We have here the words of General Hamilton himself--in his declarations deliberately made and attested in the most solemn and responsible form by Thomas Jefferson, and in his speech as reported by James Madison, under still more specific responsibility, confirmed by his own notes for that speech now published by his son and biographer--all going to the same end, viz: to show that he was in principle a monarchist, and that he preferred a monarchical to a republican form of government.
But Jefferson and Madison were politically his opponents. Let us now see what his oldest and best friend says upon this point. Gouverneur Morris, his coadjutor in the Convention and in politics through life, and his eulogist at the grave, gave in 1811 an unreserved _expose_ of Hamilton"s opinions on this very question, in a letter to Robert Walsh, then editor of the "National Gazette," written, doubtless, in answer to inquiries. The reader should procure this letter, and will find in it much matter of interest. I omit, among other things, what it says in respect to Hamilton"s purity, and his frank and honorable character and bearing in political matters, having said as much myself, and with no less sincerity.
"General Hamilton," says Morris, "had little share in forming the Const.i.tution. He disliked it, believing all republican government to be radically defective. He admired, nevertheless, the British Const.i.tution, which I consider an aristocracy in fact though a monarchy in name....
General Hamilton hated republican government because he confounded it with democratical government, and he detested the latter because he believed it must end in despotism, and be, in the mean time, destructive to public morality.... But although General Hamilton knew these things from the study of history, and perceived them by the intuition of genius, he never failed on every occasion to advocate the excellence of, and avow his attachment to monarchical government."
In another part of the letter, "one marked trait in the General"s character was the pertinacious adherence to opinions he had once formed."[10]
[10] Sparks"s _Life of Gouverneur Morris_, Vol. III. p. 260.
In a previous letter, written shortly after Hamilton"s death, (December, 1804,) to Governor Aaron Ogden, Morris says: "Our poor friend Hamilton bestrode his hobby to the great annoyance of his friends and not without injury to himself. More a theoretic than a practical man, he was not sufficiently convinced that a system may be good in itself and bad in relation to particular circ.u.mstances. He well knew that his favorite form was inadmissible unless as the result of civil war; and I suspect that his belief in what he called _an approaching crisis_[11] arose from a conviction that the kind of government most suitable, in his, opinion, to this extensive country, could be established in no other way."
[11] The _italics_ are mine.
Hamilton not only cherished his preference for monarchical inst.i.tutions to the very close of his life, but we have good reason to believe that the expectation that some crisis in the affairs of the country, encouraged by the weakness of our political system, would yet arise and would lead to their introduction, was equally abiding. His letters and writings will be found to contain many intimations to that effect. I will notice two instances. His letter to Timothy Pickering in 1803, is the only attempt that I have ever seen, coming from himself, to explain his course in the Convention. There may have been others, but I would be surprised indeed by the production of any thing from his pen denying his preference for the monarchical form of government, although such was the standing charge of his political opponents. None such, I feel very confident, ever existed. That letter concludes with the following very significant remark:--
"I sincerely hope that it may not hereafter be discovered that, through want of sufficient attention to the last idea," (that of giving adequate energy to the Government,) "the experiment of Republican Government, even in this country, has not been as complete, as satisfactory, and as decisive as could be wished."
The explanation of "his conduct, motives, and views" in accepting the challenge of Colonel Burr--probably the last paper containing any allusion to public affairs that he ever wrote--closes with expressions, italicized by myself, remarkably in harmony with the intimations of Gouverneur Morris to Aaron Ogden:--
"To those who, with me, abhorring the practice of dueling, may think that I ought on no account to add to the number of bad examples, I answer that my relative situation, as well in public as private, enforcing all the considerations which men of the world designate 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 prejudice in this particular_."
