rtful, dissembling, going in for the winning side, shaking
hands with everybody, profuse in promises, bland, affable, ready to do
anything for anybody, and seeking the interests and flattering the
prejudices of his own constituency, indifferent to the great questions
on which the welfare of a nation rests, if only his own private
interests be advanced. All politicians are not so small and
contemptible; many are honest, as far as they can see, but can see only
petty details, and not broad effects. Mere politicians,--observe, I
qualify what I say,--_mere_ politicians resemble statesmen,
intellectually, as pedants resemble scholars of large culture,
comprehensive intellects, and varied knowledge; they will consider a
date, or a name, or a comma, of more importance than the great universe,
which no one can ever fully and accurately explore.

I have given but a short notice of Hamilton as a lawyer, because his
services as a statesman are of so much greater importance, especially to
the student of history. His sphere became greatly enlarged when he
entered into those public questions on which the political destiny of a
nation rests. He was called to give a direction to the policy of the
young government that had arisen out of the storms of revolution,--a
policy which must be carried out when the nation should become powerful
and draw upon itself the eyes of the civilized world. "Just as the twig
is bent, the tree's inclined." It was the privilege and glory of
Hamilton to be one of the most influential of all the men of his day in
bending the twig which has now become so great a tree. We can see his
hand in the distinctive features of our Constitution, and especially in
that financial policy which extricated the nation from the poverty and
embarrassments bequeathed by the war, and which, on the whole, has been
the policy of the Government from his day to ours. Greater statesmen may
arise than he, but no future statesman will ever be able to shape a
national policy as he has done. He is one of the great fathers of the
Republic, and was as efficient in founding a government and a financial
policy, as Saint Augustine was in giving shape to the doctrines of the
Church in his age, and in mediaeval ages. Hamilton was therefore a
benefactor to the State, as Augustine was to the Church.

But before Hamilton could be of signal service to the country as an
organizer and legislator, it was necessary to have a national government
which t