest, sometimes great,

and often mad. Probably so large an amount of truth has never again been

condensed into an epigram. If Adams had not become inflamed with the

ambition that has ruined the lives and characters of so many Americans,

he would have come down to posterity as a great man, with a record of

services to his country which would have scattered his few mistakes into

the unswept corners of oblivion. But autocratic, irritable, and jealous,

all the infirmities of his temper as brittle with years as the

blood-vessels of his brain, the most exacting office in the civilized

world taxed him too heavily. It is interesting to speculate upon what

he might have been in this final trial of his public career, had

Hamilton died as he took the helm of State. If Hamilton's enemies very

nearly ruined his own character, there is no denying that he exerted an

almost malign influence upon them. To those he loved or who appealed to

the highest in him he gave not only strength, but an abundance of

sweetness and light, illuminating mind and spirit, and inspiring an

affection that was both unselfish and uplifting. But his enemies hated

him so frantically that their characters measurably deteriorated; to

ruin or even disconcert him they stooped and intrigued and lied; they

were betrayed into public acts which lowered them in their own eyes and

in those of all students of history. Other hatreds were healthy and

stimulating by comparison; but there is no doubt that Adams, Jefferson,

and Madison fell far lower than they would have done had Hamilton never

shot into the American heavens, holding their fields at his pleasure,

and paling the fires of large and ambitious stars.

The political excitement in the country by this time surpassed every

previous convulsion to such an extent that no man prominent in the

contest could appear on the street without insult. Although he never

knew it, Hamilton, every time he left the house, was shadowed by his son

Philip, Robert Hamilton, Troup, John Church, or Philip Church. For the

Democratic ammunition and public fury alike were centred on Hamilton.

Adams came in for his share, but the Democrats regarded his doom as

sealed, and Hamilton, as ever, the Colossus to be destroyed. The windows

of the bookshops were filled with pamphlets, lampoons, and cartoons. The

changes were rung on the aristocratical temper and the monarchical

designs of the leader of the Federalists, until Hamilton was sick of the

sight of himself with his nose in the air and a crown on his head, his

train borne by Jay, Cabot, Sedgwick, and Bayard. The people were warned

in every issue of the _Aurora, Chronicle_, and other industrious sheets,

that Hamilton was intriguing to drive the Democratic States to

secession, that he might annihilate them at once with his army and his

navy. The Reynolds affair was retold once a week, with degrading

variations, and there was no doubt that spies were nosing the ground in

every direction to obtain evidence of another scandal to vary the

monotony. Mrs. Croix, being Queen of the Jacobins, was safe, so press

and pamphlet indulged in wild generalities of debauchery and rapine. It

must be confessed that Jefferson fared no better in the Federalist

sheets. He was a huge and hideous spider, spinning in a web full of

seduced citizens; he meditated a resort to arms, did he lose the

election. As to his private vices, they saddled him with an entire

harem, and a black one at that.

When Hamilton heard that Adams had asserted that he was the chief of a

British faction, he wrote to the President, demanding an explanation;

and his note had that brief and frigid courtesy which indicated that he

was in his most dangerous temper. Adams ignored it. Hamilton waited a

reasonable time, then wrote again; but Adams was now too infuriated to

care whether or not he committed the unpardonable error of insulting the

most distinguished man in the country. He was in a humour to insult the

shade of Washington, and he delighted in every opportunity to wreak

vengeance on Hamilton, and would have died by his hand rather than

placate him.

Then Hamilton took the step he had meditated for some time past, one

which had received the cordial sanction of Wolcott, and the uneasy and

grudging acquiescence of Cabot, Ames, Carroll of Carrollton, Bayard, and

a few other devoted but conservative supporters. He wrote, for the

benefit of the second-class leaders, who must be persuaded to cast their

votes for Pinckney, to vindicate Pickering and M'Henry, and--it would be

foolish to ignore it--to gratify his deep personal hatred, the pamphlet

called "The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President

of the United States." His temper did not flash in it for a second. It

was written in his most concise and pointed, his most lucid and classic,

manner; and nothing so damning ever flowed from mortal brain. He set

forth all Adams's virtues and services with judicial impartiality.

There they were for all to read. Let no man forget them. Then he

counterbalanced and overbalanced them by the weaknesses, jealousies, and

other temperamental defects which had arisen in evidence with the

beginnings of the President's public career. He drilled holes in poor

Adams's intellect which proved its unsoundness and its unfitness for

public duty, and he lashed him without mercy for his public mistakes and

for his treatment of his Secretaries and himself. It was a life history

on ivory, and a masterpiece; and there is no friend of Hamilton's who

would not sacrifice the memory of one of his greatest victories for the

privilege of unwriting it.

This was one of his creations that he did not read to his wife, but

Troup was permitted a glance at the manuscript. He dropped it to the

floor, and his face turned white. "Do you intend to publish this thing?"

he demanded. "And with your name signed in full?"

