Alexander Hamilton, an essay on American union, by Frederick Scott Oliver

Front matter

i£x ICtbrta

SEYMOUR DURST

IVhen you leave, please "leave this book

Preface

I wish to acknowledge the debt I owe to various friends fl"ho have done me the honour to read the proofs of this ossay. I have not ceased to marvel at their kindness and their patience. Their advice has helped me at many points, and, although their frankness has occasionally been somewhat disconcerting, it has been mingled with encouragement. As a result I have completed a task which less biased critics may well consider to have been presumptuously undertaken.

In particular I have to thank Miss Mary Stubbert for her valuable assistance ; but at the same time it is necessary to make it clear that she is not to be held responsible for the opinions I have ventured to express on men and events. I am well aware that in several instances she is in disagreement with my conclusions. I wish also to thank Mr. William Wallace, who has read and corrected all the proofs for the press, and has compiled the chronological table which will be found on pages 490-4.

The references need a few words of explanation. The Works of Alexander Hamilton, in twelve volumes, edited by Senator H. C. Lodge (2nd Federal Edition, 1904), and The History of the Republic of the United States of America, as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and of his Co- temporaries, in s«ven volumes, by his son John C.

viii ALEXANDER HAMILTON

Hamilton (1857), are mentioned in the footnotes for the sake of brevity as Works and History respectively. The Life which is quoted is The Life of Alexander Hamilton, in one volume, also by his son (1834). There are several modern lives and studies of Alexander Hamilton — by Mr. John T. Morse, jr., in two volumes (1882); by Senator H. C. Lodge (1886, 'American Statesmen' series); by Dr. W. G. Sumner (1890, ' Makers of America' series); Hamilton and his Contemporaries, by Mr. C. J. Riethmiiller (1864); Alexander Hamilton: a Historical Study (1877), and The Life and Epoch of Alexander Hamilton (1879), by Mr. G. Shea. A comprehensive bibliography of the period will be found in the Cambridge Modern History, vol. vii. pp. 780-810.

The History by John C. Hamilton is open to all the objections that may be alleged against a life written by a son. It is the work of a vehement partisan. Nothing that Alexander Hamilton did is wrong, and all the deeds of his opponents are as black as ink. But, notwithstanding, it is a book of great value. Of the subject as a man it does not afford a single glimpse ; but it abounds in evidence with regard to his career. It is full of quotations from the letters of friends and enemies, and the abstracts of debates are illuminating. Dr. Sumner's volume, on the other hand, has a considerable interest because it is written from the point of view of the American free-trader, and although the author generously acknowledges the great qualities of Hamilton, he boldly challenges his economic conclusions. Mr. Riethmilller's book was written during the War of Secession. It is full of sympathy, but arrives at a strange conclusion. Hamilton, in his opinion, would have acquiesced in the dismemberment of the Union.

PREFACE ix

it must be frankly admitted that no adequate life of Hamilton has yet been written. His achievements have been chronicled, praised and condemned; but in the case of such a character it is impossible to rest content with an account of his public deeds. Hamilton awaits a true interpreter, and it is hardly necessary to say that the present volume does not aim at supplying the deficiency.

The only vivid account of 'the man' with which I am acquainted is to be found in the historical romance by Mrs. Atherton, entitled The Conqueror. If the writer of a dusty, historical essay may speak without impertinence of the merits of such a work, I should venture to express my admiration for the insight of the authoress. Her presentment of Hamilton, in my humble judgment, is not merely a masterly work of art, but a most serious and truthful portrait.

Mrs. Atherton has led us to expect that one day she will give us an authentic life of her hero. I could have wished that she had accomplished her task before I had engaged on mine. At any rate I venture to express the hope, which many others must entertain, that her promise will not remain for long unfulfilled.

F. S. O.

(Jhkckemdon Court, Oxfordshire, 22nd January 1906.

Contents

INTRODUCTION,

PAGE

Book I The Independence Of The States (a.d. 1757-1783)

CHAP.

