It is true that he had but to move his furniture over to Philadelphia to be welcomed to citizenship with acclamation by that ambitious town; but not only was his pride bound up in the conquest of New York from Clintonism to Federalism, but New York left out of the Union, dividing as she did New England from the South and North, of the highest commercial importance by virtue of her central position and her harbour, meant civil war at no remote period, disunion, and the undoing of the most careful and strenuous labours of the nation’s statesmen.  That New York should be forced into the Union at once Hamilton was determined upon, if he had to resort to a coup which might or might not meet with the approval of the rest of the country.  Nevertheless, he looked forward to the next few weeks with the deepest anxiety.  An accident, an illness, and the cause was lost, for he made no mistake in estimating himself as the sole force which could bear Clinton and his magnificent organization to the ground.  Hamilton was no party manipulator.  He relied upon his individual exertions, abetted by those of his lieutenants,—­the most high-minded and the ablest men in the country,—­to force his ideas upon the masses by their own momentum and weight.  Indeed, so individual did he make the management of the Federalist party, that years later, when the “Republican” leaders determined upon its overthrow, they aimed all their artillery at him alone:  if he fell the party must collapse, on top of him; did he retain the confidence of the people, he would magnetize their obedience, no matter what rifts there might be in his ranks.

He had established a horse-express between Virginia and Poughkeepsie, and between New Hampshire and the little capital.  Eight States having ratified, the signature of New Hampshire, the next in order, would mean union and a trial of the Constitution, a prospect which could not fail to influence the thinking men of the anti-Federal party; but it was from the ratification of Virginia that he hoped the greatest good.  This State occupied much the same position in the South that New York did in the North, geographically, commercially, historically, and in the importance of her public men.  And she was as bitterly opposed to union, to what a narrow provincialism held to be the humiliation of the States.  Patrick Henry, her most powerful and eloquent leader, not through the selfish policy of a Clinton, but in the limitations of a too narrow genius, was haranguing with all his recuperated might against the sinister menace to the liberties of a people who had freed themselves of one despotism so dearly; and even Randolph, with characteristic hesitancy when approaching a point, was deficient in enthusiasm, although he intimated that he should vote for the unconditional adoption of the Constitution he had refused to sign.  He and Marshall were Madison’s only assistants of importance against the formidable opponent of union, and it was well understood among leaders that Jefferson, who was then