THE shop of government has been moved to Philadelphia. In the brief
space between the overthrow of the rusty Schuyler by Aaron, and
the latter taking his seat, the great ones talk of nothing but that
overthrow. Washington vaguely and Jefferson clearly read in the victory
of Aaron the beginning of a new order. It is extravagantly an hour of
classes and masses; and the most dull does not fail to make out in the
Senate unseating of the rusty but aristocratic Schuyler a triumphant
clutch at power by the masses.
Something of the sort crops up in conversation about the President’s
dinner table. The occasion is informal; save for Vice-President Adams,
those present are of the Cabinet. Washington himself brings up the
subject.
“It is the strangest news!” says he--“this word of the Senate success of
Colonel Burr.”
Then, appealing to Hamilton: “Of what could your folk of New York have
been thinking? General Schuyler is a gentleman of fortune, the head of
one of the oldest families! This Colonel Burr is a young man of small
fortune, and no family at all.”
“Sir,” breaks in Adams with pompous impetuosity, “you go wide. Colonel
Burr is of the best blood of New England. His grandsire was Jonathan
Edwards; on his father’s side the strain is as high. You would look
long, sir, before you discovered one who has a better pedigree.”
“Whatever may be the gentleman’s pedigree,” retorts Hamilton
splenetically, “you will at least confess it to be only a New England
pedigree.”
“Only a New England pedigree!” exclaims Adams, in indignant wonder.
“Why, sir, when you say ‘The best pedigree in New England,’ you have
spoken of the best pedigree in the world!”
“Waiving that,” returns Hamilton, “I may at least assure you, sir, that
in New York your best New England pedigree does not invoke the reverence
which you seem to pay it. No, sir; the success of Colonel Burr was the
result of no pedigree. No one cared whether he were the grandson
of Jonathan Edwards or Tom o’ Bedlam. Colonel Burr won by lies and
trickery; by the same methods through which a thief might win possession
of your horse. Stripping the subject of every polite veneer of phrase,
the fellow stole his victory.” At this harshness Adams looks horrified,
while Jefferson, who has listened with interest, shrugs his wide
shoulders.
Washington appears wondrously impressed. Strong, honest, slow, he is
in no wise keen at reading men. Hamilton--quick, supple, subservient,
a brilliant flatterer--has complete possession of him. He admires
Hamilton, rejoices in him in a large, bland manner of patronage.
[Illustration: 0173]
The pair, in their mutual attitudes, are not unlike a huge mastiff and
some small vivacious, spiteful, half-bred terrier that makes himself
the mastiff’s satellite. Terrier Hamilton--brisk, busy, overbearing, not
always honest--rushes hither and yon, insulting one man, trespassing on
another. Let the insulted one but threaten or the injured one pursue, at
once Terrier Hamilton takes skulking refuge behind Mastiff Washington.
And the latter never fails Terrier Hamilton. Blinded by his overweening
partiality, a partiality that has no reason beyond his own innate love
of flattery, Washington ever saves Hamilton blameless, whatever may have
been his evil deeds.
Washington constitutes Hamilton’s stock in national trade. In New
York, Hamilton is the rusty Schuyler’s son-in-law--heir to his riches,
lieutenant of his name. In the nation at large, however, Hamilton
traffics on that confident nearness to Washington, and his known ability
to pull or haul or lead the big Virginian any way he will. To have
a full-blown President to be your hand gun is no mean equipment,
and Hamilton, be sure, makes the fullest, if not the most honest or
honorable, use of it.
“Now I do not think it was either the noble New England blood of Colonel
Burr, or his skill as a politician, that defeated General Schuyler.”
The voice--while not without a note of jeering--is bell-like and deep,
the thoughtful, well-assured voice of Jefferson. Washington glances at
his angular, sandy-haired Secretary of State.
“What was it, then,” he asks.
“I will tell you my thought,” replies Jefferson. “General Schuyler was
beaten by that very fortune, added to that very headship of a foremost
family, which you hold should have been unanswerable for his election.
The people are reaching out, sir, for the republican rule that is their
right, and which they conquered from England. You know, as well as I,
what followed the peace of Paris in this country. It was not democracy,
but aristocracy. The government has been taken under the self-sufficient
wing of a handful of families, that, having great property rights, hold
themselves forth as heaven-anointed rulers of the land. The people are
becoming aroused to both their powers and their rights. In the going of
General Schuyler and the coming of Colonel Burr, I find nothing worse
than a gratifying notice that American mankind intends to have a voice
in its own government.”
“You appear pleased, sir,” observes Hamilton bitterly.
“Pleased is but a poor word. It no more than faintly expresses the
satisfaction I feel.”
