AARON tells his friends that he will not go back to the Senate. He puts
this resolution to retire on the double grounds of young Theodosia’s
loneliness and a consequent paternal necessity of his presence at
Richmond Hill, and the tangled condition of his business; which last
after the death of Theodosia mère falls into a snarl. Never, by the
lifting of an eyelash or the twitching of a lip, does he betray any
corner of his political designs, or of his determination to destroy
Hamilton. His heart is a furnace of white-hot throbbing hate against
that gentleman of diagonal morals and biased veracities; but no sign of
the fires within is visible on the arctic exterior.
Polite, on ceaseless guard, Aaron even becomes affable when Hamilton
is mentioned. He goes so far with his strategy, indeed, as to imitate
concern in connection with the political destinies of the rusty
Schuyler, now exceedingly on the shelf. Aaron has the rusty Schuyler
down from his shelved retirement, brushes the political dust from his
cloak, and declares that, in a spirit of generosity proper in a young
community toward an old, tried, even if rusty servant, the State ought
to send the rusty one to fill the Senate seat which he, Aaron, is giving
up. To such a degree does he work upon the generous sensibilities
of mankind, that the rusty Schuyler is at once unanimously chosen to
reassume those honors which he, Aaron, stripped from him six years
before.
Hamilton falls into a fog; he cannot understand the Aaronian liberality.
Aaron’s astonishing proposal, to return the rusty one to the Senate,
smells dangerously like a Greek and a gift. In the end, however,
Hamilton’s enormous vanity gets the floor, and he decides that
Aaron--courage broken--is but cringing to win the Hamilton friendship.
“That is it,” he explains to President Adams. “The fellow has lost
heart. This is his way of surrendering, and begging for peace.”
There are others as hopelessly lost in mists of amazement over Aaron’s
benevolence as is Hamilton; one is Aaron’s closest friend Van Ness.
“Schuyler for the Senate!” he exclaims. “What does that mean?”
“It means,” whispers Aaron, with Machiavellian slyness, “that I want to
get rid of the old dotard here. I am only clearing the ground, sir!”
“And for what?”
“The destruction of Hamilton.”
As Aaron speaks the hated name it is like the opening of a furnace door.
One is given a flash of the flaming tumult within. Then the door closes;
all is again dark, passionless, inscrutable.
Aaron runs his experienced eye along the local array. The Hamilton
forces are in the ascendant. Jay is governor; having beaten
North-of-Ireland Clinton, who was unable to explain how he came to sell
more than three millions of the public’s acres to McComb for eightpence.
And yet, for all that supremacy of the Hamilton influence--working
out its fortunes with the cogent name of Washington--Aaron’s practiced
vision detects here and there the seams of weakness. Old Clinton is as
angry as any sore-head bear over that gubernatorial beating, which he
lays to Hamilton. The clan-Livingston is sulking among its hills because
its chief, the mighty chancellor, was kept out of the President’s
cabinet by the secret word of Hamilton--whose policies are ever jealous
and double-jointed. Aaron, wise in such coils, sees all about him the
raw materials wherefrom may be constructed a resistless opposition to
the Party-of-things-as-they-are--which is the party of Hamilton.
One thing irks the pride of Aaron--a pride ever impatient and ready
for mutiny. In dealing with the Livingstons and the Clintons, these
gentry--readily eager indeed to take their revenges with the help of
Aaron--never omit a patrician attitude of overbearing importance. They
make a merit of accepting Aaron’s aid, and proceed on the assumption
that he gains honor by serving them. Aaron makes up his mind to remedy
this.
“I must have a following,” says he. “I will call about me every free
lance in the political hills. There shall be a new clan born, of which
I must be the Rob Roy. Like another McGregor, I with my followers shall
take up position between the Campbell and the Montrose--the Clintons and
the Livingstons. By threatening one with the other, I can then control
both. Given a force of my own, the high-stomached Livingstons and the
obstinate Clintons must obey me. They shall yet move forward or fall
back, march and countermarch by my word.”
