The close of the war found him in New York barely existing on crumbs from the table of an editor. His was a familiar figure in the Merchants’ Coffee-House at Wall and Water Streets where leading men congregated. The problem then was to get the necessities of life, and literary work was not then included among the means. This was the condition in which Madison found him. He knew the story of his poet friend, and thus it came about that the plan was made for the ‘Federal Gazette.’ He was ideally fitted for the task. It called for one who could write in the language of the people, could wield a scorpion lash, whose heart was in the cause—and no greater master of invective was in view, no keener satirist. He required no tutoring, and he would accept no orders. He was a rebel still, a radical, a crusader for democracy, who looked with amusement on ‘aristocracy,’ with hatred on monarchy. He was an original thinker, a breaker of idols, an iconoclastic genius. He had the wit, the keenness, the quickness, the felicity of his French blood, the stern firmness of the Huguenot mind. He was a gusty warrior with a lusty blade and he kept it shining in the sun.

Soon Philadelphia found him a familiar figure in its streets—a rather little man with slightly stooped shoulders, thin yet muscular, who walked briskly like one who knew where he was going. In his office at his work he was more imposing, for there one could note the high intellectual brow, the dark gray deep-set eyes that sometimes blazed under the slightly drooping lids. Usually pensive in repose, his face lighted with animation when he talked. His manners were courteous and refined and women found him interesting and gallant. Nor was this democrat a Marat in dress—he wore the small-clothes, the long hose, the buckled shoes, and cocked hat, long after others had accepted less picturesque fashions. He had no vanity, no ambition for place or power, and no fear of either. He wore no man’s collar and he was no man’s man. He was a law unto himself.

CHAPTER VIII
THE GAGE OF BATTLE

I

THERE was little in the reception of Hamilton’s famous ‘Report on Manufactures’ during the congressional session of 1791-92 to foreshadow the part it was to play in American politics. Bristling with facts and figures laboriously assembled, the plea for protection and bounties for manufacturers was plausibly presented. Foreseeing the hostility of the farmers, the most persuasive arguments were reserved for them. The diversification of industry would increase the demand for the products of the farm; the elimination of foreign competition would decrease the cost of manufactured goods; and the certainty of immigration would prevent any labor shortage with agriculturists. Better still, the factories would afford the farmers an opportunity to put their wives and children to work in the mills.[593] Four sevenths of the employees of the cotton mills of England were women and children, and many of the latter of ‘tender age.’[594] In the making of nails and spikes young boys were able to do the work.[595] As to the constitutional objection, that was disposed of by the doctrine of implied powers.

The newspapers, including Freneau’s, ran the report in full, but nothing came of it for the moment. No one was shocked at the idea of working women and children of tender age. After a while a writer in Freneau’s paper warned that a new field was being opened ‘for favoritism, influence and monopoly.’[596] Madison wrote to Pendleton that ‘if Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done with money ... the Government is no longer a limited one.’[597] But this ‘Report’ resulted in less controversy than any that had preceded. There was no storm—just a bare stirring of the leaves.

But Hamilton was not content to allude to brighter worlds—he led the way. Long before, he had been impressed with the industrial possibilities of beautiful Passaic Falls in New Jersey, midway between New York and Newark at the very door of the market. Just how long he was in interesting moneyed men in his ambitious plans for a great national manufactory there, we do not know. But even before the publication of his ‘Report,’ he had personally appeared with others interested before the New Jersey Legislature to ‘elucidate anything that may appear obtuse’ in the request for a charter.[598] It was only a little trip from Philadelphia to Trenton. Then, one summer day, a group of men appeared at the Falls to purchase land and select the precise sites for the various mills, and the small but masterful figure of Hamilton was the center of the group. All sorts of things would be manufactured, cotton mills predominating, and it would become—this city of Paterson—the industrial capital of the Republic. Major l’Enfant was summoned to the task of making this industrial beehive beautiful, and he responded.[599] Soon there were grumblings among the farmers, outraged because the charter that Hamilton’s influence had secured gave the company the right to dig canals on any man’s land. The other manufacturers were indignant because the new factory was to be free from taxation for ten years, and its employees were to be excused from military services except in cases of dire necessity. ‘A Manufacturer’ wrote a vehement protest, mentioning Hamilton by name, and denouncing the act of the legislature as vicious beyond comparison.[600] Soon the Philadelphia papers were advertising that the five letters ‘To the Yeomanry,’ in pamphlet form, complaining of the privileged nature of the corporation and of the part played by Hamilton, could be had at the various stores of the city.

But Hamilton was not concerned with the grumblings of the groundlings, for he was at high tide. In New York men had subscribed for a portrait of him by Trumbull, and the subscription lists ‘were still open in the coffee-house.’[601] He had become the idol of the most powerful class. A little later, Trumbull’s work completed, ‘the best that ever came from his pencil,’ it was placed temporarily in the old city hall in New York.[602] The obscure boy from the West Indies had become an institution in the city of his adoption. Even so Hamilton was ever vigilant. He had not liked the Freneau project from the start, and he was watching it like a hawk.

II

When the poet-journalist took an office on High Street and began the publication of his paper, there was little to justify grave apprehensions. In his first issues the editor had pledged himself to the support ‘of the great principles on which the American Revolution was founded,’ and while this smacked of the jabberings of Sam Adams, Hancock, and Jefferson, it was probably only a gesture. The tone of the early editions was temperate, almost academic. The ordinary reader must have thought it harmless enough, but Hamilton, who used the press effectively himself, examined the articles more critically. There were phrases creeping in, innocently, perhaps, that Fenno would have scorned. The idea that ‘public opinion sets the bounds to every government, and is the real sovereign of every free one,’[603] would never have soiled the pages of the ‘Gazette of the United States.’ The little essays on politics and government were sprinkled all too freely with these disturbing suggestions. Only an essay on ‘Nobility’—but why make it the vehicle for the thought that ‘the downfall of nobility in France has operated like an early frost toward killing the germ of it in America.’[604] With Fenno chiding the critics of officials, what more unfortunate than Freneau’s assertion that ‘perpetual jealousy of the government’ is alone effectual ‘against the machinations of ambition,’ and his warning that ‘where that jealousy does not exist in a reasonable degree the saddle is soon prepared for the back of the people.’[605] A defense of parties coupled with a denunciation of privilege,[606] stiff criticism of ministerial inefficiency apropos of the St. Clair expedition; forceful protests against the excise law;[607] and then an article by ‘Brutus’ on the funding system which could not be ignored—these were bad enough. That system, said ‘Brutus,’ had given undue weight to the Treasury Department ‘by throwing the enormous sum of fifty million dollars into the hands of the wealthy,’ thus attaching them to all the Treasury measures ‘by motives of private interest.’ Having combined the great moneyed interest, it had been made formidable by the Bank monopoly. Out of it all had come the ‘unlimited excise laws and imposts’ that ‘anticipated the best resources of the country and swallowed them all up in future payments.’ Because the certificates had fallen to the wealthy, ‘the industrious mechanic, the laborious farmer and poorer classes generally are made tributary to the latest generation.’[608] Rights of property? Yes—but there is property in rights.[609] Be loyal to the Union? Yes, but who are the enemies of the Union? ‘Not those who favoring measures which, pampering the spirit of speculation, disgust the best friends of the Union.’ ‘Not those who promote unnecessary accumulations of the debts of the Union.’ Not those ‘who study by arbitrary interpretations and insidious precedents to pervert the limited government of the Union into a government of unlimited discretion.’[610]