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James Kent to Elizabeth Hamilton, 1832

New York, December 10, 1832.

To Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton:

Dear Madam, —You have requested of me "a detailed reply to the several queries subjoined," and you express a hope that you may not in that request "be regarded as asking more than my friendship to your father and husband would readily grant." I beg leave to assure you that it is sufficient that the application comes from the daughter of General Schuyler and the widow of General Hamilton, to make it command all the information within my power to impart; and I have only to regret that neither my memory nor the materials before me are sufficient to meet the extent of my wishes or to equal your expectations. The following are the questions you have proposed: —

1 . "Your early acquaintance with my husband — when, and the circumstances of it?"

2. "His appearance and manners then?"

3. "Any facts connected with his history at the Bar before he went into the Treasury, or on his return from it?"

4. "Incidents connected with his services in the Convention at Poughkeepsie, and his last speech there?"

5. "Its effects on the decision of the Convention?"

6. "His characteristic manner of speaking; also the manner of Mr. Jay, Chancellor Livingston, and the principal opponents?"

7. "My father's agency in adopting the Constitution, and Judge Benson's?"

8. "Any anecdotes illustrative of his character or strong expressions?"

There are some points mentioned in those queries on which I have not the requisite information, but as you request me not to consider the inquiries as "limiting the answers," and as you suggest that my "information will relate mostly to his political and civil life," I cannot complain that you have not given me "ample room and verge enough." I shall therefore, with your permission, instead of a special and narrow reply to each question, return one general answer embracing the whole range of inquiry, and endeavor to give a brief but faithful detail of the professional and political life of your eminent husband, so far as the same came within my own knowledge or contemporary observation. It will be convenient, and will tend to give method and perspicuity to my recollections, if we divide the historical sketches of your husband's life in the following manner: —

1 . From my first personal knowledge of General Hamilton, in 1782, to the call of the Convention in 1787.

2. His services in relation to the origin and adoption of the Federal Constitution.

3. His subsequent life.

I.

My personal acquaintance with General Hamilton did not commence until some time after the conclusion of the American War, but I was not then ignorant of the character which he had long sustained, nor of the reputation which he had acquired by his talents and services. While I was a clerk in the office of Egbert Benson, the Attorney-General, as early as 1782, I heard it said that he was the author of some essays which had recently appeared in one of the public prints under the signature of The Continentalist; the purport of which was to show that the powers of Congress under the confederation were insufficient and ought to be enlarged. Those essays I never saw, but General Hamilton attracted my particular observation as early as July, 1782, when he was appointed a delegate in Congress from this State. The Legislature was then sitting at Poughkeepsie, where I resided, and there I saw him for the first time, though I was too young and too obscure to seek or to merit any personal acquaintance. He was in company with Mr. Benson and Colonel Lawrence, and his animated and didactic conversation, far superior to ordinary discourse in sentiment, language, and manner, and his frank and manly deportment interested and engrossed my attention.

In pursuance of that appointment he took his seat in Congress for the first time in the November following, and we there find him promptly and efficiently engaged in the promotion of measures calculated to relieve the embarrassed state of the public finances, and to avert the difficulties and dangers which beset the Union of the States. His efforts to reanimate the powers of the Confederation, and to infuse life, vigor, and credit into that languishing system, were incessant and masterly; and he was sustained in all his views and assisted in all his measures by his friend and illustrious coadjutor, James Madison, Jun. Other members of Congress at that period may have been entitled to an equal share of merit, but their services do not appear to have been equally conspicuous and distinguished.

The proceedings of Congress took a new and more decided tone and character while he was a present and active member, between November, 1782, and July, 1783. Within that period a series of active, intrepid, untiring, but fruitless, efforts were made to render the National Government under the Articles of Confederation adequate to the support of the Union. It is necessary that we should make a slight reference to the prominent proceedings in Congress, during the session I refer to, in order to perceive clearly and appreciate justly the high character of those efforts, which led on, step by step, to the renewal and consolidation of our Union, and to that rapid and glorious elevation of our country which distinguished the administration of Washington. Thus, on the 6th December, 1782, a motion was made by Mr. Hamilton and carried, that the Superintendent of Finance represent to the Legislatures of the several States, the indispensable necessity of complying with the requisitions of Congress for raising specified sums of money towards paying a year's interest on the domestic debt of the United States, and defraying the estimated expenses for the year ensuing; and to assure them that Congress was determined to make the fullest justice to the public creditors an invariable object of their counsels and exertion.

On the 11th of the same month he was chairman of a committee which reported the form of an application to the Governor of Rhode Island, urging in most persuasive terms the necessity and reasonableness of a concurrence on the part of that State in the grant to Congress of a general import duty of five per cent, in order to raise a fund for the discharge of the public debt. The application was to be accompanied with an assurance that such a grant was the most efficacious, the most expedient, and the most unexceptionable plan of finance that Congress could devise for the occasion; and that the increasing discontents of the army, the loud clamors of the public creditors, and the extreme disproportion between the current supplies and the demands of the public service were so many invincible arguments for the fund recommended by Congress; and that calamities of the most menacing nature might be anticipated if that expedient should fail.

So again, on the 16th December, Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Madison, and Mr. Fitzsimmons made a report of a very superior character in relation to the national finances, and in answer to the objections of the Legislature of Rhode Island against the grant of a general impost. The same discussion was afterwards renewed on the 30th January, 1783, by the report of a committee of which Mr. Hamilton was a member, in which it was stated that Congress had long been deeply impressed with the absolute necessity of taking measures to liquidate the public debts, and to secure the payment of interest until the principal could be discharged; and that the inability of Congress to perform its engagements with the public creditors, under the defective compliance of the States, was most apparent. Congress conceived it to be its duty to persevere in its intentions, and to renew and extend its endeavors to procure the establishment of revenues equal to the purpose of funding all the debts of the United States.

On the 20th March, 1783, Mr. Hamilton submitted a plan and recommendation of a duty of five per cent ad valorem on imported goods, and a land and house tax, to create funds for the discharge of the debts of the Union; for they had been created, as he observed, on the faith of Congress, for the common safety, and it was its duty to make every effort in its power for doing complete justice to the public creditors. He likewise, on the 2 2d of March, as chairman of a committee, reported in favor of a grant of five years' full pay to the officers of the army, as a commutation for the half pay for life promised them by Congress.

At last, on the 18th of April, 1783, Congress finally agreed to recommend to the States a grant of power for twenty-five years to levy specified duties on imported goods, to be applied exclusively to the discharge of the principal and interest of the debts contracted on the faith of the United States for supporting the War, and that other funds for the same purposes be supplied by the States. Mr. Madison, Mr. Ellsworth, and Mr. Hamilton were the committee who reported an address to the States, to accompany the resolution of the 18th of April; and it is rare that the records of the United States furnish the example of a document more replete with sound argument, or which equals it in pathetic and eloquent exhortations. But the exertions of Mr. Hamilton did not cease, nor was the patience of Congress exhausted, in suggesting and adopting measures to preserve the public faith and maintain the dignity and authority of the Government. The master spirits which animated and swayed the deliberations of Congress had the merit at least of unconquerable perseverance, and of preserving the national honor, while every other valuable attribute of power was lost.

On the 2d May, 1783, Mr. Hamilton moved a resolution calling upon the States in the most earnest manner to make such payments into the common treasury as might enable Congress to advance to the officers and soldiers of the army a part of their pay before they left the field, that they might return to their respective homes with convenience and satisfaction. He was also one of the committee which reported. The resolution that the non-commissioned officers and soldiers enlisted for the period of the War be allowed their firearms and accoutrements, as an extra reward for their long and faithful services. Nor was this the only occasion in which Colonel Hamilton recollected the gratitude that was due for services in the field. On the 30th December, 1782, he was chairman of the committee which reported resolutions highly honorable to Major-General the Baron de Steuben. The sacrifices and services of that very meritorious officer, says the report, were deemed justly to entitle him to the distinguished notice of Congress, and to a generous compensation.

