General Washington's estimate of men was generally correct. He understood Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, and Burr. I do not think he was personally attached to any one of them; yet he appreciated them as the public now do. He had need of the talents of Hamilton and Jefferson. The organization of the Government required the first minds of the country; and Washington was the man to call them to his side. In nothing did he show more greatness than in this. He knew Jefferson was without principle, but he knew that he was eminently talented; he could forget the one, and call to his aid the other. His confidence in the integrity of Hamilton was stronger, as well as in his ability. Upon all matters of deep concern to the country he consulted both, and these consultations often brought these two men into antagonistical positions before him, and upon important public matters—one of which was the constitutionality of a United States Bank. To each of these, when the charter of the bank was before him, he addressed a note requesting their opinions upon its constitutionality. Jefferson replied promptly in a short, written opinion, not well considered or ably argued, as was his wont; denying the constitutionality of such an institution. This opinion was handed to Hamilton, who pleaded public duties as the cause of delay on his part, for not furnishing an opinion. It came at last, and was able and conclusive, as to its constitutionality. But it was terrible in its slashing and exposure of the dogmatical sophisms of Jefferson. From that time forward there were bitter feelings between these two eminent men.
Intellectually, Hamilton had no equal in his day. It is ridiculous to compare him with Burr, which is often done by persons who should know better, because they have all the evidence upon which to predicate a conclusion. The occasion was open to both, equally, to discover to the world what abilities they possessed. They equally filled eminent positions before the nation, and at a time when she demanded the use of the first abilities in the land. What each performed is before the world.
Men having talent will always leave behind some evidence of this, whether they pass through life in a public or private capacity. Flippant pertness, with some wit, is too often mistaken for talent—and a still tongue with a sage look, will sometimes pass for wisdom. But wherever there is talent or wisdom, it makes its mark.
The evidences of Hamilton's abilities are manifested in his works. They show a versatility of talent unequalled by any modern man. He was conspicuous for his great genius before he was fifteen years of age; he was chief-of-staff for General Washington before he was twenty, and before he was thirty, was admitted to be the first mind of the country. As a military man, every officer of the army of the Revolution considered him the very first; as a lawyer, he had no equal of his day; as a statesman, he ranked above all competition; as a financier, none were his equal, and an abundance of evidence has been left by him to sustain this reputation in every particular.
What has Burr left? Nothing. He still lives, and what his posthumous papers may say for him, I cannot say; but I know him well, and consequently expect nothing. As a lawyer, he was mediocre; as a statesman, vacillating and without any fixed principles; as an orator, (for some had claimed him to be such,) he was turgid and verbose—sometimes he was sarcastic, but only when the malignity of his nature found vent in the bitterness of words. His private conduct has, in every situation, been bad. He was one of the Lee and Gates faction to displace Washington from the command of the army. He decried the abilities of Washington. He violated the confidence of General Putnam, when his aide, in seducing Margaret Moncrief, (whose father had intrusted her to Putnam's care.) He violated his faith to the Republican party, in lending himself to the Federal party to defeat the known and expressed will of the people, and the Republican party, by contesting the election before Congress of Mr. Jefferson. In the Legislature of New York, his conduct was such as to draw on him the suspicion of corruption, and universal condemnation. Contrast his public services with his public and private vices, and see what he is—the despised of the whole world, eking out a miserable existence in hermitical seclusion with a woman of ill-fame.
There resided as minister of the Congregational Church, at that time, in Litchfield, Lyman Beecher. He was a man of short stature; remarkable dark complexion, with large and finely formed head; his features were strong and irregular, with stern, ascetic expression. He was naturally a man of great mind, and but for the bigoted character of his religion, narrowing his mind to certain contemptible prejudices and opinions, might have been a great man. Reared in the practice of Puritan opinions, and associated from childhood with that strait-laced and intolerant sect, his energies, (which were indomitable) and mind, more so perverted as to become mischievous, instead of useful. He was a propagandist in the broadest sense of the term—would have made an admirable inquisitor—was without any of the charities of the Christian; despised as heretical the creed of every sect save his own, and had all of the intolerant bitterness and degrading superstitions of the Puritans, and persecutors of Laud, in the Long Parliament. In truth, he was an immediate descendant of the Puritans of the seventeenth century, and was distinguished for the persecuting and intolerant spirit of that people. He seemed ever casting about for something in the principles or conduct of others to abuse, and delighted to exhaust his genius in pouring out his venom upon those who did not square their conduct and opinions by his rule. At this time, 1820, the admission of Missouri into the Union gave rise to the agitation of the extension of slavery. This was a sweet morsel under and on his tongue. He at once commenced the indulgence of his persecuting spirit, in the abuse of slavery, and slave owners. His own immediate people had committed no sin in the importation of the African, and the money accumulated in the traffic was not blood-money. The institution had been wiped out in New England, not by enfranchisement, but by sale to the people of the South, when no longer useful or valuable at home; and all the sin of slavery had followed the slave, to barbarize and degrade the people of the South. The fertility of his imagination could suggest a thousand evils growing from slavery, which concentrating in the character of those possessing them, made them demons upon earth, and fit heritors of hell, deserving the wrath of God and man.