"I intend to print it. I had every intention of scattering it broadcast,

but I have yielded to the dissuasions of men whose opinions I am bound

to respect, and it will go only to them and to the second-class leaders

as yet unconvinced. To their entreaties that I would not sign my name I

have not listened, because such a work, if anonymous, would be both

cowardly and futile. The point is to let those for whom it is intended

know that a person in authority is talking; and anonymous performances

are legitimate only when published and unmistakable, when given in that

form as a concession to the fashion of the age."

Troup groaned. "And if it falls into the enemy's hands?"

"In that case, what a hideous opportunity it would enclose, were it

unsigned."

"Oh, sign it!" said Troup, wildly. He set his heel on the manuscript,

and looked tentatively at Hamilton. He knew the meaning of the

expression he encountered, and removed his heel. It was months since he

had seen the gay sparkle in Hamilton's eyes, humour and sweetness

curving his mouth. When Hamilton's mouth was not as hard as iron, it

relaxed to cynicism or contempt. He was so thin that the prominence of

the long line from ear to chin and of the high hard nose, with its

almost rigid nostrils, would have made him look more old Roman coin than

man, had it not been for eyes like molten steel. "Politics and

ambition!" thought Troup. "What might not the world be without them?"

"Let us change the subject," he said. "I hear that Mrs. Croix makes a

convert an hour from Federalism to Democracy. That is the estimate. And

a small and select band know that she does it in the hope of hastening

your ruin. I must say, Hamilton, that as far as women are concerned, you

are punished far beyond your deserts. There is hardly a man in public

life who has not done as much, or worse, but the world is remarkably

uninterested, and the press finds any other news more thrilling. The

Reynolds woman is probably responsible for many remorseful twinges in

the breasts of eminent patriots, but your name alone is given to the

public. As for Mrs. Croix, I don't suppose that any mere mortal has ever

resisted her, but if any other man has regretted it, history is silent.

What do you suppose is the reason?"

Hamilton would not discuss Mrs. Croix, but he had long since ceased to

waste breath in denial. He made no reply.

"Do you know my theory?" said Troup, turning upon him suddenly. "It is

this. You are so greatly endowed that more is expected of you than of

other men. You were fashioned to make history; to give birth, not for

your own personal good, but for the highest good of a nation, to the

greatest achievement of which the human mind is capable. Therefore, when

you trip and stumble like any fool among us, when you act like a mere

mortal with no gigantic will and intellect to lift him to the heights

and keep him there, some power in the unseen universe is infuriated, and

you pay the price with compound interest. It will be the same with that

thing on the floor. If you could be sure that it would never fall into

the hands of a Jacobin, even then it would be a mistake to print it, for

it is mainly prompted by hatred, and as such is unworthy of you. But if

it finds its way to the public, your punishment will be even in excess

of your fault. For God's sake think it over."

Hamilton made no reply, and in a moment Troup rose. "Very well," he

said, "have your own way and be happy. I'll stand by you if the citadel

falls."

Hamilton's eyes softened, and he shook Troup's hands heartily. But as

soon as he was alone, he sent the manuscript to the printer.

V

M.L. Davis, the authentic biographer of Burr, tells this interesting

anecdote concerning the Adams pamphlet:--'

Colonel Burr ascertained the contents of this pamphlet, and that it

was in the press. The immediate publication, he knew, must distract

the Federal party, and thus promote the Republican cause in those

States where the elections had not taken place. Arrangements were

accordingly made for a copy as soon as the printing of it was

completed; and when obtained, John Swartwout, Robert Swartwout, and

Matthew L. Davis, by appointment met Colonel Burr at his house. The

pamphlet was read, and extracts made for the press. They were

immediately published.

When Hamilton read the voluminous extracts in the marked copies of the

Democratic papers which he found on the table in his chambers in Garden

Street, his first sensation was relief; subterranean methods were little

to his liking. He was deeply uneasy, however, when he reflected upon the

inevitable consequences to his party, and wondered that his imagination

for once had failed him. Everyone who has written with sufficient power

to incite antagonism, knows the apprehensive effect of extracts lifted

maliciously from a carefully wrought whole. Hamilton felt like a

criminal until he plunged into the day's work, when he had no time for

an accounting with his conscience. He was in court all day, and after

the five o'clock dinner at home, returned to his office and worked on an

important brief until eight. Then he paid a short call on a client, and

was returning home through Pearl Street, when he saw Troup bearing down

upon him. This old comrade's face was haggard and set, and his eyes were

almost wild. Hamilton smiled grimly. That expression had stamped the

Federal visage since morning.

Troup reached Hamilton in three strides, and seizing him by the arm,

pointed to the upper story of Fraunces' Tavern. "Alec," he said

hoarsely, "do you remember the vow you made in that room twenty-five

years ago? You have kept it until to-day. There is not an instance in

your previous career where you have sacrificed the country to yourself.

