Jefferson and Hamilton

His one serious weakness was an inordinate fondness for women which was to involve him in the one serious scandal of his career. It was McHenry who wrote to Pickering, another friend: ‘Far be it from me to attempt to palliate his pleasures, the indulgence in which Mr. Hamilton himself publicly lamented.’[176] It was Otis who wrote of his ‘liquorish flirtation’ with a married woman at a fashionable dinner party.[177] It was Lodge who, in touching on his overpowering passions, refers to his ‘relations, which had an unenviable notoriety.’[178] It is Oliver who says that ‘his private shortcomings cannot be denied,’[179] and that ‘in private life Hamilton was not always vigilant.’[180] It is the historian of ‘The Republican Court’ who records that ‘it is true that Hamilton was something of a roué.’[181] And it was reserved for a descendant to remind us of the story of the alleged relations with the celebrated Madame Jumel, who, in old age, made an unsuccessful attempt to live with Aaron Burr,[182] and of the gossip, which he discredits, that his relations with his sprightly sister-in-law, Mrs. Church, were more tender than they should have been.[183] This same descendant, writing with professional authority, explains these moral delinquencies on the theory that, like other men of genius and great intelligence, he was prone to ‘impulsively plunge into the underworld in obedience to some strange promptings of their lower nature.’[184]

And yet, such are the strange inconsistencies of the temperamental—nothing could have been more beautiful than his home life. His endearing traits are evident in the passionate devotion of all who knew the Hamilton of the hearth. If the ties that bound Angelica Church to him were not more tender than they should have been, her letters indicate something akin to love.[185] His wife, who must have suffered tortures over the confessions of the Reynolds pamphlet, clung to him with a faith born perhaps of an understanding of how much he must have resisted. If he sometimes broke his vows, there can be no doubt that the shrine of his heart was at his hearth.

‘Colonel Beckwith tells me that our dear Hamilton writes too much and takes no exercise, and grows fat,’ wrote Angelica Church to Mrs. Hamilton from London. ‘I hate both the word and the thing, and I desire you to take care of his health, and his good looks.’[186] Here we have the suggestion of another frailty which makes all the more notable the intensity of his sustained efforts and the magnitude of his achievements—the delicacy of his health. The first, and possibly the last, medical service rendered by McHenry on becoming a member of Washington’s military family was to prescribe for Hamilton and make suggestions as to his diet. Early in the war he who was never robust contracted a malarial infection from which he suffered every summer throughout his life.[187] His correspondence is sprinkled throughout with references to his health.[188] While in no sense an invalid, the magnitude and multiplicity of his labors despite a chronic physical disability measure the power of mind over matter and indicate something of his unyielding will.

XI

In view of the sincere or simulated interest in religion shown by Hamilton where political interests were involved, it would be interesting to know just what he thought and felt. The records here are slight. During his youth he passed through the period of religious exaltation not uncommon in the average life. Not only was he attentive to public worship, but he prayed fervently and with eloquence in the seclusion of his room.[189] About this time he wrote a hymn, ‘A Soul Entering into Bliss,’ which is said to have had some literary merit.[190] We hear no more concerning his religious fervor for many years until he pretended, if he did not feel, an intense indignation against the revolutionary reaction aimed at the church establishment in France. He was shocked that ‘equal pains have been taken to deprave the morals as to extinguish the religion of the country.’[191]

A few years more, and, with the fall of his party, he outlined to Bayard a ‘Plan of Conduct’ for Federalists with a view to its rehabilitation, and proposed an association to be denominated ‘The Christian Constitutional Society,’ having for its objects ‘the support of the Christian Religion’ and ‘the support of the Constitution.’[192] This hints strongly of the Old World idea of the union of Church and State. In Connecticut the clergy had been the shock troops of Federalism, and it is quite possible that the political advantage of an alliance between the Church and his party appealed to Hamilton.

At any rate, he was a member of no church. One of his descendants assures us that ‘he was a man of earnest, simple faith, quite unemotional in this respect, so far as display was concerned, but his belief was very strong.’[193] Strong as it was, it never led him to the altar.

Leaving his idol’s death-bed, Oliver Wolcott wrote his wife that ‘Colonel H. in late years expressed his conviction of the truths of the Christian Religion, and his desire to receive the Sacrament—but no one of the clergy who have yet been consulted will administer it.’[194] At length, life ebbing away, a bishop consented after being earnestly solicited the second time. Thus in his dying hour, Hamilton declared: ‘It has for some time past been the wish of my heart, and it was my intention to take an early opportunity of uniting myself to the church.’ The natural deduction from the meager information we have is that his intensive political and professional activities and consuming ambitions gave him little time to meditate on religion. He certainly never gave it the consideration of his greatest political opponent whom his party attacked as an enemy of Christianity. But he used the Church, whenever possible, to advance his political views—and with effect.