Although not so pointed in expressing it, his disposition toward the State governments was scarcely more favorable than toward the plan of the general government. In his letter to Pickering, at a period when their usefulness and importance to the system were better appreciated, he says: "Though I would have enlarged the legislative power of the General Government, yet I never contemplated the abolition of the State governments, but, on the contrary, they were in some particulars a part,--const.i.tuent parts,--of my plan." But let us see what part it was that he would have them perform. He said in the Convention: "If they (the State governments) are extinguished, he was persuaded that great economy might be obtained by subst.i.tuting a general government. He did not mean, however, to shock the public opinion by proposing such a measure. _On the other hand, he saw no other necessity for declining it._ They are not necessary for any of the great purposes of commerce, revenue, or agriculture. Subordinate authorities, he was aware, would be necessary. There must be district tribunals, corporations for local purposes. But _cui bono_ the vast and expensive apparatus now appertaining to the States?"
These were Hamilton"s views in respect to the State governments, as expressed in the Convention, according to Mr. Madison"s report. In this case it is also fortunate for the cause of truth that, from a paper written by Hamilton just as the General Convention adjourned, and published by his son, it appears very plainly that his views upon the subject cannot have been greatly misreported by Mr. Madison. In this paper he speculates upon the probable fate of the Const.i.tution; after saying, in confirmation of my suggestion that he doubted the dispositions of the people in other respects than their intelligence and capacity, that the Const.i.tution would have in its favor "the good will of men of property in the several States who wish a government of the Union able to protect them against domestic violence, and the _depredations which the democratic spirit is apt to make on property_,"
he adds: "If the Government be adopted, it is probable General Washington will be the President of the United States. This will insure a wise choice of men to administer the Government, and a good administration. A good administration will conciliate the confidence and affection of the people, and perhaps enable the Government to acquire more consistency than the proposed Const.i.tution seems to promise for so great a country. _It may then triumph over the State governments and reduce them to entire subordination, dividing the larger States into smaller districts._ The organs of the General Government may also acquire additional strength." The _italics_ in the above extracts are all my own except as to the word _organs_. He would not "shock the public opinion" by proposing to extinguish the State governments, but there was _no other_ reason for omitting to do so. It would be well if it were done, but it was not wise to shock the public mind upon a point in respect to which it was known to be sensitive. But he would reduce them to entire subordination, triumph over and consequently humiliate them. It would be a poor compliment to Hamilton"s knowledge of men and of the effect of public measures, to a.s.sume that he did not know that such would be the surest as well as the safest way to extinguish them in the end.
In a letter to Gouverneur Morris, so late as in 1802, a little more than two years before his death, and which will be found in "The Works of Hamilton," edited by his son, (Vol. VI. p. 529,) he thus unbosoms himself to his friend: "Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present Const.i.tution than myself; and contrary to all my antic.i.p.ations of its fate, as you know from the very beginning, I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes for my reward. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me."
There would seem to be no force in evidence, however appropriate its source or credible its character, if that we have produced is not conclusive in regard to the opinions of General Hamilton upon certain points. It proves, _first_, that he regarded monarchical inst.i.tutions, according to the English model, as being the most perfect government that ever existed; _secondly_, that he would have preferred the establishment of such a government here, and was only prevented from advocating it by a conviction that it was made impracticable by the adverse public opinion of the time; _thirdly_, that he thought it was our duty, nevertheless, to approach that model with our Government as nearly as the prejudices of the people would permit, and that he introduced into the Convention a plan by which that object might be reached; _fourthly_, that he regarded the present Federal Const.i.tution, which, as lately as two years before his death, in a free communication to his trusted friend, he called "a frail and worthless fabric," as inadequate to the purposes of a good government; that he had accepted it at the time as a temporary bond of union, but believed from the beginning that it would prove a failure and fall into contempt; that he believed that this result would open the way to popular tumults forcing intervention, and to convulsions through the evils of which the people would, at no distant day, become convinced of their error, and consent to inst.i.tutions substantially similar to those he favored; and, _fifthly_, that his preference for monarchical inst.i.tutions was a fixed and cherished sentiment; that although at times encouraged by his success in measures he had no right to hope for under the Const.i.tution as he knew that instrument was intended to be, he yet invariably returned to his first opinion adverse to the sufficiency of the Const.i.tution, and descended to the grave not only without a change in his opinions, but with increased convictions of their perfect soundness.
