General Davie arrived by the next ship, bringing with him a convention concluded with France on the 30th of October. He also brought a letter to Hamilton from one of the commission, with a copy of the doc.u.ment and a journal of the proceedings of the negotiators. The writer was Oliver Ellsworth, Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Adams might occupy the chair of State, but to the Federals Hamilton was President in all but name.
Sedgwick and Gouverneur Morris, now a member of the Senate, not knowing of the communication, wrote immediately to Hamilton, acquainting him with the contents of the treaty.
It contains no stipulation for satisfaction of the injuries we have received [Sedgwick wrote in wrath]. It makes the treaty of "78 a subject for future negotiation. It engages that we shall return, in the condition they now are, all our captures. It makes neutral bottoms a protection to their cargoes, and it contains a stipulation directly in violation of the 25th article of our treaty with Great Britain. Such are the blessed effects of our mission!
These are the ripened fruits of this independent Administration!
Our friends in the Senate are not enough recovered from their astonishment to begin to reflect on the course they shall pursue.
This treaty was a far more deadly weapon in Hamilton"s hands than the entire a.r.s.enal he had manipulated in his pamphlet, for campaign literature is often pickled and retired with the salt of its readers.
But did this mission fail, did Adams lose his only chance of justification for sending the commission at all, did the Senate refuse to ratify, and war break out, or honourable terms of peace be left to the next President, then Adams"s Administration must be stamped in history as a failure, and he himself retire from office covered with ignominy. But had Hamilton not recovered his balance and trimmed to their old steady duty the wicks of those lamps whose brilliance had dimmed in a stormy hour, his statesmanship would have controlled him in such a crisis as this. He knew that the rejection of the treaty would shatter the Federal party and cause national schisms and discords; that, if left over to a Jacobin administration, the result would be still worse for the United States. It was a poor thing, but no doubt the best that could have been extracted from triumphant France; nor was it as bad in some respects as the irritated Senate would have it. Such as it was, it must be ratified, peace placed to the credit of the Federalists, and the act of the man they had made President justified. Hamilton was obliged to write a great many letters on the subject, for the Federalists found it a bitter pill to swallow; but he prevailed and they swallowed it.
Meanwhile, the Electoral College had met. Adams had received sixty-five votes, Pinckney sixty-four, Jefferson and Burr seventy-three each. That threw the decision upon the House of Representatives, for Burr refused to recognize the will of the people, and withdraw in favour of the man whom the Democratic hemisphere of American politics had unanimously elected. Burr had already lost caste with the party by his attempts to secure more votes than the leaders were willing to give him, and had alarmed Jefferson into strenuous and diplomatic effort, the while he piously folded his visible hands or discoursed upon the bones of the mammoth. When Burr, therefore, permitted the election to go to the House, he was flung out of the Democratic party neck and crop, and Jefferson treated him like a dog until he killed Hamilton, when he gave a banquet in his honour. Burr"s only chance for election lay with the Federalists, who would rather have seen horns and a tail in the Executive Chair than Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton had antic.i.p.ated their hesitation and disposition to bargain with Burr, and he bombarded them with letters from the moment the Electoral College announced the result, until the House decided the question on the 17th of February. He a.n.a.lyzed Burr for the benefit of the anxious members until the dark and poisonous little man must have haunted their dreams at night. Whether they approached Burr or not will never be known; but they were finally convinced that to bargain with a man as unfigurable as water would be throwing away time which had far better be employed in extracting pledges from Jefferson.
One of Hamilton"s letters to Gouverneur Morris, who wielded much influence in the House, is typical of many.
... Another subject. _Jefferson or Burr_? The former beyond a doubt. The latter in my judgement has no principle, public or private; could be bound by no agreement; will listen to no monitor but his ambition; and for this purpose will use the worst portion of the community as a ladder to climb to permanent power, and an instrument to crush the better part. He is bankrupt beyond redemption, except by the resources that grow out of war and disorder; or by a sale to a foreign power, or by great peculation.