“You amaze me!” interrupts Adams, as much the aristocrat as either
Washington or Hamilton, but of a different tribe. “Do I understand, sir,
that you will welcome the rule of the mob?”
“The ‘mob,’” retorts Jefferson, “can be trusted to guard its own
liberty.. The mob won that liberty, sir! Who, then, should be better
prepared to stand sentinel over it? Not a handful of rich snobs, surely,
who, in the arrogant idleness which their money permits, play at caste
and call themselves an American peerage.”
“Government by the mob!” gasps Adams, who, in the narrowness of his
New England vanity--honest man!--has passed his life on a self-erected
pedestal. “Government by the mob!”
“And why not, sir?” demands Jefferson sharply. “It is the mob’s
government. Who shall contradict the mob’s right to control its own?
Have we but shuffled off one royalty to shuffle on another?”
Adams, excellent pig-head, can say no more; besides, he fears the
quick-tongued Secretary of State. Hamilton, too, is heedful to avoid
Jefferson, and, following that democrat’s declarations anent mob right
and mob rule, glances with questioning eye at Washington, as though
imploring him to come to the rescue. With this the big President begins
to unlimber complacently.
“Government, my dear Jefferson,” he says, wheeling himself like
some great gun into argumentative position, “may be discussed in the
abstract, but must be administered in the concrete. I think a best
picture of government is a shepherd with his flock of sheep. He
finds them a safety and a better pasturage than they could find for
themselves. He is necessary to the sheep, as the sheep are necessary
to him. He can be trusted; since his interest is the interest of the
flock.”
Jefferson grins a hard, angular grin, in which there is wisdom,
patience, courage, but not one gleam of humor. “I cannot,” says he,
“accept your simile of sheep and shepherd as a happy one. The people
of this country are far from being addle-pated sheep. Nor do I find
our self-selected shepherds”--here he lets his glance rove cynically
to Adams and Hamilton--“such profound scientists of civil rule. Your
shepherd is a dictator. This republic--if it is a republic--might more
justly be likened to a company of merchants, equal in interests, who
appoint agents, but retain among themselves the control.”
“And yet,” observes Hamilton, who can think of nothing but Aaron and his
own hatred for that new senator, “the present question is one, not of
republics or dictatorships, but of Colonel Burr. I know him; know him
well. You will find him a crooked gun.”
“It is ten years since I saw him,” observes Washington. “I did not like
him; but that was because of a forward impertinence which ill became
his years. Besides, I thought him egotistical, selfish, of no high aims.
That, as I say, was ten years ago; he may have changed vastly for the
better.”
“There has been no bettering change, sir,” returns Hamilton. His manner
is purring, insinuating, the courtier manner, and conveys the impression
of one who seeks only to protect Washington from betrayal by his own
goodness of heart. “Sir, he is more egotistical, more selfish, than when
you parted from him. I think it my duty, since the gentleman will have
his place in government, to speak plainly. I hold Colonel Burr to be
a veriest firebrand of disorder. None knows better than I the peril
of this man. Bold at once and bad, there is nothing too high for his
ambition to fly at, nothing too low for his intrigue to embrace. He
is both Jack Cade and Cromwell. Like the one, he possesses a sinister
attraction for the vulgar herd; like the other, he would not hesitate
to lead the herd against government itself, in furtherance of his vile
projects.”
Neither Adams nor Jefferson goes wholly unaffected by these
malignancies; while Washington, whose credulity is measureless when
Hamilton speaks, drinks them in like spring water.
“Well,” observes the cautious Jefferson, as closing the discussion, “the
gentleman himself will soon be among us, and fairness, if not prudence,
suggests that we defer judgment on him until experience has given us a
basis for it.”
“You will find,” says Hamilton, “that he is, as I tell you, but a
crooked gun.”
Aaron takes his oath as senator, and sinks into a seat among his
reverend fellows. As he does so he cannot repress a cynical glance about
him--cynical, since he sees more to despise than respect. It is the
opening day of the session. Washington as President, severe, of an
implacable dignity, appears and reads a solemn address. Later,
according to custom, both Senate and House send delegations to wait upon
Washington, and read solemn addresses to him.
His colleagues pitch upon Aaron to prepare the address for the Senate,
since he is supposed to have a genius for phrases. The precious
document in his pocket, Vice-President Adams on his arm, Aaron leads the
Senate delegation to the President’s house. They find the big Virginian
awaiting them in the long dining room, which apartment has been
transformed into an audience chamber by the simple expedient of carrying
out the table and shoving back the chairs.
Washington stands near the great fireplace. At his elbow and a step to
the rear, a look of lackey fawning on his face, whispering, beaming,
blandishing, basking, is Hamilton. Utterly the sycophant, wholly the
politician, he holds onto Washington by those before-mentioned tendrils
of flattery, and finds in him a trellis, whereon to climb and clamber
and blossom, wanting which he would fall groveling to the ground. The
big Virginian--and that is the worst of it--is as much led by him as any
blind man by his dog.
