Founding Fathers: Complete Biographies, Their Articles, Historical & Political Documents. Emory Speer
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urged upon that body the performance of its duty. Indeed, to the Continental Army, as to the Continental Congress, Washington's relation, when contrasted with that of other great generals in command, is at once isolated and unique.
A Caesar might rely with confidence upon those legions the thunder of whose tread was heard from the plains of Parthia to the mists of Caledonia. Cromwell, from a devout God-fearing and tyrant-hating people, had trained an army whose backs the brilliant Macaulay declares "no foeman had ever seen." This moved at the command of that imperial voice whose mandate at once arrested the depredations of the Lybian pirates and quenched the avenging fires of Rome. The Great Frederick might be driven to coin the silver chandeliers in his palaces in Berlin and Potsdam, but the last thaler of a united, devoted, and warlike people was at the command of the last of the great Kings. At Austerlitz or Jena the fierce enthusiasm of the French Revolution, the passion for military glory of the French people, and the wealth of the Empire were instantly responsive to Napoleon's order or decree. Behind the armies of Wellington were the constantly increasing wealth, and irresistible sea power of the British people. On his lines at Torres Vedras, or his formation at Salamanca the cartridge-boxes of his troops might be refilled and their rations supplied as regularly as at London or Chatham. Cf these essentials of successful war, Washington had little or nothing. Indeed, from the Declaration of Independence to the Treaty of Peace, the influence and constancy of Washington was the Government itself.
After Yorktown the country was at the period of its greatest debility. We were now living under the Articles of Confederation, which had gone into theoretical operation on the 1st of March, 1781. These were soon seen to be less effective than the undefined powers of the Continental Congress. Both Hamilton and Washington had foreseen their impotency. In his famous letter to Duane written the previous year, Hamilton had declared of this "Firm League of Friendship," as it was self-styled, "It is defective and requires to be altered." After this moderate criticism he adds: "It is neither fit for war nor peace. The idea of an uncontrollable sovereignty in each State will defeat the powers given to Congress and make our Union feeble and precarious." The unbroken testimony of men who lived in that day verifies the forecast of Washington's marvelous aide-de-camp.
I may add that the United States of America during this period had no Executive, and barring a "Prize Court of Appeals," as it was termed, which had no power or process to enforce its decrees; no judiciary, and not a dollar to pay a judge or juror. Finally that sole tribunal representing the judiciary of the United States, informed the moribund Congress, that its duties were completed, and the court might as well dissolve. How far this report was ascribable to the fact that no sustentation was afforded the judges from the empty coffers of the Confederation, we have no precise information. The Congress, however, promptly replied to the effect that the public interests required that the judges should retain their jurisdiction and exercise their authority, but without any salaries. With amiable self-abnegation the judges then withdrew their resignations, and we may trust continued to survive. Perhaps Thomas Jefferson had this precedent in mind, when some years later he declared of the Federal judges, "few die and none resign."
The debility of the Government was daily more alarming. Finally the Congress of the Confederation, which had at least on one occasion depended upon the sprinting excellence of its membership to escape personal and condign chastisement at the hands of unpaid and mutinous troops, deemed it the part of discretion to silently and informally disband. The French Minister now wrote to his Government,"There is now in America no general government, neither President nor head of any one administrative department." In the mean time, Washington had performed his last public act under the Revolutionary government. This was his formal resignation as commander-in-chief of the American army. He bade farewell to his troops and broke up their encampment at Newburgh on the Hudson. He had, on the eighth anniversary of the Lexington fight, announced to his army the joyful prospect of a certain peace. It was now November. He had been concerned for several days with the British evacuation of New York, and at a tavern near Whitehall Ferry he gave an affectionate farewell to his officers, grasping each silently by the hand. It was not until the 23d day of December that his resignation was delivered to Congress, and Mifflin, the president of that body, as he received the parchment, exclaimed: "You retire from the theater of action with the blessings of your fellow-citizens, but the glory of your virtues will not terminate with your military command; it will continue to animate remotest ages." The great man now retired to that colonial home on the romantic eminence where the placid tides of the Potomac lave its Virginia shore, and hard by the sacred spot where his ashes now repose, forever hallowed by the love and devotion of increasing millions of his grateful countrymen. But the charms of Mount Vernon could not banish from the mind of Washington the urgent necessities of his country. He saw John Adams, our first Minister to the Court of St. James, welcomed indeed by his first visitor, the noble and venerable Oglethorpe, the founder of our own State, but treated with surly and contemptuous indifference by George the Third, who publicly turned his back, and by the British ministry, who sent no ambassador in return. He knew that when the American commissioners 'attempted to negotiate a commercial treaty with Great Britain they were contemptuously asked whether they had credentials from the separate States. He knew that the public debt could not be paid or funded, that the interest even could not be met; that no taxes could be collected; that if there should be an attempt to coerce a State to pay its assessment, it meant inevitable civil war and disintegration; that the best securities rated at times as low as fifteen per cent; that at home and abroad our country was disreputable; that Great Britain yet refused to surrender her Western posts, confessedly within the boundaries fixed by the Treaty of Peace; that Spain, who for long thwarted the recognition of our independence, and ever the insidious enemy of America, holding the mouth of the Mississippi, was striving to withdraw the allegiance of our people west of the Alleghenies; that the Atlantic coast from the Bay of Fundy to the River St. Mary was cut up between thirteen independent States, each with its own revenue laws and collection methods; that interstate tariffs Were alienating the American commonwealths, and that Connecticut taxed Massachusetts imports higher than British. The General heard the plaints of his intrepid comrades, who had faltered not amid the floating ice of the Delaware, the Hessian volleys at Trenton, the agonies of cold and hunger at Valley Forge, the sweltering heat of Monmouth, who at last had stormed the British entrenchments at Yorktown, and now Without pay or pensions had sorrowfully repaired to homes of penury and distress. Is it surprising, then, that the Father of his Country, and many who thought with him, determined that America should have a government Worthy of the glories of its past, commensurate with the necessities of the hour, and sufficient for the exigencies of the future?
In the mean time, after Yorktown, Hamilton had resigned his commission, and had left the army to take up the study of law. More than a year before Yorktown, he had written to a member of Congress from New York: "We must at all events have a vigorous confederation, if We mean to succeed in the contest and be happy thereafter. Internal policies should be regulated by the legislatures. Congress should have complete sovereignty in all that relates to war, peace, trade, finance, foreign affairs, armies, fleets, fortifications, coining money, establishing banks, imposing a land tax, poll tax, duties on trade and the unoccupied lands." The foreknowledge of the evolution of our government by the young staff officer will seem to rival prophecy itself. This remarkable letter was written from his tent while the writer was surrounded by the ragged and hungry soldiers of Washington. From the same environment he wrote to Robert Morris discussing his scheme for a national bank. These incidents exhibit at once his indomitable love of work, and his irresistible disposition towards broad concerns of statecraft and national polity.
After a few months' preparation, Hamilton was admitted to the bar in the summer of 1782. Of course, he had little time for study, but in after years it was found that all the law he had acquired had been condensed in a brief manual in manuscript, which became serviceable to many others, who did not possess his original powers of logic and reasoning.
It does not appear that his profession was immediately productive. He had, indeed, the habit of charging very small fees. He was soon appointed receiver of continental taxes for the State of New York, and November, 1782, was elected to the decrepit Congress. At once, but with little hope, he grappled with the desperate condition of affairs. In vain did he attempt to secure legislation for duties on imports. In vain he struggled to prevent the disbandment of that gallant army, described by LaFayette as the most patient to be