It has been a question often mooted whether the idea of using the power with which he was or might be clothed to overthrow the actual government, and to introduce the system he so earnestly preferred, was ever seriously entertained by Hamilton. Such designs were freely charged upon him by many of the old Republicans, who, under the full influence of partisan prejudices, doubtless believed that he waited only for a fit opportunity to attempt them. His repeated and undisguised expressions of a preference for monarchical inst.i.tutions, to friends and foes, when the people of the United States, whose officer he was, had established a government which they intended should be so widely different from such inst.i.tutions, were well calculated to engender the suspicion. Plain men naturally imagined that a man like Hamilton would do much and incur high responsibilities for the accomplishment of an object so near his heart. Mr. Jefferson, who was not a man of a suspicious temperament, through the fiery and protracted contests of parties, at the head of which they respectively stood, was evidently at times alarmed by similar apprehensions. But toward the close of his life, when partisan asperities had been long since forgotten, in a letter to myself he virtually exonerated Hamilton from the charge in these expressions:--"For Hamilton frankly avowed that he considered the British Const.i.tution, with all the corruptions of its administration, as the most perfect model of government that had ever been devised by the wit of man,--professing, however, at the same time, that the spirit of this country was so fundamentally republican that it would be visionary to think of introducing monarchy here, and that therefore it was the duty of its administrators to conduct it upon the principles their const.i.tuents had elected."[12]
[12] See Appendix.
Mr. Charles Francis Adams has placed before us, in his life of his grandfather, John Adams, a series of facts bearing upon this point with no ordinary significance. They are not brought forward in support of any such charge, but as raising a question for the consideration of his readers, whether it is not possible that in the pains he took to increase greatly the provisional forces authorized to meet our difficulties with France, and to convert the whole into a permanent military establishment; in the readiness with which he fell in with the scheme of Miranda, to conquer, through the joint operations of Great Britain and the United States, the Floridas, Louisiana, and the South American possessions of Spain, in case of a rupture between us and France; and in his prompt consent to take command of the troops to be so employed, General Hamilton was influenced by a desire to bring about the crisis to which he had always looked as one that would present a fit opportunity for the establishment here of the political inst.i.tutions he preferred.
These are grave matters, and of a nature calculated to challenge a new and stricter examination of one of those critical periods which have often occurred in our history, and from which we have had so many providential deliverances. The subject is treated with becoming delicacy and great caution by the author, whose conclusion, of which we have only a hint, may possibly have been influenced by family traditions, tinctured unavoidably with strong personal prejudices but never wanting in intelligence. I will not undertake to speculate even as to what General Hamilton might have done or have left undone if he had found himself at the head of a large and permanent military force, and the country convulsed by those popular outbreaks, the expectation of which seems to have been never absent from his mind or from the minds of his disciples. He might have mounted his "hobby"--as Morris termed his pa.s.sion for monarchical inst.i.tutions--and have struck a blow in their behalf, acting in the spirit of other "strong minds" who, as Mr. C. F.
Adams well and truly says, "seldom fail to a.s.sociate with dreams of their own glory the modes of exercising power for the good of their fellow-men. Considering their happiness as mainly dependent upon a sense of security from domestic convulsions, his first aim would have been to gain that end at any rate, even if it should be done at some expense of their liberties." But looking at the subject with no other feeling than a sincere desire to arrive at a correct solution of the circ.u.mstances narrated by Mr. Adams, I cannot bring my mind to the conclusion referred to.
I can well conceive that Hamilton might have been led to avail himself of such a state of things for a _coup de main_ of some decided character if its existence had been brought about by others, or had been the result of fortuitous circ.u.mstances--a contingency which his mind had doubtless often contemplated. But I do not think that he would have planned or contributed to bring about such a state of things involving to so grave an extent the public order and the peace of the country.