It was palpable to the scrutinizing observer, that it was not the sin of slavery which actuated the zeal of Beecher. The South had held control of the Government almost from its inception. The Northern, or Federal party, had been repudiated for the talents and energy of the South. Its principles and their professors were odious—the conduct of its leading representatives, during the late war, had tainted New England, and she was offensive to the nostrils of patriotism everywhere. Her people were restless and dissatisfied under the disgrace. They were anxious for power, not to control for the public good the destinies of the country; but for revenge upon those who had triumphed in their overthrow. Their people had spread over the West, and carried with them their religion and hatred—they were ambitious of more territory, over which to propagate their race and creed; yet preparatory to the great end of their aims, and the agitation necessary to the education of their people upon this subject, they must commence in the pulpit to abolish some cursing sin which stood in their way. They had found it, and a fit instrument, too, in Lyman Beecher, to commence the work. It was the sin of slavery. It stood in the way of New England progress and New England civilization. New England religion must come to the rescue. There was nothing good which could come from the South; all was tainted with this crying sin. New England purity, through New England Puritanism, must permeate all the land, and effect the good work—and none so efficient as Beecher. The students of the law-school had a pew in his little synagogue—it was after the fashion of a square pew, with seats all around, and to this he would direct his eye when pouring out his anathemas upon the South, Southern habits, and Southern institutions; four out of five of the members of the school were from the South.
It was his habit to ascribe the origin and practice of every vice to slavery. Debauchery of every grade, name, and character, was born of this, and though every one of these vices, in full practice, were reeking under his nose, and permeating every class of his own people; when seven out of every ten of the bawds of every brothel, from Maine to the Sabine, were from New England, they were only odious in the South. I remember upon one occasion he was dilating extensively upon the vice of drunkenness, and accounting it as peculiar to the South, and the direct offshoot of slavery, he exclaimed, with his eyes fixed upon the students' pew: "Yes, my brethren, it is peculiar to the people who foster the accursed institution of slavery, and so common is it in the South, that the father who yields his daughter in wedlock, never thinks of asking if her intended is a sober man. All he asks, or seems desirous to know, is whether he is good-natured in his cups." Before him sat his nest of young adders, growing up to inherit his religion, talents, and vindictive spirit. Instilled into those from their cradles were all the dogmas of Puritanism, to stimulate the mischievous spirit of the race to evil works. Admirably have they fulfilled their destiny. To the preaching and writings of the men and women descended from Lyman Beecher has more misery ensued, than from any other one source, for the last century. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" has slain its hundreds of thousands, and the sermons of Henry Ward Beecher have made to flow an ocean of blood.
The example of Pymm, Cromwell, Whaley, and Goff, and their fate, has taught the Puritans no useful lesson. They seem to think to triumph in civil war, as their ancestors did, regardless of the danger that a reaction may bring to them, is all they can desire. The fate of these men has no warning. Reactions sometimes come with terrible consequences. They cannot see Cromwell's dead body hanging in chains. They will not remember the fate of Whaley and Goff, whose bones are mouldering in their own New Haven, after flying their country and, for years, hiding in caves and cellars from the revengeful pursuit of resentful enemies. The Pymms and the Praise-God-bare-bones of the thirty-ninth Congress may and (it is to be hoped) will yet meet the merited reward of their crimes of persecution and oppression.
At the time of which I write, there were many remaining in Connecticut who participated in the conflicts and perils of the Revolution. These men were all animated with strong national sentiments, and felt that every part of the Union was their country. They idolized Washington, and always spoke with affectionate praise of the Southern spirit, so prominent in her troops during the war. The conduct of the South (and especially that of Georgia toward General Greene, in donating him a splendid plantation, with a palatial residence, upon the Savannah River, near the city of Savannah, to which he removed, lived, and in which he died,) was munificent, and characteristic of a noble and generous people.