the recess of Congress that he could work
uninterruptedly upon it; for that body, floundering in its chaos of
inherited difficulties, turned to the new Secretary for advice on almost
every problem that beset it. I cannot do better here than to quote from
the monograph on Hamilton by Henry Cabot Lodge, who puts with admirable
succinctness a series of facts important to the knowledge of every
American:--

In the course of a year he was asked to report, and did report with
full details, upon the raising, management, and collection of the
revenue, including a scheme for revenue cutters; as to the
estimates of income and expenditure; as to the temporary regulation
of the chaotic currency; as to navigation laws, and the regulation
of the coasting trade, after a thorough consideration of a heap of
undigested statistics; as to the post-office, for which he drafted
a bill; as to the purchase of West Point; on the great question of
public lands and a uniform system of managing them; and upon all
claims against the government. Rapidly and effectively the
secretary dealt with all these matters, besides drawing up as a
voluntary suggestion a scheme for a judicial system. But in
addition to all this multiplicity of business there were other
matters like the temporary regulation of the currency, requiring
peremptory settlement. Money had to be found for the immediate and
pressing wants of the new government before any system had been or
could be adopted, and the only resources were the empty treasury
and broken credit of the old confederacy. By one ingenious
expedient or another, sometimes by pledging his own credit,
Hamilton got together what was absolutely needful, and without a
murmur conquered those petty troubles when he was elaborating and
devising a far-reaching policy. Then the whole financial machine of
the Treasury Department, and a system of accounting, demanded
instant attention. These intricate problems were solved at once,
the machine constructed, and the system of accounts devised and put
into operation; and so well were these difficult tasks performed
that they still subsist, developing and growing with the nation,
but at bottom the original arrangements of Hamilton. These
complicated questions, answered so rapidly and yet so accurately in
the first weeks of confusion in