in this cause as the greatest forensic effort
he ever made. He had come prepared to discuss the points of law
with a perfect mastery of the subject. He believed that the rights
and liberties of the people were essentially concerned.... There
was an unusual solemnity and earnestness on his part in this
discussion. He was at times highly impassioned and pathetic. His
whole soul was enlisted in the cause, and in contending for the
rights of the Jury and a free Press, he considered that he was
establishing the surest refuge against oppression.... He never
before in my hearing made any effort in which he commanded higher
reverence for his principles, nor equal admiration of the power and
pathos of his eloquence.... I have very little doubt that if
General Hamilton had lived twenty years longer, he would have
rivalled Socrates or Bacon, or any other of the sages of ancient or
modern times, in researches after truth and in benevolence to
mankind. The active and profound statesman, the learned and
eloquent lawyer, would probably have disappeared in a great degree
before the character of the sage and philosopher, instructing
mankind by his wisdom, and elevating the country by his example.

[Ambrose Spencer, Attorney General of the State,--afterward Chief
Justice,--who did not love him, having received the benefit of
Hamilton's scathing sarcasm more than once, has this to say.]
Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country ever produced.
I knew him well. I was in situations to observe and study him. He
argued cases before me while I sat as judge on the bench. Webster
has done the same. In power of reasoning, Hamilton was the equal of
Webster; and more than this can be said of no man. In creative
power, Hamilton was infinitely Webster's superior, and in this
respect he was endowed as God endows the most gifted of our race.
If we call Shakspeare a genius or creator, because he evoked plays
and character from the great chaos of thought, Hamilton merits the
same appellation; for it was he, more than any other man, who
thought out the Constitution of the United States and the details
of the Government of the Union; and out of the chaos that existed
after the Revolution, raised a fabric, every part of which is
instinct with his thought. I can truly say that