No man in history ever made greater sacrifices, and no man has had a

greater reward in the love and loyalty of the best men in a nation. And

now, to gratify the worst of your passions, you have betrayed your

country into the hands of the basest politicians in it. Moreover, all

your enemies could not drag you down, and no man in history has ever

been assailed by greater phalanxes than you have been. It took

you--yourself--to work your own ruin, to pull your party down on top of

you, and send the country we have all worked so hard for to the devil. I

love you better than anyone on earth, and I'll stick to you till the

bitter end, but I'd have this say if you never spoke to me again."

Hamilton dropped his eyes from the light in the familiar room of

Fraunces' Tavern, but the abyss he seemed to see at his feet was not the

one yawning before his friend's excited imagination. He did not answer

for a moment, and then he almost took away what was left of Troup's

breath.

"You are quite right," he said. "And what I have most to be thankful for

in life, is that I have never attracted that refuse of mankind who fawn

and flatter; or have dismissed them in short order," he added, with his

usual regard for facts. "Come and breakfast with me to-morrow. Good

night."

He walked home quickly, told the servant at the door that he was not to

be disturbed, and locked himself in his study. He lit one candle, then

threw himself into his revolving chair, and thought until the lines in

his face deepened to the bone, and only his eyes looked alive. He wasted

no further regrets on the political consequences of his act. What was

done, was done. Nor did he anticipate any such wholesale disaster as had

distracted the Federalists since the morning issues. He knew the force

of habit and the tenacity of men's minds. His followers would be aghast,

harshly critical for a day, then make every excuse that ingenuity could

suggest, unite in his defence, and follow his lead with redoubled

loyality. His foresight had long since leaped to the end of this

conflict, for the Democratic hordes had been augmenting for years; his

own party was hopelessly divided and undermined by systematic slander.

To fight was second nature, no matter how hopeless the battle; but in

those moments of almost terrifying prescience so common to him, he

realized the inevitableness of the end, as history does to-day. His only

chance had been to placate Adams and recreate his enemy's popularity.

The day never came when he was able to say that he might have done this

at the only time when such action would have counted. He had been

inexorable until the pamphlet was flung to the public; and then,

although he was hardly conscious of it at the moment, he was immediately

dispossessed of the intensity of his bitterness toward Adams. The

revenge had been so terrible, so abrupt, that his hatred seemed

disseminating in the stolen leaves fluttering through the city.

Therefore his mind was free for the appalling thought which took

possession of it as Troup poured out his diatribe; and this thought was,

that he was no longer conscious of any greatness in him. Through all the

conflicts, trials, and formidable obstacles of previous years he had

been sustained by his consciousness of superlative gifts combined with

loftiness of purpose. Had not his greatness been dinned into his ears,

he would have been as familiar with it. But he seemed to himself to have

shrivelled, his very soul might have been in ashes--incremated in the

flames of his passions. He had triumphed over every one of his enemies

in turn. Historically he was justified, and had he accomplished the same

end impersonally, they would have been the only sufferers, and in the

just degree. But he had boiled them in the vitriol of his nature; he

had scarred them and warped them and destroyed their self-respect. Had

these raging passions been fed with other vitalities? Had they ravaged

his soul to nourish his demons? Was that his punishment,--an instance of

the inexorable law of give and take?

He recalled the white heat of patriotism with which he had written the

revolutionary papers of his boyhood, the numberless pamphlets which had

finally roused the States to meet in convention and give the wretched

country a Constitutional Government, "_The Federalist_"; which had

spurred him to the great creative acts that must immortalize him in

history. He contrasted that patriotic fire with the spirit in which he

had written the Adams pamphlet. The fire had gone out, and the

precipitation was gall and worm-wood. Even the spirit in which he had

first attacked Jefferson in print was righteous indignation by

comparison.

Had he hated his soul to cinders? Had the bitterness and the

implacability he had encouraged for so many years bitten their acids

through and through the lofty ideals which once had been the larger part

of himself? Had the angel in him fallen to the bottom of the pit in that

frightful nethermost region of his, for his cynical brain to mock, until

that, too, was in its grave? He thought of the high degree of

self-government, almost the perfection, that Washington had

attained,--one of the most passionate men that had ever lived. Did that

great Chieftain stand alone in the history of souls? He thought of

Laurens, with his early despair that self-conquest seemed impossible.

Would he have conquered, had he lived? What would he or Washington

think, were they present to-night? Would they hate him, or would their

love be proof against even this abasement? He passionately wished they

were there, whether they came to revile or console. Isolated and

terror-stricken, he felt as if thrust for ever from the world of living

men.

His mind had been turned in, every faculty bent introspectively, but for

some moments past his consciousness had vibrated mechanically to an

external influence. It flew open suddenly, as he realized that someone

was watching him, and he wheeled his chair opposite the dusk in the

lower end of the room. For a moment it, seemed to him that every

function in him ceased and was enveloped in ice. A face rested lightly

on the farther end of the long table, the fair hair floating on either

side of it, the eyes fixed upon him with an expression that flashed him

back to St. Croix and the last weeks of his mother's life. He fancied in

that moment that he could even discern the earthen hue of the skin. When

he realized that it was Angelica, he was hardly less startled, but he

found his voice.