Quite as problematical as his religious feeling was his attitude toward Washington. It was the policy of the Federalists to capitalize politically the popularity of the man of Mount Vernon, and they succeeded, as we shall find, to a marked degree. Even so, some of Hamilton’s most partial biographers[195] have commented on the absence of any deep affection between the two, and Dr. Hamilton is not convincing with his observation that his ancestor signed his letters to Washington, ‘Very affectionately.’[196] As a matter of fact none of his letters to Washington denote real affection. This would be more impressive, however, but for the singular absence of the note of affection in all his political correspondence. But in one of his letters we find the very opposite of either affection or admiration. This was his letter to General Schuyler on the occasion of Hamilton’s withdrawal from Washington’s military family, and it does not speak well for the reliability of his son’s biography that he deliberately mutilated the letter. It was in this that he wrote that he had found his chief ‘neither remarkable for delicacy or good temper’ and complained of his ‘self love.’ Here we have the confession that ‘for three years past I have felt no friendship for him and have professed none.’[197]

In his letter to Lear, the secretary, when Washington died he probably came perilously near to summing up his attitude in a sentence: ‘I have been much indebted to the kindness of the General, and he was an Aegis very essential to me.’ And then, the significant postscript: ‘In whose hands are his papers gone? Our very confidential situation will not permit this to be a point of indifference to me.’[198]

Such a man was Hamilton, a Colossus, brilliant, fascinating, daring, and audacious—a constructive statesman of the highest order, a genius of the first rank, with all the strength and the weaknesses of genius. Such the man who sat down at the mahogany desk to write the documents that were to give credit to a nation and a programme to a party.

CHAPTER III

HAMILTON IN THE SADDLE

His plans, given in confidence to some, were soon whispered among the politicians and the merchants of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, and the market price of public securities in the cities rose fifty per cent two months before Congress convened.

It was not until in early January that the ‘Report’ was read in House and Senate. His wish to present it personally was denied, not by his political enemies as his partial biographers contend, but by the supporters of his plan.[200] In the galleries of the House eager speculators were closely packed. They overflowed and filled the lobbies. Some were drawn by mere curiosity, some were the original creditors who had waited long for their reward, but the greater number were speculators, who, in anticipation of such a recommendation, had bought freely of the skeptical holders at ridiculously low prices. Not a few of these poured forth into Wall Street at the conclusion with the exhilarating knowledge that a fortune was within their grasp.

In the Senate the ‘Report’ was heard in secret and in ‘awful silence,’ for the elder statesmen met behind doors closed and locked. Most of these listened with approval, but the rheumatic Maclay, who had been puzzled for some time with ‘the extraordinary rise in public securities,’ wrote that night in his journal that Hamilton ‘recommends indiscriminate funding, and, in the style of the British Minister, has sent down his bill.’ There were some complaints that ‘a committee of speculators in certificates could not have formed it more to their advantage.’ In truth, ‘it occasioned many serious faces,’ and Maclay himself was ‘struck of a heap.’[201] But the prevalent note was one of jubilation. In New York, enthusiasm in the coffee-houses; in Boston, ‘great applause’;[202] in other commercial cities, Philadelphia, Charleston, Baltimore, approbation, with reprobation for objections.[203]

All men of honor sympathized with the purpose of discharging the debt. The repudiationists were among the ignorant and the vicious. Few at the moment found fault with the funding system, though some would have preferred a speedy liquidation through the sale of the public lands. Then—suddenly—a low murmur of protest, followed by acrimonious attacks. Thousands of the original creditors had been ‘swindled’ out of their certificates for a song—were these, who rendered Revolutionary services, to be taxed to ensure exorbitant profits to the speculators? Why should the Federal Government assume the debts contracted by the separate States—debts unevenly distributed? And what was the purpose of the proposal that the Government should be prohibited from paying more than two per cent of the principal a year? The indignation of the insurgents, at first a glimmer, became a flame. The greater part of the certificates were in the hands of the prosperous who had taken advantage of the necessities of the original holders—Revolutionary soldiers, small farmers, hard-pressed country merchants. The funding system would tax all the people to pay to the rich a hundred cents on the dollar for evidence of debts that had cost them fifteen and twenty. With the people taxed to pay the interest—it was proposed to perpetuate the debt. Thus, for generations, perhaps, as many reasoned, the Government would operate for the enrichment of the few already rich, and the masses would pay the piper.

Had Hamilton been disposed to frankness, he would have smiled his acknowledgment of the charge. One of his biographers has conceded that through this system he hoped to ‘array property on the side of the Government,’ by giving it a financial interest in the Government, and ‘to assure to the property of the country a powerful influence upon the Government.’[204] Having ‘been unable to introduce a class influence into the Constitution by limiting the suffrage ... with a property qualification,’ he hoped through his financial system to accomplish his purpose in another way.[205]

There was nothing diabolical in the plan—coming from one who looked upon the masses as lawless and unfit for self-government. His obsession was a strong, stable government—and to sustain it he required the interested devotion of the propertied class. The astonishing thing is that the comparatively crude Maclay from the wilds of Pennsylvania and the leather-lunged James Jackson from sparsely settled Georgia should have caught the full significance of it all before it dawned on Jefferson and Madison. The latter thought the ‘Report’ ‘well digested and illustrated,’ and ‘supported by very able reasoning,’ but after a while he, too, was depressed with the injustice to the original creditors who ‘were most instrumental in saving their country,’ and concluded there was something ‘radically wrong in suffering those who rendered a bona fide consideration to lose seven eighths of their dues, and those who had no particular merit toward their country to gain seven or eight times as much as they advanced.’[206]

II

Meanwhile, speculation was manifesting itself with incredible audacity and mendacity. The greater part of the securities in the hands of original creditors were in the hands of soldiers, farmers, and merchants in the remote interior. To most of these, they had come to mean so much worthless paper. No telegraph could flash the news into the back country of Georgia and North Carolina that Congress was about to legislate to par the promises to pay. Weeks or months would pass before the proceedings in New York could be known and comprehended by holders of the paper living in the woods of the Carolinas or on the banks of the Savannah. Poor, and mostly ignorant, they had no correspondents in the coffee-houses to write them of the activities at Federal Hall; and even if they had, it required weeks for a letter to reach them.