War with Great Britain would be the immediate instrument. He is sanguine enough to hope everything, daring enough to attempt everything, wicked enough to scruple nothing. From the elevation of such a man may heaven preserve the country.
Let our situation be improved to obtain from Jefferson a.s.surances on certain points: the maintenance of the present system, especially on the cardinal articles of public credit--a navy, neutrality. Make any discreet use you may think fit of this letter.
He was deeply alarmed at the tendency of the excited House, which sat in continuous session from the 11th to the 17th, members sleeping on the floor and sick men brought thither on cots, one with his wife in attendance. The South was threatening civil war, and Burr"s subsequent career justified his alarm and his warnings; but in spite of his great influence he won his case with his followers by a very small margin.
They were under no delusions regarding the character of Burr, their letters to Hamilton abound in strictures almost as severe as his own, but their argument was that he was the less of two evils, that every move he made could be sharply watched. It is quite true that he would have had Federalists and Democrats in both Houses to frustrate him; but it does not seem to have occurred to the former that impeachment would have been inevitable, and Jefferson President but a year or two later than the will of the people decreed. But it was a time of terrible excitement, and for the matter of that their brains must have been a trifle clouded by the unvarying excitement of their lives. Bayard of Delaware, with whom Hamilton had fought over point by point, winning one or more with each letter, changed his vote on the last ballot from Burr to a blank. Hamilton"s friends knew that Burr would kill him sooner or later, for the ambitious man had lost his one chance of the great office; but Hamilton chose to see only the humour of the present he had made Thomas Jefferson. That sensible politician had tacitly agreed to the terms suggested by the Federalists, when they debated the possibility of accepting him, and Hamilton knew that he was far too clever to break his word at once. What Hamilton hoped for was what came to pa.s.s: Jefferson found the machinery of his new possession more to his taste than he could have imagined while sitting out in the cold, and he let it alone.
VII
Hamilton was now free to devote himself to the practice of law, with but an occasional interruption. It hardly need be stated that he kept a sharp eye on Jefferson, but for the sake of the country he supported him when he could do so consistently with his principles. More than once the President found in him an invaluable ally; and as often, perhaps, he writhed as on a hot gridiron. Hamilton came forth in the pamphlet upon extreme occasions only, but he was still the first political philosopher and writer of his time, and the Federalists would have demanded his pen upon these occasions had he been disposed to retire it. Although out of the active field of politics, he kept the best of the demoralized Federalists together, warning them constantly that the day might come when they would be called upon to reorganize a disintegrated union, and responding to the demands of his followers in Congress for advice. In local politics he continued to make himself felt in spite of the fattening ranks of Democracy. His most powerful instrument was the _New York Evening Post_, which he founded for the purpose of keeping the Federalist cause alive, and holding the enemy in check. He selected an able man as editor, William Coleman of Ma.s.sachusetts, but he directed the policy of the paper, dictating many of the editorials in the late hours of night. This journal took its position at once as the most respectable and brilliant in the country.
He also founded the Society for the Manumission of Slaves, securing as honorary member the name of Lafayette--now a n.o.bleman at large once more. But all these duties weighed lightly. For the first time in his life he felt himself at liberty to devote himself almost wholly to his practice, and it was not long before he was making fifteen thousand dollars a year. It was an immense income to make in that time, and he could have doubled it had he been less erratic in the matter of fees.
Upon one occasion he was sent eight thousand dollars for winning a suit, and returned seven. He invariably placed his own valuation upon a case, and frequently refused large fees that would have been paid with grat.i.tude. If a case interested him and the man who asked his services were poorer than himself, he would accept nothing. If he were convinced that a man was in the wrong, he would not take his case at any price. He was delighted to be able to shower benefits upon his little family, and he would have ceased to be Alexander Hamilton had he been content to occupy a second place at the bar, or in any other pursuit which engaged his faculties; but for money itself, he had only contempt. Perhaps that is the reason why he is so out of tune with the present day, and unknown to the average American.
