Читать книгу Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature - Charles C. Bombaugh - Страница 33

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In discussing the qualities of the founders of our republic, Colonel T. W. Higginson draws a good portraiture of Alexander Hamilton.^[1] Washington being President, Adams and Jay having also been assigned to office, there naturally followed the two men who had contributed most in their different ways to the intellectual construction of the nation. Hamilton and Jefferson were brought together in the Cabinet,—the one as Secretary of the Treasury, the other as Secretary of State,—not because they agreed, but because they differed. Tried by all immediate and temporary tests, it is impossible to deny to Hamilton the position of leading intellect during the constitutional period; and his clear and cogent ability contrasts strongly with the peculiar mental action, always fresh and penetrating, but often lawless and confused, of his great rival. Hamilton was more coherent, more truthful, more combative, more generous, and more limited. His power was as an organizer and advocate of measures, and this is a less secure passport to fame than lies in the announcement of great principles. The difference between Hamilton and Jefferson on questions of finance and State rights was only the symbol of a deeper divergence. The contrast between them was not so much in acts as in theories; not in what they did, but in what they dreamed. Both had their visions, and held to them ardently, but the spirit of the nation was fortunately stronger than either; it made Hamilton support a republic against his will, and made Jefferson acquiesce, in spite of himself, in a tolerably vigorous national government.

There is not a trace of evidence that Hamilton ever desired to bring about a monarchy in America. He no doubt believed the British constitution to be the most perfect model of government ever devised by man, but it is also true that he saw the spirit of the American people to be wholly republican; all his action was based on the opinion that “the political principle of this country would endure nothing but republican government.” He believed—very reasonably, so far as the teachings of experience went—that a republic was an enormous risk to run, and that this risk must be diminished by making the republic as much like a monarchy as possible. If he could have had his way, only holders of real estate would have had the right to vote for President and Senators, and these would have held office for life, or at least during good behavior; the President would have appointed all the governors of States, and they would have had a veto on all State legislation. All this he announced in Congress with the greatest frankness, and having thus indicated his ideal government, he accepted what he could get, and gave his great powers to carrying out a constitution about which he had serious misgivings. On the other hand, if Jefferson could have had his way, national organization would have been a shadow. He accepted the constitution as a necessary evil.

“Hamilton and I,” wrote Jefferson, “were pitted against each other every day in the Cabinet, like two fighting-cocks.” The first passage between them was the only one in which Hamilton had clearly the advantage of his less practised antagonist, making Jefferson, indeed, the instrument of his own defeat. The transfer of the capital to the banks of the Potomac was secured by the first of many compromises between the Northern and Southern States, after a debate in which the formidable slavery question showed itself often, as it had shown itself at the very formation of the constitution. The removal of the capital was clearly the price paid by Hamilton for Jefferson’s acquiescence in his first great financial measure. This measure was the national assumption of the State debts to an amount not to exceed twenty millions. It was met by vehement opposition, partly because it bore very unequally on the States, but mainly on the ground that the claims were in the hands of speculators, and were greatly depreciated. Yet it was an essential part of that great series of financial projects on which Hamilton’s fame must rest, even more than on his papers in the Federalist—though these secured the adoption of the Constitution. Three measures—the assumption of the State debts, the funding act, and the national bank—were what changed the bankruptcy of the new nation into solvency and credit. There may be question as to the good or bad precedents established by these enactments; but there can be no doubt as to their immediate success.

It is difficult to say what this accomplished man might have done as a leader of the Federal opposition to the Democratic administrations of Jefferson and Madison, had he not, in the maturity of his years, and in the full vigor of his faculties, been murdered by Aaron Burr. Nothing can better illustrate the folly of the practice of dueling than the fact that, by a weak compliance with its maxims, the most eminent of American statesmen died by the hand of the most infamous of American demagogues.