Just here was where his policy invited its strongest and most bitter attack.  For there are men today who can not comprehend that a public debt is a public blessing, and that all liabilities have a strict and undivorceable relationship to assets.  Alexander Hamilton was a leader of men.  He could do the thinking of his time and map out a policy, “arranging every detail for a kingdom.”  He has been likened to Napoleon in his ability to plan and execute with rapid and marvelous precision, and surely the similarity is striking.

But he was not an adept in the difficult and delicate art of diplomacy—­he could not wait.  He demanded instant obedience, and lacked all of that large, patient, calm magnanimity so splendidly shown forth since by Abraham Lincoln.  Unlike Jefferson, his great rival, he could not calmly and silently bide his time.  But I will not quarrel with a man because he is not some one else.

He saw things clearly at a glance; he knew because he knew; and if others would not follow, he had the audacity to push on alone.  This recklessness to the opinion of the slow and plodding, this indifference to the dull, gradually drew upon him the hatred of a class.

They said he was a monarchist at heart and “such men are dangerous.”  The country became divided into those who were with Hamilton and those who were against him.  The very transcendent quality of his genius wove the net that eventually was to catch his feet and accomplish his ruin.

* * * * *

It has been the usual practise for nearly a hundred years to refer to Aaron Burr as a roue, a rogue and a thorough villain, who took the life of a gentle and innocent man.

I have no apologies to make for Colonel Burr; the record of his life lies open in many books, and I would neither conceal nor explain away.

If I should attempt to describe the man and liken him to another, that man would be Alexander Hamilton.

They were the same age within ten months; they were the same height within an inch; their weight was the same within five pounds, and in temperament and disposition they resembled each other as brothers seldom do.  Each was passionate, ambitious, proud.

In the drawing-room where one of these men chanced to be, there was room for no one else—­such was the vivacity, the wit, and the generous, glowing good-nature shown.  With women, the manner of these men was most gentle and courtly; and the low, alluring voice of each was music’s honeyed flattery set to words.

Both were much under the average height, yet the carriage of each was so proud and imposing that everywhere they went men made way, and women turned and stared.

Both were public speakers and lawyers of such eminence that they took their pick of clients and charged all the fee that policy would allow.  In debate, there was a wilful aggressiveness, a fiery sureness, a lofty certainty, that moved judges and juries to do their bidding.  Henry Cabot Lodge says that so great was Hamilton’s renown as a lawyer that clients flocked to him because the belief was abroad that no judge dare decide against him.  With Burr it was the same.