PAGE 441. This letter of Thomas Corbin disposes of the asseverations of Jefferson's biographers that the leader of the Democrats dressed himself like a gentleman until he became President. His untidiness was probably congenital to begin with, and in any case would have been a policy from the first, of that deep and subtle mind.
PAGE 448. A clause had been inserted in Article II of the Constitution which would permit Hamilton, although an alien born, to be a President of the United States.
PAGE 451. It was Mr. James Q. Howard in a letter to the New York Sun, May, 1901, who called attention to the fact that Hamilton was the first of the "Imperialists," or "Expansionists."
PAGE 458. I wrote to Colonel Mills, Commander of West Point, to ask him if any of Hamilton's codes were still in use. The librarian of the post, Dr. Edward S. Holden, replied, among other things, as follows: "… As circumstances have changed, the details of his codes have changed, and the principles which guided him have been readapted to new conditions as they have arisen. The best praise that can be given him is, then, that he thoroughly understood the basic principles underlying military affairs, and that with superb genius he applied them to the exigencies of his time with that philosophical and at the same time practical talent which was his special endowment."
PAGE 469. I made a copy from the original of a letter from Alexander Baring (afterward Lord Ashburton) to his counsel, D.J. Rinnan, containing full details of this transaction. One of the significant points about the contemptuous opinions of Burr's dishonesty which one comes upon constantly in the correspondence of this period, is that no one claims to have made its discovery, or to think comment worth while. It evidently became established at an early date. But brilliancy and dexterity saved him at the bar, and he won many a case for those who despised him most.
PAGE 471. Tammany Hall was highly respectable in the beginning of its career. I have here used the term in the figurative sense; it is in truth an epigram into which all political abomination is concentrated.
PAGE 474. For correspondence of Hamilton with his Scotch relatives, and with Secretary of the Navy regarding Robert Hamilton, see Vol. VI, Hamilton's Works.
PAGE 496.
Burials in 1799, Con. June 3d. James Hamilton—Father of General
Hamilton in America killed by Col. Baird.
NOTE: The Rev. I. Guilding was the Rector of the Parish at this time, and the entry was made by him in the above form.