war, stood him in as good stead in matters of
civil government. He propitiated Nemesis and gave no just provocation to
any party to risk its popularity by attacking him. While he was
President the mantle of his great fame was ample enough to cover the
deep and vital divisions which were appearing even in his own Cabinet,
and were soon to convulse the nation in a dispute for the inheritance of
his power.

His Secretary to the Treasury was Alexander Hamilton. This extraordinary
man presents in more than one respect a complex problem to the
historian. He has an unquestionable right to a place and perhaps to a
supreme place among the builders of the American Republic, and much of
its foundation-laying was his work. Yet he shows in history as a
defeated man, and for at least a generation scarcely anyone dared to
give him credit for the great work that he really did. To-day the
injustice is perhaps the other way. In American histories written since
the Civil War he is not only acclaimed as a great statesman, but his
overthrow at the hands of the Jeffersonians is generally pointed at as a
typical example of the folly and ingratitude of the mob. This version is
at least as unjust to the American people as the depreciation of the
Democrats was to him. The fact is that Hamilton's work had a double
aspect. In so far as it was directed to the cementing of a permanent
union and the building of a strong central authority it was work upon
the lines along which the nation was moving, and towards an end which
the nation really, if subconsciously, desired. But closely associated
with this object in Hamilton's mind was another which the nation did not
desire and which was alien to its instincts and destiny. All this second
part of his work failed, and involved him in its ruin.

Hamilton had fought bravely in the Revolutionary War, but for the ideals
which had become more and more the inspiration of the Revolution he
cared nothing, and was too honest to pretend to care. He had on the
other hand a strong and genuine American patriotism. Perhaps his origin
helped him to a larger view in this matter than was common among his
contemporaries. He was not born in any of the revolted colonies, but in
Bermuda, of good blood but with the bar sinister stamped upon his birth.
He had migrated to New York to seek his fortune, but his citizenship of
that State remained an accident. He had no family traditions tying him
to any section, and, more than an