Such a course would have been at variance with some of his most cherished principles and inconsistent with his personal character. The preservation of order, and a respect for the individual rights of persons and of property, appeared always to be the objects of his greatest solicitude. It was only because he did not think that these could be effectually secured under any other form of government that he preferred monarchical inst.i.tutions, acknowledging at the same time that they were at war with the principles of natural justice, and only allowable upon that of their absolute necessity to secure society against the occasional waywardness of a majority of its members. It was mainly because of the very erroneous opinions he had formed of the dispositions in this respect of a majority of his adopted countrymen that he was induced to devote his splendid talents to hopeless efforts to sustain principles so irreconcilable with those for which he had periled his life in the war of the Revolution. I say erroneous, not only because I think them such, but because experience, the only unerring test, has so proved them. We are, at the moment when I write, a half century from the transactions which form the subject of our consideration, and I venture nothing in saying that there is no country in Europe in which order has, in the interim, been better preserved, or the rights of persons and property been more secure, than in the United States; none in which the power of government has been more stable or more adequate to the purposes of its inst.i.tution.
But this is a wide field, for which I have neither s.p.a.ce nor time. It becomes me to remember, whilst occupied not without pleasure with these retrospective investigations and meditations, that I have already pa.s.sed by several cheerful years, the allotted threescore-and-ten,--that period of such solemn import which the undeserved favor of an always kind Providence has permitted me to pa.s.s, not only with life but with the means and the faculties to enjoy life,--and that if I hope to complete the work before me I must confine myself more to the highway of my subject, and leave its by-paths to the explorations of younger men.
I cannot, nevertheless, refrain from a brief reference to transactions which have more than once occurred in this country, have made a greater impression on my mind than they seem to have made on others, and which I think have a strong bearing upon the question of the American love of order and respect for property and its rights. Although it is not probable that the facts of these can ever be sufficiently understood abroad to be correctly appreciated, it is otherwise here, and they are well worthy of our profoundest meditations. I allude to scenes which have been presented at San Francisco, which were at the moment of such thrilling interest, but appear already to have sunk into oblivion amid the ceaseless bustle and never-halting progress of American life.
Look at that young but already large and flourishing city! Regard her as she stood at the commencement of the extraordinary steps that were taken for her relief! Think of the scenes through which she was made to pa.s.s, and the condition to which she has been restored! An active and artful portion of her population thoroughly steeped in corruption, vice, and crime; her munic.i.p.al authorities, the direct offspring of that corruption, not only regardless of duty but fraternizing with criminals, deriding the complaints of the injured, and scoffing at their prayers for official interference; despair succeeding hope, and the opinion that protection is at an end, and that nature may soon rea.s.sert her empire at length ripening into conviction in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the good of all cla.s.ses; the general meeting of the citizens, and the appointment of the Committee of Vigilance with unlimited powers and subject to responsibility to no other tribunal than to the congregated ma.s.s of the people from whom they derive their authority and their power; the regular military organization adopted by the Committee and forthwith called into the field of duty, sufficient in men, arms, and equipments to crush resistance to the authority of the Committee in the city, and to deter the exercise of any other authority at that remote distance that might have a right to claim cognizance of the crimes they seek to suppress; all legal rule superseded by that of the Committee of Vigilance and put down on the instant of its a.s.sertion; criminals who had been set at large by the former authorities re-arrested on charges of capital offences, tried before the Committee, informally but honestly and intelligently, found guilty and executed; the functionaries who had connived at those offences arraigned at the bar of the same tribunal and dealt with according to their deserts; crimes detected and felons dragged from their hiding-places to meet a just punishment; men to whom no specific offence could be traced, but who were notorious enemies of order and abettors of crime, banished not to return under penalty of death, and every effort made to resist or defeat the action of the Committee crushed by an all-sufficient military force. The power of the Committee continues in active and constant exercise for nearly three months, when the purification of the city from crime and from criminals being accomplished, the authority of the laws is restored, also the use of the ballot-box which had been desecrated; this restoration is by the order and in pursuance of the authority and power of the Committee which are voluntarily laid down with the approbation and consent of a community consisting of from 25,000 to 30,000 persons.
