on the establishment of a mint, showing wide research on the subject of
coinage. Besides these papers, he reported on the purchase of West
Point, on public lands, navigation laws, on the post-office, and other
matters, always showing careful study, good judgment, and patriotism.
That he was accused of being a monarchist signified little, as there
were hundreds of people at that time who feared that the republic would
go down, as had others in past centuries. He so deprecated the lack of
central power in the government that he exaggerated the dangers of the
people's rule. This lack of trust in the masses and in the power of the
Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson's trust in self-government and belief
in States' rights, led, at last, to the bitter and public disagreement
of these two great men, the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary
of State. Each was honest in his belief; each was tolerant of most men,
but intolerant of the other to the end of life.
Hamilton naturally became the leader of the Federalists, as Jefferson
the leader of the Republicans, or Democrats, as they are now called. One
party saw in Hamilton the great thinker, the safe guardian of the
destinies of the people; the other party thought it saw a bold and
unscrupulous man, who would sit on a throne if that were possible.
Hamilton's character was assailed, sometimes with truth, but oftener
without truth. He was not perfect, but he was great, and in most
respects noble.
The French Revolution was now interesting all minds. Genet had been sent
to America by the French Republic, as her minister. Hamilton urged
neutrality, and looked with horror upon the growing excesses in France.
Jefferson, with his hatred of monarchy, was lenient, and, in the early
part of the Revolution, sympathetic. The United States became divided
into two great factions, for and against France. Genet fanned the flames
till the patient Washington could endure it no longer; the unwise
minister was recalled, and neutrality was proclaimed April 22, 1793.
Through all this matter, Hamilton had the complete love and confidence
of Washington. When it was deemed wise to send a special commissioner
to effect a treaty with England, that proper commercial relations be
maintained, Hamilton was at once suggested. Party feeling opposed, and
John Jay was appointed. When he returned from his mission, Great Britain
having consented to pay us ten million dollars for illegal seizure of
vessels, we agreeing to pay all debts owed to her before the
Revolutionary War, the people rose in wrath against the treaty, and
burned Jay in effigy. When Hamilton was speaking for its adoption at a
public meeting in New York, he was assaulted by stones. "Gentlemen," he
said, coolly, "if you use such strong arguments, I must retire." After
this he wrote essays, signed "Camillus," in defence of the treaty, and
helped largely to secure its acceptance.
Meantime, the Excise Law, whereby distilled spirits were taxed, caused
the "Whiskey Insurrection" in Pennsylvania. Hamilton, who believed in
the prompt execution of law, urged Washington to take decisive measures.
The President called out thirteen thousand troops, and the refusal to
pay the taxes was no more heard of.
Hamilton, like Jefferson, had become weary of his six years of public
life; his increasing family needed more than his limited salary, and he
resigned, returning to his law practice in the city of New York.
When a new President was chosen to succeed Washington, it was not the
real leader of the party, Hamilton, but one who had elicited less
opposition by strong measures--John Adams, a man of long and
distinguished service, both in England and America. Hamilton seems to
have preferred Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina, and thus to have
gained the ill-will of Adams, which helped at last to split the Federal
party.
When Adams and Jefferson became the Presidential nominees in 1800,
Hamilton threw himself heartily into the contest in the State of New
York. Here he found himself pitted against a rare antagonist, the most
famous lawyer in the State except himself, Aaron Burr. He was well born,
being the son of the president of the college at Princeton, and the
grandson of Jonathan Edwards. Like Hamilton, he was precocious; being
ready to enter Princeton when he was eleven years old. He was short in
stature, five feet and six inches in height; with fine black eyes, and
gentle and winsome manners. Both these men won the most enduring
friendships from men and women--homage indeed. Both were intense in
nature, though Burr had far greater self-control. Both were brave to
rashness; both were untiring students; both loved and always gained
authority. Burr had won honors in the Revolutionary War. He had married
at twenty-six, a woman ten years older than himself, a widow with two
children, with neither wealth nor beauty, whom he idolized for the
twelve years she was spared to him, for her rare mind and devoted
affection. From her he learned to value intellect in woman. He used to
write her before marriage, "Deal less in sentiments, and more in
ideas." When she died, he said, "The mother of my Theo was the best
woman and finest lady I have ever known." For his only child, his
beloved Theodosia, he seemed to have but one wish, that she be a
scholar. He said to his wife, "If I could foresee that Theo would become
a mere fashionable woman, with all the attendant frivolity and vacuity
of mind, adorned with whatever grace and allurement, I would earnestly
pray God to take her forthwith hence. But I yet hope by her to convince
the world what neither sex appear to believe--that women have souls!"
At ten years of age, she was studying Horace and Terence, learning the
Greek grammar, speaking French, and reading Gibbon.
