Alexander Hamilton Part 4

This statement has been construed to mean that Hamilton looked forward to the time when the Const.i.tution would be a.s.sailed by extremists and he would be called by events to put himself at the head of a movement for a stronger government, and perhaps even to lead an army. Several pa.s.sages in his writings, especially after the downfall of the Federalists, gave color to the view that he feared an outbreak of Jacobin violence in America, and the failure of the Const.i.tution in such an event to resist the strain which would be put upon it. In a letter to Gouverneur Morris (February 27, 1802), he drops into the following gloomy forebodings:--

"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."

This mood of despondency was not the usual mood of Hamilton. Much as he abhorred the sympathy with France shown by the Democrats and the tendency towards French ideas, his habitual temper was for combination and action rather than surrender. During the three years which followed the inauguration of Jefferson, he continued, though busy with his law practice, to keep up in private life an active correspondence with Federalist leaders throughout the country, and to advise earnest efforts to defeat Democratic policies. Only the day before the duel, in a letter to Sedgwick of Ma.s.sachusetts, he indirectly condemned a project which was on foot for a combination of the Northern States into a separate confederacy. He said that "dismemberment of our empire will be a clear sacrifice of great positive advantages without any counterbalancing good, administering no relief to our real disease, which is Democracy."

Hamilton had fears for the future of the Union under the Const.i.tution which were much exaggerated by his leanings towards a strong, self-centred government like that of Great Britain. It is not unreasonable to believe that he felt that he might again be called upon to play a great part in politics as the leader of his party, and that under the prejudices then prevailing he would weaken his personal influence if he refused a challenge. The public man of that day who could be charged with cowardice or lack of regard for his personal honor would suffer much with the ma.s.ses, if not with the party leaders, who understood his character and abilities. Hamilton hardly needed to prove his personal courage to any reasonable man after his services in the Revolution, including his reckless charge upon the redoubt at Yorktown, but political foes might forget these evidences of his character if he should tamely submit to insult from a political opponent. It is doubtful whether his purpose in meeting Burr went beyond this submission to the general prejudice in favor of dueling and the belief on his part that his position as a gentleman and a political leader required him to accept the challenge.

The high abilities and great services of Hamilton to the new Union have been sufficiently set forth in these pages to make unnecessary any elaborate estimate of his character and attainments. His essential merit was that of a constructive and organizing mind, which saw the opportunity for action and was equal to the opportunity. Hamilton was governed to a large extent by his intellect, but having reasoned out a proposition to be sound and wise, he rode resolutely to its accomplishment, taking little account of the obstacles in the way. He was not a closet philosopher, pursuing abstract propositions to their sources, and searching, through the discordant threads of human destiny, the ultimate principles of all things; but his mind was keen and alert in seizing upon reasoning which seemed obviously sound, laboring in behalf of his convictions, and presenting them with force and simplicity to others. He found the career for which he was preeminently fitted in the organization of the financial system and the consolidation of the Union, under the first administration of Was.h.i.+ngton. He was less fitted for the career of a politician in times less strenuous, or when tact and finesse were more useful in securing results than clear reasoning and strong argument.

Hamilton was cut off when he had only recently resumed his professional career, but was making a distinguished record at the bar.

Always a great lawyer, he would soon have acc.u.mulated a fortune if he had lived amid the tempting opportunities of to-day. As it was, his legal fees were modest and his sudden death left large debts. He bequeathed the request to his sons that they should a.s.sume these debts if his estate was insufficient, but the grat.i.tude of some of the wealthy Federalists relieved them of this filial obligation. Hamilton had six sons, but most of them were already approaching a self-supporting age when he died. His oldest son had fallen a victim to the barbarous practice of dueling in a petty quarrel at a theatre three years before the father's death. The fourth son, Mr. John C.

Hamilton, gave much time to the study of his father's career, and prepared the Life of Hamilton which has been the source of the later work of historians. Hamilton's widow, the daughter of General Schuyler, survived until 1854, when she died at the age of ninety-seven years and three months.

As a man in private life, Hamilton was loved and respected by those who came closest to him, but it was as much by the qualities of his mind as by the special fascinations of his manner. He commanded the respect and support of most of the leaders of his party, because they were great enough to grasp and appreciate his reasoning, but he was never the idol of the people to the same extent as many other leaders.

He would probably have made a great career in whatever direction he might have turned his high abilities, but he was fortunate in finding an opportunity for their exercise in a crisis which enabled him to render greater services to the country than have been rendered by almost any man in her history, with the exception of Was.h.i.+ngton and Lincoln.

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