I. Boyhood, II. The Quarrel with Great Britain,

III. Early Writings,

IV. The Beginning of the War, v. The Course of the War,

VI. The End of the War, . vii. The Military Secretary,

Book II The Union Of The States (a.d. 1780-1788)

I. Political Writings during the War, .

H. Congress and the Conduct of the War, ill. Centrifugal Force and its Consequences, IV. Disorder and Anarchy,

v. The Power of a Vision,

VI. The Convention of Philadelphia, Vii. The Federalist,

11 19 27 33 44 56 68

96 111 123 138 147 165

Ill

Book III The Federalists (a.d. 1789-1791)

I. President Washington, II. The Threefold Policy, IIL Hamilton's Difficulties, IV. Secretary of the Treasury,

v. The Public Credit, VI. Commerce and the Union, VII. The Stewardship of the Estate,

Book IV The Democrats (a.d. 1791-1794)

L Thomas Jefferson,

II. The Origin and Growth of Parties,

ill. Charges of Corruption,

IV. Foreign Dangers,

V. The French Revolution and the Declaration of Neutrality, .

VI. The Treaty with Great Britain,

VII. The Foundations of Foreign Policy,

Book V The Politicians (a.d. 1795 1804)

I. The End of an Epoch, II. James Monroe, in. John Adams, . iv. The Victory of Jefferson,

v. Aaron Burr, .

VI. Duel and Death, VII. The Failure of the Democrats,

CONTENTS

Conclusion

CHAP.

PAQB

i. Some General Remarks,

44!

n. Whig or Tory t it i. Union and its Difficulties, iv. Nationality and Empire, v. Commerce under Two Aspects,

VI. Sovereignty, .

vii. The Duties of Empire,

Appendix I., .

Appendix II. : Chronological Table,

Index,

Introduction

But be the worke-men what they may be, let us speake of the Worke; that is; the true greatnesse of kingdoms and estates . rmd the meanes thereof. — Bacon.

INTRODUCTION

Englishmen for the most part are not learned in American history. Possibly at the bottom of their neglect lies an opinion that the study would prove more profitable than entertaining, richer in useful lessons and estimable characters than in stirring events and figures of a romantic interest. It is necessary to admit that the whole narrative haa fallen under the suspicion of being somewhat akin to a moral tale, in which persons of Radical and Tory proclivities play the parts respectively of Sandford and Merton, in order that, in the end, democracy and business methods may be glorified in the eyes of men.

The wars of Independence and Secession are the only events with which, as a rule, an Englishman pretends to an acquaintance, and when he has stated it as his opinion that the former was a wise resistance to an intolerable oppression, and the latter a humane and heroic enterprise to put an end to slavery, he has usually come to the end of his conversation. It is not the purpose of this essay to question either of these judgments, but to consider a struggle entirely different in its character, which had its origin in the war with Britain and its sequel in the war between North and South.

When peace was signed in 1783 the States had indeed secured their independence, but union seemed even more remote and difficult of attainment than nine years earlier when the war began. The United States are to-day so firm a political fact that it is not unusual to overlook the critical and dangerous period during which they were disunited. We are apt to imagine that the war was waged against an enemy as compact as ourselves, not against thirteen jealous allies whose only serviceable bonds of union were an aspiration towards independence and a common enemy.

Another view of the matter has been put forward upon high authority. We have been told that, in the passionate heat of victory, a unanimous and patriotic impulse, working in half-molten metal, wrought and fashioned a noble constitution. This statement is dramatic, but untrue. No travesty of the facts could indeed be more complete. The metal was stone-cold, full of cracks and flaws and fissures, when the Convention of Philadelphia, six years later, welded it together. After more than four months of angry debate, the Union was in the end confirmed, but only by a narrow majority, and amid indignant protests. Upon its first announcement, it had many more enemies than friends throughout the continent. For every state claimed a separate sovereignty, and was reluctant to part with any shred of its authority. Only after a long and difficult assault were they persuaded that there would be a greater benefit in the surrender.