This Theo, the idol of his life, afterward married to Governor Alston of
South Carolina, loved him with a devotion that will forever make one
gleam of sunshine in a life full of shadows. When the dark days came,
she wrote him, "I witness your extraordinary fortitude with new wonder
at every new misfortune. Often, after reflecting on this subject, you
appear to me so superior, so elevated above all other men; I contemplate
you with, such a strange mixture of humility, admiration, reverence,
love, and pride, very little superstition would be necessary to make me
worship you as a superior being; such enthusiasm does your character
excite in me.... I had rather not live than not be the daughter of such
a man."
Burr's success in the law had been phenomenal. When he was studying for
admission to the bar, he often passed twenty hours out of the
twenty-four over his books.
And now, Colonel Burr, at thirty-six, after being in the United States
Senate for six years, was the candidate for Vice-President on the
Jefferson ticket. Hamilton's eloquence stirred the State of New York in
the contest; but Burr's generalship in politics won the votes, and he
was elected.
Hamilton went back again to his large law practice. Men sought him with
the belief that if he would take their cases, there was no doubt of the
result. An aged farmer came to him to recover a farm for which a deed
had been obtained from him in exchange for Virginia land. Hamilton heard
the case; then wrote to the wealthy speculator to call upon him. When he
came, Hamilton said, "You must give me back that deed. I do not say that
you knew that the title to these lands is bad; but it is bad. You are a
rich--he is a poor man. How can you sleep on your pillow? Would you
break up the only support of an aged man and seven children?" He walked
the floor rapidly, as he exclaimed, "I will add to my professional
services all the weight of my character and powers of my nature; and
_you_ ought to know, when I espouse the cause of innocence and of the
oppressed, that character and those powers will have their weight."
The property was reconveyed to the farmer, who gratefully asked Hamilton
to name the compensation. "Nothing! nothing!" said he. "Hasten home and
make your family happy."
Hamilton was clear in his reasoning; a master in constitutional law;
persuasive in his manner; sometimes highly impassioned, sometimes solemn
and earnest. Says Henry Cabot Lodge: "Force of intellect and force of
will were the sources of his success.... Directness was his most
distinguishing characteristic, and, whether he appealed to the head or
the heart, he went straight to the mark.... He never indulged in
rhetorical flourishes, and his style was simple and severe.... That
which led him to victory was the passionate energy of his nature, his
absorption in his work, his contagious and persuasive enthusiasm."
"There was a fascination in his manner, by which one was led captive
unawares," says another writer. "On most occasions, when animated with
the subject on which he was engaged, you could see the very workings of
his soul, in the expression of his countenance; and so frank was he in
manner that he would make you feel that there was not a thought of his
heart that he would wish to hide from your view."
"Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country ever produced,"
said Judge Ambrose Spencer.... "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....
He, more than any man, did the thinking of the time."
His chief relaxation from work was at "The Grange," his summer home at
Harlem Heights, not far from the spot, it is said, where he first
attracted the eye of Washington. Beeches, maples, and many evergreens
abounded. The Hudson River added its beauty to the picturesque place.
Here he read the classics for pleasure, and the Bible. To a friend he
said: "I have examined carefully the evidence of the Christian religion;
and, if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity, I should
unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor.... I can prove its truth as
clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."
At "The Grange" he was especially happy with his family. He said, "My
health and comfort both require that I should be at home--at that home
where I am always sure to find a sweet asylum from care and pain.... It
will be more and more my endeavor to abstract myself from all pursuits
which interfere with those of affection. 'Tis here only I can find true
pleasure."
When Hamilton was forty-four, he endured the great affliction of his
life. His eldest son, Philip, nineteen, just graduated from Columbia
College, deeply wounded by the political attacks upon his father,
challenged to a duel one of the men who had made objectionable remarks.
The lad fell at the first fire, a wicked sacrifice to a barbarous "code
of honor." After twenty hours of agony, he died, surrounded by the
stricken family. Hamilton was especially proud of this son, of whom he
said, when he gave his oration at Columbia College, "I could not have
been contented to have been surpassed by any other than my son."
For three years Hamilton worked on with a hope which was never broken,
constantly adding to his fame. And then came the fatal error of his
life. All along he had opposed Aaron Burr. When named for a foreign
mission, Hamilton helped to defeat him. When the tie vote came between
Jefferson and Burr in the Presidential returns, Hamilton said, "The
appointment of Burr as President will disgrace our country abroad." When
Burr was nominated for Governor of New York, Hamilton used every effort
to defeat him, and succeeded. Burr, exasperated and disappointed at his
failures, sent Hamilton a challenge. He wrote to Hamilton, "_Political_
opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid
adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum. I neither claim
such privilege nor indulge it in others." Alas! that some men in public
life, even now, forget the "laws of honor and the rules of decorum" in
their treatment of opponents.
Everything in Hamilton's career protested against this suicidal combat.