On other subjects General Hamilton, while he held a seat in Congress, showed equal solicitude for the preservation of the public faith, and the safety and authority of the Union. He was chairman of the committee which, on the 30th May, 1783, introduced the resolution calling upon the States to remove every legal obstruction under their local jurisdictions, in the way of the active and faithful execution of the fourth and sixth Articles of the Treaty of Peace; and that all future confiscations and prosecutions for acts done during the War should cease; and that the several States be requested to conform to the fifth article of the Treaty with that spirit of moderation and liberality which ought to characterize the measures of a free and enlightened nation. His anxiety to preserve the internal peace of the Confederacy was manifest by the resolution, which he seconded and supported, that the people of the district called the New Hampshire Grants—then, in point of fact, assuming to be an independent State—be desired to cease to molest the persons or property of those inhabitants who did not acknowledge their jurisdiction; and that, on the other hand, the persons holding commissions under New York also forbear to exercise any authority under the same, to the end that things might remain as they were until a decision could peaceably be made in the controversy. He was likewise chairman of the committee which stated the efforts which had been made on the part of Congress to suppress the mutinous proceedings of part of the troops of the United States, who had insulted Congress, and which eventually compelled them, from the want of sufficient protection from the executive council of Pennsylvania, to remove from Philadelphia to Princeton in New Jersey.

I have alluded to these documentary proofs as affording the most authentic and the most honorable testimony to the spirit and intelligence with which General Hamilton devoted himself, as early as the year 1782 and 1783, and at his own youthful age of twenty-five, to the support of the integrity and welfare of the Union. And it will abundantly appear, in the subsequent history of his life, that his zeal for the establishment of a national government, competent to preserve us from insult abroad and dissensions at home, and equally well fitted to uphold credit, to preserve liberty, and to cherish our resources, kept increasing; and that his views grew more and more enlarged and comprehensive as we approached the crisis of our destiny. It will hereafter appear, in the course of these narrative recollections, that he did more with his pen and his tongue than any other man, not only in reference to the origin and adoption of the Federal Constitution, but also to create and establish public credit, and defend the Government and its measures, under the wise and eventful administration of Washington,

Though I was not, at the time, conscious of the distinguished merit of General Hamilton as a member of Congress, yet his high character for genius, wisdom, and eloquence was everywhere known and acknowledged, and when, in the winter of 1784, his pamphlet productions under the signature of Phocion appeared, they excited a general sensation. They were addressed "to the considerate citizens of New York," and their object was to protect the rights of all classes of persons inhabiting the Southern District of the State; to put a stop to every kind of prospective policy, and to the creation of legislative disabilities and bills of attainder, as being equally incompatible with the obligations of the Treaty of Peace, the principles of the Constitution, and the dictates of policy. The appeal to the good sense and patriotism of the public was not in vain. It was unanswerable and irresistible. "The force of plain truth carried the work along against the stream of prejudice," and it overcame every obstacle,

A counter pamphlet, under the signature of Mentor, written by Doctor Isaac Ledyard, and representing the inhabitants of the Southern District who had remained within the enemy's lines as aliens, subject to penalties and disabilities in the discretion of the Legislature, was entirely demolished. A bill before the House of Assembly for putting various descriptions of persons out of the protection of government was abandoned. The rising generation, then just entering on the stage of action, readily imbibed those sentiments of temperate civil liberty and of sound constitutional law which he had so clearly taught and so eloquently inculcated. The benign influence of such doctrines was happily felt and retained through the whole course of the generation to whom they were addressed. I speak for myself, as one of that generation, that no hasty productions of the press could have been more auspicious.

In the summer of 1784 Colonel Hamilton attended the Circuit Court at Poughkeepsie, and I had then an opportunity, for the first time, of seeing him at the Bar as a counsellor addressing the court and jury. It was an interesting country circuit. Colonel Lawrence of New York, Peter W. Yates of Albany, Egbert Benson (my revered preceptor, and who still lives, a venerable monument of the wisdom, the integrity, the patriotism, and the intrepidity of the sages of the Revolution), and some other gentlemen of the profession, whose names I do not now recollect, attended the court. I was struck with the clear, elegant, and fluent style and commanding manner of Hamilton. At that day everything in law seemed to be new. Our judges were not remarkable for law learning. We had no precedents of our own to guide us. English books of practice, as well as English decisions, were resorted to and studied with the scrupulous reverence due to oracles. Nothing was settled in our courts. Every point of practice had to be investigated, and its application to our courts and institutions questioned and tested. Mr. Hamilton thought it necessary to produce authorities to demonstrate and to guide the power of the court, even in the now familiar case of putting off a cause for the circuit, and to show that the power was to be exercised, as he expressed it, " in sound discretion and for the furtherance of justice." He never made any argument in court in any case without displaying his habits of thinking, and 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. His manners were gentle, affable, and kind, and he appeared to be frank, liberal, and courteous in all his professional intercourse. This was my impression at the time.

General Hamilton was employed, while at that circuit, by Major Brown, to defend him on the trial of a suit in trover or trespass then pending, for seizing and converting to his own use British goods, under the pretence that they were the result of illicit commerce with the enemy. The country, towards the dose of the American War, was exceedingly destitute of clothing and of all the comforts and conveniences which British manufactures had formerly afforded us. The high price of British goods of all kinds and the wants of the country rendered the temptation to illicit trade with the enemy almost irresistible. The Congress of the United States and the Legislatures of New York and some other States vainly endeavored, by ordinances and statutes imposing confiscations and penalties, to put a stop to the corrupt and pernicious traffic. The defendant in the case alluded to had been concerned in the seizure of goods alleged to be of that description, though it was understood at that day that there was generally as much of a predatory and lawless spirit in the persons who seized as in those who traded in the noxious goods. The cause became very interesting. Peter W. Yates, one of the leading counsel for the plaintiff, was subtle, acute, dry, and practical, and he exceeded my highest expectations Colonel Lawrence was graceful, fluent, and ingenious; but Colonel Hamilton, by means of his fine melodious voice and dignified deportment, his reasoning powers and persuasive address, soared far above all competition. His pre-eminence was at once and universally conceded. He was pressed by his client to appeal to the feelings of the jury in favor of the poor and meritorious Whigs, against the secret enemies of their country, in the character of traders in British goods. I heard him say, at the time, that he would never be found contending against the principles of Phocion, and that he told his anxious client that he could not gratify him to the extent of his wishes. He made, notwithstanding, in point of fact, whether he was conscious of it or not, an animated and powerful appeal to the passions and prejudices of the jury. The audience listened with admiration to his impassioned eloquence, and they were almost ready to yield to the truth of the suggestion which he threw into his address, that a British statesman had remarked that the true way to slacken the zeal and break down the stern devotedness of the American Whigs was to open upon them the flood-gates of commerce.

In January, 1785, 1 attended for the first time the term of the Supreme Court at Albany and was admitted an attorney; and I had the satisfaction to see General Hamilton come forward as an advocate on a much greater occasion, and with distinguished luster. The case I allude to was the following: Chancellor Livingston claimed lands lying on the south bounds of the lower manor of Livingston, and the claim was large in amount of property. In an ejectment suit brought by Chancellor Livingston, as plaintiff, against Hoffman, the cause was tried at the bar of the Supreme Court at Albany, in October term, 1784; and though Mr. Hamilton was one of the counsel for the defendant, he was not one of the counsel assigned to sum up the cause before the jury. The cause was tried with great ability by Mr. Ogden of New Jersey and Mr. Benson, the Attorney-General, on behalf of the defendant. Chancellor Livingston appeared at the bar as an advocate in his own case, and his concluding address to the jury was said to contain a boldness of illustration and a burst of eloquence never before witnessed at our Bar. He rebuked severely the opposite counsel for their attacks on the character of one of his ancestors, relative to the early Grants of the Manor, and for "raking the ashes of the dead in the presence of a great-grandson." He brought his ancestor up from the grave and led him into court to speak for himself, by a daring metaphor which surprised and confounded the audience as well as the jury. He carried his cause, as it were, by a coup de main and obtained a verdict, rather by the weight of his character, and the charm and power of his eloquence, than by the force of evidence, or the merits of the case.

A new trial was moved for in January term, 1785, on the ground that the verdict was against the evidence. Mr. Benson, Colonel Lawrence, and Colonel Hamilton were in favor of the motion, and Mr. (afterward Chancellor) Lansing and Chancellor Livingston resisted it. I had the pleasure of being present at the argument, and was a witness of the contest of talent and eloquence between Chancellor Livingston and Colonel Hamilton, the brilliant and master spirits who controlled on that occasion. All the cases and reasons contained in the modem English decisions, and especially those which arose in the time of Lord Mansfield, and which are so well digested and elegantly illustrated in the third volume of Blackstone's Commentaries, were cited and urged in support of the motion.

