the 30th of April, 1789, on which day General Washington became
President of the United States. It was not until the 2d of September
that the Treasury Department was created; and on the 11th Alexander
Hamilton was made Secretary of the Treasury. Writing to Robert Morris,
Washington had asked, "What are we to do with this heavy debt?" To which
Morris answered, "There is but one man in the United States who can tell
you: that is Alexander Hamilton. I am glad you have given me this
opportunity to declare to you the extent of the obligations I am under
to him." Hamilton had thought of the station for himself, but his
warmest personal friends objected to his taking it Robert Troup
says,--"I remonstrated with him: he admitted that his acceptance of it
would be likely to injure his family, but said there was a strong
impression on his mind that in the financial department he would
essentially promote the welfare of the country; and this impression,
united with Washington's request, forbade his refusal of the
appointment." Having said, in conversing with Gouverneur Morris, that he
was confident he could restore public credit, "Morris remonstrated with
him for thinking of so perilous a position, on which calumny and
persecution were the inevitable attendants. 'Of that,' Hamilton
answered, 'I am aware; but I am convinced it is the situation in which I
can do most good.'" He had the same just self-confidence that Cromwell
felt, when he said to John Hampden that he would effect something for
the Parliamentary cause, and that William Pitt felt in 1757, when he
said to the Duke of Devonshire, "My Lord, I am sure that I can save this
country, and that nobody else can." As with Cromwell and with Pitt,
Hamilton's self-confidence was to be conclusively justified by the
event.

Hamilton's career as the first finance minister of the United States is
the greatest evidence of statesmanship in American history; nor is it
likely ever to be surpassed, so complete is the change in the country's
condition,--a change due in great measure to his policy and conduct. The
world's annals show no more striking example of the right man in the
right place than is afforded by Hamilton's Secretaryship of the
Treasury. "The discerning eye of Washington," said Mr. Webster in 1831,
"immediately called him to that post which was far the most important in
the administration of the new system. He was made Secretary of the
Treasury; and how he fulfilled the dutie