When the Constitution was at last acknowledged there remained a still more arduous undertaking; for it was necessary to set Government to work, to defend it against the open and covert attacks of the party of disintegration, and to devise a policy which should have sufficient strength and dignity, and hold upon the hearts of men to support the fabric of the Union.

In dramatic quality the history of the war is inferior to the course of events after the war had ended. The whole situation becomes more tense. The clash of personal

INTRODUCTION 5

forces is fiercer, the action swifter ; motives, principles and tendencies are easier to comprehend. War is always a confusion, filled with irrelevant and distracting excitement. The hero, indeed, is visible, but his subordinates are a part of the spectacle, not actors in a drama. Private character is smothered by discipline or overwhelmed in a single patriotic purpose. On the signing of peace men begin to regain their humanity. Their tongues are loosened. Ideas and counter ideas spring up as soon as the frost-bound repression is relaxed. The interest shifts from the opposition of masses to the visions and beliefs, the rivalries and hatreds, of individual men.

In the Revolution, Alexander Hamilton played no prominent part. He was a boy at college when discontent drew to a head, and at the date of the skirmish of Lexington was only eighteen years of age. In the War of Independence his share was subordinate, though it was brilliant and effective. But when the war had ended, he became the master spirit of America.

In the great rebellion Washington was the master spirit. In the great struggle to prevent the breaking of the Union, Lincoln was the master spirit. In his fitness for the particular crisis Hamilton was the equal of these men, and it would be hard to find higher praise. In character he was their equal ; in force of will ; in efficiency ; in practical wisdom ; in courage and in virtue. But in a certain sense his greatness surpasses theirs, for it is more universal and touches the interest of the whole world in a wider circle. He was great in action which is for the moment, and in thought which is for all time; and he was great, not merely as a minister of state, but as a man of letters. In constancy it is customary to compare him with the younger Pitt, who was his contemporary. In political foresight and penetration it is no extravagance to place him by the side of Burke. He shares with Fox his astounding genius for friendship.

The end of the eighteenth century was a fertile period. Great men abounded in it. Talleyrand had known them all, and had contended with most of them. He was himself one of the greatest; certainly one of the coolest observers. He cherished few illusions, and it has never been said of him, even by his bitterest enemy, that he suffered his judgment to be duped by his affections. In statecraft he had a wide horizon, and his experience enabled him to make just comparisons. He mentions Hamilton with the greatest of his contemporaries, even with Napoleon, and mentions him with them in order to place him above them. Hamilton's portrait hung in his study till he died, and on it was an inscription in his own hand, ' that he had loved Hamilton and that Hamilton had loved him.'

To subjects of King Edward the history of the Union of the States should be of profound interest at the present time. Under many aspects the problems in America at the end of the eighteenth century and in the British Empire at the beginning of the twentieth bear a startling likeness to each other. In the memoirs of the chief actors we find a frequent echo of our own phrases. The attitudes of men, according to their various temperaments, are the same. There are the same enthusiasms and the same suspicions ; the same vehement desires, indignant against all the race of sceptics ; the same pleas of insuperable obstacles and the imprudence of a rash initiative. A slightly formal and old-fashioned speech enhances rather than conceals the likeness, as the portrait of an ancestor in prim cap or flowing periwig startles the beholder by its resemblance to some familiar youthful face.

This romantic influence is not without its danger, and is

INTRODUCTION 7

apt to work in our minds with an excessive vivacit}7, luring us too readily to the conclusion that history is about to repeat itself. It is well to remember that when the gods arrange the pieces upon their broad chessboard in situations which surprise us by their similarity to the order of some previous game, it is commonly with the whimsical intention of solving the problem in an altogether different manner. Viewed with less excitement, the things themselves lose not a little of their likeness, and important differences appear. We are therefore well advised if we are wary and do not assume too much.

To say, at the present crisis, that the study of American history may prove useful and suggestive, is so obvious a reflection that it can only be excused by the almost universal omission to undertake the labour; but to conclude that the Union of the States is a precedent governing our own case would be idle talk. For it is the business of the British people to-day, as it has been for four centuries past, not to follow precedents, but to make them. If it were possible to find among the lives of the nations any parallel to the British Empire, it might be different; but no parallel exists in any records for so diverse and marvellous a growth.