Washington, after the retirement of John Jay, had offered Hamilton the office of Chief Justice of the United States; but Hamilton felt that the bar was more suited to his activities than the bench, and declined the gift. His legal career was as brilliant and successful as his political, but although none is more familiar to ambitious lawyers, and his position as the highest authority on const.i.tutional law has never been rivalled, his achievements of greater value to the Nation have reduced it in history to the position of an incident. There is little s.p.a.ce left, and somewhat of his personal life still to tell, but no story of Hamilton would be complete without at least a glimpse of this particular shuttle in the tireless loom of his brain. Such glimpses have by no one been so sharply given as by his great contemporary, Chancellor Kent.
He never made any argument in court [Kent relates] without displaying his habits of thinking, resorting at once to some well-founded principle of law, and drawing his deductions logically from his premises. Law was always treated by him as a science, founded on established principles.... He rose at once to the loftiest heights of professional eminence, by his profound penetration, his power of a.n.a.lysis, the comprehensive grasp and strength of his understanding, and the firmness, frankness and integrity of his character.... His manners were affable, gentle and kind; and he appeared to be frank, liberal and courteous in all his professional intercourse. [Referring to a particular case the Chancellor continues.] Hamilton by means of his fine melodious voice, and dignified deportment, his reasoning powers and persuasive address, soared far above all compet.i.tion. His preeminence was at once and universally conceded.... Hamilton returned to private life and to the practice of the law in "95. He was cordially welcomed and cheered on his return, by his fellow citizens. Between this year and 1798, he took his station as the leading counsel at the bar. He was employed in every important and every commercial case. He was a very great favourite with the merchants of New York and he most justly deserved to be, for he had shown himself to be one of the most enlightened, intrepid and persevering friends to the commercial prosperity of this country.
Insurance questions, both upon the law and fact, const.i.tuted a large portion of the litigated business in the courts, and much of the intense study and discussion at the bar. Hamilton had an overwhelming share of this business.... His mighty mind would at times bear down all opposition by its comprehensive grasp and the strength of his reasoning powers. He taught us all how to probe deeply into the hidden recesses of the science, and to follow up principles to their far distant sources. He ransacked cases and precedents to their very foundations; and we learned from him to carry our inquiries into the commercial codes of the nations of the European continent; and in a special manner to ill.u.s.trate the law of Insurance by the secure judgement of Emerigon and the luminous commentaries of Valin.... My judicial station in 1798 brought Hamilton before me in a new relation.... I was called to listen with lively interest and high admiration to the rapid exercise of his reasoning powers, the intensity and sagacity with which he pursued his investigations, his piercing criticisms, his masterly a.n.a.lysis, and the energy and fervour of his appeals to the judgement and conscience of the tribunal which he addressed. [In regard to the celebrated case of Croswell vs. the People, in the course of which Hamilton reversed the law of libel, declaring the British interpretation to be inconsistent with the genius of the American people, Kent remarks.] I have always considered General Hamilton"s argument in this cause as the greatest forensic effort he ever made. He had come prepared to discuss the points of law with a perfect mastery of the subject. He believed that the rights and liberties of the people were essentially concerned.... There was an unusual solemnity and earnestness on his part in this discussion. He was at times highly impa.s.sioned and pathetic. His whole soul was enlisted in the cause, and in contending for the rights of the Jury and a free Press, he considered that he was establishing the surest refuge against oppression.... He never before in my hearing made any effort in which he commanded higher reverence for his principles, nor equal admiration of the power and pathos of his eloquence.... I have very little doubt that if General Hamilton had lived twenty years longer, he would have rivalled Socrates or Bacon, or any other of the sages of ancient or modern times, in researches after truth and in benevolence to mankind. The active and profound statesman, the learned and eloquent lawyer, would probably have disappeared in a great degree before the character of the sage and philosopher, instructing mankind by his wisdom, and elevating the country by his example.
[Ambrose Spencer, Attorney General of the State,--afterward Chief Justice,--who did not love him, having received the benefit of Hamilton"s scathing sarcasm more than once, has this to say.]
Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country ever produced.
I knew him well. I was in situations to observe and study him. He argued cases before me while I sat as judge on the bench. Webster has done the same. In power of reasoning, Hamilton was the equal of Webster; and more than this can be said of no man. In creative power, Hamilton was infinitely Webster"s superior, and in this respect he was endowed as G.o.d endows the most gifted of our race.
If we call Shakspeare a genius or creator, because he evoked plays and character from the great chaos of thought, Hamilton merits the same appellation; for it was he, more than any other man, who thought out the Const.i.tution of the United States and the details of the Government of the Union; and out of the chaos that existed after the Revolution, raised a fabric, every part of which is instinct with his thought. I can truly say that hundreds of politicians and statesmen of the day get both the web and woof of their thoughts from Hamilton"s brains. He, more than any man, did the thinking of the time.
His fooling was as inimitable as his use of pa.s.sion and logic, and on one occasion he treated Gouverneur Morris, who was his opposing counsel, to such a prolonged attack of raillery that his momentary rival sat with the perspiration pouring from his brow, and was acid for some time after. During his earlier years of practice, while listening to Chancellor Livingston summing up a case in which eloquence was made to disguise the poverty of the cause, Hamilton scribbled on the margin of his brief: "Recipe for obtaining good t.i.tle for ejectment: two or three void patents, several _ex parte_ surveys, one or two acts of usurpation acquiesced in for the time but afterwards proved such. Mix well with half a dozen scriptural allusions, some ghosts, fairies, elves, hobgoblins, and a _quantum suff_. of eloquence." Hamilton also originated the practice of preparing "Points," now in general use.
VIII
Hamilton, after the conclusion of the great libel case in the spring of 1804, returned from Albany to New York to receive honours almost as great, if less vociferous, than those which had hailed him after the momentous Convention of 1788. Banquets were given in his honour, the bar extolled him, and the large body of his personal friends were triumphant at this new proof of his fecundity and his power over the minds of men.
They were deeply disturbed on another point, however, and several days after his arrival, Troup rode out to The Grange, Hamilton"s country-seat, to remonstrate.
Hamilton, several years since, had bought a large tract of wooded land on Harlem Heights and built him a house on the ridge. It commanded a view of the city, the Hudson, and the Sound. The house was s.p.a.cious and strong, built to withstand the winds of the Atlantic, and to shelter commodiously not only his family, but his many guests. The garden and the woods were the one hobby of his life, and with his own hands he had planted thirteen gum trees to commemorate the thirteen original States of the Union. Fortunately his deepest sorrow was not a.s.sociated with this estate; Philip had fallen before the house was finished. This brilliant youth, who had left Columbia with flying honours, had brooded over the constant attacks upon his father,--still the Colossus in the path of the Democrats, to be destroyed before they could feel secure in their new possessions,--until he had deliberately insulted the most recent offender, received his challenge, and been shot to death close to the spot where Hamilton was to fall a few years later. That was in the autumn of 1801. Hamilton"s strong brain and buoyant temperament had delivered him from the intolerable suffering of that heaviest of his afflictions, and the severe and unremitting work of his life gave him little time to brood. If he rarely lost consciousness of his bereavement, the sharpness pa.s.sed, and he was even grateful at times that his son, whose gifts would have urged him into public life, was spared the crucifying rewards of patriotism.
As Troup rode up the avenue and glanced from right to left into the heavy shades of the forest, with its boulders and ravines, its streams and mosses and ferns, then to the brilliant ma.s.s of colour at the end of the avenue, out of which rose the stately house, he sighed heavily.
"May the devil get the lot of them!" he said.
It was Sat.u.r.day, and he found Hamilton on his back under a tree, the last number of the _Moniteur_ close to his hand, his wife and Angelica looking down upon him from a rustic seat. Both the women were in mourning, and Betsey"s piquant charming face was aging; her sister Peggy and her mother had followed her son.
