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might diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country! But I despair of seeing it.

There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it. But there is only one proper and effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that is, by legislative authority; and this, as far as my suffrage will go, shall never be wanting.

I never mean, unless some particular circumstances should compel me to it, to possess another slave by purchase, it being among my first wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery, in this country, may be abolished by law.

VIRTUE AND HAPPINESS.

There is no truth more thoroughly established than that there exists, in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity.

The consideration that human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected will always continue to prompt me to promote the progress of the former by inculcating the practice of the latter.

Without virtue, and without integrity, the finest talents and the most brilliant accomplishments can never gain the respect, and conciliate the esteem, of the truly valuable part of mankind.

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an "honest man."

The private virtues of economy, prudence, and industry are not less amiable, in civil life, than the more splendid qualities of valor, perseverance, and enterprise, in public life.

SPECULATORS AND FORESTALLERS.

This tribe of black gentry work more effectually against us than the enemy's arms. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in.

It is much to be lamented that each State, long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to society, and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that some one of the most atrocious in each State was hung upon a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman! No punishment, in my opinion, is too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's ruin. Let vigorous measures be adopted; not to limit the prices of articles, for this, I believe, is inconsistent with the very nature of things, and impracticable in itself; but to punish speculators, forestallers, and extortioners.

AGRICULTURE.

It will not be doubted that, with reference either to individual or national welfare, agriculture is of primary importance. In proportion as nations advance in population and other circumstances of maturity, this truth becomes more apparent, and renders the cultivation of the soil more and more an object of public patronage.

The life of the husbandman, of all others, is the most delightful. It is honorable, it is amusing, and, with judicious management, it is profitable.

An extensive speculation, a spirit of gambling, or the introduction of anything which will divert our attention from agriculture, must be extremely prejudicial, if not ruinous, to us.

WAR.

My first wish is, to see this plague of mankind banished from the earth, and the sons and daughters of this world employed in more pleasing and innocent amusements than in preparing implements, and exercising them, for the destruction of mankind.

For the sake of humanity, it is devoutly to be wished that the manly employment of agriculture, and the humanizing benefit of commerce would supersede the waste of war, and the rage of conquest; that the swords might be turned into ploughshares, the spears into pruning hooks, and, as the Scriptures express it, "the nations learn war no more."

ALEXANDER HAMILTON, 1757-1804.

THIS most distinguished statesman, jurist, soldier, and financier was born in Nevis, one of the West India Islands, on the 11th of January, 1757. At the age of sixteen, he came with his mother to New York, and soon entered Columbia College. He remained, however, but a short time here, for the stirring ante-revolutionary events warmly excited him, and called him from these academic shades into the duties and dangers of military life. He was but little more than eighteen when he joined the army as a captain of artillery, and at twenty had so attracted the attention of Washington by his writings and eloquence in the cause of independence, that he selected him as one of his aids, with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He remained in the army during the war, always attached to the staff of the commander-in-chief, possessing his warm affection and entire confidence, and being consulted by him constantly on all important occasions. In 1780, he was married to the second daughter of General Schuyler.' In 1782, he withdrew from public life, and devoted himself to the study of law in New York. He rose rapidly to the very front rank of the profession, and was again called into public life, by being elected by the legislature of New York to the Congress of Confederation in 1782. At the end of the session, he entered again into the active duties of his profession.

But a man of such consummate abilities, eloquence, and political wisdom could not long remain in private when great national interests were at stake; and accordingly in 1787 he was elected one of the three delegates to the Convention for the formation of the Federal Constitution. His influence in this body is well and justly expressed by Guizot, who says: "There is not one element of order, strength, or durability in the Constitution which he did not powerfully contribute to introduce, and cause to be adopted." After the adjournment of the Convention, and when the Constitution was before the legislatures of the several States for its adoption, he, in conjunction with Madison and Jay, wrote a series of papers explaining and defending the various provisions of that admirable instrument. These essays were afterwards collected and published in a volume under the name of "The Federalist," and constitute one of the most profound and lucid trea

She survived her husband for half a century, dying in the autumn of 1854 at the advanced age of ninety-six.

"Of the 85 numbers, 51 were written by Hamilton, 29 by Madison, and 5 by Jay. See account under Madison's life. The "Federalist" was for half a century a text-book in our best colleges.

tises on politics that have ever been written. The introduction and conclusion are from the pen of Hamilton, who also took the main discussion of the important points in respect to taxation and revenue, the army and militia, the power of the Executive, and the Judiciary. Upon the organization of the government, Washington showed his estimation of Hamilton by appointing him to fill what was then the most important post-overwhelmed as we were by debt-the Secretary of the Treasury. His various reports, while he filled this office, of plans for the restoration of public credit, on the protection and encouragement of manufactures, on the necessity and constitutionality of a national bank, and on the establishment of a mint, have given him the reputation of one of the first statesmen the world has ever seen.' While Hamilton was Secretary of the Treasury, there were numerous demagogues who were active in their efforts to embroil us in a foreign war, the French Revolution being then at its height. But this pure and lofty statesman not only advised the proclamation of neutrality, and the mission of John Jay to England to conclude a permanent treaty with that people, but also wrote for the public prints a series of admirable papers, signed "Pacificus" and "Camillus," which had a controlling influence on the public mind, and which are still regarded as among the most profound commentaries which have appeared on the principles of international law and policy to which they had relation.

When, during the presidency of John Adams, Washington was invited, on a prospect of an attack from France, to the command of the national forces, he accepted on the condition that Hamilton should be second in command. What higher compliment could have been paid him?

We now come, with sadness, to the closing period of Hamilton's life. In June, 1804, that talented but thoroughly unprincipled man, Aaron Burr, then Vice-President of the United States, who saw that Hamilton stood in the way of his ambitious views, and who for some time had hunted for his life, addressed to him a letter demanding his acknowledgment or denial of some expressions derogatory to his character, which he had heard that Hamilton had used. This demand Hamilton and all his friends deemed inadmissible, and Burr sent him a chal

It was in allusion to these masterly state papers that Daniel Webster, at a public dinner in New York in 1831, said: "He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the public credit, and it sprung upon its feet."

He was subsequently tried for treason in attempting to form a new republic; but was acquitted for the want of legal evidence to conviet. His feelings seemed to be those of Satan: "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven."

lenge. Though opposed to duelling on principle, he felt that his position as a public man, and his high rank in the army of the United States, demanded its acceptance. His words, as found in a paper written the day before he went to the fatal field, are: "The ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good in those crises in our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular." On the 11th of July, the parties met at Hoboken, and Hamilton fell, mortally wounded. He was taken home, and died the next day; living long enough, however, to disavow all intention of taking the life of Burr, and to declare his abhorrence of the whole transaction. Almost his last words were: "I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ."

Next to Washington, no man in this country was ever so universally mourned. The pulpit, the bar, and the press teemed with discourses commemorative of his exalted talents and services and virtues, and every one felt that America had lost her greatest man. Said the great and pious Fisher Ames: "My soul stiffens with despair when I think what Hamilton would have been !"2

THE REPUBLICS OF GREECE AND ITALY.

It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy, without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually

In a letter to a friend, soon after Hamilton's death, the Rev. Dr. Mason thus wrote: "The greatest statesman in the western world, perhaps the greatest man of the age, has been cut off in the forty-eighth year of his life, by the murderous arm of Vice-President Burr. The death of Hamilton has created a waste in the sphere of intellect and probity which a century will hardly fill up. He has left none like him-no second, no third-nobody to put us in mind of him. You can have no conception of such a man unless you knew him. One burst of grief and indignation assails the murderer from every corner of the continent. Political enemies vie with friends in heaping honors upon his memory."

* Read Life and Works by his son, J C. Hamilton, 7 vols. Eulogy by Rev. John M. Mason, D. D. Sketch of, by Fisher Ames. "North Am. Review," liii. 70. "American Quarterly," xv. 311. William Coleman, the editor of the "New York Evening Post," published a memorial of the occasion in "A Collection of Facts and Documents relative to the Death of General Alexander Hamilton, with Orations, Sermons, and Eulogies." A work of great interest and value has recently been published, entitled "History of the Republic of the United States of America, as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries; by John C. Hamilton."

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