The Chancellor contended, on the other hand, that no single authority was to be found in support of the motion, in the case of a trial and verdict at bar in term time, and that the opposite counsel, in order to make out their case, were obliged to select parts from each of several cases, and to make up a piece of diversified mosaic,—a motley compound, destitute equally of symmetry and law. He compared the efforts of his opponents to the construction of their father's will by Peter Martin and Jack in The Tale of the Tub, and who had found an authority for the use of shoulder-knots by picking out single letters in different parts of the instrument. He made a warm and declamatory eulogy upon trial by jury, and denounced with equal vehemence the judicial authority of Lord Mansfield. He considered that the trial by jury, with all the other great leading principles of English liberty, came from their German ancestors, and that a disposition existed in the then Government of England to undermine their Saxon liberties, and especially the inestimable trial by jury. No Englishman, he observed, was found worthy of the task; a Scotchman must be selected, who had the talents, subtlety, and love of power calculated to produce the effect; and the new-fangled doctrines of Lord Mansfield had enlarged and refined upon the power of awarding new trials, so as at last to resolve the trial by jury into the discretion of the court. Our constitution had guarded against the dangerous innovation by declaring that the trial by jury as hereafter used should be inviolate forever. And yet, no sooner had we established our independence and organized our courts than the pernicious doctrines alluded to were to be adopted and called into action. " What would be the exclamation of the Genius of Liberty, if she were now present in this assembly, and saw the same gentlemen who had so honorably wielded the sword of war in her defence now wielding the arbitrary decrees of Lord Mansfield for her destruction."

The tall and graceful person of Chancellor Livingston, and his polished wit and classical taste, contributed not a little to deepen the impression resulting from the ingenuity of his argument, the vivacity of his imagination, and the dignity of his station. Mr. Hamilton had never before met and encountered at the Bar such a distinguished opponent. He appeared to be agitated with intense reflection. His lips were in constant motion and his pen rapidly employed during the Chancellor's address to the court. He rose with dignity and spoke for perhaps two hours in support of his motion. His reply was fluent and was accompanied with great earnestness of manner and emphasis of expression. It was marked by a searching and accurate analysis of the cases and a thorough and familiar acquaintance with all the law and learning applicable to the subject. He begged leave to suggest, in reference to the same Tale of the Tub that the Chancellor's interest had blinded his better judgment, and, like Peter's influence over his brother, had turned the brown loaf into mutton. He illustrated the fact that the power of awarding new trials in the discretion of the court had been recognized before the time of Lord Mansfield, and that it was a very reasonable and necessary power, and a vast amelioration and improvement of the trial by jury in property concerns. Without such a salutary control, the rights of property would be unsafe and at the sport of ignorance and prejudice; and trial by jury, instead of being deemed a blessing, would excite the disgust and contempt of mankind. The court had no concern with the political opinions of Lord Mansfield, but it was due to truth to say that his profound learning, clear intellect, and admirable judgment had elevated and adorned the jurisprudence of England; and by his wisdom and purity, while presiding over the English administration of law, he had deservedly gained the reverence of his own age, and his fame would rest in the admiration of posterity.

It was some time before I had another opportunity of hearing Colonel Hamilton speak, I was as yet unknown to him, and as I continued to reside for several years at Poughkeepsie, I did not usually attend the terms of the Supreme Court, either at New York or Albany. Mr. Hamilton was called again into public life, on being elected a member of the Assembly for the City of New York, in April, 1786. The destinies of this country were at that time rapidly approaching a crisis. The Confederation of the States was essentially dissolved, and at the session of the Legislature, in the winter of 1787, the active mind and intrepid spirit of Hamilton were displayed in various efforts to surmount difficulties and avert the dangers which surrounded us. The State of Vermont was then in the exercise of independent sovereignty, though not recognized in that capacity. His object was to relieve the State and nation from such a perilous state of things, and he introduced a bill into the House of Assembly, renewing the jurisdiction of this State over the territory in question, and preparing the way for the admission of that State into the Union. The owners of lands in Vermont, under grants from New York, considered their vested interests to be put in jeopardy by the bill, and they were permitted to be heard by counsel at the bar of the House in opposition to it. Richard Harrison addressed the House in a very interesting speech, in which he insisted that the State was bound to employ all the means in its power to recover and protect the rights and property of its citizens, and that, if it was deemed inexpedient to apply force, the State was morally bound and was abundantly able to indemnify its citizens for the loss of their property.

He excited great attention and respect by the perspicuity and strength of his argument, and the suavity of his manner and address. Mr. Hamilton promptly met and answered, in behalf of the House, all the objections to the bill, and he showed, with his usual ability and familiar knowledge of the principles of public law, that the case was one in which the State was dismembered by force without the power to prevent it. Remonstrances had been exhausted. It was in fact a revolution, and it was not the duty of the State, nor was she bound by the fundamental principles of the social compact, to engage in a crusade which must prove disastrous and fruitless, or to undertake to indemnify the claimants in a case of such magnitude.

In this same session Mr. Hamilton made great and manly efforts to prop up and sustain the tottering fabric of the Confederation, and the fallen dignity of Congress. In his comments upon Governor Clinton's speech, he sharply rebuked him for refusing to call the Legislature at the special and earnest request of Congress, to take into consideration their recommendation of a grant of an impost to pay the national debt. He regarded the refusal as heaping fresh marks of contempt upon their authority. He pressed upon the House the necessity of complying with the recommendation of Congress. His speech on that subject was taken down in shorthand by Francis Childs and published at large in his daily paper. It was received and perused with very great interest. I well remember how much it was admired, for the comprehensive views which it took of the state of the nation, the warm appeals which it made to the public patriotism, the imminent perils which it pointed out, and the absolute necessity which it showed of some such financial measure to rescue the nation from utter ruin and disgrace.

His argument was left unanswered, without an attempt to reply to it, and the proposition to accede to the grant to Congress of the impost was rejected by a silent vote. But a new era was at hand. The public mind had become prepared for a reorganization and enlargement of the powers of the National Government. General Hamilton was destined to display his exalted talents, and his ardent devotedness to his country's glory, on a broader theater and in a more illustrious course of public action. In this same session he was appointed one of the three delegates from this State to the General Convention recommended by Congress to be held at Philadelphia in May, 1787. The sole and express purpose of that convention was to revise the Articles of Confederation, and report to Congress such alterations as should, when agreed to, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union.

II

The second branch of the inquiry brings me to consider the services of General Hamilton in relation to the origin and adoption of the Federal Constitution. I never had any means of information respecting the extent and merit of those services, except such as were accessible to the public at large. It was a remark of the Hon. W. S. Johnson, who was a member of the Convention from Connecticut (and which remark was mentioned to me from a very authentic source about that period, though I cannot now recollect the precise time), that if the Constitution should prove to be a failure, Mr. Hamilton would be less responsible than any other member, for he frankly pointed out to the Convention what he apprehended to be its infirmities; and that, on the other hand, if it should operate well, the nation would be more indebted to him than to any other individual, for no one labored more faithfully than he did^ nor with equal activity, to give the Constitution a fair trial, by guarding against every evil tendency, and by clothing it with ail the attributes and stability requisite for its safety and success, and compatible with the principles of the republican theory.

This was the substance, though I cannot give the exact words of the remark, and it is confirmed by all our con temporary information. Mr. Hamilton's avowed object was to make the experiment of a great federative republic, moving in the largest sphere and resting entirely on a popular basis, as complete, satisfactory, and decisive as possible. He considered the best interests and happiness of mankind as deeply, and perhaps finally, involved in the experiment. He knew and said that no other government but a republic would be admitted or endured in this country. Experimental propositions were made in the Convention and received as suggestions for consideration, and he has stated himself that the highest-toned proposition which he ever made was that the President and Senate should be elected by electors chosen by the people, and that they, as well as the judges, should hold their offices during good behavior, and that the House of Representatives should be elected triennially.