He was only forty-seven, distinguished and beloved, with a wife and
seven children dependent upon him.
Before going to the fatal meeting, he wrote his feelings about duelling.
"My religious and moral principles are strongly opposed to the practice
of duelling, and it would even give me pain to be obliged to shed the
blood of a fellow-creature in a private combat forbidden by the laws....
To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of duelling, may think
that I ought on no account to have added to the number of bad examples,
I answer that my _relative_ situation, as well in public as private,
enforcing all the considerations which constitute what men of the world
denominate honor, imposed on me (as I thought) a peculiar necessity not
to decline the call. The ability to be in future useful, whether in
resisting mischief or effecting good, in those crises of our public
affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from
a conformity with public prejudice in this particular."
He made his will, leaving all, after the payment of his debts, to his
"dear and excellent wife." "Should it happen that there is not enough
for the payment of my debts, I entreat my dear children, if they, or any
of them, should ever be able, to make up the deficiency. I, without
hesitation, commit to their delicacy a wish which is dictated by my own.
Though conscious that I have too far sacrificed the interests of my
family to public avocations, and on this account have the less claim to
burden my children, yet I trust in their magnanimity to appreciate as
they ought this my request. In so unfavorable an event of things, the
support of their dear mother, with the most respectful and tender
attention, is a duty, all the sacredness of which they will feel.
Probably her own patrimonial resources will preserve her from indigence.
But in all situations they are charged to bear in mind that she has been
to them the most devoted and best of mothers." And then, the great
statesman, after writing two farewell letters to "my darling, darling
wife," conformed to "public prejudice" by hastening with his second, at
daybreak, to meet Aaron Burr, at Weehawken, two miles and a half above
Hoboken. It was a quiet and beautiful spot, one hundred and fifty feet
above the level of the Hudson River, shut in by trees and vines, but
golden with sunlight on that fatal morning.
At seven o'clock the two distinguished men were ready, ten paces apart,
to take into their own hands that most sacred of all things, human life.
There was no outward sign of emotion, though the one must have thought
of his idol, Theodosia, and the other of his pretty children, still
asleep. Hamilton had determined not to fire, and so permitted himself to
be sacrificed. The word of readiness was given. Burr raised his pistol
and fired, and Hamilton fell headlong on his face, his own weapon
discharging in the air. He sank into the arms of his physician, saying
faintly, "This is a mortal wound," and was borne home to a family
overwhelmed with sorrow. The oldest daughter lost her reason.
For thirty-one hours he lay in agony, talking, when able, with his
minister about the coming future, asking that the sacrament be
administered, and saying, "I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray
for me."
Once when all his children were gathered around the bed, he gave them
one tender look, and closed his eyes till they had left the room. He
retained his usual composure to the last, saying to his wife, frenzied
with grief, "Remember, my Eliza, you are a Christian." He died at two
o'clock on the afternoon of July 12, 1804. The whole nation seemed
speechless with sorrow. In New York all business was suspended. At the
funeral, a great concourse of people, college societies, political
associations, and military companies, joined in the common sorrow. Guns
were fired from the British and French ships in the harbor; on a
platform in front of Trinity Church, Governor Morris pronounced a
eulogy, General Hamilton's four sons, the eldest sixteen and the
youngest four, standing beside the speaker. Thus the great life faded
from sight in its vigorous manhood, leaving a wonderful record for the
aspiring and the patriotic, and a prophecy of what might have been
accomplished but for that one fatal mistake.
Aaron Burr hastened to the South, to avoid arrest; but public execration
followed him. He became implicated in a scheme for putting himself at
the head of Mexico, was arrested and tried for treason, and, though
legally acquitted, was obliged to flee to England, and from there to
Sweden and Germany. Finally he came home, only to hear that Theodosia's
beautiful boy of eleven was dead. Poor and friendless, he longed now for
the one person who had never forsaken him, his daughter. She started
from Charleston in a pilot-boat, for New York, and was never heard from
afterwards. Probably all went down in a storm off Cape Hatteras. When it
was reported in the papers that the boat had been captured by pirates,
Burr said, "No, no, she is indeed dead. Were she alive, all the prisons
in the world could not keep her from her father. When I realized the
truth of her death, the world became a blank to me, and life had then
lost all its value."
When he was nearly eighty, he married a lady of wealth; but they were
unhappy, and soon separated. He died on Staten Island, cared for at the
last by the children of an old friend. His courage and fortitude the
world will always admire; but it can never forget the fatal duel by
which Alexander Hamilton was taken from his country, in the prime of his
life and in the midst of his great work.
The name of Hamilton will not be forgotten. The Hon. Chauncey M. Depew
of New York, on February 22, 1888, gave the great statesman this well
deserved tribute of praise:--
"The political mission of the United States has so far been wrought
out by individuals and territorial conditions. Four men of unequal
genius have dominated our century, and the growth of the West has
revolutionized the republic. The principles which have heretofore
controlled the policy of the country have mainly owed their force
and acceptance to Hamilton, Jefferson, Webster, and Lincoln.