"When did you return?" he asked, in as calm a tone as he could command.

"And why did you hide in here?"

"I came down with Grandpa, who made up his mind in a minute. And I came

in here to be sure to have a little talk with you alone. I was going to

surprise you as soon as you lit the candle, and then your face

frightened me. It is worse now."

Her voice was hardly audible, and she did not move. Hamilton went down

and lifted her to her feet, then supported her to a chair opposite his

own. He made no search for an excuse, for he would not have dared to

offer it to this girl, whose spiritual recesses he suddenly determined

to probe. Between her and the dead woman there was a similarity that was

something more than superficially atavistic. His practical brain refused

to speculate even upon the doctrine of metempsychosis. He was like his

mother in many ways. That unique and powerful personality had stamped

his brain cells when he was wholly hers. He recalled that his own soul

had echoed faintly with memories in his youth. What wonder that he had

given this inheritance to the most sensitively constituted of his

children, whose musical genius, the least sane of all gifts, put her in

touch with the greater mysteries of the Universe? That nebulous memories

moved like ghosts in her soul he did not doubt, nor that at such moments

she was tormented with vague maternal pangs. He conquered his first

impulse to confess himself to her; doubtless she needed more help than

he. She was staring at him in mingled terror and agony.

"Why do you suffer so when I suffer?" he asked gently; then bluntly, "do

you yearn over me as if I were your child, and in peril?"

"Yes," she answered, without betraying any surprise; "that is it. I have

a terrible feeling of responsibility and helplessness, of understanding

and knowing nothing. I feel sometimes as if I had done you a great

wrong, for which I suffer when you are in trouble, and I am no more use

to you than John or little Eliza. If you would tell me. If you would let

me share it with you. You remember I begged as a child. You have made

believe to tell me secrets many times, but you have told me nothing. My

imagination has nearly shattered me."

"Do you wish to know?" he asked. "Are you strong enough to see me as I

see myself to-night? I warn you it will be a glimpse into Hell."

"I don't care what it is," she answered, "so long as it is the reality,

and you let me know you as I do underneath my blindness and ignorance."

Then he told her. He talked to her as he would have talked to the dead

had she risen, although without losing his sense of her identity for a

moment, or the consciousness of the danger of the experiment. He showed

her what few mortals have seen, a naked soul with its scars, its stains,

and its ravages from flame and convulsion. He need not have apprehended

a disastrous result. She was compounded of his essences, and her age was

that indeterminate mixture of everlasting youth and anticipated wisdom

which is the glory and the curse of genius. She listened intently, the

expression of torment displaced by normal if profound sympathy. He had

begun with the passions inspired by Jefferson; he finished with the

climax of deterioration in the revenge he had taken on Adams, and the

abyss of despair into which it had plunged him. He drew a long breath of

relief, and regarded his little judge with some defiance. She nodded.

"I feel old and wise," she said, "and at the same time much younger,

because I no longer shrink from a load on my mind I cannot understand.

And you--it has all gone." She darted at the candle and held it to his

face. "You look twenty years younger than when you sat there and

thought. I believed you were dying of old age."

"I feel better," he admitted, "But nothing can obliterate the scars. And

although I shall always be young at intervals, remember that I have

crowded three lifetimes into one, and that I must pay the penalty

spiritually and physically, although mentally I believe I shall hold my

own until the end." He leaned forward on a sudden impulse and took both

her hands. "I make you a vow," he said, "and I have never broken even a

promise--or only one," he added, remembering Troup's accusation. "I will

drive the bitterness out of myself and I will hate no more. My public

acts shall be unaccompanied by personal bitterness henceforth. Not a

vengeance that I have accomplished has been worth the hideous experience

of to-night, and so long as I live I shall have no cause to repeat it."

"If you ever broke that vow," said Angelica, "I should either die or go

crazy, for you would sink and never rise again."

VI

As Hamilton had anticipated, the Jacobin press shouted and laughed

itself hoarse, vowed that it never could have concocted so effective a

bit of campaign literature, and that the ursine roars of Adams could be

heard from Dan to Beersheba. Burr, as yet undetected, almost danced as

he walked. The windows were filled with parodies of the pamphlet,

entitled, "The Last Speech and Dying Words of Alexander Hamilton,"

"Hamilton's Last Letter and His Amorous Vindication," "A Free

Examination of the Morals, Political and Literary Characters of John

Adams and Alexander Hamilton." One cartoon displayed the sinking ship

_Administration_, with the Federal rats scuttling out of her, and

Hamilton standing alone on the deck; another, "The Little Lion"

sitting, dejected and forlorn, outside the barred gates of

"Hamiltonopolis." The deep, silent laughter of Jefferson shook the

continent.