But his opinion essentially changed during the progress of the discussions, and he became satisfied that it would be dangerous to the public tranquility to elect, by popular elections, a Chief Magistrate with so permanent a tenure; and toward the close of the convention his subsequent plan gave to the office of President a duration of only three years. He remained with the Convention to the last, though his colleagues, Robert Yates and John Lansing, Junior, had left it some weeks before; singly representing this State, he heartily assented to and signed the Constitution. It appears to me, therefore, that his friend Gouverneur Morris did him great injustice when he represented him, according to the correspondence contained in Mr. Sparks' "Life of Gouveneur Morris," as having " had little share in forming the Constitution," and as " hating republican government, because he confounded it with democratical government." All the documentary proof and the current observation at the time, lead us to the conclusion that he surpassed all his contemporaries in his exertions to create, recommend, adopt, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

All his actions and all his writings as a public man show that he was the uniform, ardent, and inflexible friend of justice and of national civil liberty. He had fought for our republic during the American War. In his early production as Phocio7i he declared that " the noble struggle we had made in the cause of liberty, had occasioned a kind of revolution in human sentiment; we had the greatest advantages for promoting it that ever a people had; the influence of our example had penetrated the gloomy regions of despotism, and had pointed the way to inquiries which might shake it to its deepest foundations." That immortal work The Federalist is the most incontestable evidence of his fervent attachment to the liberties of this country, and of his extreme solicitude for the honor and success of the republican system. His recorded speeches in the State Convention, as taken down in short hand at the time by Mr. Childs, and written out by him in the evenings at my house, contain the same sentiments, coming fresh and fervent from his own lips. "I presume I shall not be disbelieved," he said, "when I declare, that the establishment of a republican government, on a safe and solid basis, is an object of all others the nearest and most dear to my heart."

General Hamilton confound republican with democratical government! It is contradicted by the whole tenor of his life. While he admitted that the petty republics of Greece and Italy were kept in a state of perpetual vibration between the extremes of tyranny and anarchy, he declared, in the 9th number of The Federalist, that " the efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not know-n at all or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; the introduction of legislative balances and checks; the institution of courts composed of judges holding their offices during good behavior ; the representation of the people in the Legislature by deputies of their own election, —these are means, and powerful means, by which the excellences of republican government may be retained and its imperfections lessened or avoided." If he doubted of its success, from his knowledge of history and his profound reflections upon the infirmities and corrupt passions of mankind, he was none the less anxious to meet those inherent difficulties, by a skillful and judicious structure of the republican machinery of government. Nor ought it to be forgotten that one of the last proofs which he gave of his inextinguishable devotion to the popular rights of his countrymen was his gratuitous and glorious forensic effort in favor of trial by jury and the liberty of the press.

At the October term of the Supreme Court at Albany, in 1787, I was, for the first time, personally introduced to Colonel Hamilton. I had the honor of dining at your father's house, in company with him and several other gentlemen, and as the new Constitution had just then appeared, it was of course the engrossing topic of conversation.

I was a fixed and diffident listener, without presuming to intrude at all into the discussions of such sages. General Schuyler was full of lively, spirited, and instructive reflections, and he went into details, showing, in his usual calculating manner, the great expense and complicated provisions of our local financial systems, and the order, simplicity, and economy that would attend one national system of revenue.

Mr. Hamilton appeared to be careless and desultory in his remarks, and it occurred to me afterwards how little did I then suppose that he was deeply meditating the plan of the immortal work of The Federalist. In the latter part of the same month of October, the essays which compose the volumes of The Federalist were commenced in the New York papers. Three or four numbers were published in the course of a week, and they were not concluded until nearly the time of the New York Convention in June, 1788.

Those essays, as they successively appeared, were sought after and read, with the greatest avidity and constantly increasing admiration, by all persons favorable to the adoption of the Constitution. Colonel Hamilton was very soon and very generally understood to be the sole, or the principal, author. As the small and humble Poughkeepsie Journal was an incompetent vehicle for the republication of them, I undertook at first to make an abridgment, or abstract, of them for that paper, and it was the only newspaper then printed in this State, out of the cities of New York and Albany; but this was soon found to be impracticable, and that if it could be done they would lose all their interest and effect. The essays had grown in number sufficient for a small volume early in the spring of 1788, and the first part of them, to the extent of thirty-six numbers, were collected and reprinted, and a large number of the volumes were sent to me at Poughkeepsie for gratuitous distribution. My former master, mentor, and friend, Judge Benson, attended with me a county meeting in Dutchess, called for the nomination of delegates to the Convention, and the volumes were there circulated to the best of our judgments.

The essays composing The Federalist made, at the time, a wonderful impression upon reflecting men. The necessity and importance of the union of the States, the utter incompetency of the Articles of Confederation to maintain that union, their fundamental and fatal defects, the infirmities which seemed to be inherent in all ancient and modem confederacies, and the disasters which had usually attended them, and finally, the absolute necessity of a government organized upon the principles, and clothed with the powers and attributes of that which was then presented to the judgment of the American people, —were all of them topics of vast magnitude and affecting most deeply all our foreign and domestic concerns. They were discussed in a masterly manner, and with a talent, strength, information, and eloquence to which we had not been accustomed. The appeal to the good sense and patriotism of the country was not made in vain. It usually met with a warm reception in frank and liberal minds, not blinded by prejudice, nor corrupted by self-interest, nor enslaved by party discipline.

The New York Convention assembled at Poughkeepsie on the 17th June, 1788. It formed the most splendid constellation of the sages and patriots of the Revolution which I had ever witnessed, and the intense interest with which the meeting of the Convention was anticipated and regarded can now scarcely be conceived and much less felt. As I then resided in that village, I laid aside all other business and avocations, and attended the Convention as a spectator, daily and steadily, during the whole six weeks of its session, and was an eye and an ear witness to everything of a public nature that was done or said.

The Convention was composed of sixty-five members, and of them nineteen were Federalists, or in favor of the adoption of the Constitution, and forty- six were Anti- Federalists, or against the adoption of it without pre\nous amendments. Not a member of that Convention is now living. The remark will equally apply, as I believe, with but one exception besides myself, to every man who was then a housekeeper in the village or its environs. That bright and golden age of the Republic may now be numbered “with the years beyond the flood," and I am left almost alone, to recall and enjoy the enchanting vision.

The Convention combined the talents, experience, and weight of character of some of the most distinguished men in the State. Most of them had been disciplined in the discussions, services, and perils of the Revolution. The principal speakers on the Federal side were Mr. Jay (then Secretary for Foreign Affairs), Chancellor Livingston, Mr. Duane (then Mayor of New York), Mr. Harrison, and Colonel Hamilton. On the other side they were the elder Governor Clinton, Mr. (afterwards Chancellor) Lansing, Mr. Jones (afterwards Recorder of New York) , John Williams of Washington County, and Gilbert Livingston and Melancthon Smith, delegates from Dutchess. There was no difficulty in deciding at once on which side of the house the superiority in debate existed, yet in the ordinary range of the discussion, it was found that the dignity, candor, and strength of Jay, the polished address and elegant erudition of Chancellor Livingston, the profound sagacity and exhaustive researches of Hamilton, were met with equal pretensions by their opponents, supported by the simplicity and unpretending good sense of Clinton, the popular opinions and plausible deductions of Lansing, the metaphysical mind, prepossessing plainness, and embarrassing subtleties of Smith.

Mr. Hamilton maintained the ascendency on every question, and being the only person present who had signed the Constitution, he felt and sustained the weight of the responsibility which belonged to his party. He was indisputably pre-eminent, and all seemed, as by a common consent, to concede to him the burden and the honor of the debate. Melancthon Smith was equally the most prominent and the most responsible speaker on the Anti-Federal side of the Convention. There was no person to be compared to him in his powers of acute and logical discussion. He was Mr. Hamilton's most persevering and formidable antagonist.

But even Smith was routed in every contest. As Hamilton had been a leading member of the National Convention and a leading writer of The Federalist, his mind had become familiar with the principles of Federal government and with every topic of debate, and it was prompt, ardent, energetic, and overflowing with an exuberance of argument and illustration. The three principal topics of discussion in which Mr. Hamilton was most distinguished and most masterly, were: (1) On the importance of the Union, the defects of the Confederation, and the just principles of representation. (2) On the requisite tenure and stability of the Senate, (3) On the power of taxation, and the reserved rights of the States. On each of these subjects he bestowed several speeches, some of which were employed in refutation and reply.

He generally spoke with much animation and energy and with considerable gesture. His language was clear, nervous, and classical. His investigations penetrated to the foundation and reason of every doctrine and principle which he examined, and he brought to the debate a mind filled with all the learning and precedents applicable to the subject. He never omitted to meet, examine, and discover the strength or weakness, the truth or falsehood of ever\- proposition with which he had to contend. His candor was magnanimous and rose to a level with his abilities. His temper was spirited but courteous, amiable and generous, and he frequently made pathetic and powerful appeals to the moral sense and patriotism, the fears and hopes of the assembly, in order to give them a deep sense of the difficulties of the crisis and prepare their minds for the reception of the Constitution.