Washington has changed as a figure since he and Aaron, on that far-off
day, disagreed touching leaves of absence without pay. Instead of rusty
blue and buff, frayed and stained of weather, he is clad in a suit of
superb black velvet, with black silk stockings and silver buckles. His
hair, white as snow with powder, is gathered behind in a silken bag. In
one of his large hands, made larger by yellow gloves, he holds a cocked
hat--brave with gold braid, cockade, and plume. A huge sword, with
polished steel hilt and white scabbard, dangles by his side. It is in
this notable uniform our President receives the Senate delegation,
Aaron and Vice-President Adams at the head, as it gathers in a formal
half-circle about him.
Being thus happily disposed, Adams in a raucous, pragmatic voice reads
Aaron’s address. It is quite as hollow and pointless and vacant of
purpose as was Washington’s. Its delivery, however, is loftily heavy,
since the mummery is held a most important element of what tinsel-isms
make up the etiquette of our American court. Save that the audience
chamber is less sumptuous, the ceremony might pass for King George
receiving his ministers, instead of President George receiving a
delegation from the Senate.
No one is more disagreeably aroused by this paltry imitation of royalty
than Aaron. Some glint of his contempt must show in his eyes; for
Hamilton, eager to make the conqueror of the rusty Schuyler as offensive
to Washington as he may, is swift to draw him out.
“Welcome to the Capitol, Senator Burr!” he exclaims, when Adams has
finished. “This, I believe, is your earliest appearance here. I doubt
not you find the opening of our Congress exceedingly impressive.”
Since Aaron came into the presence of Washington, he has arrived at
divers decisions which will have effect in the country’s story, before
the curtain of time descends and the play of government is played out.
His first feeling is one of angry repugnance toward Washington himself.
He liked him little as a general; he likes him less as a president.
“I shall be no friend to this man,” thinks he, “nor he to me.”
Aaron tries to believe that his resentment is due to Washington’s all
but royal state. In his heart, however, he knows that his wrath is
personal. He reconsiders that discouraging royalty, and puts his feeling
upon more probable grounds.
“I distaste him,” he decides, “because he meets no man on level terms.
He places himself on a plane by himself. He looks down to everybody;
everybody must look up to him. He is incapable of friendship, and will
either be guardian or jailer to mankind. He told Putnam I was vain,
conceited. Was there ever such blind vanity as his own? No; he will
be no man’s friend--this self-discovered demigod! He does not desire
friends. What he hungers for is adulation, incense. He prefers none
about him save knee-crooking sycophants--like this smirking parasitish
Hamilton.”
Aaron, while the pompous Adams thunders forth that empty address,
resolves to hold himself aloof from Washington and all who belt him
round. Being in this high mood, he welcomes the opportunity which
Hamilton’s remark affords him, to publicly notify those present of his
position.
“It will be as well,” he ruminates, “to post, not alone these good
people of Cabinet and Senate, but the royal Washington himself. I shall
let them, and let him, know that I am not to be a follower of this
republican king of ours.”
“Yes,” repeats Hamilton, with a side glance at Washington, who for the
moment is talking in a courtly way with Adams, “yes; you doubtless
find the opening ceremonies exceedingly impressive. Most newcomers do.
However, it will wear down, sir; the feeling will wear down!” Hamilton
throws off this last with an ineffable air of experience and elevation.
“Sir,” returns Aaron, preserving a thin shimmer of politeness, “sir,
by these ceremonies, through which we have romped so deeply to your
gratification, I confess I have been quite as much bored as impressed.
There is something cheap, something antic and senseless to it all--as
though we were sylvan apes! What are these wondrous ceremonies? Why
then, the President ‘addresses> the Senate, the Senate ‘addresses’ the
President; neither says anything, neither means anything, and the whole
exchange comes to be no more than just an empty barter of bad English.”
This last, in view of the fact that Aaron himself is the architect of
the address of the Senate, sounds liberal, and not at all conceited. He
goes on: “I must say, sir, that my little dip into government, confined
as it has been to these marvelous ceremonies, leaves me with a poorer
opinion of my country than I brought here. As for the ceremonies
themselves, I should call them now about as edifying as the banging and
the booming of a brace of Chinese gongs.”
Washington’s brow is red, his eye cold, as he bows a formal leave to
Aaron when he departs with the others. Plainly, the views of the young
successor to the rusty Schuyler, concerning addresses of ceremony, have
not been lost upon him.
“I think,” mutters Aaron, icily complacent--“I think I pricked him.”