But members of Congress knew what to expect—for they were the actors in the drama; and their friends, the capitalists and merchants of the cities, knew—for they had been informed. The unscrupulous and adventurous soldiers of fortune on the scene comprehended the opportunity at a glance. The day after the ‘Report’ was read, the city buzzed with the gossip of the speculators. One Senator, making calls in the congressional circle, found it almost the sole topic of conversation. He heard that Robert Morris of the Senate, who had been consulted by Hamilton, ‘must be deep in it, for his partner ... had one contract for $40,000 worth.’ It was whispered that ‘General Heister had brought over a sum of money for Mr. Morris for this business.’ Senator Langdon, it was noted, was living with a Mr. Hazard ‘who is an old and intimate friend of Mr. Morris,’ and he admitted that he had followed buying certificates for some time past.’ ‘Ah,’ said the visiting Senator, ‘so you are one of the happy few who have been let in on the secret’—and Mr. Hazard seemed abashed. It was understood that Representative Fitzsimons of Philadelphia was likewise concerned in the business.

Four days after the ‘Report’ was read, ‘expresses with very large sums of money on their way to North Carolina for purposes of speculation in certificates’ splashed and bumped over the wretched winter roads, the drivers lashing the straining horses. Two fast-sailing vessels, chartered by a member of Congress who had been an officer in the war, were ploughing the waters southward on a similar mission—and this scandalous proceeding was to be mentioned frequently in the subsequent debates. ‘I really fear,’ wrote Maclay, ‘the members of Congress are deeper in this business than any others.’[207] Whether they were deeper or not, they were deep enough, and numerous enough to hold the balance of power in the body that legislated the certificates to par. These ranged from Robert Morris, the chief legislative agent of Hamilton in the Senate, to Fisher Ames, who was his most eloquent defender in the House.[208] In later years Jefferson was to record in justice to Ames that his speculative activities had been greatly exaggerated and that he had acted as an agent in the enterprises of his Boston friends, Gore and Mason.[209]

So thoroughly did this money-madness take possession of the minds of men that even the puritanic John Quincy Adams was to write his father, without a homily, that by September of 1790, Christopher Gore, the richest lawyer in Massachusetts, and one of the strongest Bay State members of Hamilton’s machine, had ‘made an independent fortune in speculation in the public funds’; and that other leaders of the bar[210] had ‘successfully engaged in speculation’ by playing at ‘that hazardous game with moneys deposited in their hands’ by clients at a distance. They took the chance of becoming ‘masters of sums to an equal amount before they have been called upon for payment.’[211] Maclay thought ‘there is no room to doubt but that a connection is spread over the whole continent on this villainous business.’[212] Everywhere men with capital—and a hint—were feverishly pushing their advantage by preying on the ignorance of the poor. Thus, paper held for years by the private soldiers was coaxed from them for five, and even as low as two, shillings on the pound by speculators, including leading members of Congress, who knew that provision for the redemption of the paper had been made.

In all this, Hamilton had no part and no responsibility beyond having made indiscreet disclosures of which his friends availed themselves, and through buying and selling through his agents in New York and Philadelphia for his brother-in-law.[213] Just how he viewed the scandalous proceedings in the earlier stages we do not know. They were not without defense from his supporters. The obsequious John Fenno took notice of the gossip with a defense of speculation in the ‘Gazette.’ Were not moneyed men ‘the props of the infant credit of the United States?’[214] The dark insinuations of the gossips, the criticism of the ‘rabble,’ we may be sure caused Hamilton no concern. Surveying the field at the beginning of the battle, he must have been content. He saw the financiers, the commercial interests of the large centers, including the speculators, enlisted under his banner. The influential Society of the Cincinnati, composed of Revolutionary officers, men of means who had been able to hold on to their paper, gave dignity to his cause. With its compact organization in every State, and its system of correspondence, it was an engine of tremendous power. The social and intellectual circles were flying his flag. He looked upon his work and called it good.

III

With the first discussion in the House, it was apparent that speculation was to play a conspicuous part in the debates. The speculators packed the galleries, overflowed into the lobby, causing the complacent Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts, himself a speculator, to insist that the ‘ardent expectations of the people on this subject want no other demonstration than the numerous body of citizens assembled within these walls.’ The effect was different on the pugnacious Jackson of Georgia. ‘Since this Report has been read,’ he shouted, with a contemptuous glance at the eager gallery, ‘the spirit of speculation ... has arisen and been cherished by people who had access to information the Report contained, that would have made a Hastings blush to have been connected with, though long inured to preying on the vitals of his fellow man. Three vessels, sir, have sailed within a fortnight from this port freighted for speculation.’[215]

The unctuous Sedgwick was melting suavity. Speculation within reasonable bounds was not bad, but action should be taken with all possible speed to stop it; and the troublesome Jackson returned to the attack—this time on New York City. He wished to God Congress had met in the woods and out of the neighborhood of a populous town. The gallant veterans, driven by economic necessity to the wilderness, were being robbed by these speculators of the pittance a grateful country had bestowed. Since the assumption of State debts was proposed, why not postpone action until the various legislatures could express the sentiment of the States? ‘Then these men may send out other vessels to countermand their former orders; and perhaps we may yet save the distant inhabitants from being plundered by these harpies.’[216]

This line of attack had not been anticipated, and Hamilton was not the man to take anything for granted. His well-groomed figure was seen moving nervously about the lobbies of Federal Hall, within a few days after the commencement of the debate. One of his enemies observed that he ‘spent most of his time running from place to place among the members.’[217] In the evenings he gathered his more influential supporters about him at his home. At his table he brought his most seductive charms to bear upon the doubting. Time was all-important and indefinite delay might be fatal.