The Federalist leaders were furious and aghast. But they recovered, and

when the time came, every Federalist delegate to the Electoral College,

with one exception, voted precisely as Hamilton had counselled. South

Carolina deserted Pinckney because he would not desert Adams, but she

would have pursued that policy had the pamphlet never been written; and

whether it affected the defeat of the Federalists in Pennsylvania and

other States is doubtful. The publication in August of Adams's letter to

Tench Coxe, written in 1792, when he was bitterly disappointed at

Washington's refusal to send him as minister to England, and asserting

that the appointment of Pinckney was due to British influence, thus

casting opprobrium upon the integrity of Washington, had done as much as

Hamilton's pamphlet, if not more, to damn him finally with the

Federalists. Hamilton's chief punishment for his thunderbolt was in his

conscience, and his leadership of his party was not questioned for a

moment. He expected a paternal rebuke from General Schuyler, but that

old warrior, severe always with the delinquencies of his own children,

had found few faults in his favourite son-in-law; and he took a greater

pride in his career than he had taken in his own. Now that gout and

failing sight had forced him from public life, he found his chief

enjoyment in Hamilton's society. General Schuyler survived the death of

several of his children and of his wife, but Hamilton's death killed

him. Assuredly, life dealt generously with our hero in the matter of

fathers, despite or because of an early oversight. James Hamilton had

never made the long and dangerous journey to the North, and he had died

on St. Vincent, in 1799, but what filial regret his son might have

dutifully experienced was swept away on the current of the overwhelming

grief for Washington. And as for mothers, charming elder sisters, and

big brothers, eager to fight his battles, no man was ever so blest. In

December Hamilton received the following letter from William Vans

Murray:--

Paris, Oct. 9th, 1800.

Dear Sir: I was extremely flattered by the confidence which your

letter by Mr. Colbert proved you have in my disposition to follow

your wishes. A letter from you is no affair of ceremony. It is an

obligation on any man who flatters himself with the hope of your

personal esteem. Mr. Colbert gave it to me yesterday. I

immediately, in particular, addressed a letter to Bonaparte, and

made use of your name, which I was sure would be pleasing to him.

To-day I dined with him. The Secretary of State assured me that he

received it kindly, and I can hope something good from him. If any

come it will be your work. I never before spoke or wrote to

Bonaparte on any affair other than public business. It will be very

pleasing to you if we succeed, that your silent agency works good

to the unhappy and meritorious at such a distance. I know nothing

better belonging to reputation.

Poor Adams!

General Davie arrived by the next ship, bringing with him a convention

concluded with France on the 30th of October. He also brought a letter

to Hamilton from one of the commission, with a copy of the document and

a journal of the proceedings of the negotiators. The writer was Oliver

Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Adams might

occupy the chair of State, but to the Federals Hamilton was President in

all but name.

Sedgwick and Gouverneur Morris, now a member of the Senate, not knowing

of the communication, wrote immediately to Hamilton, acquainting him

with the contents of the treaty.

It contains no stipulation for satisfaction of the injuries we have

received [Sedgwick wrote in wrath]. It makes the treaty of '78 a

subject for future negotiation. It engages that we shall return, in

the condition they now are, all our captures. It makes neutral

bottoms a protection to their cargoes, and it contains a

stipulation directly in violation of the 25th article of our treaty

with Great Britain. Such are the blessed effects of our mission!

These are the ripened fruits of this independent Administration!

Our friends in the Senate are not enough recovered from their

astonishment to begin to reflect on the course they shall pursue.

This treaty was a far more deadly weapon in Hamilton's hands than the

entire arsenal he had manipulated in his pamphlet, for campaign

literature is often pickled and retired with the salt of its readers.

But did this mission fail, did Adams lose his only chance of

justification for sending the commission at all, did the Senate refuse

to ratify, and war break out, or honourable terms of peace be left to

the next President, then Adams's Administration must be stamped in

history as a failure, and he himself retire from office covered with

ignominy. But had Hamilton not recovered his balance and trimmed to

their old steady duty the wicks of those lamps whose brilliance had

dimmed in a stormy hour, his statesmanship would have controlled him in

such a crisis as this. He knew that the rejection of the treaty would

shatter the Federal party and cause national schisms and discords; that,

if left over to a Jacobin administration, the result would be still

worse for the United States. It was a poor thing, but no doubt the best

that could have been extracted from triumphant France; nor was it as bad

in some respects as the irritated Senate would have it. Such as it was,

it must be ratified, peace placed to the credit of the Federalists, and

the act of the man they had made President justified. Hamilton was

obliged to write a great many letters on the subject, for the

Federalists found it a bitter pill to swallow; but he prevailed and they

swallowed it.

Meanwhile, the Electoral College had met. Adams had received sixty-five

votes, Pinckney sixty-four, Jefferson and Burr seventy-three each. That

threw the decision upon the House of Representatives, for Burr refused

to recognize the will of the people, and withdraw in favour of the man

whom the Democratic hemisphere of American politics had unanimously

elected. Burr had already lost caste with the party by his attempts to

secure more votes than the leaders were willing to give him, and had

alarmed Jefferson into strenuous and diplomatic effort, the while he

piously folded his visible hands or discoursed upon the bones of the

mammoth. When Burr, therefore, permitted the election to go to the

House, he was flung out of the Democratic party neck and crop, and

Jefferson treated him like a dog until he killed Hamilton, when he gave

a banquet in his honour. Burr's only chance for election lay with the

Federalists, who would rather have seen horns and a tail in the

Executive Chair than Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton had anticipated their

hesitation and disposition to bargain with Burr, and he bombarded them

with letters from the moment the Electoral College announced the result,

until the House decided the question on the 17th of February. He

analyzed Burr for the benefit of the anxious members until the dark and

poisonous little man must have haunted their dreams at night. Whether

they approached Burr or not will never be known; but they were finally

convinced that to bargain with a man as unfigurable as water would be

throwing away time which had far better be employed in extracting

pledges from Jefferson.

