ideas of Natural Rights because they were antinational.

It was the excesses of revolution which Hamilton opposed. "A struggle for liberty," he says, "is in itself respectable and glorious; when conducted with magnanimity, justice, and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature; but if sullied by crimes and extravagances, it loses its respectability.' While being deeply concerned with the security of property, he did not regard it as sacred. "Whenever a right of property," he declared, "is infringed for the general good if the nature of the case admits of compensation, it ought to be made; but if compensation be impracticable, that impracticability ought not to be an obstacle to a clearly essential reform. To Hamilton, as to Burke, however, revolution was generally anathema. These contemporaries were both unsparing in their denunciation of the French upheaval of '89. They could not understand how conditions might become so bad that a root and branch revolution was the only way out. "A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together," Burke writes, "would be my standard of a statesman." They confounded democracy and the rule of the people

a Works, vol. 4, p. 386. To Washington, April, 1793. b Works, vol. 3, p. 16. Funding System, 1791 (?).

с

Burke, E., Reflections on the Revolution in France, part 1.

with the violence and anarchy of the French Revolution. In the words of Burke they believed that "an absolute democracy no more than absolute monarchy is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government." They had faith neither in the theory, "The people can do no wrong," nor the theory, "The king can do no wrong." To them neither kings nor people were infallible. Hamilton never fawned before the multitude nor tried to ride their prejudices to success. His idea of statesmanship was leadership) "When occasions present themselves," he says, "in which the interests of the people are at variance with their inclinations, it is the duty of the persons whom they have appointed to be the guardian of those interests, to withstand the temporary delusion in order to give them time and opportunity for more cool and sedate reflection. Instances might be cited in which a conduct of this kind has saved the people from very fatal consequences of their own mistakes, and has procured lasting monuments of their gratitude to the men who had courage and magnanimity enough to serve them at the peril of their displeasure."b

Hamilton's respect for authority is in accord with his nationalistic creed. Government he regarded as something apart from the nation; its clothing, as it were. "I hold with Montesquieu,"

а

Burke, E., Reflections on the Revolution in France, part 1. b Works, vol. 12, p. 207. The Federalist, No. 71.

he writes, "that a government must be fitted to a
nation as much as a coat to the individual; and,
consequently, that what may be good at Philadel-
phia may be bad at Paris, and ridiculous at Peters-
burgh."
To him government was the means,

never the end, the means by which the will of the
nation was made effective. If the national inter-
ests demanded measures of defence or diplomacy;
the revival of credit or the founding of a bank; the
encouragement of one class or the restraint of
another, he believed that the government should
be strong enough to enforce these measures.

In an age when traditions were scoffed at and institutions were crumbling, Hamilton opposed the tide of irresponsible democracy and laid secure the foundations of our political faith; he gathered up the achievements of the past and embodied them in a strong political structure which became the secure soil in which American democracy cast its roots.

a Works, vol. 10, p. 337. To Lafayette, January 6, 1799.

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3

CHAPTER SIXTH

FINANCE AND UNITY

The financial measures of Alexander Hamilton had three great purposes: first, to establish national credit both at home and in Europe; secondly, to provide financial machinery adequate to the business needs of the nation; thirdly, to cement more closely the union of the States. His aims were not merely financial; they were national, The financial problems did not appeal to him as so many difficult problems in themselves to find answers for; but as opportunities by which he might achieve his most cherished dream-the building of a great American nation.

Hamilton became Secretary of the Treasury under Washington on the eleventh day of September, 1789. The finances of the country were a total wreck; and, what was far more serious, the spirit of repudiation and dishonesty, which had characterized our former history, was abroad among the people. After the paper money debauches of the colonial and Revolutionary periods; after the sequestration and confiscation of foreign debts; after the stop and legal tender laws and wholesale repudiation; after the attacks on the courts of law for the enforcement of lawful contracts; after the dishonesty, specula