When Aaron sets up as a Rob Roy of politics, he is not compelled to
endless labors in constructing a following. The thing he looks for lies
ready to his hand. In the long-room of Brom Martling’s tavern, at Spruce
and Nassau, meets the “Sons of Tammany or the Columbian Order.” The name
is overlong, and hard to pronounce unless sober; wherefore the “Sons of
Tammany or the Columbian Order,” as they sit swigging Brom Martling’s
cider, call themselves the “Bucktails.”
The aristocracy of the Revolution--being the officers--created
unto themselves the Cincinnati. Whereupon, the yeomanry of the
Revolution--being the privates--as a counterpoise to the perfumed, not
to say gilded Cincinnati, brought the Sons of Tammany or the Columbian
Order, otherwise the Bucktails, into being.
The Bucktails, good cider-loving souls, are solely a charitable-social
organization, and have no dreams of politics. Aaron becomes one of
them--quaffing and exalting the Martling cider. He takes them up into
the mountaintop of the possible, and shows them the kingdoms of the
political world and the glories thereof. Also, he points out that
Hamilton, the head of the hated Cincinnati, is turning that organization
of perfume and purple into a power. The Bucktails hear, see, believe,
and resolve under the chiefship of Aaron to fight their loathed rivals,
the Cincinnati, in every ensuing battle of the ballots to the end of
time.
The word that Aaron has brought the Buck-tails to political heel is not
long in making the rounds. It is worth registering that so soon as the
Clintons and the Livingstons learn the political determinations of this
formidable body of cider drinkers--with Aaron at its head--they conduct
themselves toward our young exsenator with profoundest respect. They
eliminate the overbearing element in their attitudes, and, when they
would confer with him, they go to him not he to them. Where before they
declared their intentions, they now ask his consent. It falls out as
Aaron forethreatened. Our Rob Roy at the head of his bold Bucktails is
sought for and deferred to by both the Clintons and the Livingstons--the
Campbell and the Montrose.
Some philosopher has said that there are three requisites to successful
war: the first gold, the second gold, the third gold. That deep one
might have said the same of politics. Now, when he dominates his Tammany
Bucktails--who obey him with shut eyes--and has brought the perverse
Clintons and the stiff-necked Livingstons beneath his thumb, Aaron
considers the question of the sinews of war. Politics, as a science,
has already so far progressed that principle is no longer sufficient to
insure success. If he would have a best ballot-box expression, he must
pave the way with money. The reasons thereof cry out at him from all
quarters. There is such a commodity as a campaign. No one is patriotic
enough to blow a campaign fife or beat a campaign drum for fun. Torches
are not a gift, but a purchase; neither does Mart-ling’s cider flow
without a price. Aaron, considering this ticklish puzzle of money, sees
that his plans as well as his party require a bank.
There are two banks in the city, only two; these are held in the hollow
of the Hamilton hand. Under the Hamilton pressure these banks act
coercively. They make loans or refuse them, as the applicant is or is
not amenable to the Hamilton touch. Obedience to Hamilton, added to
security even somewhat mildewed, will obtain a loan; while rebellion
against Hamilton, plus the best security beneath the commercial sun,
cannot coax a dollar from their strong boxes.
Aaron resolves to bring about a break in these iron-bound conditions.
The best forces of the town are thereby held in chains to Hamilton.
Aaron must free these forces before they can leave Hamilton and follow
him. How is this freedom to be worked out? Construct another bank?
It presents as many difficulties as making a new north star. Hamilton
watches the bank situation with the hundred eyes of Argus; every effort
to obtain a charter is knocked on the head.
Those armed experiences, which overtook Aaron as he went from Quebec to
Monmouth, and from Monmouth to the Westchester lines, left him full
of war knowledge. He is deep in the art of surprise, ambuscade, flank
movement, night attack; and now he brings this knowledge to bear. To
capture a bank charter is to capture the Hamilton Gibraltar, and,
while all but impossible of accomplishment, it will prove conclusive if
accomplished. Aaron wrinkles his brows and racks his wits for a way.