One of Hamilton's letters to Gouverneur Morris, who wielded much

influence in the House, is typical of many.

... Another subject. _Jefferson or Burr_? The former beyond a

doubt. The latter in my judgement has no principle, public or

private; could be bound by no agreement; will listen to no monitor

but his ambition; and for this purpose will use the worst portion

of the community as a ladder to climb to permanent power, and an

instrument to crush the better part. He is bankrupt beyond

redemption, except by the resources that grow out of war and

disorder; or by a sale to a foreign power, or by great peculation.

War with Great Britain would be the immediate instrument. He is

sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt

everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing. From the elevation of

such a man may heaven preserve the country.

Let our situation be improved to obtain from Jefferson assurances

on certain points: the maintenance of the present system,

especially on the cardinal articles of public credit--a navy,

neutrality. Make any discreet use you may think fit of this letter.

He was deeply alarmed at the tendency of the excited House, which sat in

continuous session from the 11th to the 17th, members sleeping on the

floor and sick men brought thither on cots, one with his wife in

attendance. The South was threatening civil war, and Burr's subsequent

career justified his alarm and his warnings; but in spite of his great

influence he won his case with his followers by a very small margin.

They were under no delusions regarding the character of Burr, their

letters to Hamilton abound in strictures almost as severe as his own,

but their argument was that he was the less of two evils, that every

move he made could be sharply watched. It is quite true that he would

have had Federalists and Democrats in both Houses to frustrate him; but

it does not seem to have occurred to the former that impeachment would

have been inevitable, and Jefferson President but a year or two later

than the will of the people decreed. But it was a time of terrible

excitement, and for the matter of that their brains must have been a

trifle clouded by the unvarying excitement of their lives. Bayard of

Delaware, with whom Hamilton had fought over point by point, winning one

or more with each letter, changed his vote on the last ballot from Burr

to a blank. Hamilton's friends knew that Burr would kill him sooner or

later, for the ambitious man had lost his one chance of the great

office; but Hamilton chose to see only the humour of the present he had

made Thomas Jefferson. That sensible politician had tacitly agreed to

the terms suggested by the Federalists, when they debated the

possibility of accepting him, and Hamilton knew that he was far too

clever to break his word at once. What Hamilton hoped for was what came

to pass: Jefferson found the machinery of his new possession more to his

taste than he could have imagined while sitting out in the cold, and he

let it alone.

VII

Hamilton was now free to devote himself to the practice of law, with but

an occasional interruption. It hardly need be stated that he kept a

sharp eye on Jefferson, but for the sake of the country he supported him

when he could do so consistently with his principles. More than once the

President found in him an invaluable ally; and as often, perhaps, he

writhed as on a hot gridiron. Hamilton came forth in the pamphlet upon

extreme occasions only, but he was still the first political philosopher

and writer of his time, and the Federalists would have demanded his pen

upon these occasions had he been disposed to retire it. Although out of

the active field of politics, he kept the best of the demoralized

Federalists together, warning them constantly that the day might come

when they would be called upon to reorganize a disintegrated union, and

responding to the demands of his followers in Congress for advice. In

local politics he continued to make himself felt in spite of the

fattening ranks of Democracy. His most powerful instrument was the _New

York Evening Post_, which he founded for the purpose of keeping the

Federalist cause alive, and holding the enemy in check. He selected an

able man as editor, William Coleman of Massachusetts, but he directed

the policy of the paper, dictating many of the editorials in the late

hours of night. This journal took its position at once as the most

respectable and brilliant in the country.

He also founded the Society for the Manumission of Slaves, securing as

honorary member the name of Lafayette--now a nobleman at large once

more. But all these duties weighed lightly. For the first time in his

life he felt himself at liberty to devote himself almost wholly to his

practice, and it was not long before he was making fifteen thousand

dollars a year. It was an immense income to make in that time, and he

could have doubled it had he been less erratic in the matter of fees.

Upon one occasion he was sent eight thousand dollars for winning a suit,

and returned seven. He invariably placed his own valuation upon a case,

and frequently refused large fees that would have been paid with

gratitude. If a case interested him and the man who asked his services

were poorer than himself, he would accept nothing. If he were convinced

that a man was in the wrong, he would not take his case at any price. He

was delighted to be able to shower benefits upon his little family, and

he would have ceased to be Alexander Hamilton had he been content to

occupy a second place at the bar, or in any other pursuit which engaged

his faculties; but for money itself, he had only contempt. Perhaps that

is the reason why he is so out of tune with the present day, and unknown

to the average American.

