Alexander Hamilton: A Historical Study (1877)

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George Shea was the Chief Justice of the Marine Court of New York, and noted author of historical books, also serving as an attorney for Jefferson Davis.

THERE is much merit and much interest in Judge Shea's study of Alexander Hamilton, perhaps the most eminent American statesman of the best age of American statesmanship. It has been stated that the politicians of the United States have steadily and constantly degenerated since the days of the Revolution. Even the younger generation of Federalists— Madison, Munro, and John Quincy Adams—were hardly, with the exception perhaps of the latter, to be compared with the senior among their contemporaries. Hamilton, therefore, is to Americans and to readers of American history a more interesting personage than almost any merely political character in recent European annals.

WE are always glad to welcome a new biography of Alexander Hamilton. The first portion of this work, which was evidently written at a different time and without any reference to the biography which follows it, is an able though somewhat discursive essay upon what the author calls the Epoch of Hamilton. The biographical portion of it is completed to the year 1777, when the young captain of artillery became the aide-de-camp of General Washington, five years before he began the practice of the law.

Imperium et Libertas is the motto of Chief-Justice Shea, as well as of Lord Beaconsfield. Both of these authors and statesmen—for we are sure the judge is as good a statesman as his contemporary of the “strategic frontier"—favor a strong government, on the principle of centralized order; and certainly, the idea could find many things to recommend it. The author identifies the life-work of Hamilton with the form and character of the Union; and furthermore, asserts that, as it was the violent death of Caesar which led to the imperialism of Rome, the fall of Hamilton in like manner brought about, or helped to bring about, the union of the States in empire. Only when we understand what was the chaos out of which he set himself to form the strong, solid, enduring cosmos of the United States, as we have known them for over 200 years, only when we understand that this achievement was accomplished in direct contradiction to the public feeling of the day, can we realize the greatness of the task undertaken or of the man who bore the largest share in its accomplishment. These conclusions of the author are no doubt founded on the complete career of Hamilton, but the biographical portion of the volume before us ends when he was twenty years old. Hamilton had taken a precocious though by no means a premature part, when a boy of seventeen, in some of the earlier proceedings that led directly to rebellion and separation. He commanded a company of artillery raised by the State of New York and afterwards mustered into the service of the Continental Congress, and gained credit both as a politician and as a soldier.

This work, which, with all its collateral excursiveness, is really very attractive. Its style is earnest and glowing, and will not allow the reader to go through it in any languid way. Sometimes he will feel a wish to question some curiosities of expression, and hold an argument. He will also wish to make pencillings here and there; reading on, all the time, as if he could not help himself.