BOOK NOTICES-History of Louisiana, p. 242; Philip II of THE SOUTHERN REVIEW. No. IV. OCTOBER, 1867. ART. I.—1. History of the Republic of the United States of America, as traced in the Writings of Alexander Hamilton and of his Contemporaries. By John C. Hamilton. In six Vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1857. 2. The Life of Alexander Hamilton. By his Son, John C. Hamilton. In two Vols. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1840. 3. Alexander Hamilton and his Contemporaries; or the Rise of the American Constitution. By Christopher James Riethmüller. London: Bell & Baldy. 1864. 4. Inquiry into the Origin and Course of Political Parties in the United States. By Martin Van Buren, late ExPresident of the United States. Edited by his Sons. New York: Hurd and Houghton. 1867. We have long entertained the opinion, that, all things considered, Alexander Hamilton' was the greatest man, or, more accurately speaking, a man of the greatest intellectual power, that has ever figured in the history of the New World. His genius commanded the admiration of foes as well as of friends. 'Hamilton', said his illustrious rival, Thomas Jefferson, 'is really a Colossus to the Anti-Republican party; without numbers he is a host in himself.' Jefferson, as Mr. Van Buren truly says, 'scarcely ever spoke of him in his letters to Madison without admonishing him of the extraordinary powers of his mind.' (p. 124.) In my informal visits to Prince Talleyrand, says the same writer, 'we had long and frequent conversations, in which Hamilton, his acquaintance with him in this country, and incidents in their intercourse, were his favorite themes. He always spoke with great admiration of his talents, and during the last evening that I spent with him, he said that he regarded Hamilton as the ablest man he became acquainted with in America,- he was not sure that he might not add without injustice, or that he had known in Europe'. (p. 124.) 'With such advantages', adds Mr. Van Buren, 'greater at that time certainly than the public service of any country afforded to any other man, it is difficult to conceive of a more commanding position than that which he occupied.' It is still more difficult, if not impossible, to conceive how one so young, and with such limited advantages, should' have reached so commanding a position. There was, it is evident, far more in the man than time and circumstances ever developed, or brought to perfection. There are departments of thought, or spheres of intellectual labor, in which a Calhoun, a Webster, or a Clay, must necessarily have failed to attain to the front rank. But we can conceive of none in which Hamilton might not have been preeminently great. With suitable preparation and culture, he would, we believe, have become a mathematician, or a poet, or an orator, or a philosopher, or a statesman, or a general, or a metaphysician, of the highest order. Time which, in its revolutions, has cast so many of our idols to the dust, has only illustrated the genius of Hamilton, and revealed its gigantic proportions still more fully to our minds. We cannot deny, indeed, that it has also revealed in his character, as well as in his measures, certain gigantic faults, which we shall not attempt to disguise. For, with all our unbounded admiration of the genius of Alexander Hamilton, we dare not forget the claims of Truth, of whose infinite and eternal majesty all the heroes, patriots, saints, and sages of earth, are but most imperfect and feeble manifestations. We intend to consider, in this paper, the actual, not the possible, development of Hamilton's mind and character; which is in itself a sufficiently vast theme. His life, in fact, is so intimately blended with the history, is so inseparably bound up with the destiny, of the New World, that it possesses an irresistible charm and fascination for the real student of history. So controlling, indeed, was the influence he exerted on the mighty course of political events in this country-events terminating in such wide-spread disaster, in such awful and immeasurable calamities to the human race; that no man's biography is, perhaps, more worthy of the profound study of the philosophic historian, of the political philosopher, or of the practical statesman. We shall, therefore, proceed to present our view, however imperfect, of his character and his influence; and to measure, according to the best of our capacity, his wisdom and his folly, his weakness and his power. There is something romantic, and even marvellous, in the story of young Hamilton's life. Born in the island of Nevis, on the 11th day of January, 1757; he was just thirty years of age when he entered the Convention of 1787, which met to frame a Constitution for the United States of America; the most momentous and memorable event in the political history of mankind. He was at once the youngest and the wisest man in that famous Assembly of lawgivers. If time, which has verified so many of the wonderful predictions of this youthful seer, has also detected some great blunders in his ambitious and perilous policy; this only shows that he was not more than mortal. If he had committed no great blunder, he would have possessed a prophetic insight, and a wisdom transcending the genius of an Alexander, a Cæsar, or a Bonaparte. In no one of these great heroes. or demi-gods, however, is the human element more visible at times, or more conspicuous, than in the character of Alexander Hamilton. The wonder is, not that he should have committed grave blunders, but that he should have acquired so much knowledge, and risen so far above the wisdom of his age and country. We can easily believe that the mother of such a boy, was a woman of superior intellect, highly cultivated, of elevated and generous sentiments, and of unusual elegance |