One of the chief merits of the Americans when they framed their constitution was their earnest determination to consider the facts of their own case before all else, and their firm refusal to be led blindfold either by history or logic ; and these, perhaps, are the only rules which can be recommended absolutely for every quandary, the only examples which it is safe to follow to the letter. Our eternal warning should be the Chinese tailor who copies a coat even to its patches. When we begin to grope and rummage for precedents, our decadence cannot be long delayed. The situation must be viewed by each race and generation boldly through its own eyes, not timorously

S ALEXANDER HAMILTON

with a forefinger in the guide-book of history. For though we turn over pages never so industriously to discover how foreigners or our own kinsmen have acted in circumstances somewhat alike, we shall never arrive at any ready-made solution of our difficulty.

Nor, on the other hand, is it the highest wisdom to entertain an undue reverence for our own institutions, for though these are an elastic garment, there may come a time when they will no longer serve. It is a vain hope that by cheerfully ignoring danger we shall avoid it. It is rash to assume that a constitution must always grow, and that it can never be made; or that, by spiriting and conjuring over the respectable antiquity of the Privy Council, we shall be able to convert the loose confederation of our Empire into a firm union.

Book I

Character it of a stellar and undiminishablt greatness. What others effect by talents or by eloquence, this man accomplishes by some magnetism. ' Half his strength he put not forth.' His victories are by demonstration of superiority, and not by crossing of bayonets. He conquers, because his arrival alters the face of affairs. ■ 0 Iole ! how did you know that Hercules was a God 1 ' ' Because,1 answered Iole, 'I was content the moment my eyes fell on him. When I beheld 1 Theseus, I desired that I might see him offer battle, or at least guide 1 his horses in the chariot race ; but Hercules did not wait for a contest ; 1 he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever thing he 1 did.' Man ordinarily a pendant to events, only half attached, and that awkwardly, to the world he lives in, in these examples appears to share the life of things, and to be an expression of the same laws which control the tides and the sun, numbers and quantities. — Emerson,

BOOK I

Boyhood

The childhood of Alexander Hamilton ended when he A.D. 1757 was eleven years of age. For four years he was a storekeeper's clerk at St. Croix, in the Leeward Islands; for three he was a college student at New York; for six he was a soldier in the War of Independence. After these experiences, at the age of twenty-five, he was admitted to the bar. His professional career covered a period of twentytwo years ; but during five of these he was Secretary of the Treasury in General Washington's cabinet, and withdrew entirely from practice during the term of his office. He was killed in a duel at the age of forty-seven, when his fame as a lawyer stood at its highest.

These are the main divisions of his life; but the bare catalogue gives an incomplete idea of his activity. While he was a student he wrote and spoke so as to produce a considerable influence upon the whole State of New York. While he was a soldier he was also an organiser, a diplomatist and a writer of despatches that have a world-wide celebrity. From the time he left the army and joined the bar until he became head of the most arduous department of government, his energies were more deeply engaged in promoting the Union of the States than in the practice of

A.D. 1757 the law. From the date of his retirement from the cabinet until his death he was at the same time leader of the bar and the acknowledged chief of a powerful political party. He was a boy for eleven years only. Perhaps it would be truer to say of him that he was a boy throughout the whole of his marvellous career.

For youth was the distinguishing note of his career. His triumph was the triumph of youth: his failure the failure of youth. His personal charm and exuberant confidence did not follow the normal course, mellowing in middle life into a genial tolerance, a quieter wisdom, a less vehement but more masterful efficiency. The change was in a contrary direction. He beheld mankind hobbling and hurrying after impossible compromises, striving timidly to keep the peace among their ideas by smiling with an equal favour upon the most irreconcilable and deadly enemies. It is true that under this disappointment his courage never flagged. His efforts were as heroic at the end as at the beginning. But his heart was filled with a fierce impatience and an anger which broke away at times from his control. Like a boy who has dreamed a dream, but cannot prevail with men to accept it in all its glorious symmetry, he came to despair of the consequences to a world containing so much obstruction and so many fools.