Gradually, like the power-imp emerging from Aladdin’s bottle, a scheme
begins to take shape before his mental eye. Yellow fever has been
reaping a shrouded harvest in the town. The local wiseacres--as
usual--lay it to the water. Everybody reveres science; and, while
everybody knows full well that science is nothing better than just the
accepted ignorance of to-day, still everybody is none the less on his
knees to it, and to the wiseacres, who are its high priests. Science and
the wiseacres lay yellow fever to the water; the kneeling town, taking
the word from them, does the same. The local water is found guilty; the
popular cry goes up for a purer element. The town demands water that is
innocent of homicidal qualities.
It is at this crisis that Aaron gravely steps forward. He talks of
Yellow Jack and unfurls a proposal. He will form a water company; it
shall be called “The Manhattan Company.”
With “No more yellow fever!” for a war-cry, Aaron lays siege to Albany.
What he wants is incorporation, what he seeks is a charter. With
the fear of yellow fever curling about their heart roots, the
Albany authorities--being the Hamilton Governor Jay and a Hamilton
Legislature--comply with his demands. The Manhattan Company is
incorporated, capital two millions.
Aaron goes home with the charter. Carrying out the charter--which
authorizes a water company--he originates a modest well near the City
Hall. It is not a big well, and might with its limpid output no more
than serve the thirst of what folk belong with any city block.
Well complete and in operation, the Manhattan Company abruptly opens a
bank, vastly bigger than the well. Also, the bank possesses a feature in
this; it is anti-Hamilton.
Instantly, every man or institution that nurses a dislike for Hamilton
takes his or its money to the Manhattan Bank. It is no more than a
matter of days when the new bank, in the volume of its business and
the extent of its deposits, overtops those banks which fly the Hamilton
flag. And Aaron, the indefatigable, is in control. At the new
Manhattan Bank, he turns on or shuts off the flow of credit, as Brom
Mart-ling--spigot-busy in the thirsty destinies of the Bucktails--turns
on or shuts off the flow of his own cider.
After the first throe of Hamiltonian horror, Governor Jay sends his
attorney general. This dignitary demands of Aaron by what authority
his Manhattan Company thus hurls itself upon the flanks of a surprised
world, in the wolfish guise of a bank? The company was to furnish the
world with water; it is now furnishing it with money, leaving it to fill
its empty water buckets at the old-time spouts. Also, it has turned its
incorporated back on yellow fever, as upon a question in which interest
is dead.
The Jay attorney general puts these queries to Aaron, who replies with
the charter. He points with his slim forefinger; and the Jay attorney
general--first polishing his amazed spectacles--reads the following
clause:
“The surplus capital may be employed in any way not inconsistent with
the laws and Constitution of the United States or of the State of New
York.”
The Jay attorney general gulps a little; his learned Adam’s apple goes
up and down. When the aforesaid clause is lodged safe inside his mental
stomach, Aaron assists digestion with an explanation. It is short, but
lucidly sufficient.
“The Manhattan Company, having completed its well and acting within the
authority granted by the clause just read, has opened with its surplus
capital the Manhattan Bank.”
The Jay attorney general stares blinkingly, like an owl at noon.
“And you had the bank in mind from the first!” he cries.
“Possibly,” says Aaron.
“Let me tell you one thing, Colonel Burr,” and the Jay attorney general
cracks and snaps his teeth in quite an owlish way; “if the authorities
at Albany had guessed your purpose, you would never have received
your charter. No, sir; your prayer for incorporation would have been
refused.”
“Possibly!” says Aaron.
