Thus he came into close contact with Hamilton, entered into his plans, made himself useful, and slowly ascended, finally reaching the State Department with some misgivings, and only after many others had declined the place. He owed everything to Hamilton, nothing to Adams, and, as he sat in sphinx-like silence at the Cabinet table, it was to Hamilton, not to Adams, that he looked as chief.
VII
The same was true of Oliver Wolcott, Secretary of the Treasury, albeit these two men were, in most respects, the antitheses of each other. There was nothing of saturnity and brooding silence in Wolcott—he smiled. Both wore masks—one that of a stoic, the other that of a smiling epicurean. They resembled in a common capacity for uncommon treachery. In this, they both excelled. Both were professional feeders at the public crib and passionate panters after office.
The handsome Wolcott had infinitely more finesse in the art of double-dealing. He had read his Machiavelli to better advantage. If he was to conspire with the enemies of the chief, he was to present an ever-smiling face to Adams in the conference room. He was too exquisite a conspirator to seem one. He had early learned the advantage of smiling through; and leaving Adams, with his face wreathed in friendly smiles, he could sit down to the writing of a letter to Hamilton with the same smile still on his face. Life was altogether lovely and interesting to this happy warrior who delivered his sword thrusts through curtains.
The son of an idol of Connecticut Federalists who was repeatedly elected to the governorship, Wolcott passed his boyhood in and near Litchfield, ministering to a frail constitution by tending cattle and working on the farm. He did not permit the war to interfere with his career at Yale, felt no sentimental call to Valley Forge, and found that the rattle of musketry need not interfere with his preparations for the Bar. Almost immediately on the conclusion of these preparations, he found a job as a clerk in the office of the Committee of Pay Table, and such was his industry and methodical efficiency that he rose in that line of the civil service to be Comptroller of Public Accounts before the formation of the National Government.
This opened a new and fairer vista for an efficient bureaucrat, and the moment the department of the Treasury was established he was ‘induced by his friends’ to offer himself for a position.[1278] Even then, professional office-seekers merely yielded to the importunities of admirers. The congressional delegation for Connecticut pressed hard for an appointment, and he was offered the post of Auditor of the Treasury at fifteen hundred dollars a year. We can scarcely conceive that he hesitated, though it is of record that his sponsors urged him to accept, and that Hamilton expressed the hope that he would not refuse. He had hoped for the Comptrollership—but that might follow. The fact that Hamilton had favored him for the better place was promising.[1279] Meanwhile, on the salary, he could ‘live cheap and snug as you please.’[1280] Thus he went upon the Federal payroll. Thus he came under the observation and supervision of the genius at the head of the Treasury,
then the most powerful dispenser of patronage. Thus he was able to practice his ingratiating arts on one worth while. In little more than a year he was made Comptroller on the recommendation of Hamilton, and when that statesman retired to private life, it was he who lifted the faithful servitor into the Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury. There Adams found him; there, unhappily for him, he let him remain.
It would be unjust to leave the impression that Wolcott was without merit. He was not brilliant, but he possessed an infinite capacity for taking pains. Even in college, where he failed to sparkle, he was a hard student with ‘the strong reasoning faculties of the Wolcott family’ a little neutralized by ‘some eccentricities in reasoning.’[1281] In the Treasury, in subordinate positions, he had shown good judgment, much practical sense, a comprehensive acquaintance with business and business needs, exceptional power of sustained application, no imagination, and a dog-like devotion to Hamilton. The latter found this combination of virtues had not only made his conduct good, ‘but distinguished.’ More, he had ‘all the requisites which can be desired,’ and these were ‘moderation with firmness; liberality with exactness, indefatigable industry with an accurate and sound discernment, a thorough knowledge of business, and a remarkable spirit of order and arrangement.’[1282] In brief, he was the perfect bureaucrat, the indispensable man Friday. If he brought no political strength to the Administration, he could, with dependability, do the drudgery and register the will of others who could.