st
point by the character of Congress, his sternest wrath was kindled by
the gambling and money-making which had become rampant. To Reed he
wrote in December, 1778: "It gives me sincere pleasure to find that
there is likely to be a coalition of the Whigs in your State, a few
only excepted, and that the assembly is so well disposed to second
your endeavors in bringing those murderers of our cause, the
monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers, to condign punishment. It
is much to be lamented that each State, long ere this, has not hunted
them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies we have to
the happiness of America. I would to God that some one of the most
atrocious in each State was hung in gibbets upon a gallows five times
as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment, in my opinion, is
too great for the man who can build his greatness upon his country's
ruin." He would have hanged them too had he had the power, for he was
always as good as his word.

It is refreshing to read these righteously angry words, still ringing
as sharply as when they were written. They clear away all the
myths--the priggish, the cold, the statuesque, the dull myths--as the
strong gusts of the northwest wind in autumn sweep off the heavy mists
of lingering August. They are the hot words of a warm-blooded man, a
good hater, who loathed meanness and treachery, and who would have
hanged those who battened upon the country's distress. When he went
to Philadelphia, a few weeks later, and saw the state of things with
nearer view, he felt the wretchedness and outrage of such doings more
than ever. He wrote to Harrison: "If I were to be called upon to draw
a picture of the times and of men, from what I have seen, heard, and
in part know, I should in one word say, that idleness, dissipation,
and extravagance seem to have laid fast hold of most of them; that
speculation, peculation, and an insatiable thirst for riches seem to
have got the better of every other consideration, and almost of every
order of men; that party disputes and personal quarrels are the great
business of the day; whilst the momentous concerns of an empire, a
great and accumulating debt, ruined finances, depreciated money, and
want of credit, which, in its consequences, is the want of everything,
are but secondary considerations, and postponed from day to day, from
week to week, as if our affairs wore the most promising aspect."

Other men talked about empire, bu