Washington, after the retirement of John Jay, had offered Hamilton the

office of Chief Justice of the United States; but Hamilton felt that

the bar was more suited to his activities than the bench, and declined

the gift. His legal career was as brilliant and successful as his

political, but although none is more familiar to ambitious lawyers, and

his position as the highest authority on constitutional law has never

been rivalled, his achievements of greater value to the Nation have

reduced it in history to the position of an incident. There is little

space left, and somewhat of his personal life still to tell, but no

story of Hamilton would be complete without at least a glimpse of this

particular shuttle in the tireless loom of his brain. Such glimpses have

by no one been so sharply given as by his great contemporary, Chancellor

Kent.

He never made any argument in court [Kent relates] without

displaying his habits of thinking, resorting at once to some

well-founded principle of law, and drawing his deductions logically

from his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science,

founded on established principles.... He rose at once to the

loftiest heights of professional eminence, by his profound

penetration, his power of analysis, the comprehensive grasp and

strength of his understanding, and the firmness, frankness and

integrity of his character.... His manners were affable, gentle and

kind; and he appeared to be frank, liberal and courteous in all his

professional intercourse. [Referring to a particular case the

Chancellor continues.] Hamilton by means of his fine melodious

voice, and dignified deportment, his reasoning powers and

persuasive address, soared far above all competition. His

preeminence was at once and universally conceded.... Hamilton

returned to private life and to the practice of the law in '95. He

was cordially welcomed and cheered on his return, by his fellow

citizens. Between this year and 1798, he took his station as the

leading counsel at the bar. He was employed in every important and

every commercial case. He was a very great favourite with the

merchants of New York and he most justly deserved to be, for he had

shown himself to be one of the most enlightened, intrepid and

persevering friends to the commercial prosperity of this country.

Insurance questions, both upon the law and fact, constituted a

large portion of the litigated business in the courts, and much of

the intense study and discussion at the bar. Hamilton had an

overwhelming share of this business.... His mighty mind would at

times bear down all opposition by its comprehensive grasp and the

strength of his reasoning powers. He taught us all how to probe

deeply into the hidden recesses of the science, and to follow up

principles to their far distant sources. He ransacked cases and

precedents to their very foundations; and we learned from him to

carry our inquiries into the commercial codes of the nations of the

European continent; and in a special manner to illustrate the law

of Insurance by the secure judgement of Emerigon and the luminous

commentaries of Valin.... My judicial station in 1798 brought

Hamilton before me in a new relation.... I was called to listen

with lively interest and high admiration to the rapid exercise of

his reasoning powers, the intensity and sagacity with which he

pursued his investigations, his piercing criticisms, his masterly

analysis, and the energy and fervour of his appeals to the

judgement and conscience of the tribunal which he addressed. [In

regard to the celebrated case of Croswell vs. the People, in the

course of which Hamilton reversed the law of libel, declaring the

British interpretation to be inconsistent with the genius of the

American people, Kent remarks.] I have always considered General

Hamilton's argument in this cause as the greatest forensic effort

he ever made. He had come prepared to discuss the points of law

with a perfect mastery of the subject. He believed that the rights

and liberties of the people were essentially concerned.... There

was an unusual solemnity and earnestness on his part in this

discussion. He was at times highly impassioned and pathetic. His

whole soul was enlisted in the cause, and in contending for the

rights of the Jury and a free Press, he considered that he was

establishing the surest refuge against oppression.... He never

before in my hearing made any effort in which he commanded higher

reverence for his principles, nor equal admiration of the power and

pathos of his eloquence.... I have very little doubt that if

General Hamilton had lived twenty years longer, he would have

rivalled Socrates or Bacon, or any other of the sages of ancient or

modern times, in researches after truth and in benevolence to

mankind. The active and profound statesman, the learned and

eloquent lawyer, would probably have disappeared in a great degree

before the character of the sage and philosopher, instructing

mankind by his wisdom, and elevating the country by his example.

[Ambrose Spencer, Attorney General of the State,--afterward Chief

Justice,--who did not love him, having received the benefit of

Hamilton's scathing sarcasm more than once, has this to say.]

Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country ever produced.

I knew him well. I was in situations to observe and study him. He

argued cases before me while I sat as judge on the bench. Webster

has done the same. In power of reasoning, Hamilton was the equal of

Webster; and more than this can be said of no man. In creative

power, Hamilton was infinitely Webster's superior, and in this

respect he was endowed as God endows the most gifted of our race.

If we call Shakspeare a genius or creator, because he evoked plays

and character from the great chaos of thought, Hamilton merits the

same appellation; for it was he, more than any other man, who

thought out the Constitution of the United States and the details

of the Government of the Union; and out of the chaos that existed

after the Revolution, raised a fabric, every part of which is

instinct with his thought. I can truly say that hundreds of

politicians and statesmen of the day get both the web and woof of

their thoughts from Hamilton's brains. He, more than any man, did

the thinking of the time.