The style and manner of Smith's speaking was dry, plain, and syllogistic, and it behooved his adversary to examine well the ground on which they started, and not to concede too much at the beginning, or he would find it somewhat embarrassing to extricate himself from a subtle web of sophistry, unless indeed he happened to possess the giant strength of Hamilton, which nothing could withstand. Mr. Smith was a man of remarkable simplicity, and of the most gentle, liberal, and amiable disposition. Though I felt strong political prejudices against Governor Clinton, as the leader of the Anti-Federal party, yet during the course of that Convention, I became very favorably struck with the dignity with which he presided, and with his unassuming and modest pretensions as a speaker. It was impossible not to feel respect for such a man, and for a young person not to be somewhat over-awed in his presence, when it was apparent in all his actions and deportment that he possessed great decision of character and a stern inflexibility of purpose.

The arguments used by Colonel Hamilton in the debates in the Convention were substantially the same which he had before employed in The Federalist. They could not well have been any other, for he had already urged, in support of the Constitution all the leading considerations which had led to the plan of it, and which guided the skill of the artists. The wisdom of the commentator was now repeated and enforced by the eloquence of the orator.

In his opening speech Mr. Hamilton preliminarily observed that it was of the utmost importance that the Convention should be thoroughly and deeply impressed with a conviction of the necessity of the Union of the States. If they could but once be entirely satisfied of that great truth, and would duly reflect upon it, their minds would then be prepared to admit the necessity of a government of similar powers and organization with the one before them, to uphold and preserve that Union. It was equally so, he said by way of illustration, with the doctrine of the Immortality of the Soul, and he believed with Doctor Young that doubts on that subject were one great cause of modem infidelity; for to convince men that they have within them immaterial and immortal spirits is going very far to prepare their minds for the ready reception of Christian truth.

After pointing out the radical defects of the Confederation, and vindicating the popular basis of the new Constitution, he declared his convictions that the latter was a genuine specimen of a representative and republican government; and he hoped and trusted that we had found a cure for our evils, and that the new government would prove, in an eminent degree, a blessing to the nation. He concluded his first great speech with the Patriot's Prayer, "Oh, save my country, Heaven!" in allusion to the brave Cobham, who fell, " his ruling passion strong in death."

His two speeches on the organization, powers, and stability of the Senate were regarded at the time as the best specimens which the debates afforded of the ability and wisdom of a consummate statesman. They were made in opposition to a proposed amendment to the Constitution that no person should be eligible as a Senator for more than six years in any terra of twelve years, and that they should at all times, within the period of six years, be subject to recall by the State Legislatures, and to the substitution of others. Mr. Hamilton on that occasion took large and philosophical views of the nature of man, his interests, his passions, his pursuits, his duties; and he drew his deductions from the end and design of government, the settled principles of policy, and the history of all other free governments, ancient and modern. He discovered equally an ardent zeal for the success of popular government, and a correct knowledge of those infirmities which had invariably attended it. Instability and a fluctuating policy were the prominent features in most republican systems, and the tendency of such vicious defects was to destroy all sense of pride and national character, and to forfeit the respect and confidence of other nations. He contended, therefore, that in all rational policy we ought to infuse a principle of strength and stability into the structure of our national government, by the creation of a senatorial branch, which should be comparatively small in number, and appointed for considerable periods of time, and inspired with a sense of independence in the exercise of its powers. Upon no other plan would the Senate, either in its legislative or executive character, be able to perform its functions, as the balance-wheel of the machine; or form on the one hand a salutary check to the mischiefs of misguided zeal and a fluctuating policy in the more popular branch, and on the other to the abuses and misrule of the President, in the exercise of the treaty and the appointing powers.

The tendency of federative governments, as all history taught us, was to weakness and dissolution, by gradual and steady encroachments of the members upon the national authority. Our own experience under the Articles of Confederation was a monitory example before our eyes of this fatal tendency. Local governments more readily concentrated popular sympathies and prejudices. The affections naturally grew languid in proportion to the expansion of the circle in which they moved.

Though Mr. Hamilton considered that amendment as tending to destroy the dignity and stability of the national Senate, and give the State Legislatures a fatal control in their discretion over the legislative and executive authorities of the Union, it was nevertheless adopted by a vote of all the Anti-Federal members of the Convention, and it was one of the recommendatory amendments annexed to the ratification of the instrument. During the sitting of the Convention, information was received that New Hampshire had adopted the Constitution, and she made the ninth State that had adopted it. That great event wrought at once an important change in the situation of the United States, inasmuch as the Confederation thereby became ipso facto dissolved, and the new Constitution had become the lawful government of the States which had ratified it.

But the fact, however momentous, did not seem to disturb the tranquility or shake the purpose of a majority of the Convention. Mr. M. Smith and Mr. Lansing both declared that the event had no influence on their deliberations, and the Convention continued their sharp debate for three weeks subsequent to that information and apparently regardless of it, and until all hopes of an auspicious issue to it seemed to be lost. It was in the midst of that gloomy period, and just before the clouds began to disperse and serene skies to appear, that Mr. Hamilton made one of his most pathetic and impassioned addresses. He urged every motive that he thought ought to govern men, and he touched with exquisite skill every chord of sympathy that could be made to vibrate in the human breast. Our country, our honor, our friends, our posterity were placed in vivid colors before us. He alluded slightly to the distress and degradation which dictated the call for a National Convention, and he portrayed in matchless style the characters of that illustrious assembly, composed undoubtedly of the best and brightest of the American statesmen, who could have had no motive but their country's good. They had lived in " times that tried men's souls." To discriminate might be odious. It could not be so to select Franklin, revered by the wise men of Europe, and Washington, "crowned with laurels, loaded with glory."

Soon thereafter information was received that Virginia had also adopted the Constitution. Colonel Hamilton read a letter to the Convention to that effect from Mr. Madison, and then a visible change took place in the disposition of the House, and led it to think of adopting the Constitution upon certain terms. A resolution to adopt it was before the House when Mr. M. Smith moved an amendment that it be ratified upon condition that certain powers contained in the instrument should not be exercised until a general convention of the States had been called to propose amendments. This proposition was discussed for some days, with increasing agitation and anxiety, and it was at last urged that the adoption of the Constitution would readily be received with that qualification annexed. Mr. Hamilton was strenuous and peremptory in his opinion and advice to the House, that such a conditional ratification was void, and would not and could not be accepted by Congress. All expectation from such a source he assured them would prove delusive. The members generally and gradually assumed a more conciliatory tone, and all vehemence in debate seemed to have ceased as by common consent. "We did not come here," said Mr. Jay, " to carry points or gain party triumphs. We ought not to wish it. We were without a national government and on the eve of an untried era. Everything demanded concession and moderation. The laurels of party victory might peradventure be bedewed with the tears or stained with the blood of our fellow-citizens."

Colonel Hamilton disclaimed the intention of wounding the feelings of any individual, though he admitted that he had expressed himself, in the course of the debates, in strong language dictated by ardent feelings arising out of the interesting nature of the discussions. On no subject, he observed, had his breast been filled with stronger emotions or agitated with more anxious concern. The spirit of the House was liberal and cheering, and at last Samuel Jones, one of the Anti-Federal members, had the magnanimity to move to substitute the words " in full confidence "in lieu of the words "upon condition." He was supported by Melancthon Smith, who had so eminently distinguished himself throughout the whole course of the session, and by Zephaniah Platt, then first judge of the County of Dutchess, who made a few observations expressing in a plain, frank manner, his sense of duty on that occasion and his determination to follow it. The members who came over from the Anti- Federal side of the House were twelve in number, being four members from Dutchess, four from Queens, three from Suffolk, and one from Washington, and, uniting themselves with the nineteen Federal members from New York, Westchester, Kings, and Richmond, they constituted a majority in the Convention, and the Constitution was ratified on the 26th of July.