There is no good reason for saying that during the whole of that period and in the midst of such stirring scenes the power of the Committee was in a single instance exercised to divest any innocent man of his property, or to oppress him in any way, or to interfere with his legal rights further than to compel submission to the temporary supremacy of that body, or to punish the innocent, or to enable the guilty to escape, or to aggrandize the Committee, or to benefit its members, their friends, or its _employees_, or to do an act of intentional injustice to any human being. During the government of the Committee the business concerns of the city and the vocations of its citizens were carried on with at least as much regularity and success as ever. Since its resignation and the consequent dispersion of its power not a banished man has returned contrary to the terms of his expulsion, and no member of the Committee, nor any one who acted by and within its authority, has been called to account for his acts within the bounds either of the city or of the State to which it belongs.
Is it probable that there is any city in Europe of equal size in which its legally established authorities could have been suspended by the irregular action of its own people with similar results,--in which the subst.i.tuted power could be exercised with equal wisdom and forbearance, and laid down with so few causes for individual complaint? My opportunities for observation, although considerable, have been less than those of some others, and I may be wrong in thinking as I do that such things could not be done by any other people in the world.
The remedy for the social and political crimes which called the Committee of Vigilance into existence was a fearful one, and must be so regarded by all thinking and virtuous minds, and it would seem paradoxical to set up such a crowning act of disorder--that of the subversion of all legal authority, for even the shortest period--as an exhibition of a love of order and respect for the rights of persons and of property on the part of the actors; but I cannot resist the belief that the transaction afforded the strongest proof of the existence of those great principles in their minds, and that a proper sense of them and a determination to maintain them will seldom be wanting on the part of those who can act as did the Committee of San Francisco and its supporters.
But I ask pardon for this digression, and return to my subject. Many considerations besides those suggested by Hamilton"s invariable solicitude for the preservation of order and by his constant respect for the individual rights of persons and of property, press themselves upon my mind against the conclusion intimated by Mr. C. F. Adams, and against the probability that General Hamilton ever contemplated the creation of a state of things that would justify or facilitate the employment of force to establish inst.i.tutions more congenial with his taste and judgment than those we possessed. But I forbear to urge them, partly because I have devoted as much time and s.p.a.ce to the subject as I can afford, and also because I am well satisfied that his knowledge of the certain opposition of General Washington to any such scheme or design would have been sufficient to deter him from undertaking either during the lifetime of the General, even if his own disposition had pointed in that direction.
It was at no time the intention of President Washington to give his sanction to the opinions so generally, and as it now appears so justly, attributed to General Hamilton. Never was man more strongly pledged to the support of republican government, or more unchangeably determined to maintain the responsibilities he had incurred in that regard. Embracing with all his heart the Declaration of Independence, in which its principles were delineated with the pencil of truth, he did more than any other man to overthrow the government against which it was hurled, and to open the way for the establishment of a republic in its place.
None knew better than he that such was the object of the Revolution, and his resolution was immovable that the sufferings and sacrifices which had been incurred in support of that object should not fail to accomplish it through any act of omission or commission on his part.
Every important act in his eventful career shows that he regarded himself on that point as invested by his country with a sacred trust.
When the bright prospect which he had largely contributed to open to his countrymen for the realization of their wishes in this respect was in danger of being obscured, if not forever blasted, by means similar to those which have so often prevented or subverted free government, by the violence of an exasperated soldiery, he threw himself into the breach, and saved at the same time by his heroic and patriotic effort their interests and the honor of his brothers-in-arms. When the minds of the earnest and jealous friends of liberty were frenzied by an ill-advised attempt in the same quarter to introduce hereditary distinctions amongst us, he was again found at the post of duty; and, though feelingly indulgent to his military companions, as well as satisfied of the perfect purity of their intentions, he nevertheless promptly and successfully employed the great influence he derived from their respect for his character and their confidence in his friendship to induce them to abandon their project.
In the full possession of such claims to the esteem, grat.i.tude, and trust of his countrymen, superadded to those which were due for his military services, he closed the first great period of his splendid life by presiding over the Federal Convention, and by a.s.senting to, and recommending to the favor of the people, a Const.i.tution eminently republican in its form, and in the principles upon which it was founded.