It is a rare occurrence under popular government for a young statesman to hold the predominant power, for the policy of a nation to be moulded by the thoughts of a fresh and eager mind, and executed by the vigour of a spirit not yet tamed to an immoderate reverence for obstacles. For where the people hold the ultimate control, a patient dexterity, with which no man was ever born, has in the long game of politics an undue advantage. Youth, with a wise instinct, abstains as a rule from conspicuous activity in serious matters until it has acquired the craft which is the necessary complement of its force, and when it bursts at A.D. 1757 last upon the admiration of its fellow-citizens, has entered into the shadowless and dusty realm of middle age.

This unfortunate exclusion of youth is to be lamented, for age is too considerate of rubbish. Like a housewife in her lumber-room, it shrinks from the wise sacrifice of useless possessions, pleading ever that at some future day they may recover a portion of their former value. The destructiveness and extravagance of youth are in many cases the best economy and the wisest defence of a nation. The perfect government would maintain the balance of youth and age, of confidence and experience, no less carefully than the balance of poor and rich, of force and breeding, of honesty and honour. The embargo on youth impoverishes the quality of statesmanship ; but how to remedy the evil is a problem which still seeks an answer. All that is most excellent in popular government, the wide interest in public affairs, the sense of duty, the pursuit of a worthy ambition, tend to swell the ranks of old age; while each fresh complexity of the conditions and growth of the great machine entrenches the veterans more firmly in their advantage.

Hamilton was not merely a good soldier, a great lawyer, a statesman of rare and exceptional splendour, but also a figure of deep romantic interest. Such an endowment is uncommon, especially in Anglo-Saxon communities, where a wise absorption in a single activity is approved by public opinion, and any variety of talents is viewed askance. But the explanation of his character is not to be found in the dramatic temperament. Had he been a better actor he must assuredly have been a more successful politician. He was as heedless of all matters of style and deportment as of his popularity, or even of his life. Ever intent on objects, he followed them in and out through the crowd of rapidly changing events, caring infinitely less for the opinion people

H ALEXANDER HAMILTON

A.D. 1757 formed upon his personal merits than for the ultimate success of his pursuit. Few men, filling so large a space in history, have been less concerned with their own particular appearance or fame in the pageant of affairs. He became a soldier upon a generous impulse, a lawyer for a living, a statesman because it was the strongest passion of his nature to promote union, order and progress. The circumstances of his birth and of his death, his private adventures and the publicity that political malice has caused them to assume, cannot by any ingenuity be traced to a disposition for the picturesque.

To pretend that he had no joy in battle, no exultation in victory, would be absurd, for his nature was frank and vehement. He was never detached and seldom reticent. To endure human folly in patient and hopeful expectation of the inevitable reaction was contrary to his character. He had no hatred of limelight nor horror of applause, but both with him were secondary matters. Throughout his whole life the paramount motive was to get things done, not to make himself a great fame by doing things. So unusual an ambition has caused him to be suspected of an inordinate subtlety. To the common politician whose main sincerity is his determination to ride into popular notice on the back of a grievance or a fit of hysterics, such an attitude is wholly incredible. He cannot fathom the depths of a spirit that loves union, and order, and progress for their own sakes, and seeks power, not as an end in itself, but as a means to the accomplishment of a vision. And yet, to the candid reader of Hamilton's life and writings, nothing is clearer at every turn than that he came to enact his high and notable part in public affairs chiefly because it seemed to be the only way open to him of getting the work done which he considered essential for the salvation of his adopted country.

Alexander Hamilton was born a British subject in the A.D. 175V island of Nevis, in the Leeward Group, on the 11th of January 1757. On both sides he was of gentle descent.1 His father was one James Hamilton, a younger son of Hamilton of Grange, in Lanarkshire ; his mother, Rachel 2 Faucette, the daughter of a Huguenot emigrant. Rachel Faucette had been previously married to a Dane, but finding her life insupportable had left him.3 Gossip asserts that, divorce having proved to be impracticable, she took the law into her own hands and accepted James Hamilton as her second husband, but without the blessing of the Church. While we cannot accept Alexander Hamilton's illegitimacy 4 to be a matter of certainty, there can be no doubt that it was believed in by his contemporaries, and was made the subject of sneering references in the correspondence of his political enemies.6 His father was a merchant; an amiable man, but feckless and unfortunate, so that almost from infancy the boy owed his support to relatives of his mother.

