and,
who had a just appreciation of Hamilton's talents and character, said
that he had divined Europe. An American need not be possessed of high
powers or position to venture the assertion that Hamilton divined
American history, and foresaw all that we have suffered because our
predecessors would build the national edifice on sand, so that it could
not stand against the political storm which it was in the breath of
selfish partisans to send against it, but has, as it were, to be
buttressed by mighty fleets and armies. A system, which, had it been
rightly formed in the first place, would have been self-sustaining, was
saved from destruction solely by the uprising of the people, who had to
operate with bullets and bayonets, when it had been fondly hoped that
the ballot would ever be a sufficiently formidable weapon in the hand of
the American citizen, and that he never would have to become the
citizen-soldier in a civil contest. Had Hamilton been allowed to shape
our national polity, it would have worked as successfully for ages as
that financial system which he formed has ever worked, and which has
never been departed from without the result being most injurious to the
country. At this day, when events have so signally justified the views
of Alexander Hamilton, and are daily justifying them,[F] it may not be
unprofitable to glance over the career of one whose virtues, services,
and genius are constantly rising in the estimation of his countrymen and
of the world, "the dead growing visible from the shades of time."

To be born at all is to be well born is the general belief in this very
liberal-minded age: but even the most determined of democrats is not
averse to a good descent; and Hamilton, who was a democrat in no sense,
had one of the noblest ancestries in Europe, though himself of American
birth. His family was of Scotland, a country which, the smallness of its
population considered, has produced more able and useful men than any
other. The Hamiltons of Scotland, and we may add of France, were one of
the noblest of patrician houses, and they had a great part in the stormy
history of their country. Walter de Hamilton, of Cambuskeith, in the
County of Ayr,--Burns's county,--second son of Sir David de Hamilton,
Dominus de Cadyow, was the founder of that branch of the Hamilton family
to which the American statesman belonged. He flourished _temp._ Robert
III., second of the Stuart kings, almost five hundred years ago. Man