His fooling was as inimitable as his use of passion and logic, and on

one occasion he treated Gouverneur Morris, who was his opposing counsel,

to such a prolonged attack of raillery that his momentary rival sat with

the perspiration pouring from his brow, and was acid for some time

after. During his earlier years of practice, while listening to

Chancellor Livingston summing up a case in which eloquence was made to

disguise the poverty of the cause, Hamilton scribbled on the margin of

his brief: "Recipe for obtaining good title for ejectment: two or three

void patents, several _ex parte_ surveys, one or two acts of usurpation

acquiesced in for the time but afterwards proved such. Mix well with

half a dozen scriptural allusions, some ghosts, fairies, elves,

hobgoblins, and a _quantum suff_. of eloquence." Hamilton also

originated the practice of preparing "Points," now in general use.

VIII

Hamilton, after the conclusion of the great libel case in the spring of

1804, returned from Albany to New York to receive honours almost as

great, if less vociferous, than those which had hailed him after the

momentous Convention of 1788. Banquets were given in his honour, the bar

extolled him, and the large body of his personal friends were triumphant

at this new proof of his fecundity and his power over the minds of men.

They were deeply disturbed on another point, however, and several days

after his arrival, Troup rode out to The Grange, Hamilton's

country-seat, to remonstrate.

Hamilton, several years since, had bought a large tract of wooded land

on Harlem Heights and built him a house on the ridge. It commanded a

view of the city, the Hudson, and the Sound. The house was spacious and

strong, built to withstand the winds of the Atlantic, and to shelter

commodiously not only his family, but his many guests. The garden and

the woods were the one hobby of his life, and with his own hands he had

planted thirteen gum trees to commemorate the thirteen original States

of the Union. Fortunately his deepest sorrow was not associated with

this estate; Philip had fallen before the house was finished. This

brilliant youth, who had left Columbia with flying honours, had brooded

over the constant attacks upon his father,--still the Colossus in the

path of the Democrats, to be destroyed before they could feel secure in

their new possessions,--until he had deliberately insulted the most

recent offender, received his challenge, and been shot to death close to

the spot where Hamilton was to fall a few years later. That was in the

autumn of 1801. Hamilton's strong brain and buoyant temperament had

delivered him from the intolerable suffering of that heaviest of his

afflictions, and the severe and unremitting work of his life gave him

little time to brood. If he rarely lost consciousness of his

bereavement, the sharpness passed, and he was even grateful at times

that his son, whose gifts would have urged him into public life, was

spared the crucifying rewards of patriotism.

As Troup rode up the avenue and glanced from right to left into the

heavy shades of the forest, with its boulders and ravines, its streams

and mosses and ferns, then to the brilliant mass of colour at the end of

the avenue, out of which rose the stately house, he sighed heavily.

"May the devil get the lot of them!" he said.

It was Saturday, and he found Hamilton on his back under a tree, the

last number of the _Moniteur_ close to his hand, his wife and Angelica

looking down upon him from a rustic seat. Both the women were in

mourning, and Betsey's piquant charming face was aging; her sister Peggy

and her mother had followed her son.

Hamilton had never recovered his health, and he paid for the prolonged

strains upon his delicate system with a languor to which at times he was

forced to yield. To-day, although he greeted the welcome visitor gaily,

he did not rise, and Troup sat down on the ground with his back to the

tree. As he looked very solemn, Mrs. Hamilton and Angelica inferred they

were not wanted, and retired.

"Well?" said Hamilton, laughing. "What is it? What have I done now?"

"Put another nail into your coffin, we are all afraid. The story of the

paper you read before the Federalist Conference in Albany is common

talk; and if Burr is defeated, it will be owing to your influence,

whether you hold yourself aloof from this election or not. Why do you

jeopardize your life? I'd rather give him his plum and choke him with

it--"

"What?" cried Hamilton, erect and alert. "Permit Burr to become Governor

of New York? Do you realize that the New England States are talking of

secession, that even the Democrats of the North are disgusted and

alarmed at the influence and arrogance of Virginia? Burr has a certain

prestige in New England on account of his father and Jonathan Edwards,

and his agents have been promoting discussion of this ancestry for some

time past. Do the Federalists of New York endorse him, this prestige

will have received its fine finish; and New Englanders have winked his

vices out of sight because Jefferson's treatment of him makes him almost

virtuous in their eyes. The moment he is Governor he will foment the

unrest of New England until it secedes, and then, being the first

officer of the leading State of the North, he will claim a higher office

that will end in sovereignty. He fancies himself another Bonaparte, he

who is utterly devoid of even that desire for fame, and that

magnificence, which would make the Corsican a great man without his

genius. That he is in communication with his idol, I happen to know, for

he has been seen in secret conversation with fresh Jacobin spies. Now is

the time to crush Burr once for all. Jefferson has intrigued the

Livingstons and Clinton away from him again; the party he patched

together out of hating factions is in a state of incohesion. If the

Federals--"