“He who puts himself on paper with Hamilton is lost,” Burr had said; and Madison agreed with him, and entered the lists no more.  The excitement gradually subsided.  It left ugly scars behind it, but once more Hamilton had saved his party, and perhaps the Union.  In connection with the much disputed authorship of the Farewell Address I will merely quote a statement, heretofore unpublished, made by Mrs. Hamilton, in the year 1840.

Desiring that my children shall be fully acquainted with the services rendered by their father to our country, and the assistance rendered by him to General Washington during his administrations, for the one great object, the independence and stability of the government of the United States, there is one thing in addition to the numerous proofs which I leave them, and which I feel myself in duty bound to state:  which is that a short time previous to General Washington’s retiring from the Presidency, in the year 1796, General Hamilton suggested to him the idea of delivering a farewell address to the people on his withdrawal from public life, with which idea General Washington was well pleased, and in his answer to General Hamilton’s suggestion, gave him the heads of the subject on which he would wish to remark, with a request that Mr. Hamilton would prepare a draft for him.  Mr. Hamilton did so, and the address was written principally at such times as his office was seldom frequented by his clients and visitors, and during the absence of his students to avoid interruption; at which times he was in the habit of calling me to sit with him, that he might read to me as he wrote, in order, as he said, to discover how it sounded upon the ear, and making the remark, “My dear Eliza, you must be to me what old Moliere’s nurse was to him.”

The whole or nearly all the “address” was read to me by him, as he wrote it, and the greater part if not all was written in my presence.  The original was forwarded to General Washington, who approved of it with the exception of one paragraph; of, I think, from four to five lines, which, if I mistake not, was on the subject of the public schools; which was stricken out.  It was afterward returned to Mr. Hamilton who made the desired alteration, and was afterward delivered to General Washington, and published in that form, and has since been known as “General Washington’s Farewell Address.”  Shortly after the publication of the address, my husband and myself were walking in Broadway when an old soldier accosted him with the request of him to purchase General Washington’s farewell address, which he did, and turning to me said, “That man does not know he has asked me to purchase my own work.”

The whole circumstances are at this moment so perfectly in my mind that I can call to mind his bringing General Washington’s letter to me, who returned the address, and remarked on the only alteration which he (General Washington) had requested to be made.

     New York, Aug. 7th, 1840.