Hamilton’s great object as Secretary of the Treasury was that of making the organization of the national finances serve the cause of a constructive national policy.  He wished to strengthen the Federal government by a striking exhibition of its serviceability, and by creating both a strong sentiment and an influential interest in its favor.  To this end he committed the nation to a policy of scrupulous financial honesty, which has helped to make it ever since the mainstay of sound American finance.  He secured the consent of Congress to the recognition at their face value of the debts incurred during the war both by the Confederacy and by the individual states.  He created in the National Bank an efficient fiscal agent for the Treasury Department and a means whereby it could give stability to the banking system of the country.  Finally he sought by means of his proposed fiscal and commercial policy to make the central government the effective promoter of a wholesome and many-sided national development.  He detected the danger to political stability and self-control which would result from the continued growth of the United States as a merely agricultural and trading community, and he saw that it was necessary to cultivate manufacturing industries and technical knowledge and training, because diversified activity and a well-rounded social and economic life brings with it national balance and security.

Underlying the several aspects of Hamilton’s policy can be discerned a definite theory of governmental functions.  The central government is to be used, not merely to maintain the Constitution, but to promote the national interest and to consolidate the national organization.  Hamilton saw clearly that the American Union was far from being achieved when the Constitution was accepted by the states and the machinery of the Federal government set in motion.  A good start had been made, but the way in which to keep what had been gained was to seek for more.  Unionism must be converted into a positive policy which labored to strengthen the national interest and organization, discredit possible or actual disunionist ideas and forces, and increase the national spirit.  All this implied an active interference with the natural course of American economic and political business and its regulation and guidance in the national direction.  It implied a conscious and indefatigable attempt on the part of the national leaders to promote the national welfare.  It implied the predominance in American political life of the men who had the energy and the insight to discriminate between those ideas and tendencies which promoted the national welfare, and those ideas and tendencies whereby it was imperiled.  It implied, in fine, the perpetuation of the same kind of leadership which had guided the country safely through the dangers of the critical period, and the perpetuation of the purposes which inspired that leadership.