In the small and leisured society of a sugar island the circumstances of a family can hardly have been a close secret from its neighbours. Even if no stain attached to Hamilton's birth, his poverty and dependence were obvious to all men. He was a boy of strange precocity and a remarkable intelligence, sensitive, affectionate and deeply attached to his mother — a brilliant and beautiful woman who died while he was still a child. In temper he was fiery and passionate, but delicate in frame and puny of stature. With such a constitution of mind and body, and in such circumstances of poverty and dependence, it needed something greater than an ordinary hero to emerge unhurt.

The most remarkable fact about his boyhood is the

1 Appendix I. 3 The Christian name is given by Mrs. Atherton,

• History, i. pp. 40-43. 4 Lodge's HamMon, Appendix, pp. 285-297-

• Sumner's Hamilton^ p. 1.

A.D. 1769 early development of his character. Before he was sixteen * he had served an apprenticeship to practical affairs in the warehouse, or store, of Nicholas Cruger, a substantial merchant of St. Croix, by whom he was sent to other islands on important business, and left in complete control of the staff, correspondence and undertaking, during the prolonged absence of his master in the Northern colonies. There is a letter1 of this period to the firm's agent in New York in reference to the cargo and return cargo of the sloop Thunderbolt, which shows more than a mere facility in business forms and phrases. What most impresses us in the document is the careful foresight and arrangements of which it forms the record. It is the letter of one who feels his responsibilities, but is not overburdened by their weight.

Another letter of an even earlier date has a wider celebrity, but in spite of its precocity of language is of less value as illuminating his character. It is addressed to his schoolfellow Stevens.2 "To confess my weakness, Ned, my ' ambition is prevalent, so that I contemn the grovelling ' condition of a clerk or the like, to which my fortune, etc., 1 condemns me, and would willingly risk my life, though 1 not my character, to exalt my station. I am confident, • Ned, that my youth excludes me from any hopes of ' immediate preferment ; nor do I desire it ; but I mean 1 to preface the way for futurity. I 'm no philosopher, you 1 see, and may justly be said to build castles in the air ; my 1 folly makes me ashamed, and I beg you '11 conceal it ; yet, 1 Neddy, we have seen such schemes successful when the ' projector is constant. I shall conclude saying, I wish there 1 was a war."

Here indeed is the accustomed language of the infant prodigy. Both words and sentiments are striking, but they are the convention of youthful genius. They reflect a glin A.D. 1769 of the dramatic from the great light of subsequent events ; 12

but are really less remarkable than the quiet, executive letter on freight and accounts, staves, hogsheads, mules, and the armament which is desirable in view of the ' Guarda Costas which are said to swarm upon the coast.'

We may believe him to have been sincere in his contempt for ' the grovelling condition of a clerk,' but he soon had reason to bless the results of his service. For a boy loving bocks and conscious of an extraordinary facility in the use of language, there is a constant danger that his intelligence may be brought under the domination of words. At the most impressionable period of his life Hamilton learned the hard lesson that the finest phrases, though they may temporarily sway the dispositions of men, will never alter a single fact of their existence ; that the most fluent explanation will never wipe out the ill results of a bad bargain, a want of foresight or a misplaced confidence. Throughout the whole of his writings we are conscious of this quality — that he was ever striving to express in language which admitted of no misunderstanding, ideas which he had already brought to the test of things. It is a rare quality in any man, but more than usually rare in lawyers and politicians, never to allow words a part in completing the fabric of an imperfect thought. The experience gained in Nicholas Cruger's store was of great value in itself; but the habit which it imposed upon his mind of going always to the facts was immeasurably beyond all other benefits.