Alexander Hamilton

by Charles A. Conant

The projects of these invasions of Spanish territory justify a reference to the continental policy of Hamilton. He was among the first to maintain that the United States should have complete control of the valley of the Mississippi, and even during his short term in the Congress of the Confederation the last resolution which he presented declared the "navigation of the Mississippi to be a clear and essential right and to be supported as such." It was left for Jefferson, Hamilton's great opponent, to carry out his conception of the acquisition of the Mississippi valley by the purchase of Louisiana. The admirers of Hamilton credit him with a still wider vision of the future power of the United States, which was eventually to bear fruit in the Monroe doctrine and in the celebrated declaration of Secretary Olney in 1895, that "to-day the United States is practically sovereign on this continent, and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition." Hamilton wrote in "The Federalist," before the adoption of the Constitution, that "our situation invites and our situation prompts us to aim at an ascendant in American affairs."

The firm attitude of the United States towards France had its effect at Paris. Talleyrand sent an intimation indirectly to President Adams that the French government would be glad to receive an American envoy. Again the impetuosity of Adams divided his party and intensified his quarrel with the leaders who stood around Hamilton. The name of Vans Murray was sent to the Senate by the President for Minister to France, without even consulting the cabinet. Many doubted the wisdom of snapping up so promptly the offer made by Talleyrand, and more were incensed at the President's method of doing it. There was at first a strong disposition among the Federalist leaders to defeat the nomination in the Senate. Hamilton, however, checked the indignation of his friends and suggested a way out of the difficulty by appointing a strong commission.

The downfall of the Federal party and the retirement of Hamilton from the active control of national policy were at hand. The passage of the alien and sedition laws, arrogating to the federal government intolerable powers of interference with the rights of the press and of free speech, was one of the causes contributing to the revulsion of feeling in favor of the party of Jefferson. Hamilton opposed the first drafts of these laws as cruel, violent, and tyrannical, but he did not disapprove their final form. The Federalists carried the congressional elections of 1798, under the impulse of the feeling against France, but began to lose ground soon after. As the presidential election of 1800 approached, a desperate struggle was made to hold New York for Federalism as the only hope of defeating Jefferson and reëlecting Adams. The New York election went against the administration, and Hamilton pleaded in vain with Governor Jay to defeat the will of the people by calling the old legislature together and giving the choice of presidential electors to the congressional districts. It was perhaps the most discreditable proposal which ever came from Hamilton, and was promptly rejected by Jay.

Hamilton's motive was a sincere fear that the country would go to ruin and the Constitution be endangered by the triumph of the political school of Jefferson. This might have been the case if it had been the first election under the Constitution, but Hamilton himself had builded better than he knew. The financial projects, the national bank, the suppression of the "Whiskey Insurrection," and the other measures taken under Washington and Adams had built up a Federal Union, whose strength could not be seriously shaken by the transfer of power from one party to another.

With the shadow of defeat hanging over them, the course of the Federalist leaders seemed to justify the maxim, "Whom the gods destroy they first make mad." With the utmost need for harmony and unity, quarrels broke out which would have wrecked the party even if there had been otherwise some prospect of its success. Adams drove McHenry and Pickering from his cabinet because they had betrayed his secrets to Hamilton, and denounced Hamilton and his friends as a British faction. Hamilton asked in writing for a denial or explanation of the charge, but was treated with contemptuous silence. As the presidential election approached, Hamilton scarcely concealed his preference for Pinckney, who was again to be voted for by the electors along with Adams. Hamilton had been so badly treated by the President that he announced his purpose to prepare a pamphlet, exposing the failings of Adams and vindicating his own position.

His best friends stood aghast at the project and labored with him to abandon it. Hamilton persevered, however, in the preparation of the pamphlet. He denounced Adams as a man of disgusting egotism, intense jealousy, and ungovernable temper, and reviewed in a scathing manner his entire public career, and especially the recent dismissal of the secretaries who were friendly to Hamilton. After all this criticism, Hamilton wound up with the lame conclusion that the electors should vote equally for Adams and Pinckney, in order to preserve Federal ascendency. He yielded to the protests of his friends so far as to keep the circulation of the pamphlet within a small circle, but it was hardly off the press before a copy was in the hands of Aaron Burr, the Democratic leader in New York, and was used with effect against the Federalist President.

The downfall of Federalism came with the presidential election of 1800. Jefferson and Burr were the Democratic candidates for President and Vice-President. Each was voted for by all the Democratic electors, giving them an equal number of votes and a majority of the electoral college. This threw the election into the House of Representatives, which was Federalist but was compelled by the provisions of the Constitution to decide between the two leading candidates, Jefferson and Burr. Some of the Federalists were ready to stoop to any means for striking at Jefferson, the great representative of Democratic ideals. If the Federalists in Congress could have effected a combination with the Democrats from states where Burr was influential, they might have been able to elect Burr President instead of Jefferson. But the Democrats, even from New York, voted for Jefferson, and it was evident that he must be chosen or there would be no election. Feeling in the country ran high, and there were threats of violence if the election of Jefferson should be defeated by intrigue.

Hamilton behaved on this occasion with the high sense of public duty which marked most of his acts. Familiar as he was with the unscrupulous methods and doubtful character of Burr in New York politics, he felt that it would be criminal to put him in office. He had little reason to love Jefferson, who had filled the ears of Washington with slurs against himself, but he felt that the election belonged to Jefferson and that his defeat by a political intrigue would be a greater menace than his election to the system established by the Constitution. With Bayard of Delaware, the Federalist leader in the House, Hamilton threw himself strongly into the contest against Burr. His advice was not at first followed. The House ballotted from the eleventh to the sixteenth of February without reaching a choice. A caucus of the Federalists was then held; it appeared that Jefferson had given some assurances of a conservative policy in office, the views of Hamilton and Bayard prevailed, and on February 17, 1801, the Federalist members from several states withheld their votes, and Jefferson was elected.

The retirement of the Federalists from power substantially ended the public services of Hamilton. He continued to watch public events with interest during the remaining five years of his life, and to be regarded as the leader of the Federalist party, but the party had shrunk to a corporal's guard in Congress and the long reign of the Democratic party had begun, which was to be interrupted during only two presidential terms until the election of Lincoln in 1860. Hamilton, therefore, at the age of forty-three, had completed his constructive work and ceased to influence public affairs except by his writings and speeches. It might almost be said that this work was done with the close of the administration of Washington in 1797, and that his great fame would have shone with brighter lustre if he had not lived to take part in the later differences and quarrels of the Adams administration. His life was not without service, however, under Adams, since his influence over members of the cabinet several times restrained rash policies, and between the conflicting passions of the champions of France and of the friends of Great Britain, kept the ship of state steady upon a safe course.