So far was he from encouraging the spread of opposite sentiments that there is, on the contrary, much reason to believe that it was by making his views of the subject known to those about him that the anti-republican tone which Jefferson found, on his arrival from France, so prevalent in social and political circles at the seat of government, was kept in check until public opinion became strong enough to extinguish it altogether. Speaking to this point, Mr. Jefferson says, "The truth is that the Federalists, pretending to be the exclusive friends of General Washington, have ever done what they could to sink his character by hanging theirs on it, and by representing as the enemy of Republicans, him who of all men is best ent.i.tled to the appellation of the father of that Republic which they were endeavoring to subvert, and the Republicans to maintain. They cannot deny, because the elections proclaimed the truth, that the great body of the nation approved the republican measures. General Washington was himself sincerely a friend to the republican principles of the Const.i.tution. His faith perhaps in its duration might not have been as confident as mine; but he repeatedly declared to me that he was determined it should have a fair chance of success, and that he would lose the last drop of his blood in its support against any attempt which might be made to change it from its republican form. He made these declarations the oftener because he knew my suspicions that Hamilton had other views, and he wished to quiet my jealousies upon the subject."[13]
[13] See Appendix.
Independently of his principles, which were the main source, doubtless, of the personal solicitude he often manifested upon this point, General Washington was a man of too much sense and reflection not to know that the world would in all future time hold him responsible for the overthrow of the republican principle here, if its extinguishment occurred in his day, and he was too careful of his well-earned fame, and antic.i.p.ated too correctly the elevation it was destined to reach in connection with the history of his country, not to do all in his power to guard it from detriment upon a point at once so delicate and so momentous. Hamilton was the first man to whom he would make his sentiments known, and I can find nothing in the positions which they occupied toward each other which would induce me to entertain the opinion that Hamilton would have ventured on an attempt to shake his patriotic resolutions on that point through the influence he was supposed to possess over the actions of Washington in other respects.
There is, I am quite sure, nothing more essential to a right appreciation of many of the most important incidents in our political history, than a correct understanding of the relations that existed between those distinguished men. It cannot fail to shed considerable light on much that occurred during the government of the Confederation, and is perhaps the only touchstone by which the measures of government and many other public transactions between 1789 and 1799--between the organization of the new government and the death of Washington--can be safely tested.
I will give my interpretation of the character of those relations, fully aware of the misrepresentations and misunderstandings to which they have been subjected, and from which no subject connected with partisan conflicts can, it appears, be entirely free, but conscious of a single desire to state things truly, and of an inability to do intentional injustice to either. It will be for others to judge of my success.
Mr. Charles F. Adams, in the work to which I have referred,[14] says, "Without much hold upon the judgment or affections of the people at large, he (Hamilton) had yet by the effect of his undisputed abilities and his masculine will gained great sway over the minds of the intelligent merchants along the Atlantic border. His previous doctrines, in unison with the feelings and interests of the most conservative cla.s.s, had drawn to him their particular confidence, whilst his position in the first administration had facilitated the establishment by him of a chain of influence resting for its main support on _his power over the mind of Washington himself_, but carried equally through all the ramifications of the executive department. _Thus it happened that even after he ceased to be personally present his opinions continued to shape the policy of Washington"s second administration, and even that of his successor._" This declaration extending so far would have been deemed quite credible at the period to which it relates, and, coming from the grandson of that "_successor_"--himself the undisguised enemy of Hamilton--was probably called forth by the recent publication of the private papers of the latter.
[14] _Life of John Adams._ The _italics_ are my own.
As far as Mr. Adams affirms that the policy of Washington"s administration, and also, in many very important respects, that of his successor, were guided by the opinions of Hamilton, his declaration has my full concurrence. No candid and intelligent man can, I think, read the evidence which has recently appeared, in connection with facts previously known, without acknowledging the undeniable truth of these positions. But I do not by any means intend to concede the control of Hamilton over the mind of Washington which is implied by the terms employed by Mr. Adams without qualifications which limit and very materially change its character. The policy of both administrations was guided by the opinions of Hamilton, but those opinions received their influence through different channels, and were enforced in very different ways. Hamilton"s opinions, when known as his, had very little weight with the successor of Washington, save, in many cases, to secure a bad reception for themselves; but that successor had little if any control over, or influence with, the members of his own cabinet, and not much with Congress or the Federal party, by whom the policy of his administration was shaped. With them Hamilton"s opinions established the rule of action. In respect to the two latter, this arose mainly from the sway he was capable of exerting over them by the force of his great talents, and from a general concurrence in his views. In respect to the prominent members of Mr. Adams"s cabinet his control arose from the power he had in part acquired over their minds whilst they were also members of General Washington"s administration. Timothy Pickering, who, after the retirement of Mr. Jefferson and the brief term of Randolph, was Secretary of State under both Presidents, was a remarkable man, sincere and honest, I am willing to believe, in his political opinions, but savagely bitter in his feelings toward his opponents. It seemed pretty much a matter of course in him to hate those to whose political course he was opposed, and, as is usually the case with minds thus const.i.tuted, he was equally bigoted in his devotion to those with whom he agreed and acted.
