it. By this time excitement and anxiety, to say
nothing of cupidity, were risen to fever pitch. All realized that they
were well in the midst of a national crisis, for the country was
bankrupt, and her foreign and domestic debts footed up to quite eighty
millions of dollars--a stupendous sum in the infancy of a nation, when
there was little specie in the country, and an incalculable amount of
worthless paper, with long arrears of interest besides. If Hamilton
could cope with this great question, and if Congress, with its
determined anti-government party, would support him, the Union and its
long-suffering patriots would enter upon a season of prosperity and
happiness. If the one were inadequate to meet the situation, or the
other failed in its national duty, the consequences must be deeper
wretchedness and disaster than anything they yet had endured. The
confidence in Hamilton was very widespread, for not only were his great
abilities fully recognized, but his general opinions on the subject had
long been known, and approved by all but the politicians on the wrong
side. The confidence had been manifested in a manner little to his
liking: speculators had scoured the country, buying up government
securities at the rate of a few shillings on the pound, taking advantage
of needy holders, who dwelt, many of them, in districts too remote from
the centre of action to know what the Government was about. And even
before this "signal instance of moral turpitude," the fact that so many
old soldiers who had gone home with no other pay than government
securities, to be exchanged for specie at the pleasure of a government
which nobody had trusted, had sold out for a small sum, was one of the
agitating themes of the country; and opinion was divided upon the right
of the assignees to collect the full amount which the new government
might be prepared to pay, while the moral rights of the worthy and
original holder were ignored. It was understood, however, that Hamilton
had given no more searching thought to any subject than to this.

The public was not admitted to the galleries of Congress in those days,
but a great crowd packed Wall and Broad streets while the Report was
reading and until some hint of its contents filtered through the guarded
doors. Hamilton himself was at home with his family, enjoying a day of
rest. It is one of the most curious incidents in his career, as well as
one of the highest tributes to his power over men, tha