With the thunder of Jackson’s ugly charges reverberating through the streets, taverns, coffee-houses, Hamilton was ‘moving heaven and earth for his funding system.’ The commercial interests and the members of the Cincinnati hastened to join the lobby, which began to seek out the wavering or the doubtful in their lodging-houses. A fashionable minister found his way to the quarters of Speaker Muhlenberg and Senator Maclay to extol the policies of the dynamic young Secretary, and ‘argued as if he had been in the pulpit.’ Time, too, for a redoubling of effort, for there were rumors that Madison, the strongest man in the House, had been unpleasantly impressed with the fast-sailing vessels and the expresses jolting over the roads southward. A bitter attack had appeared in one of the papers which gossip ascribed to the popular George Clinton.[218]

In the House—still harping were the foes on speculation, when with a benevolent expression Sedgwick rose with saccharine urbanity to regret the vice of speculation, and declare himself ‘totally disinterested,’ albeit he was financially concerned. It was only his distress over speculation that admonished him to speedy action to minimize the evil. It was really unfortunate that so much heat had been engendered. After all, were not ‘a great and respectable body of our citizens creditors of the United States?’ It would be tragic were these animosities to create ‘factions among the people.’

‘A danger there?’ bellowed Jackson, the incorrigible infant terrible. ‘Do not gentlemen think there is some danger on the other side? Will there not be grounds for uneasiness when the soldier and the meritorious citizen are called upon to pay the speculator more than ten times the amount they ever received from him for their securities?’[219]

Meanwhile the fight was spreading from Federal Hall to the newspapers where congressional courtesy imposed no restrictions on the temper. Sinister stories were finding their way into print. ‘Several officials in conjunction with Robert Morris and wealthy contractors “were” at the bottom of this new arrangement.’ If it succeeded, Robert Morris would benefit $18,000,000, Jeremiah Wadsworth would profit $9,000,000 and Governor George Clinton would make $5,000,000.[220]

It was under these conditions, with the speculators packing the galleries, with the lobbyists, legitimate and illegitimate, buzzing through the corridors, with the most amazing rumors floating about the streets, that James Madison, who had remained silent heretofore, rose in a crowded House to fire the first fun in the Jeffersonian war on the financial policies of Alexander Hamilton.

IV

Here was a man at whom the Federalist leaders dare not sneer. A stranger, looking down from the gallery, would have been at a loss to understand the deference with which members hung upon his words. His personal appearance was disappointing. The short little man dressed in sober black, with a bald head, and a little protuberant in front, whose lower limbs were slight and weak,[221] was surely not meant to ride on the whirlwind and direct the storm. The impression of physical weakness he conveyed did belie the fact. In the mild blue eyes there was much to suggest the meditative philosopher, nothing to hint of the fighter. His voice was so weak that even in the cozy little chamber he could scarcely be heard.[222] He spoke in low tones, without gesture or excitement, almost like a man communing with himself in the seclusion of his closet. And yet he commanded a hearing vouchsafed to few. It was the triumph of character.

Here, too, was a man with a background second to none in the infant Republic. An ailing body had obsessed him in youth with the premonition of an early death, and, feeling the futility of entering on any pursuit, he had sought consolation in his books. He not only consumed, he assimilated. He not only read, he thought. Thus he became something more than a learned man—he developed into a political philosopher ‘worthy to rank with Montesquieu and Locke.’[223] At the time he rose to propose an amendment to Hamilton’s plan there was not a man in America who was his peer in the knowledge of constitutional law or history. Nor was there a man, either, whose support Hamilton more eagerly coveted. Even the jealous Ames conceded him to be ‘our first man,’ consoling himself for the concession with the comment that ‘I think him too much of a book politician and too timid in his politics,’ and that ‘he speaks decently as to manner and no more.’[224]

But the ill-natured jealousy of the more ornamental Ames failed to take account, as most of his colleagues did, of the important practical use to which he had put his knowledge of the battles he had fought and the victories he had won. No one in either branch of Congress or at the head of any of the departments had approached his services in the framing of the Constitution. It was his genius that conceived the Virginia plan which became the basis of the agreement. At many critical junctures his speeches had dissipated the gathering darkness with their light. His pen, unknown to many at the time, had recorded the story of the Convention. His contributions to ‘The Federalist’ had been quite as important, if not so numerous, as those of Hamilton; and the fight he waged in the Virginia Convention for ratification was quite as Titanic and conclusive as that of Hamilton in New York, but with this difference—Hamilton was confronted by Melancthon Smith, while Madison had to cross swords with Patrick Henry, with the powerful George Mason and the accomplished Pendleton.