General Hamilton was his _beau ideal_ of a politician and statesman, and it would not have been an easy matter in him to have dissented from any opinion positively advanced by Hamilton, whatever his own first impressions on the subject might have been. Mr. McHenry, Secretary of War in both cabinets, was undoubtedly an honorable and well-disposed gentleman. He was, in the opinion of those who had the best opportunities for judging, including Washington and Hamilton, not entirely competent for the duties of his office, and that circ.u.mstance drove him the more to rely for support on Hamilton, for whom he cherished an early and ardent friendship. His personal devotion to Hamilton was such as to prevent Mr. Adams from longer overlooking his incompetency, as Washington had done, and precipitated his resignation.
Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, the member of his cabinet most trusted by President Adams because the least suspected, was, notwithstanding, the one among his official advisers who went the greatest lengths to testify his entire allegiance to Hamilton, who had been the artificer of his political fortunes from the beginning and by whose influence he had been advanced to the high position he occupied.
Throughout he advised with and was a.s.sisted by Hamilton in the performance of his official duties. Such was Hamilton"s "power over his mind" that he was applied to successfully by the former for evidence of facts to be derived from the treasury archives to sustain an attack that Hamilton contemplated making upon the President--an attack that he did make, although he acknowledged to Wolcott that it would not be regarded as proper that he should have received the evidence at his hands, and that that fact ought not therefore to be known.
No one can read the correspondence between General Hamilton and Mr.
Wolcott, as recently published with Hamilton"s Works, without regretting that the parties to it should have been so forgetful of the proprieties due to the occasions to which it relates, or without a disposition to excuse the strong expression of Mr. Charles F. Adams, in speaking of his grandfather"s cabinet, applied to Mr. Wolcott "as the most venomous serpent of them all."
Mr. Charles F. Adams places Hamilton"s sway over the mind of Washington upon the same footing with that which he exerted over the executive department, composed princ.i.p.ally of the members of his second cabinet of whom we have been speaking. From this view I entirely dissent. If Hamilton possessed any power over the mind of Washington, it was of a very different character from that which he exercised over those members. Washington was to an unusual extent free from the weakness of overrating his own powers; with just conceptions of his capacities for public service he was always ready to place them at the public disposal, but he was very far from pretending to qualifications which he did not possess. No one was more sensible than he that the science of civil government--the construction of const.i.tutions and the administration of the civil affairs of the State--were not best learned in the camp, where so large a portion of his life had been spent. He therefore, as we have seen, selected two of the ablest statesmen in the country, particularly versed in those portions of the public business which he devolved upon them. They differed irreconcilably in respect to the policy of the administration, and in the performance of his duty he decided between their conflicting opinions in favor of those of Hamilton. Preferring the policy of the latter he adopted the measures he recommended to carry it out, which happened also to appertain princ.i.p.ally to Hamilton"s department, and sustained him in their execution. In doing so he but sustained the measures of his administration and views which were either originally his own or made such upon conviction. Partic.i.p.ating in the general opinion in favor of Hamilton"s remarkable talents, having full opportunities to judge of his character, and confiding in his integrity, he extended to him, it is true, but with the purest motives, the degree of countenance and trust which established his extraordinary power and influence. Of the consequences, as well to his administration as to the country, we will have much to say hereafter. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that there ever was a period at which, or a transaction between them in which, their relative positions, rights, and duties were either forgotten or disregarded. It was well understood that the degree of weight to be attached to Hamilton"s advice would depend upon the unbiased opinion which Washington himself should form of its soundness, influenced as he naturally would be, and always was, by a conviction of Hamilton"s undoubted integrity, and his superior capacity for the decision of the question under consideration. There certainly never was a time when the slightest indication of a desire or design on the part of Hamilton to sway the mind of Washington in his official acts through his personal influence, or by any considerations which did not point distinctly and exclusively to the public good, would not have been peremptorily and indignantly repelled. It is evident from the whole tenor of Washington"s life that no man ever lived who was more tenacious of self-respect, or more absolute in his reservation of the right to judge for himself of what belonged to his individual independence and personal dignity, or more prompt to resist every attempt to encroach upon either. No one understood his temperament in that respect better than General Hamilton, or would have been less likely to bring himself in conflict with it. Many indications of this understanding and of its effects are to be found in the accounts of their personal intercourse.
