Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander
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new ways to battle with sin:
A knock was heard at the parsonage door,
And the Sergeant's sword clanged on the floor.
"We're going to war, and when we die
We'll want a man of God near by.
So bring your Bible and follow the drum.
His daughter Angelica often accompanied him upon the piano or harp, and appears to have been given all the advantages of a musical education.
It has been said that Hamilton was vain. Gouvemeur Morrisy, whose cynicism and disposition to patronize his contemporaries was notorious, and who was said to be a friend of Hamilton's, and helped others to disentangle his affairs after his death seems to have been the only person to think him vain. At least no other available reference can be found where this criticism has been made, although in a vituperative age he undoubtedly came in for his share of abuse. Morris in his Diary thus soliloquizes after he had been asked by Mr. Hammond to deliver the funeral oration of his friend: "The first point of his biography is that he was a stranger of illegitimate birth; some plan must be contrived to pass over this handsomely. He was indiscreet, vain, and opinionated," and so he continues, making mental reservations, and damning the dead man with faint praise; yet on the 14th of July he delivered a fulsome funeral oration, seeming to have gotten over the struggle with himself as to what was "safe" to say and what to omit. Disregarding the humiliating confession Hamilton had made in the Reynolds case, to save his honor when accused of peculation, Morris said, "I must not either dwell on his domestic life: he has long since foolishly published the avowal of conjugal infidelity." After his return from the funeral he adds: "I find that what I have said does not answer the general expectation."
While it is true that Hamilton had very decided opinions of his own, and undoubtedly was self-reliant and enthusiastically assertive, there is not a letter or published paper of his that indicates the existence of the least vanity or boastfulness—in fact, he never indulged in self-exploitation, but as a rule submerged himself. As an evidence of his modes may be instanced the anonymous letter he wrote to Robert Morris, then a member of Congress in 1780, recommending a financial scheme that undoubtedly led to his being made Secretary of the Treasury. If Morris wished to know more of the views of his unknown correspondent, he was to address James Montague, Esq.— b, lodger in the post office of Morristown," which would be a safe channel for all communications. It must be admitted that, although he prepared a large number of public papers and wrote many of Washington's letters in the field, and had a great deal to do with the preparation of the Farewell Address of the latter, he, upon no occasion, attempted to profit by what he did, or to glorify himself in any way, and it appears beyond question that he always assumed the position of one who toiled with others for the production of a common result, without thinking of reward, either in the nature of approbation or material return. At a time when the lawlessness of the French Republic had extended to the United States, Hamilton was called an aristocrat; and even before this he had been sneered at by his opponents at the Poughkeepsie Convention, Melancthon Smith having "thanked his God that he was a plebeian." A great deal of the dislike of decency, and contempt for blood and brains existed, and found vent in socialistic and even anarchistic conflicts with good order. Possibly some of this abuse was due to Hamilton's advocacy of our obligation to another foreign power, and his uphill work in making a large number of people live up to their treaty with Great Britain. To some minds this meant respect for an aristocratic country, and he was spoken of as a "British sympathizer"; upon one occasion an outrageous story was spread by a lawyer named Purdy, with the evident connivance of Governor George Qinton, to the effect that Hamilton and Adams and the King of England had) in 1798, entered into negotiations to introduce a monarchy into America, and that Canada was to be ceded to the United States, and that Prince Frederick, the Duke of York, and titular Bishop of Osnaburg was to be the ruler. After Hamilton's angry remonstrance Clinton, in a letter written in March, 1804, disclaimed any part in the ridiculous charge, and Hamilton replied as follows:
Alexander Hamilton to George Clinton.
Albany, March 9, 1804.
Sir: I had the honor of receiving yesterday your Excellency's letter of the 6th inst. It is agreeable to me to find in it a confirmation of the inference that you have given no countenance to the supposition of my agency or co-operation in the project to which the story of Judge Purdy relates; and it only remains for me to regret that it is not in your power to furnish the additional clue, of which I was desirous, to aid me in tracing the fabrication to its source.
I shall not only rely on the assurance which you give me as to the future communication of the copy of the letter in question, should it hereafter come to your hands, but I will take the liberty to add a request, that you will be pleased to make known to me any other circumstances, if any should reach you, which may serve to throw light upon the affair. I feel an anxiety that it should be thoroughly sifted, not merely on my own account, but from a conviction that the pretended existence of such a project, long travelling about in whispers, has had no inconsiderable influence in exciting false alarms, and unjust suspicions to the prejudice of a number of individuals, every way worthy of public confidence, who have always faithfully supported the existing institutions of the country, and who would disdain to be concerned in an intrigue with any foreign power, or its agents, either for introducing monarchy, or for promoting or upholding any other scheme of government within the United States.
Even his friend, Gouvemeur Morris, ignoring the existence of The Federalist and everything else that Hamilton had written and done in regard to the construction of the Constitution, could not forbear condemning him, and quite unjustly. "Speaking of General Hamilton," he said, "he had little share in forming the Constitution. He disliked it, believing a Republican Government to be radically defective, the British Constitution which I consider as an Aristocracy in fact, though a Monarchy in name. General Hamilton hated Republican Government because he confounded it with Democratic government, and he detested the latter because he believed it must end in despotism and be, in the meantime, destructive of public morals."
Morris's criticism, which was and is in accord with the views of those who prefer to misunderstand, or who are unable to appreciate Hamilton's consistent and persistent efforts to build up a republic in the true sense of the word, finds refutation in this letter to Timothy Pickering, in which he said:
This plan was in my conception conformable with the strict theory of a government purely republican; the essential criteria of which are, that the principal organs of the executive and legislative departments be elected by the people, and hold their offices by a responsible and temporary or defeasible tenure.
And again,
I may truly then say, that I never proposed either a president, or senator, for life; and that I neither recommended or meditated the annihilation of the state governments. . . .
These were the genuine sentiments of my heart and upon them I acted.
If Hamilton was called an aristocrat it was because he was intolerant of presumptuous ignorance, and possessed an intense contempt for anything that was low or coarse or harmful to the country as a whole. It was his warfare upon these things, and his blunt defiance of mob rule that earned for him this reputation.
If aristocracy be "the rule of the best in the land" his efforts were directed to that end, and the progress of history has certainly made us aware of the contrast between the staid and respectable forms of government, and the emotional and disreputable forms, and the triumph in the end of the stable kind of administration. It is true that for a long time Jefferson and Madison and their party flourished by the utilization of Hamilton's principles for their guidance long after his death, even though they pretended to despise them.
Hamilton certainly had respect for good blood and its belongings, and his friends were the well-bred and educated men of the world, many of whom came from France; yet in the true meaning of the word, he was intensely democratic, if we are to consider the simplicity of his daily life and his regard for the lowly and oppressed, and the readiness he always manifested to make friends with good men of all conditions and parties always furthering the protection of individual rights.
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