He was not an orator of frills and fancies, magnetic and dramatic, appealing to the passions and emotions, but he was formidable in debate. In the speeches of none of his contemporaries is found such erudition, more driving logic, such tact and moderation of statement, or greater nobility of sentiment, fairness, justice. If they are a bit heavy in their sobriety, the occasion called for something remote from theatrical frivolity. His grace was in his reasoning, not his rhetoric—and yet his style would have given him a foremost place at Saint Stephen’s.

It is not surprising that such a man should not have been a favorite with the crowd. There was a diffidence in his manner, a formality and precision in his method, a quiet dignity in his bearing that discouraged familiarity. He was too absorbed in his work to fit in with the social festivity of his time. Only at his own table and among his intimates did he appear in the rôle of ‘an incessant humorist’ and ‘keep the table in roars of laughter over his stories and his whimsical way of telling them.’[225] Even his letters read like state papers. But there were a few, greater than Ames, who appreciated him. These were the three most important personages of his time—Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson.

Washington consulted him and made use of his pen. Hamilton cultivated him. Jefferson loved him as a son. His relations with the latter were no less than beautiful. Through many years they constantly interchanged visits, corresponded regularly, and traveled together whenever possible. A strikingly incongruous pair they must have seemed as they plodded along country roads together, or rode to and from Philadelphia together in Jefferson’s carriage—the tall, thin, loose-jointed, and powerful master of Monticello, and the short, frail, bald-headed Madison. But the incongruity was in their physical appearance only, for they had much in common—a common sweetness of disposition, a common code of political principles and morals, a common liberality of views, and a common passion for knowledge. The older man paid tribute to his protégé’s qualities long after both had passed from active public life: his ‘habits of self-possession which placed at ready command the rich resources of his luminous and discriminating mind’; his language ‘soothing always the feelings of his adversaries by civilities and softness of expression’; his ‘pure and spotless virtue which no calumny has ever attempted to sully’—all qualities that made him a congenial companion for the philosopher who shared them in a large degree.[226] Observing Jefferson’s happiness at the inauguration of his successor, a lady who knew them both intimately wrote what all who knew them felt: ‘I do believe father never loved a son more than he loves Mr. Madison.’[227] But when Madison rose that cold February day to make his first attack on Hamilton’s programme, he acted on his own volition and without consultation with the man who was to be his chief.

V

The character of Madison’s speech in favor of discrimination between the original holders and the purchasers of securities was not so open to attack as that of the impulsive and loose-thinking Jackson. He began in a manner to conciliate his hearers, matching Hamilton in his insistence on the sanctity of the debt and the necessity for its discharge. The question is—to whom is the money due? There could be no doubt in the case of the original holders who had not alienated their securities. The only rival pretensions were those of the original holders who had assigned and the present holders of the assignments.

‘The former may appeal to justice,’ he said, ‘because the value of the money, the service or the property advanced by them has never been really paid to them. They may appeal to good faith, because the value stipulated and expected is not satisfied by the steps taken by the Government. The certificates put in the hands of the creditors, on closing their settlements with the public, were of less value than was acknowledged to be due; they may be considered as having been forced on the receivers. They cannot therefore be adjudged an extinguishment of the debt. They may appeal to the motives for establishing public credit, for which justice and faith form the natural foundation. They may appeal to humanity for the sufferings of the military part of the creditors who never can be forgotten while sympathy is an American virtue.’

Admitting that the purchaser also had a claim, he proposed a plan designed, as he thought, to do justice to both—to pay the original holder in full, and, where there had been an assignment, the assignee to receive the highest market value and the original holder whatever remained over.[228] The plan spread consternation. At the Knoxes’ dinner table that night, where members of Congress and diplomats were gathered, it was almost the sole topic of conversation. In the coffee-houses, where the speculators gathered about their mugs, Madison was denounced as a dreamer and an enemy of public faith. The more cautious regretted the insurmountable difficulties of the scheme. This was felt by Madison as the one legitimate argument in opposition, and writing Jefferson three days later he made the admission with the suggestion that ‘they might be removed by one half the exertions that will be used to collect and color them.’[229] It was not until four days later that the Hamiltonian leaders attacked the plan with their heavy artillery. One by one they rushed to the assault. ‘It is not pretended,’ cried Sedgwick, ‘that any fraud or imposition has been practiced’—which is precisely what was charged. If the original holders lost, it was their own fault. It was too bad. He really sympathized with their misfortunes. But business was business. There was ‘no fraud on the part of the holder,’ echoed Laurance of New York—who knew that the town was humming with the charge. At any rate, ‘the general opinion of men of property is in favor of it.’ No public bodies like Chambers of Commerce were against the Hamilton plan. As for ‘the people’—newspapers and pamphlets could not be taken as expressive of public opinion. William Smith of Charleston had heard few advocates of discrimination ‘in society.’ As for the newspapers, they appeared on both sides. And why so much sympathy with the original holders?