I always considered that the gentlemen who made this memorable and unbought sacrifice of prejudice, error, and pride on the altar of patriotism and their country's welfare, were entitled to the highest honor. It was quite an heroic effort to quit such a leader as Governor Clinton, and such men as Yates and Lansing, who had been delegates to the General Convention, even though it was to follow their own convictions. It was understood that several other members were inclined to follow the same course, but they could not be brought to desert Governor Clinton, who remained inflexible. Had he consented to vote for the Constitution, the final ratification of it would probably have been unanimous. As it was, the spirit of harmony and conciliation with which the Convention closed was deemed most auspicious by all sincere lovers of their country. Considering the circumstances under which the Convention assembled, the manner in which it terminated afforded a new and instructive example of wisdom and moderation to mankind.

III.

The third and last part of the history of General Hamilton to which you have requested my attention relates to his life subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States. After the Constitution went into operation, in the course of the year 1789, Mr. Hamilton was appointed to the office of Secretary of the Treasury. While the Constitution was in its progress to maturity, some of his friends had suggested in my hearing that the office of Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States would be in every way suited to the exercise of his discernment and judgment j and that he was well fitted for it by his accurate acquaintance with the general principles of jurisprudence. Of all this there could have been no doubt. But his versatile talents, adapted equally for the Bench or the Bar, the field, the Senate House, and the executive cabinet, were fortunately called to act in a more complicated, busy, and responsible station. I found myself by this time upon friendly and familiar terms with Colonel Hamilton. In the winter and spring of 1789 he took a leading and zealous part in the election of Governor. He was chairman of the New York Committee of Correspondence, in favor of Judge Yates as a candidate for Governor, in opposition to the re-election of Governor Clinton, and he no doubt was the author of some of the circular addresses from that committee. One of them was subscribed by his own hand as chairman, and was circulated in a pamphlet form addressed to the Supervisors of each county. All the addresses of the New York committees on each side were collected by me at the time and are now before me ; and I cannot but be struck with the spirit of decorum which characterizes their contents, in the midst of the most earnest and the most animated competition. In the printed circulars the committees fairly reasoned before the public the merits of their respective pretensions and candidates.

I was in New York when the House of Representatives was first organized in the beginning of April, 1789, and no spectacle could have been more gratifying. The City Hall had been remodeled and fitted up in elegant style for the reception of Congress, and all ranks and degrees of men seemed to be actuated by one common impulse to fill the galleries as soon as the doors of the House of Representatives were opened for the first time, and to gaze on one of the most interesting fruits of their struggle, a popular assembly summoned from all parts of the United States. Colonel Hamilton remarked to me that, as nothing was to be done the first day, such impatient crowds were evidence of the powerful principle of curiosity. I felt another and better apology in my own breast. I considered it to be a proud and glorious day, the consummation of our wishes; and that I was looking upon an organ of popular will, just beginning to breathe the breath of life, and which might in some future age, much more truly than the Roman Senate, be regarded as the "refuge of nations." At any rate I dwell upon that recollection with some interest, for it has so happened that I have never since that day been present in the House of Representatives.

Colonel Hamilton filled the office of Secretary of the Treasury upwards of five years, and his official acts are all before the public, and do not come within the scope of my present inquiry. He resigned the office in January, 1795, after having raised the financial character of the Government to an exalted height, and finished those duties which appertained peculiarly to that department on its first institution. Those duties consisted in the establishment of a sound, efficient, and permanent provision for the gradual restoration of public credit, and the faithful discharge of the national debt. No man ever inculcated with more sincerity and zeal a lively sense of the obligations of good faith and the sanctity of contracts. In his view, the true principle to render public credit immortal was always to accompany the creation of debt with the means of extinguishing it. He demonstrated that the creation of a national bank was within the reach of the legitimate powers of the Government, and essential to the convenient and prosperous administration of the national finances. He made an able and elaborate report in favor of the encouragement of domestic manufactures, and he seems not to have entertained a doubt of the constitutional right of Congress to exercise its discretion on the subject.

He contended that the encouragement of manufactures tended to create a more extensive, certain, and permanent home market for the surplus produce of land, and that it was necessary, in self-defence, to meet and counteract the restrictive system of commercial nations of Europe. It was admitted, however, that if the liberal system of Adam Smith had been generally adopted, it would have carried forward nations, with accelerated motion, in the career of prosperity and greatness. The English critics spoke at the time of his report as a strong and able plea on the side of manufactures, and said that the subjects of trade, finance, and internal policy were not often discussed with so much precision of thought and perspicuity of language.

During the time that Colonel Hamilton presided over the Treasury Department, the French Revolution was in action, and a fierce war broke out between Great Britain and the French Republic. He was one of President Washington's cabinet council, and a leading and efficient adviser of the President's proclamation of neutrality in April, 1793, declaring the neutral position of the United States, and his duty and determination, as the chief executive guardian of the laws, to preserve it. That proclamation was the index to the foreign policy of President Washington, and it was temperately and discreetly, but firmly maintained, under the sage advice and controlling influence of Hamilton, against the arts and intrigues of the French Minister to the United States, and against all the force and fury of the tempestuous passions of the times, engendered and influenced .he French democracy. He aided the great American policy of neutrality by his pen, in some fugitive pieces under the signature of No Jacobin, and in the more elaborate and elegant essays under the signature of Pacificus; and still more so by his opinion and advice in favor of the seasonable mission of Chief-Justice Jay to the Court of Great Britain, in the spring of 1794. That envoy was sent on purpose " to vindicate our rights with firmness and to cultivate peace with sincerity," and no one event was attended with more auspicious results, or contributed equally to establish and elevate the pacific policy of Washington, who, having "once saved his country by his valor in war, again saved it by his wisdom in peace."

Mr. Hamilton returned to private life and to the practice of the law in New York in the spring of 1795. He was cordially welcomed and cheered on his return by his fellow-citizens, and while he was gradually resuming his profession he felt himself called upon, by a sense of duty, to vindicate by his pen one great act of Washington's administration. Mr. Jay's treaty with Great Britain had been negotiated while he was in office, though it was not ratified by the President and Senate until the summer of 1795. It had honorably adjusted and extinguished the complaints and difficulties between us and Great Britain, and it contributed essentially to continue and strengthen the neutrality of the United States. But it was vehemently opposed and denounced by the party in this country which had originally opposed the Constitution, and which, from being formerly denominated the Anti-Federal, was then called the Democratic party; and it included, of course, all the devoted partisans of France and apologists for the violence and madness of the French rulers.

Mr. Hamilton vindicated the treaty in a series of essays under the signature of Camillus. They were written with vast ability, and in clear, strong, and elegant language, and disclosed a familiar acquaintance with all the grievances, claims, doctrines, and principles adjusted, ascertained, and declared by the treaty. Some of the essays are of permanent value, and will be read and cited as long as his name endures, as accurate and lucid commentaries on public law.

My acquaintance with Colonel Hamilton was revived after his return to New York, and it was enlarged and cherished, and eventually terminated in a warm and confidential friendship. Several of the essays of Camillus were communicated to me before they were printed, and my attention was attracted, by a single fact which fell under my own eye, to the habit of thorough, precise, and authentic research which accompanied all his investigations. He was not content, for instance, with examining Grotius, and taking him as an authority, in any other than the original Latin language in which the work was composed.

Between the years 1795 and 1798 he took his station as the leading counsel at the Bar. He was employed in every important and especially in every commercial case. He was a very great favorite with the merchants of New York, and he most justly deserved to be, for he had uniformly 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 the fact, constituted a large portion of the litigated business in the courts, and much of the intense study and discussion at the Bar. The business of insurance was carried on principally by private underwriters, and as the law had not been defined and settled in this country by a course of judicial decisions, and was open to numerous perplexed questions arising out of our neutral trade, and was left, under a complicated mixture of law and fact, very much at large to a jury, the litigation of that kind was immense. Mr. Hamilton had an overwhelming share of it, and though the New York Bar could at that time boast of the clear intellect, the candor, the simplicity, and black-letter learning of the elder Jones, the profound and richly varied learning of Harrison, the classical taste and elegant accomplishments of Brockholst Livingston, the solid and accurate, but unpretending common-law learning of Troup, the chivalrous feelings and dignified address of Pendleton, yet the mighty mind of Hamilton 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, or to follow up principles to their far distant sources. He was not content with the modem reports, abridgments, or translations. 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 illustrate the law of insurance by the severe judgment of Emerigon and the luminous commentaries of Valin.