Hamilton had never recovered his health, and he paid for the prolonged strains upon his delicate system with a languor to which at times he was forced to yield. To-day, although he greeted the welcome visitor gaily, he did not rise, and Troup sat down on the ground with his back to the tree. As he looked very solemn, Mrs. Hamilton and Angelica inferred they were not wanted, and retired.
"Well?" said Hamilton, laughing. "What is it? What have I done now?"
"Put another nail into your coffin, we are all afraid. The story of the paper you read before the Federalist Conference in Albany is common talk; and if Burr is defeated, it will be owing to your influence, whether you hold yourself aloof from this election or not. Why do you jeopardize your life? I"d rather give him his plum and choke him with it--"
"What?" cried Hamilton, erect and alert. "Permit Burr to become Governor of New York? Do you realize that the New England States are talking of secession, that even the Democrats of the North are disgusted and alarmed at the influence and arrogance of Virginia? Burr has a certain prestige in New England on account of his father and Jonathan Edwards, and his agents have been promoting discussion of this ancestry for some time past. Do the Federalists of New York endorse him, this prestige will have received its fine finish; and New Englanders have winked his vices out of sight because Jefferson"s treatment of him makes him almost virtuous in their eyes. The moment he is Governor he will foment the unrest of New England until it secedes, and then, being the first officer of the leading State of the North, he will claim a higher office that will end in sovereignty. He fancies himself another Bonaparte, he who is utterly devoid of even that desire for fame, and that magnificence, which would make the Corsican a great man without his genius. That he is in communication with his idol, I happen to know, for he has been seen in secret conversation with fresh Jacobin spies. Now is the time to crush Burr once for all. Jefferson has intrigued the Livingstons and Clinton away from him again; the party he patched together out of hating factions is in a state of incohesion. If the Federals--"
"That is just it," interrupted Troup; "the man is desperate. So are his followers, his "little band." They were sick and gasping after Burr"s failure to receive one vote in the Republican caucus for even the Vice-Presidency, and they know that the Louisiana Purchase has made Jefferson invincible with the Democrats--or the Republicans, as Jefferson still persists in calling them. They know that Burr"s chance for the Presidency has gone for ever. So New York is their only hope.
Secession and empire or not, their hope, like his, is in the spoils of office; they are lean and desperate. If you balk them--"
"What a spectacle is this!" cried Hamilton, gaily. He threw himself back on the gra.s.s, and clasped his hands behind his head. "Troup, of all men, reproaching me for keeping a vow he once was ready to annihilate me for having broken. That offence was insignificant to the crime of supinely permitting our Catiline to accomplish his designs."
"If I could agree with you, I should be the last to counsel indifference; no, not if your life were the forfeit. But I never believed in Burr"s talent for conspiracy. He is too sanguine and visionary. He desires power, office, and emolument--rewards for his henchmen before they desert him; but I believe he"d go--or get--no farther, and the country is strong enough to stand a quack or two; while, if we lose you--"
"You will live to see every prophecy I have made in regard to Burr fulfilled. I will not, because so long as I am alive he shall not even attempt to split the Union, to whose accomplishment and maintenance I pledged every faculty and my last vital spark. Sanguine and visionary he may be, but he is also cunning and quick, and there is a condition ready to his hand at the present moment. Jefferson is bad enough, Heaven knows. He has retained our machinery, but I sometimes fancy I can hear the crumbling of the foundations; the demoralizing and the disintegrating process began even sooner than I expected. He is appealing to the meanest pa.s.sion of mankind, vanity; and the United States, which we tried to make the ideal Republic, is galloping toward the most mischievous of all establishments, Democracy. Every cowherd hopes to be President. What is the meaning of civilization, pray, if the educated, enlightened, broad-minded, are not to rule? Is man permitted to advance, progress, embellish his understanding, for his own selfish benefit, or for the benefit of mankind? And how can his superiority avail his fellows unless he be permitted to occupy the high offices of responsibility? G.o.d knows, he is not happy in his power; he is, indeed, a sacrifice to the ma.s.s. But so it was intended. He is the only sufferer, and mankind is happier."