It was reserved for Ames, whose friend Gore was getting rich on speculation, to take a stouter stand. Why should not ‘the seller who sold for a trifle be taxed to pay the purchaser?’ he asked. ‘He certainly ought to fare as other citizens do. If he has property, then the plea of necessity is destroyed; if he has none, then his taxes will be a mere trifle.’ And public opinion against it? Then ‘all the more duty on Government to protect right when it may happen to be unpopular; that is what Government is framed to do.’ Away with maudlin sentiment—it was not the function of the State to ‘rob on the highway to exercise charity.’[230]

Meanwhile the commercial organizations of the larger towns were summoned to the field against discrimination, and they responded—even in Richmond. ‘It is the natural language of the towns,’ wrote Madison, ‘and decides nothing.’[231] As the debate proceeded, Wall Street swarmed with the curious who could not get into the House where the speculators packed the galleries, and lined up deep behind the railing in the rear of the chamber. Petitions began to pour in. Passions rose. ‘I do not believe the crowd in the gallery consists of original holders,’ shouted one speaker with a contemptuous glance at the covetous group bending over the railing.[232] Soldiers! ‘Poor soldiers!’ sneered Wadsworth—he who had sent the two fast-sailing vessels to the South—‘I am tired of hearing about the poor soldiers. Perhaps soldiers were never better paid in any part of the country.’[233]

Two days later, Madison returned to the attack in a speech unusually spirited for him. Only when he had parted with his self-respect ‘could he admit that America ought to erect the monuments of her gratitude, not to those who saved her liberties, but to those who had enriched themselves on her funds.’ It was his last effort. He had spent himself to the utmost. A spectator entering the House late in the day found him ‘rather jaded.’[234] He had incurred the hate of the Hamiltonians without having consolidated all the opposition in favor of his plan.

Three days later—it was Sunday—that extreme democrat Senator Maclay, who was indifferent to Madison’s plan because opposed to funding altogether, sat down in his boarding-house and framed a plan of his own looking to the extinguishment of the debt through the sale of public lands. Having satisfied himself, he went forth in search of Thomas Scott, his colleague. But ‘shame to tell it—he a man in years and burdened with complaints—had lodged out and was not home yet.’ Pity that ‘a good head should be led astray by the inordinate lust of its concomitant parts.’ At length the old ‘roué’ was found, and he urged that it be submitted to Madison at once.

The next day found Maclay indignantly chafing at Madison’s lodging-house because it was ‘a long time’ before he appeared. As the radical from Pennsylvania read his plan, it seemed to him that Madison ‘attended to no one word, being so much absorbed in his own ideas.’ Maclay handed him the paper, and Madison handed it back without glancing at it. Alas, thought the radical, ‘his pride seems of the kind that repels all communications.’[235] It was not an easy task to organize the forces of Democracy.

The next day Madison’s plan was voted down. It was found long afterward that of the sixty-four members of the House, twenty-nine were security-holders.

VI

One thing, however, had been accomplished—the public interest had been awakened. The tongue of criticism had been loosened. The man in the street began to hold forth. It was all beyond him—as problems of finance were beyond Madison himself; but he could understand that a policy had been adopted that would be advantageous to the rich, profitable to the speculator, and mean loss to the common soldier. In the commercial centers of the cities Madison became anathema. Young Adams reported to his father that in Boston ‘Mr. Madison’s reputation has suffered from his conduct,’ albeit so respectable a character as Judge Dana had adopted Madison’s views.[236] The immediate reaction through letters to the papers was so bitter that Fenno was moved to a homily under the caption, ‘Honor Your Rulers,’ in which he pointed to such outrageous derelictions as expressions of doubt concerning the propriety of the proceedings of Congress.[237] These expressions had gone far beyond a mere questioning of the wisdom of Congress. ‘A War Worn Soldier’ thought it ‘happy there is a Madison who fearless of the blood suckers will step forward and boldly vindicate the rights of the widows and orphans, the original creditors and the war worn soldier.’[238] Another ‘Real Soldier’ described ‘the poor emaciated soldier, hungry and naked, in many instances now wandering from one extreme part of the country to another.... But thank God there lives a Madison to propose justice....’[239] An uglier and more pointed note was struck by ‘A Farmer’ in Pennsylvania. ‘Would it not be a good regulation,’ he wrote, ‘to oblige every member of Congress ... to lay his hand on his heart and to declare that he is no speculator; and that he did not come forward to claim for himself the price of the blood or the limb or the life of the poor soldier?’[240] Another wrote to ‘gentlemen who by superior wealth have monopolized the public securities’ that if honor and public faith called for the maintenance of the paper at par then, there was more occasion for it ‘when they were in the hands of those poor people to whom they were justly due, who had implicitly pinned their faith on your sheaves.’[241] ‘An Old Soldier’ recalled Washington’s pledge to see justice done the common soldier. ‘Ample means are said to be now about to be provided, not for their relief, but to enable eight or nine hundred per cent gain on the purchase money of the speculator.’[242] ‘Ah well,’ wrote ‘A Citizen’ of Boston, ‘Madison, Jackson and others in favor of discrimination in funding the public debt have probably immortalized their memories.’[243]

Their letters probably reflect the talk among the workers on the wharves, the pioneers on the fringe of the forests, the gossips of the taverns. Rightly or wrongly, a spirit of resentment had been aroused—a feeling in the breast of many that their interests were being subordinated by the Government. This sentiment was to grow and to increase the trouble of Hamilton in the next step toward the adoption of his funding system.

