Lodge's Sketch of Hamilton

MR. LODGE, in performing the task assigned him by the editor of American Statesmen, has had the advantage not only of Mr. Morse’s excellent initial volume, but of his painstaking study of Hamilton, published six years ago. Mr. Morse called his work The Life of Alexander Hamilton, but, as we pointed out at the time,¹ he assumed in his readers the kind of interest which he himself plainly felt in his subject, and was less concerned to throw a strong light upon Hamilton than to illuminate the problems which were met and solved by Hamilton as the spokesman of the Federalists.

Mr. Lodge,² within the brief space at his command, has essayed a somewhat different task. The volumes of this series of American Statesmen are not, we judge, to be regarded as lives, but as literary portraits, which shall make the characters to be conspicuous by a clear projection from the background of the times in which they lived, and upon which they had a formative influence. Any picture of Hamilton, to have value for the reader of history, must present his striking figure boldly mastering the political situation, and taking the position of an intellectual general upon a field less picturesque than the battle-field of the Revolution, but wider in its relation to national destiny. In comparing this work, therefore, with Mr. Morse’s Life, we find a general agreement of conclusions regarding the political questions discussed, and the estimate of Hamilton’s ability and influence is substantially the same in both cases. The advantage on the side of Mr. Morse is that he had more room in which to show the nature of Hamilton’s statecraft ; on the side of Mr. Lodge, that, having Mr. Morse’s work before him, he could content himself with a bolder outline, and could use his material with closer reference to Hamilton’s personal equation. The sketch, then, is a free, vigorous portraiture of Hamilton as a statesman. It touches but lightly on the earlier years, and then mainly to hint at the early - developed lines of Hamilton’s character and genius. The disposition of the story of Hamilton’s quarrel with Washington is a good though slight illustration of the historical insight which Mr. Lodge shows. By simply recalling the two persons before the public he makes their presence give at once all the solution which the exaggerated problem requires.

“ Let us look at the pair a moment,” he says, “ as they stand there at the head of the stairs in the New Windsor House. One is a boy in years, although of wonderful and manly maturity of mind. He is a stranger in the land, who has shown himself possessed of great and promising talents; he has proved himself an able writer, a brave soldier, an excellent secretary. This small, slight, dark - eyed stripling is facing George Washington, and brimming over with a sense of offended dignity. Washington stands there, in the prime of his middle age, large and imposing in personal appearance. He is one of the foremost men in the world, a great general and statesman ; grave and impressive, as becomes a man who has carried in his hands the life of a nation. Some of Hamilton’s biographers have referred to this affair as one of Washington’s outbursts of passion. Like all great men, Washington had strong passions ; like very few great men, he had them under almost complete control. When they did break forth, as happened now and then in great stress of feeling, they bent everything before them, and there was a hush among those who listened. If Washington had spoken to Hamilton as he did to Lear about St. Clair’s defeat, that fine reply, we are inclined to think, would not have been uttered. But deep waters are ruffled, not stirred by a passing breeze. Washington spoke to Hamilton in a tone of sharp but proper reproof. Few generals, probably, would have spoken so courteously and gently to a young aide, who had kept them waiting, and thus sinned against the first of military virtues, prompt obedience. The event in itself is trivial enough.”

The good sense, the just deliberation, which mark Mr. Lodge’s work, and above all the wise proportions of the outline, are of great value in any study of such a life as Hamilton’s, which has scarcely less power to excite partisanship now than Hamilton himself had when he was active among men. There is an honest blame which does quite as much to confirm our confidence in a historian as an honest praise, and Mr. Lodge’s comments upon Hamilton’s course in his newspaper attacks on Jefferson and his proposed intrigue in the New York state election are direct contributions toward a clear historical view.

His extenuation of Hamilton’s course in accepting Burr’s wager of battle is more than ingenious ; it turns a repulsive subject into a positive illustration of Hamilton’s character. Mr. Lodge has shown historical sagacity in his use of the duel, and literary judgment by carrying the reader’s mind forward after the duel into a clear conception of Hamilton’s nature. He accepts the customary explanation that the code of honor then prevalent sufficed to account for two public men thus meeting each other, but he rescues Hamilton from the position of an unworthy acquiescence in an ignoble code by taking Hamilton’s own apology, and showing its wide and profound bearings upon his character and political thought.

The temper in which this work is performed gives us a high respect for Mr. Lodge’s historical acumen. If to the mature judgment and insight which he displays there were added a vivid pictorial imagination, we should congratulate ourselves still more ; but even within the short space of this volume we notice instances where opportunities were not used for giving warmth of tone to the picture. There was a dramatic intensity about the struggle over New York’s acceptance of the constitution which is not sufficiently impressed upon the reader, and the incidents of Hamilton’s professional skill are not used with the power which might have done much to give vividness to the image of Hamilton’s personality. The judicial temper, however, is almost necessarily somewhat deliberate in its exhibition ; and if Mr. Lodge is not always as swift in his writing as an interest impels us to wish, we have a sense of security in the pace at which he moves. We are not likely to be upset on the way, and, after all, in history soundness is more lasting than brilliancy.