"Jefferson and Burr both have a consummate knowledge of the limited understanding; they know how to tickle it with painted straws and bait it with lies. Bonaparte is not a greater autocrat than Jefferson, but our tyrant fools the world with his dirty old clothes and his familiarities. But I am not to be diverted. I want to keep you for my old age. I believe that you have done your part. It has been a magnificent part; there is no greater in history. Your friends are satisfied. So should you be. I want you to give up politics before it is too late. I fear more than one evil, and it has kept me awake many nights. Burr is not the only one who wishes you under ground. His "little band" is composed of men who are worse than himself without one of his talents. Any one of them is capable of stabbing you in the dark.
The Virginia Junta know that the Federalist party will exist as long as you do, and that some external menace might cohere and augment it again under your leadership. At every Federalist banquet last Fourth you were toasted as the greatest man in America; and I know this undiminished enthusiasm--as well as the influence of the _Evening Post_--alarms them deeply. They are neither great enough nor bad enough to murder you, nor even to employ someone to do it; but more than one needy rascal knows that he has only to call you out and kill you according to the code, to be rewarded with an office as soon as decency permits. There is another menace. I suppose you have heard that Mrs. Croix married a Frenchman named Stephen Jumel while you were in Albany?"
"Yes!" exclaimed Hamilton, with interest; "who is he?"
"A Parisian diamond merchant and banker, a personal friend of Bonaparte.
The belief is that he came over here as a special emissary of the Consulate. Of course he brought a letter to that other ill.u.s.trious agent, and to the amazement of everybody he married her. They must handle thousands of French money between them. France would be something more than glad to hear of your elimination from this complicated American problem; particularly, if you demonstrate your power by crushing this last hope of Burr"s. I doubt if Burr would call you out with no stronger motive than a desire for personal revenge. He is no fool, and he knows that if he kills you, he had better put a bullet through his own brain at once. He is a sanguine man, but not so sanguine as not to know that if he compa.s.sed your death, he would be hounded into exile. But he is in a more desperate way financially than ever. He can borrow no more, and his debtors are clamouring. If he is defeated in this election, and the Jumels are sharp enough to take advantage of his fury and despair,--I think she has been watching her chance for years; and the talk is, she is anxious, for her own reasons, to get rid of Burr, besides,--I believe that a large enough sum would tempt Burr to call you out--"
"He certainly is hard up," interrupted Hamilton, "for he rang my front door bell at five o"clock this morning, and when I let him in he went on like a madman and begged me to let him have several thousands, or Richmond Hill would be sold over his head."
"And you gave them to him, I suppose? How much have you lent him altogether? I know from Washington Morton that Burr borrowed six hundred dollars of you through him."
"I lent him the six hundred, partly because his desperate plight appeals to me--I believe him to be the unhappiest wretch in America--and more because I don"t want Europe laughing at the spectacle of a Vice-President of the United States in Debtor"s prison. Of course I can"t lend him this last sum myself, but I have promised to raise it for him."
"Well, I argue with you no more about throwing away money. Did you listen to what I said about Madame Jumel?"
"With the deepest interest. It was most ingenious, and does honour to your imagination." Troup, with an angry exclamation, sprang to his feet. Hamilton deftly caught him by the ankle and his great form sprawled on the gra.s.s. He arose in wrath.
"You are no older than one of your own young ones!" he began; then recovered, and resumed his seat. "This is the latest story I have heard of you," he continued: "Some man from New England came here recently with a letter to you. When he returned to his rural home he was asked if he had seen the great man. "I don"t know about the _great_" he replied; "but he was as playful as a kitten.""
Hamilton laughed heartily. "Well, let me frolic while I may," he said.
"I shall die by Burr"s hand, no doubt of that. Whether he kills me for revenge or money, that is my destiny, and I have known it for years. And it does not matter in the least, my dear Bob. I have not three years of life left in me."
IX