VII

With the easy victory, however, the Hamiltonians entered with gayety upon the next step—the Assumption of the State debts—determined to rush it through. On the very night of the day discrimination was defeated, the Pennsylvania delegation, on the suggestion of Robert Morris, met at the lodgings of Representative Fitzsimons of Philadelphia to ‘consider’ the matter of Assumption. One glance convinced the keen-eyed Maclay that the meeting was for ratification, not for consideration purposes. ‘By God,’ swore Morris, ‘it must be done!’ George Clymer, another of the Hamilton Reliables, bubbled with enthusiasm over the advantage that would accrue to Pennsylvania. Maclay was embarrassed by the almost affectionate comradery of some of his colleagues. Why should the delegation not hold weekly social sessions and work in harmony? Fitzsimons’s lodgings would be the very place to meet. Yes, agreed Morris, and they could have wine and oysters.[244]

A few days later Muhlenberg, returning to Maclay’s lodgings from a levee at the presidential mansion, declared with intense emphasis that the State debts must be assumed—which impressed the suspicious Senator as ‘the language of the Court.’[245]

But it was not to be so simple as all that. Assumption, argued many, would but extend the scope of the operations of the hated speculators. It was another move to mortgage the Government to the capitalists. The greater part of the speculating gentry were in the North; they would soon accumulate all the State certificates of the South into their own hands and one section would be paying taxes to increase the fortunes of a favored class in another.

There was another reason for the revolt of the Southerners—which, reversed, would have operated quite as powerfully on the Northerners. The States with the largest unpaid debts were in the North, Massachusetts with the greatest debt of all. Virginia, which led the opposition, had liquidated most of her debt. There is nothing inexplicable in the objections of the Virginians, who had paid their debt, to being taxed to help pay the debt of Massachusetts and Connecticut.

This was appreciated by many in the North, and a citizen of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, writing for a New York paper, thought it unfair. If the ‘leveling system’ was vicious as applied to men, it was quite as bad when applied to States. Then, too, ‘the public creditors, the most opulent part, of the community, would, by this means, be detached from the interest of the State Governments and united to that of the general Government.’ This aimed at the annihilation of the State Governments and the perpetuation of the debt.[246] Thus an attack began on the general policy of funding, taking an ugly form, appealing to class prejudices. ‘A number of drones are brought into society and the industrious bee is forced to furnish them with all the honey of its search.’[247]

But this opposition from the unimportant meant nothing to Hamilton. In those days, and for many days to come, it was only necessary to know what Oliver Wolcott[248] said or wrote to know what his master thought. Writing his father about this time, Wolcott gives us sketchily the operations of Hamilton’s mind. This matter of assumption was connected with ‘the engine of government.’ Since ‘the influence of the clergy, the nobility and the army’ was impossible, ‘some active principle of the human mind can be interested in the support of the Government.’ It would never do to have ‘civil establishments,’ but there was an influential class in existence—the moneyed class. They could and should be bound by interest to the general Government. What more ‘active principle’ of the human mind than the desire for wealth? And if the capitalists looked to the Federal rather than to the State Governments for their money, what better ‘engine of government’ than that? ‘For these reasons,’ wrote Wolcott, ‘I think the State debts should be assumed.’ True, it would make the debt of the United States ‘inconvenient,’ the taxes would be ‘burdensome,’ and ‘will appear to be just only to those who believe that the good attained is more important than the evil which is suffered.’[249]

It was fear of the effect of these ‘burdensome taxes’ on the popularity of the Federal Government that led some men, including Madison, into opposition.[250] Some of the Hamiltonians were alarmed, fearing that ‘such bold politics are unfitted to ... the infant resources’ of the young Republic.[251] Every enemy of Assumption was not hostile to the central Government, but all who were jealous of the sovereignty of the States were in opposition. Rufus King, the brilliant and virile Hamiltonian leader in the Senate, was convinced that in New York ‘the anti-federalists think that the advantages to be derived to the State from the retention of that debt are so great and important that they stand ready to accede to any terms which the creditors may propose.’[252] About the same time the unreconciled Patrick Henry was writing James Monroe that ‘it seems to be a consistent part of a system I have ever dreaded,’ and that the ‘subserviency of Southern to Northern interests are written in Capitals on its very front.’[253]

Such was the atmosphere in which the second battle began.

VIII

On the opening of the debate one champion of Assumption[254] let the cat out of the bag with the statement that ‘if the general Government has the payment of all the debts, it must of course have all the revenue, and if it possesses the whole revenue, it is equal, in other words, to the whole power.’ ‘Yes,’ cried the irrepressible Jackson in stentorian tones, ‘if it lulls the Shays of the North it will rouse the Sullivans of the South’—and the fight was on.

Almost immediately Assumption became confused with the whole system of funding, and a week after Madison had made his argument against the former, he was compelled to return to a defense of the latter, not as something he desired, but as a necessity imposed by unescapable conditions. Madison was too much of a statesman to be a demagogue.

Very soon, Maclay, watching the proceedings in the House with ferret eyes, thought he observed ‘the rendezvousing of the crew of the Hamilton galley.’ He found that ‘all hands are piped to quarters.’ The plan to force a vote on March 8th was abandoned toward evening, and that night he heard it was to await the arrival of Representative Vining of Delaware, and to give Hamilton time ‘to prepare him properly.’[255]

There was some mystery about Vining, and wild rumors were afloat that some one had said that he would give the new arrival a thousand guineas for his vote. ‘A thousand guineas,’ snorted Maclay, with a twinge in his gouty knee, ‘they could get him for a tenth that sum.’