In the spring of 1798 Mr. Hamilton felt himself called upon by a sense of public duty to engage once more in political discussion. It will be recollected, as I once had occasion to observe in a brief review of his public life and writings which was published anonymously soon after his death, that France had long been making piratical depredations upon our commerce; that negotiation and a pacific adjustment had been repeatedly attempted on the part of this country without success; that one Minister had been refused an audience; that three Ministers Extraordinary had been treated with the grossest indignity, and money demanded of the United States on terms the most degrading. The doors of reconciliation being thus barred, we had no honorable alternative left but open and determined resistance. At that portentous period Mr. Hamilton published The Stand, or a series under the signature of Titus Manlius, with a view to arouse the people of this country to a sense of their impending danger, and to measures of defense which should be at once vigorous and manly.

The plan of this production was communicated to me by Mr. Hamilton before it appeared, and the very signature was a subject of discussion at my office. He wished for some appropriate name from Roman history, applicable to the stand which those ancient Republicans had made against the Gauls, and on examination the name selected was deemed by him the most suitable. In these essays he portrayed in strong and glowing colors the conduct of revolutionary France towards her own people and towards other nations. He showed that she had undermined the main pillars of civilized society; that she had betrayed a plan to disorganize the human mind itself by attempting to destroy all religious opinion and pervert a whole people to atheism; that her ruling passions were ambition and fanaticism; and that she aimed equally to proselyte, subjugate, and debase every government, without distinction, to effect the aggrandizement of the "great nation." All the States, even of the republican form, that fell within her wide-spread grasp—the United Netherlands, Geneva, the Swiss Cantons, Genoa, and Venice—had already been prostrated by her arms, or her still more formidable caresses.

He then gave a detail of the accumulated insults and injuries which the United States had received from France, and showed that her object was to degrade and humble our Government, and prepare the way for revolution and conquest. He concluded, as the result of his work, that we ought to suspend our treaties with France, fortify our harbors, defend our commerce on the ocean, attack their predatory cruisers on our coasts, create a respectable naval force, and raise, or organize and discipline, a considerable army, as an indispensable precaution against attempts at invasion, which might put in jeopardy our very existence as a nation. So undeniable were all these facts, so irresistible were the conclusions which he drew from them, that in the summer of 1798 those measures suggested by Mr. Hamilton were all literally carried into execution by Congress, and received the warm and hearty sanction of the nation. An honorable, proud, and manly sentiment was then enkindled and pervaded the continent; it reflected high honor on our national character, and that character was transmitted to Europe as a means of respect and a pledge of security.

It is well known that General Washington gave his decided approbation to all those measures of national resistance, and that he urged upon Government the employment of Colonel Hamilton in the military line. In a letter to President Adams, in September, 1798, he pronounced upon him a noble eulogy. He declared that Colonel Hamilton had been his "principal and most confidential aid; that his acknowledged abilities and integrity had placed him on high ground and made him a conspicuous character in the United States, and even in Europe; that he had the laudable ambition which prompts a man to excel in whatever he takes in hand ; that he was enterprising, quick in his perceptions, and that his judgment was intuitively great." Upon the earnest recommendation of Washington, General Hamilton was appointed Inspector-General of the provisional army that was raised in 1798; but the time which he was necessarily led to bestow on his new military duties did not dissolve his connection with the profession and practice of the law. That military office was but temporary, and he soon resumed his full practice at the bar.

My judicial station, in 1798, brought him before me in a new relation, but the familiar friendly intercourse between us was not diminished, and it kept on increasing to the end of his life. At circuits and in term time I was called, in a thousand instances, to attend with intense interest and high admiration to the rapid exercise of his reasoning powers, the sagacity with which he pursued his investigations, his piercing criticisms, his masterly analysis, and the energy and fervor of his appeals to the judgment and conscience of the tribunal which he addressed. If I were to select any two cases in which his varied powers were most strikingly displayed, it would be the case of Le Guen v. Gouverneur and Kemble, argued before the Court of Errors in the winter of 1800, and the case of Croswell ads. The People, argued before the Supreme Court in February term, 1804. In the first of those cases the most distinguished counsel of the New York Bar were engaged; but what gave peculiar interest to it was the circumstance that Gouverneur Morris, a relative of one of the defendants, gratuitously appeared as their counsel. The action had been originally commenced by Le Guen at law, upon the advice of Mr. Hamilton. The claim was very large in amount, and after expensive trials and the most persevering and irritating litigation, pursued into the court of the last resort. The plaintiff recovered upon technical rules of law strictly and severely applied.

The claim was a commercial one, and was in opposition to the mercantile sense of its justice. The success of it was thought at the time to be due in a very material degree to the overbearing weight and influence of General Hamilton's talents. The case I now allude to, in which Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Morris were brought into collision, was on an appeal from a decree in Chancery, in which relief on grounds of fraud had been afforded against the judgment at law. The zeal and anxiety which the cause enkindled had been increasing through the whole protracted controversy, and had become very intense at the period of this final review. Everything was calculated to tax to the utmost the powers of those two illustrious statesmen civilians. If the one was superior in logic and law learning, the other was presumed to be his equal in eloquence, imagination, and wit. The appearance of Mr. Morris was very commanding. His noble head, his majestic mien, the dignity of his deportment were all impressive. I have no notes or memorials remaining of the argument in the cause, but my memory serves me to say that it was a most beautiful and captivating display of the genius and varied accomplishments of those orators.

The questions of law involved in the case were indeed dry and technical, nor were the facts of a nature to excite much interest. It was the large amount of property in controversy, the character of the litigation, and, above all, the high reputation of the two leading counsel, that roused such ardent curiosity and anxious expectation. But any cause involving law and fact seems to be sufficient to afford aliment for the brilliant exhibition of minds of such high order and of such intellectual resources. There was, in that case, a mass of facts involving a complicated charge of fraud, and that was enough to command the exertion of the keenest sagacity, a critical severity, shrewd retort, and pathetic appeal. A Jewish house was concerned in the commercial transaction, and that led to affecting allusion to the character and fortunes of that ancient race. Some of the negotiations happened in France, and that produced references to that tremendous Revolution which was then still in its fury, and whose frightful ravages and remorseless pretensions seemed to overawe and confound the nations.

Mr. Morris and Mr. Hamilton equally resorted for illustration to Shakespeare, Milton, and Pope; and when the former complained that his long absence from the bar had caused him to forget the decisions, the latter sportively accounted for it on another principle, and relied on the poetical authority that—

"Where beams of warm imagination play,

The memory's soft figures melt away."

The other case I mentioned involved the discussion of legal principles of the greatest consequence. Croswell had been indicted and convicted of a libel upon Thomas Jefferson, then President of the United States. The libel consisted in charging Mr. Jefferson with having paid one Callender, a printer, for grossly slandering George Washington and John Adams, the former Presidents; and the defendant offered to prove the truth of the charge. But the testimony was overruled by Chief-Justice Lewis, who held the circuit, and he charged the jury that it was not their province to decide on the intent of the defendant, or whether the libel was true or false or malicious, and that those questions belonged exclusively to the court. The motion was for a new trial for misdirection of the Judge, and those two great points in the case were elaborately discussed before the Supreme Court, and they were considered by General Hamilton, who appeared gratuitously for the defendant, as affecting very essentially the constitutional right of trial by jury in criminal cases, and the American doctrine of the liberty of the press.

I have always considered General Hamilton's argument in that cause the greatest forensic effort that he ever made. He had bestowed unusual attention to the case, and he came 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 in the vindication and establishment of those rights of the jury and of the press for which he contended. That consideration was sufficient to arouse all the faculties of his mind to their utmost energy. He held it to be an essential ingredient in the trial by jury that, in criminal cases, the law and the fact were necessarily blended by the plea of not guilty, and that the jury had a rightful cognizance of the intent and tendency of the libel, for in the intent consisted the crime. They had a right and they were bound in duty to take into consideration the whole matter of the charge, both as to the law and the fact, for it was all involved in the issue and determined by a general verdict. On the independent exercise of the right of the jury in criminal cases to determine the guilt or innocence of the defendant, according to their judgment and consciences, rested the security of our lives and liberties. Nothing would be more dangerous to the citizens of this country than to place the trial by jury in such cases under the control and dictation of the court. The English history, in its dark and disastrous periods, showed abundantly by its records that the most dangerous, the most sure, the most fatal of tyrannies consisted in selecting and sacrificing single individuals, under the mask and forms of law, by dependent and partial tribunals. We could not too perseveringly cultivate and sustain the rights of the jury in all their common-law vigor, as the great guardians of liberty and life, equally against the sport and fury of contending factions, the vindictive persecution of the public prosecutor, and the "machinations of demagogues and tyrants on their imagined thrones."

