“I am now in my eighty-fifth year and very infirm. Here is my creed: I
believe in one God, the Creator of the universe. That He governs by His
Providence. That He ought to be worshipped. That the most acceptable
service we can render Him is by doing good to His other children. That
the soul of man is immortal, and will be treated with justice in another
life respecting his conduct in this. These I take to be the fundamental
points in all sound religion.”
Add to such testimony the closing lines of his famous self-written
epitaph: “The work itself shall not be lost, for it will (as he
believed) appear once more in a new and more beautiful edition,
corrected and amended by the Author.”
_Hamilton_
In discussing the qualities of the founders of our republic, Colonel T.
W. Higginson draws a good portraiture of Alexander Hamilton.[1]
Washington being President, Adams and Jay having also been assigned to
office, there naturally followed the two men who had contributed most in
their different ways to the intellectual construction of the nation.
Hamilton and Jefferson were brought together in the Cabinet,—the one as
Secretary of the Treasury, the other as Secretary of State,—not because
they agreed, but because they differed. Tried by all immediate and
temporary tests, it is impossible to deny to Hamilton the position of
leading intellect during the constitutional period; and his clear and
cogent ability contrasts strongly with the peculiar mental action,
always fresh and penetrating, but often lawless and confused, of his
great rival. Hamilton was more coherent, more truthful, more combative,
more generous, and more limited. His power was as an organizer and
advocate of measures, and this is a less secure passport to fame than
lies in the announcement of great principles. The difference between
Hamilton and Jefferson on questions of finance and State rights was only
the symbol of a deeper divergence. The contrast between them was not so
much in acts as in theories; not in what they did, but in what they
dreamed. Both had their visions, and held to them ardently, but the
spirit of the nation was fortunately stronger than either; it made
Hamilton support a republic against his will, and made Jefferson
acquiesce, in spite of himself, in a tolerably vigorous national
government.
Footnote 1:
From _Harper’s Magazine_. Copyright, 1884, by Harper & Brothers.
There is not a trace of evidence that Hamilton ever desired to bring
about a monarchy in America. He no doubt believed the British
constitution to be the most perfect model of government ever devised by
man, but it is also true that he saw the spirit of the American people
to be wholly republican; all his action was based on the opinion that
“the political principle of this country would endure nothing but
republican government.” He believed—very reasonably, so far as the
teachings of experience went—that a republic was an enormous risk to
run, and that this risk must be diminished by making the republic as
much like a monarchy as possible. If he could have had his way, only
holders of real estate would have had the right to vote for President
and Senators, and these would have held office for life, or at least
during good behavior; the President would have appointed all the
governors of States, and they would have had a veto on all State
legislation. All this he announced in Congress with the greatest
frankness, and having thus indicated his ideal government, he accepted
what he could get, and gave his great powers to carrying out a
constitution about which he had serious misgivings. On the other hand,
if Jefferson could have had his way, national organization would have
been a shadow. He accepted the constitution as a necessary evil.
“Hamilton and I,” wrote Jefferson, “were pitted against each other every
day in the Cabinet, like two fighting-cocks.” The first passage between
them was the only one in which Hamilton had clearly the advantage of his
less practised antagonist, making Jefferson, indeed, the instrument of
his own defeat. The transfer of the capital to the banks of the Potomac
was secured by the first of many compromises between the Northern and
Southern States, after a debate in which the formidable slavery question
showed itself often, as it had shown itself at the very formation of the
constitution. The removal of the capital was clearly the price paid by
Hamilton for Jefferson’s acquiescence in his first great financial
measure. This measure was the national assumption of the State debts to
an amount not to exceed twenty millions. It was met by vehement
opposition, partly because it bore very unequally on the States, but
mainly on the ground that the claims were in the hands of speculators,
and were greatly depreciated. Yet it was an essential part of that great
series of financial projects on which Hamilton’s fame must rest, even
more than on his papers in the _Federalist_—though these secured the
adoption of the Constitution. Three measures—the assumption of the State
debts, the funding act, and the national bank—were what changed the
bankruptcy of the new nation into solvency and credit. There may be
question as to the good or bad precedents established by these
enactments; but there can be no doubt as to their immediate success.
It is difficult to say what this accomplished man might have done as a
leader of the Federal opposition to the Democratic administrations of
Jefferson and Madison, had he not, in the maturity of his years, and in
the full vigor of his faculties, been murdered by Aaron Burr. Nothing
can better illustrate the folly of the practice of dueling than the fact
that, by a weak compliance with its maxims, the most eminent of American
statesmen died by the hand of the most infamous of American demagogues.
_Jefferson_
Among the voluminous writings of that great statesman, Thomas Jefferson,
none is of more universal interest than his “Rules of Life,” as embodied
in the following letter: