ary of the Treasury was that of making
the organization of the national finances serve the cause of a
constructive national policy. He wished to strengthen the Federal
government by a striking exhibition of its serviceability, and by
creating both a strong sentiment and an influential interest in its
favor. To this end he committed the nation to a policy of scrupulous
financial honesty, which has helped to make it ever since the mainstay
of sound American finance. He secured the consent of Congress to the
recognition at their face value of the debts incurred during the war
both by the Confederacy and by the individual states. He created in the
National Bank an efficient fiscal agent for the Treasury Department and
a means whereby it could give stability to the banking system of the
country. Finally he sought by means of his proposed fiscal and
commercial policy to make the central government the effective promoter
of a wholesome and many-sided national development. He detected the
danger to political stability and self-control which would result from
the continued growth of the United States as a merely agricultural and
trading community, and he saw that it was necessary to cultivate
manufacturing industries and technical knowledge and training, because
diversified activity and a well-rounded social and economic life brings
with it national balance and security.

Underlying the several aspects of Hamilton's policy can be discerned a
definite theory of governmental functions. The central government is to
be used, not merely to maintain the Constitution, but to promote the
national interest and to consolidate the national organization. Hamilton
saw clearly that the American Union was far from being achieved when
the Constitution was accepted by the states and the machinery of the
Federal government set in motion. A good start had been made, but the
way in which to keep what had been gained was to seek for more. Unionism
must be converted into a positive policy which labored to strengthen the
national interest and organization, discredit possible or actual
disunionist ideas and forces, and increase the national spirit. All this
implied an active interference with the natural course of American
economic and political business and its regulation and guidance in the
national direction. It implied a conscious and indefatigable attempt on
the part of the national leaders to promote the national welfare. It
implied the predomina