The correspondence between them in regard to the discreditable use that Washington thought was being made in Congress of the sufferings and dissatisfaction of the army, already referred to, will be found to throw much light upon the sense of both as to the nature of their personal relations.
In June, 1793, Hamilton announced to President Washington, that considerations relative both to the public interest and _his own dignity_ had brought his mind to the conclusion to resign his office at the termination of the close of the next session of Congress, and one of the reasons he a.s.signed for delaying his final retirement to that period was to give Congress an opportunity to complete the investigation that had been inst.i.tuted in regard to his official conduct. In March thereafter Hamilton informed the President that the committee charged to inquire, among other things, "into the authority of the President respecting the making and disburs.e.m.e.nt of the loans under certain acts of Congress," were about to meet. He sent to him at the same time, a copy of a paper he had presented to the committee, containing his opinion in relation to the proper limits of a legislative inquiry, but said that he deemed it expedient to fix in advance, with the President, on the true state of facts, of which he proceeded to make a statement, and requested the President to sanction it. General Washington soon thereafter made a declaration, in the form of a letter to Hamilton, of his recollections and opinions in respect to the matter. The latter, in reply, protested vehemently against the sufficiency of the declaration for the protection of his honor, and in a letter of considerable length, written with his usual ability, undertook to show that the character of the President"s declaration would enable, his (Hamilton"s) enemies to say that "the reserve of the President is a proof that he does not think that Hamilton"s representations are true, else his justice would have led him to rescue the officer concerned even from suspicion upon the point."
The subject of loans and their frequency produced much excitement in Congress, and not a few calls upon the President and the Secretary of the Treasury for information in regard to them. It does not appear from the published works of Hamilton, that any answer was made by General Washington to his letter, or any other explanation of the subject; and no one, I think, can read the correspondence without feeling that the interpretation I give to its abrupt termination is the correct one, viz.: that Washington intended by his silence to reprove the freedom of Hamilton"s letter. The resignation of the latter was deferred, with the approbation of the President, till January, 1795, when it was accepted in a letter from General Washington, containing an approval of Hamilton"s official conduct as full as words could make it.[15]
[15] Hamilton"s _Works_, Vol. IV. pp. 436, 510, 516, 562; Vol. V.
pp. 74, 78.
The construction I have placed upon the character of their personal relations is also sustained by a correspondence between them in May, 1798, after Hamilton"s retirement from office, which will be found in the sixth volume of Hamilton"s "Works," at p. 289. Hamilton"s object appears to have been to impress the mind of Washington with a proper sense of the dangerous crisis which had arrived in the condition of public affairs. His letter contains the following extraordinary paragraph: "I am sincere in declaring my full conviction, as the result of a long course of observation, that the faction which has for years opposed the government are ready to remodel our Const.i.tution under the influence or _coercion_ of France, to form with her a perpetual alliance, _offensive and defensive_, and to give her a monopoly of our trade, by _peculiar_ and exclusive privileges. This would be in substance, whatever it might be in name, to make this country a province of France. Neither do I doubt that her standard displayed in this country would be directly or indirectly seconded by them in pursuance of the project I have mentioned."