Famous American Statesmen

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

And now, Colonel Burr, at thirty-six, after being in the United States Senate for six years, was the candidate for Vice-President on the Jefferson ticket. Hamilton's eloquence stirred the State of New York in the contest; but Burr's generalship in politics won the votes, and he was elected.

Hamilton went back again to his large law practice. Men sought him with the belief that if he would take their cases, there was no doubt of the result. An aged farmer came to him to recover a farm for which a deed had been obtained from him in exchange for Virginia land. Hamilton heard the case; then wrote to the wealthy speculator to call upon him. When he came, Hamilton said, "You must give me back that deed. I do not say that you knew that the title to these lands is bad; but it is bad. You are a rich—he is a poor man. How can you sleep on your pillow? Would you break up the only support of an aged man and seven children?" He walked the floor rapidly, as he exclaimed, "I will add to my professional services all the weight of my character and powers of my nature; and you ought to know, when I espouse the cause of innocence and of the oppressed, that character and those powers will have their weight."

The property was reconveyed to the farmer, who gratefully asked Hamilton to name the compensation. "Nothing! nothing!" said he. "Hasten home and make your family happy."

Hamilton was clear in his reasoning; a master in constitutional law; persuasive in his manner; sometimes highly impassioned, sometimes solemn and earnest. Says Henry Cabot Lodge: "Force of intellect and force of will were the sources of his success.... Directness was his most distinguishing characteristic, and, whether he appealed to the head or the heart, he went straight to the mark.... He never indulged in rhetorical flourishes, and his style was simple and severe.... That which led him to victory was the passionate energy of his nature, his absorption in his work, his contagious and persuasive enthusiasm."

"There was a fascination in his manner, by which one was led captive unawares," says another writer. "On most occasions, when animated with the subject on which he was engaged, you could see the very workings of his soul, in the expression of his countenance; and so frank was he in manner that he would make you feel that there was not a thought of his heart that he would wish to hide from your view."

"Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country ever produced," said Judge Ambrose Spencer.... "He argued cases before me while I sat as judge on the bench. Webster has done the same. In power of reasoning Hamilton was the equal of Webster; and more than this can be said of no man. In creative power Hamilton was infinitely Webster's superior.... He, more than any man, did the thinking of the time."

His chief relaxation from work was at "The Grange," his summer home at Harlem Heights, not far from the spot, it is said, where he first attracted the eye of Washington. Beeches, maples, and many evergreens abounded. The Hudson River added its beauty to the picturesque place. Here he read the classics for pleasure, and the Bible. To a friend he said: "I have examined carefully the evidence of the Christian religion; and, if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity, I should unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor.... I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."

At "The Grange" he was especially happy with his family. He said, "My health and comfort both require that I should be at home—at that home where I am always sure to find a sweet asylum from care and pain.... It will be more and more my endeavor to abstract myself from all pursuits which interfere with those of affection. 'Tis here only I can find true pleasure."

When Hamilton was forty-four, he endured the great affliction of his life. His eldest son, Philip, nineteen, just graduated from Columbia College, deeply wounded by the political attacks upon his father, challenged to a duel one of the men who had made objectionable remarks. The lad fell at the first fire, a wicked sacrifice to a barbarous "code of honor." After twenty hours of agony, he died, surrounded by the stricken family. Hamilton was especially proud of this son, of whom he said, when he gave his oration at Columbia College, "I could not have been contented to have been surpassed by any other than my son."

For three years Hamilton worked on with a hope which was never broken, constantly adding to his fame. And then came the fatal error of his life. All along he had opposed Aaron Burr. When named for a foreign mission, Hamilton helped to defeat him. When the tie vote came between Jefferson and Burr in the Presidential returns, Hamilton said, "The appointment of Burr as President will disgrace our country abroad." When Burr was nominated for Governor of New York, Hamilton used every effort to defeat him, and succeeded. Burr, exasperated and disappointed at his failures, sent Hamilton a challenge. He wrote to Hamilton, "Political opposition can never absolve gentlemen from the necessity of a rigid adherence to the laws of honor and the rules of decorum. I neither claim such privilege nor indulge it in others." Alas! that some men in public life, even now, forget the "laws of honor and the rules of decorum" in their treatment of opponents.