"The first question which met the young confederacy was the
necessity of a central power strong enough to deal with foreign
nations and to protect commerce between the States. At this period
Alexander Hamilton became the savior of the republic. If
Shakespeare is the commanding originating genius of England, and
Goethe of Germany, Hamilton must occupy that place among Americans.
This superb intelligence, which was at once philosophic and
practical, and with unrivalled lucidity could instruct the dullest
mind on the bearing of the action of the present on the destiny of
the future, so impressed upon his contemporaries the necessity of a
central government with large powers that the Constitution, now one
hundred and one years old, was adopted, and the United States began
their life as a nation."
[Illustration: Signature Andrew Jackson]
ANDREW JACKSON.
George Bancroft said, "No man in private life so possessed the hearts of
all around him; no public man of the country ever returned to private
life with such an abiding mastery over the affections of the people....
He was as sincere a man as ever lived. He was wholly, always, and
altogether sincere and true. Up to the last he dared do anything that it
was right to do. He united personal courage and moral courage beyond any
man of whom history keeps the record.... Jackson never was vanquished.
He was always fortunate. He conquered the wilderness; he conquered the
savage; he conquered the veterans of the battle-field of Europe; he
conquered everywhere in statesmanship; and when death came to get the
mastery over him, he turned that last enemy aside as tranquilly as he
had done the feeblest of his adversaries, and passed from earth in the
triumphant consciousness of immortality."
Thus wrote Bancroft of the man who rose from poverty and sorrow to
receive the highest gift which the American nation can bestow. The gift
did not come through chance; it came because the man was worthy of it,
and had earned the love and honor of the people.
In 1765, among many other emigrants, a man, with his wife and two sons,
came to the new world from the north of Ireland. They were
linen-weavers, poor, but industrious, and members of the Presbyterian
Church. They settled at Waxhaw, North Carolina, not far from the South
Carolina boundary, and the husband began to build a log house for his
dear ones. This man was the father of Andrew Jackson.
Scarcely had the log house been built, and a single crop raised, before
the wife was left a widow and the children fatherless. There was a quiet
funeral, a half-dozen friends standing around an open grave, and then
the little house passed into other hands, and Mrs. Jackson went to live
at the home of her brother-in-law.
Not long after the funeral, a third son was born, March 15, 1767, whom
the stricken mother named Andrew Jackson, after his father. He was
welcomed in tears, and naturally became the idol of her young heart.
Three weeks later, she moved to the house of another brother-in-law to
assist in his family. She was not afraid to work, and she bent herself
to the hard labor of pioneer life. There was no sorrow in the labor, for
was she not doing it for her sons, and a noble woman knows no hardship
in her self-sacrifice for love.
Her ambition seems to have centred in the slight, light-haired,
blue-eyed Andrew, who, she hoped, one day might become a Presbyterian
minister. How he was to obtain a college education, perhaps, she did not
discern, but she trusted, and trust is a divine thing.
The barefooted boy attended a school kept by Dr. Waddell. He made
commendable progress in his studies, from his quick and ardent
temperament, but he loved fun even better than books. He was impulsive,
ambitious, and persevering. He could run foot-races as rapidly as the
bigger boys, and loved to wrestle or engage in anything which seemed
like a battle. Says an old schoolmate, "I could throw him three times
out of four, but he would never _stay throwed_. He was dead game, even
then, and never _would_ give up."
To the younger boys he was a protector, but from the older he would
brook no insult, and was sometimes hasty and overbearing. One of the
best traits in the boy's character was his love for his mother. His
intense nature knew no change, and he was loyal and single of purpose
forever. He used to say in later life, "One of the last injunctions
given me by my mother was never to institute a suit for assault and
battery or for defamation; never to wound the feelings of others nor
suffer my own to be outraged: these were her words of admonition to me;
I remember them well, and have never failed to respect them; my settled
course through life has been to bear them in mind, and never to insult
or wantonly to assail the feelings of any one; and yet many conceive me
to be a most ferocious animal, insensible to moral duty and regardless
of the laws both of God and man."
He did nothing slowly nor indifferently. He bent his will to his work,
even at that early age, and knew no such word as failure. When the boy
was thirteen, an incident occurred which made a lasting impression. The
British General Tarlton, in the Revolutionary War, with three hundred
cavalry, came against Waxhaw, surprised the militia, killing one hundred
and thirteen and wounding one hundred and fifty. The little settlement
was terrorized. The meeting-house became a hospital, and Mrs. Jackson,
with her sons, helped to minister to the wants of the suffering
soldiers. Andrew learned not only lessons in war, but to dream of future
rewards to the British.