Meanwhile, there was feverish activity among Hamilton’s supporters in Congress and out. Government officials left their desks to become lobbyists. The clergy turned politicians and solicited. The speculators were active. The members of the Cincinnati were mobilized and marched. Two Congressmen, one lame, the other sick, were carried to the House to meet a possible emergency. Another, planning to leave town, was ordered to his post.[256] The friends of Assumption were becoming uneasy. Letters in opposition were pouring in from men like Doctors Rush and Logan of Philadelphia and were being peddled about by Maclay to members of the Pennsylvania delegation. Alas, that he should have found ‘a woman in the room’ with old man Scott again.[257]

These activities so wrought upon the nerves of Robert Morris that he sought a new avenue of approach to his erratic colleague. Would Maclay join Morris in some land speculations? The former was suspicious, but interested.[258] For several days Morris talked land—the play continuing for eleven days. The debate was becoming bitter. The able, bitter-tongued Ædanus Burke of South Carolina made a ferocious attack on Hamilton, and the lobbies, coffee-houses, streets, buzzed with talk of a duel.[259]

The distress among Hamilton’s friends increased. In the Senate, shut off from the curious eyes of the public, feelings could be manifested with some abandon. Ellsworth and Izard ‘walked all the morning back and forward.’ Strong of Massachusetts and Paterson of New Jersey ‘seemed moved but not so much agitated.’ King ‘looked like a boy who had been whipped.’ And the hair on Schuyler, a heavy speculator and father-in-law of Hamilton, ‘stood on end as if the Indians had fired at him.’[260]

But courage was revived, and there was unwonted activity. Most of Washington’s household joined the lobby—Humphreys, Jackson, and Nelson, his secretaries—and were particularly attentive to Vining. This was the result of a caucus of Hamilton’s supporters the night before when the decision was reached to risk a vote.

Three days later, the chance was taken, and Hamilton lost by two votes. The scene was dramatic. Sedgwick made an ominous speech and, on being called to order, took his hat and left. ‘A funeral oration,’ sneered Maclay. When he returned he seemed to have been weeping. Even the eyes of the self-contained Fitzsimons ‘were brimming full’ as he went about ‘reddened like scarlet.’ Clymer, ‘always pale,’ was ‘deadly white,’ his lips quivering. But ‘happy impudence sat on Laurance’s brow.’ Wadsworth, who was financially interested, ‘hid his grief under the rim of a round hat,’ and Boudinot,[261] another speculator, left his distress naked to his enemies—‘his wrinkles rose in ridges and the angles of his mouth were depressed and assumed a curve resembling a horse shoe.’[262]

The speculators poured out of the galleries and into the coffee-houses and taverns to relieve their feelings with oaths over a mug. The air was electric—and cause enough. Many speculators or their agents had been scouring the back country of the Carolinas and Georgia for months buying up State securities on the assumption that they would be funded. They had bet on a sure thing—and lost.

IX

For a moment the friends of Assumption appeared to lose interest in the new Government. Some acted as though the experiment launched by the Constitution had failed and was not worth a ceremonious burial. The interest of Congress lagged, and in the Senate, where the Assumptionists were strongest, business was practically abandoned. In less than an hour after it was called to order, Rufus King would move an adjournment.[263] It was a gloomy and cold April—the distant hills and even the house-tops covered with snow.[264] ‘The Eastern members talk a strange language,’ wrote Madison to Monroe. ‘They avow, some of them at least, a determination to oppose all provisions for the public debt which does not include this, and intimate danger to the Union from a failure to assume.’[265] Senator Johnson of North Carolina found ‘the gentlemen who are in favor of assumption ... very sore and impatient under their defeat.’[266] Not a few of the Federalists began to speak and write pessimistically of the doubtful value of the Government. From his library at Beverly, George Cabot could see the danger of ‘division, anarchy and wretchedness,’[267] and if the States seized the opportunity to ‘provide honestly for their creditors ... the general government would be ruined irrevocably.’ But the thing that pained Cabot most was the attitude of Madison. Had he changed his principles?[268]

In the Hamiltonian press the comments were funereal. Fenno’s paper teemed with indignant protests and savage attacks on the State ‘demagogues’ who were ‘hankering after popularity at home.’[269] ‘Americanus,’ paying tribute to Hamilton and his funding plan, found it ‘wantonly destroyed’ and ‘in broken pieces at the several shrines of ambition, avarice and vanity.’[270]

Yet all the scribes were not similarly depressed. A writer in the ‘New York Journal,’ describing the birth and death of Assumption, worked the advocates of the measure into a frenzy. He pictured it as ‘the bastard of Eastern speculators who have lost their puritanic manners’—the ‘brat’ having been brought into the world ‘by the dexterous application of the forceps.’ Thus it was injured by the ‘violence of the delivery,’ but ‘Dr. Slop’ had hoped to save it by having it bathed ‘in Yankee rum.’ ‘The unfortunate child was presented to the baptismal font by Granny Fitzsimmons; and Mr. Sedgwick, who is gifted with canting talents, officiated as priest, baptized the infant, and his name stands on the parish books as Al—ex—der Assumption.’ But alas, ‘the child of promise who would have redeemed the Eastern States from poverty and despair is now no more.’[271]

But Hamilton was not despairing—he had just begun to fight.