he called
him to his cabinet, and gave into his hands the department on which
the immediate success of the government hinged. It was a brilliant
choice. The mark in his lifetime for all the assaults of his political
opponents, the leader and the victim of the schism which rent his own
party, Hamilton, after his death, was made the target for attack and
reprobation by his political foes, who for nearly sixty years, with
few intermissions, controlled the government. His work, however, could
not be undone, and as passions have subsided his fame has proved to
be of that highest and rarest kind which broadens and rises with the
lapse of years, until in the light of history it overtops that of any
of our statesmen, except of his own great chief and Abraham Lincoln.
The work to which he was called was that of organizing a national
government, and in the performance of this work he showed that he
belonged to the highest type of constructive statesmen, and was one of
the rare men who build, and whose building stands the test of time.

Last to be mentioned, but first in rank, was the Department of State.
For this high place Washington chose Thomas Jefferson, who was then
our minister in Paris, and who did not return to take up his official
duties until the following March. Of the four cabinet offices, this
was the only one where Washington proceeded entirely on public
grounds. He took Jefferson on account of his wide reputation, his
unquestioned ability, his standing before the country, and his
experience in our foreign relations. With the other three there was
a strong element of personal friendship and familiarity. With the
secretary of state his intercourse had been, so far as we can judge,
almost wholly of a public character, and, so far as can be inferred
from an expression of some years before, the selection was made by
Washington in deference simply to what he believed to be the public
interest. The only allusion to Jefferson in all the printed volumes of
correspondence prior to 1789 occurs in a letter to Robert Livingston,
of January 8, 1783. He there said: "What office is Mr. Jefferson
appointed to that he has, you say, lately accepted? If it is that of
commissioner of peace, I hope he will arrive too late to have any hand
in it." There is no indication that their personal relations were then
or afterwards other than pleasant. Yet this brief sentence is a
strong expression of distrust, and especially so from the fact tha