All these divers and sundry preparational matters, the subjection of the
Clintons and the Livingstons, the political alignment of the Buck-tails
swigging their cider at Martlings, and the launching of the Manhattan
Bank to the yellow end that a supply of gold be assured, have in their
accomplishment taken time. It is long since Aaron looked in at the
Federal capitol, where the Hamilton-guided Adams is performing as
President, with all those purple royalties which surrounded Washington,
and Jefferson is abolishing ruffles, donning pantaloons, introducing
shoelaces, cutting off his cue, and playing the democrat Vice-President
at the other end of government. Aaron resolves upon a visit to these
opposite ones. Jefferson must be his candidate; Adams will be the
candidate of the foe. He himself is to manage for the one, while
Hamilton will lead for the other. Such the situation, he holds it the
part of a cautious sagacity to glance in at these worthies, pulling
against one another, and discover to what extent and in what manner
their straining and tugging may be used to make or mar the nation’s
future. Hamilton is to be destroyed. To annihilate him a battle must be
fought; and Aaron, preparing for that strife, is eager to discover aught
in the present conduct or standing of either Adams or Jefferson which
can be molded into bullets to bring down the enemy.
Aaron’s friend Van Ness goes with him, sharing his seat in the coach.
Some worth-while words ensue. They begin by talking of Hamilton; as
talk proceeds, Aaron gives a surprising hint of the dark but unsuspected
bitterness of his feeling--a feeling which goes beyond politics, as the
acridities of that savage science are understood and recognized.
Van Ness is wonder-smitten.
“Your enmity to Hamilton,” he says tentatively, “strikes deeper then
than mere politics.”
“Sir,” returns Aaron slowly, the old-time black, ophidian sparkle
flashing up in his eyes, “the deepest sentiment of my nature is my
hatred for that man. Day by day it grows upon me. Also, it is he who
furnishes the seed and the roots of it. Everywhere he vilifies me. I
hear it east, north, west, south. I am his mania--his ‘phobia’. In his
slanderous mouth I am ‘liar,’ ‘thief,’ and ‘scoundrel rogue.’ In such
connection I would have you to remember that I, on my side, give him,
and have given him, the description of a gentleman.”
“To be frank, sir,” returns Van Ness thoughtfully, “I know every word
you speak to be true, and have often wondered that you did not parade
our epithetical friend at ten paces, and refute his mendacities with
convincing lead.”
Aaron’s look is hard as granite. There is a moment of silence. “Kill
him!” he says at last, as though repeating a remark of his companion;
“kill him! Yes; that, too, must come! But it must not come too soon for
my perfect vengeance! First I shall uproot him politically; every hope
he has shall die! I shall thrust him from his high places! When he
lies prone, broken, powerless!--when he is spat upon by those in whose
one-time downcast, servile presence he strutted lord paramount!--when
his past is scoffed at, his future swallowed up!--when his word is
laughed at and his fame become a farce!--then, when every fang of
defeat pierces and poisons him, then I say should be the hour to talk of
killing! That hour is not yet. I am a revengeful man, Van Ness--I am an
artist of revenge! Believing as I do that with the going of the breath,
all goes!--that for the Man there is no hereafter as there has been no
past!--I must garner my vengeance on earth or forever lose it. So I take
pains with my vengeance; and having, as I tell you, a genius for it, my
vengeful pains shall find their dark and full-blown harvest. Hamilton,
for whom my whole heart flows away in hate!--I shall build for him a
pyramid of misery while he lives; and I shall cap that pyramid with his
death--his grave! I can see, as one who looks down a lane, what lies
before. I shall take from him every scrap of that power which is his
soul’s food--strip him of each least fragment of position! When he has
nothing left but life, I’ll wrest that from him. Long years after he is
gone I’ll walk this earth; and I shall find a joy in his absence, and
the thought that by my hand and my will he was made to go, beyond what
the friendship of man or the favor of woman could bring me. Kill him!
There is a grist in the hopper of my purposes, friend, and the mill
stones of my plans are grinding!”
Aaron does not look at Van Ness as he thus brings the secrets of his
soul to the light of day, but wears the manner of one preoccupied and in
the spell of self. Van Ness shudders as he listens; and, while the slow
words follow one another in hateful swart procession, a chill creeps
over him, as from the evil monstrous nearness of something elemental,
abnormal, fearsome. A sweat breaks out on his face. Neither his wits nor
his tongue can frame remark for either good or ill. The brooding Aaron
seems not to notice, but falls into a black muse.