On the other great question in the case he contended with equal ardor and ability for the admission of the truth in evidence to a qualified extent in justification of the libel. He showed that it depended on the motive and object of the publication whether the truth was or was not a justification.

The liberty of the press was held to consist in the right to publish with impunity the truth, whether it respected government, magistrates, or individuals, provided it was published with good motives and for justifiable ends. The hard doctrines under which his client was convicted came from the Star Chamber, that arbitrary and hated tribunal acting under the government of a permanent body of judges, without the wholesome restraints of a jury. He felt a proud satisfaction in the reflection that the Act of Congress of July, 1798, for preventing certain libels against the Government, and which Act had been grossly misrepresented, established these two great principles of civil liberty involved in the discussion. It declared that the jury should have the right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases, and that the defendant might give in evidence in his defence the truth of the libel. He was as strenuous for the qualification of the rule allowing the truth of the libel to be shown in the defence, as he was for the rule itself.

While he regarded the liberty of the press as essential to the preservation of free government, he considered that a press wholly unchecked, with a right to publish anything at pleasure, regardless of truth or decency, would be, in the hands of unprincipled men, a terrible engine of mischief, and would be liable to be diverted to the most seditious and wicked purposes, and for the gratification of private malice or revenge. Such a free press would destroy public and private confidence, and would overawe and corrupt the impartial administration of justice.

There was an unusual solemnity and earnestness on the part of General Hamilton in this discussion. He was at times highly impassioned 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 finest refuge against oppression. The aspect of the times was portentous, and he was persuaded that if he should be able to overthrow the high-toned doctrine contained in the charge of the judge, it would be great gain to the liberties of his country. He entered, by the force of sympathy, into the glorious struggles of English patriots, during oppressive and unconstitutional times, for the rights of juries and for a free press; and the anxiety and tenderness of his feelings and the gravity of his theme rendered his reflections exceedingly impressive. He never before, in my hearing, made any effort in which he commanded higher reverence for his principles, or equal admiration of his eloquence.

Nor were his efforts on that occasion lost to his country. The fruit of them still exists and will remain with posterity, a monument of his glory, though the court was equally divided on the motion he discussed, and therefore decided nothing; yet in the following winter the Legislature of New York passed a declaratory statute, introduced into the House of Assembly by William W. Van Ness, his friend and associate on the trial, admitting the right of the jury in all criminal cases to determine the law and the fact under the direction of the court, and allowing the truth to be given in evidence by the defendant, in every prosecution for a libel; provided that such evidence should not be a justification, unless it should be made satisfactorily to appear that the matter charged as libel was published with good motives and for justifiable ends.

In April, 1804, I held the Circuit Court in the city of New York, and the most interesting interview which I ever had with General Hamilton was at his country seat at Harlem Heights, during the course of that month. He took me out to dine with him and I was detained at his house the next day. We were assailed by a violent easterly storm the night I was there, and the house, standing on high ground, was very much exposed to the fury of the winds as they swept over the island from the "vex'd Atlantic." The solicitude of General Hamilton for my comfort, and his attention and kindness quite affected me.

He visited me after I had retired to my chamber, to see that I was sufficiently attended to. In a memorandum which I made a day or two after that visit, and which is now before me, I state in allusion to it that "he never appeared before so friendly and amiable. I was alone, and he treated me with a minute affection that I did not suppose he knew how to bestow. His manners were delicate and chaste, and he appeared, in his domestic state, the plain, modest, and affectionate father and husband."

Gouverneur Morris was to have dined with us, but he sent an apology stating that "the Jacobin winds" had prevented him. We were consequently left to ourselves during the greater part of a day, and the conversation led to a more serious train of reflections on his part than I had ever before known him to indulge. His mind had a cast usually melancholy. The impending election exceedingly disturbed him, and he viewed the temper, disposition, and passions of the times as portentous of evil, and favorable to the sway of artful and ambitious demagogues. His wise reflections, his sober views, his anxiety, his gentleness, his goodness, his Christian temper, all contributed to render my solitary visit inexpressibly interesting. At that time he revealed to me a plan he had in contemplation, for a full investigation of the history and science of civil government, and the practical results of the various modifications of it upon the freedom and happiness of mankind. He wished to have the subject treated in reference to past experience, and upon the principles of Lord Bacon's inductive philosophy. His object was to see what safe and salutary conclusions might be drawn from an historical examination of the effects of the various institutions heretofore existing, upon the freedom, the morals, the prosperity, the intelligence, the jurisprudence, and the happiness of the people. Six or eight gentlemen were to be united with him in the work, according to his arrangement, and each of them was to take his appropriate part and to produce a volume. If I am not mistaken Mr. Harrison, Mr. Jay, Mr. Morris, and Mr. King were suggested by him as desirable coadjutors. I recollect that he proposed to assign the subject of ecclesiastical history to the Rev'd Dr. Mason, and he was pleased to suggest that he wished me to accept a share of the duty. The conclusions to be drawn from these historical reviews, he intended to reserve for his own task, and this is the imperfect outline of the scheme which then occupied his thoughts. I heard no more of it afterwards, for the business of the court occupied all our attention, and after the May term of that year I saw him no more.

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 modem 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 philosopher, instructing mankind by his wisdom and elevating his country by his example. He had not then attained his forty-eighth year, and all his faculties were in their full vigor and maturity, and incessantly busy in schemes to avert distant dangers and to secure the freedom and promote the honor and happiness of his country.

I knew General Hamilton's character well. His life and actions, for the course of twenty-two years, had engaged and fixed my attention. They were often passing under my eye and observation. For the last six years of his life he was arguing causes before me. I have been sensibly struck, in a thousand instances, with his habitual reverence for truth, his candor, his ardent attachment to civil liberty, his indignation at oppression of every kind, his abhorrence of every semblance of fraud, his reverence for justice, and his sound legal principles drawn by a clear and logical deduction from the purest Christian ethics, and from the very foundations of all rational and practical jurisprudence. He was blessed with a very amiable, generous, tender, and charitable disposition, and he had the most artless simplicity of any man I ever knew. It was impossible not to love as well as respect and admire him. He was perfectly disinterested. The selfish principle, that infirmity too often of great as well as of little minds, seemed never to have reached him. It was entirely incompatible with the purity of his taste and the grandeur of his ambition. Everything appeared to be at once extinguished, when it came in competition with his devotion to his country's welfare and glory. He was a most faithful friend to the cause of civil liberty throughout the world, but he was a still greater friend to truth and justice.

He wished the people to enjoy as much political liberty as they were competent to use and not abuse, —as much as was consistent with the perfect security of life and social rights, and the acquisition and enjoyment of property. He was satisfied, from profound reflection and from the uniform language of history, that all plans of government founded on any new and extraordinary reform in the morals of mankind were plainly Utopian. The voice of history, the language of Scripture, the study of the nature and character of man, all taught us that mankind were exceedingly prone to error; that they were liable to be duped by flattery, to be seduced by artful, designing men, to be inflamed by jealousies and bad passions; and he was satisfied that the greatest danger to be apprehended in this country was from the natural tendency of the organized and powerful State governments to resist and control the constitutional authority of the federal head. This I know from repeated conversations with him to have been one great ground of uneasiness and apprehension with him as to our future destiny. He knew that factions were the besetting evils of republics. They lead to the tyrannical oppression of minorities, of individuals under the mask and form of law; to the dangerous influence of cunning, intriguing, and corrupt leaders; to civil discord and anarchy, and eventually to an armed master. The fate of all former federative governments and the horrible excesses of the French democracy were before his eyes, and without the aid of his private reflections we can be at no loss, from the reasonings and sentiments in The Federalist, to know the quarter from which he apprehended danger and dissension, disunion and ruin to the nation.

I have thus endeavored, my dear madam, to the best of my ability, and with perfect candor and regard for truth, to satisfy your inquiries. And if what I have written shall afford you consolation, and shall contribute in any small degree to awaken in the present generation an increased attention to the history and character of your illustrious husband, I shall be amply rewarded for my effort.

I am. Madam, with the utmost respect and esteem,

Your friend and ob'd't serv't,

James Kent.

Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton.

Source: Memoirs and Letters of James Kent, LL.D.: Late Chancellor of the State of New York by William Kent

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