Chapter V · THE ECONOMIC INTERESTS OF THE MEMBERS OF THE CONVENTION

Having shown that four groups of property rights were adversely affected by the government under the Articles of Confederation, and that economic motives were behind the movement for a reconstruction of the system, it is now necessary to inquire whether the members of the Convention which drafted the Constitution represented in their own property affiliations any or all of these groups. In other words, did the men who formulated the fundamental law of the land possess the kinds of property which were immediately and directly increased in value or made more secure by the results of their labors at Philadelphia? Did they have money at interest? Did they own public securities? Did they hold western lands for appreciation? Were they interested in shipping and manufactures?

The purpose of such an inquiry is not, of course, to show that the Constitution was made for the personal benefit of the members of the Convention. Far from it. Neither is it of any moment to discover how many hundred thousand dollars accrued to them as a result of the foundation of the new government. The only point here considered is: Did they represent distinct groups whose economic interests they understood and felt in concrete, definite form through their own personal experience with identical property rights, or were they working merely under the guidance of abstract principles of political science?

74Unfortunately, the materials for such a study are very scanty, because the average biographer usually considers as negligible the processes by which his hero gained his livelihood. The pages which follow are, therefore, more an evidence of what ought to be done than a record of results actually accomplished. They would be meagre, indeed, were it not for the rich unpublished records of the Treasury Department which are here used for the first time in this connection; and they would doubtless have been fuller were it not for the fact that most of the books showing the central operations of the Treasury Department under Hamilton have disappeared. The names of the attending members of the Convention are given in alphabetical order.

Of Abraham Baldwin’s private fortune there is little known. His father was evidently well-to-do, for he enjoyed the advantage of a classical education at Yale before he established himself in the practice of law at Savannah, Georgia. He soon rose to eminence in his profession, and was reckoned among the ablest and shrewdest lawyers of his adopted commonwealth. A short sketch of him states that by “his constant habits of economy and temperance,” he accumulated enough to enable him to assist many young men in their education and establishment in business. When his father died, in 1787, he was able to pay the debts of the insolvent estate, and he educated his six half brothers and sisters “in a great measure at his own expense.”^[112]

Some portion of Baldwin’s fortune was invested in public securities. He possessed a few thousand dollars worth of the stocks of the new government at its very inception, which doubtless represented old paper of the Confederation acquired by original subscription or by purchase. The ledgers and other principal records of Georgia are apparently 75unavailable—at all events a search at the Treasury Department failed to reveal them; but Baldwin held some paper which is entered on the books of his native state, Connecticut, in April, 1792: deferred 6 per cents, funded 6 per cents, and 3 per cents to the amount of about $2500.^[113]

At later dates, 1797 and 1804, he appears on the Treasury Records for several thousand dollars worth of 6 per cents and 3 per cents, but the sources of these sums are not apparent.^[114] It is probable, however, that these stocks were paper which Baldwin funded at the Treasury instead of a loan office. He was a member of Congress, and naturally would have transacted business with the agency nearest at hand. They may, of course, represent purchases for investment, made after the great appreciation had taken place.^[115]

There is no exhaustive biography of Richard Bassett, of Delaware. A brief sketch of him relates that he “was born in 1745. He was the adopted son of Mr. Lawson, a lawyer, who married a Miss Inzer. The Inzer family was Herman’s heir to Bohemia Manor.... Mr. Bassett was educated and trained for the profession of law by Mr. Lawson, whose heir he became. By this inheritance he came into possession of six thousand acres of Bohemia manor, which we are informed, embraced the fairest and best portion of 76the Manor.”^[116] Through his inheritance and his accumulations in the practice of law, he became one of the wealthy men of his state. Another biographer notes that “His fortune was large and he entertained lavishly at his three homes in Wilmington, Dover, and at Bohemia Manor.”^[117] He was on intimate terms with the leading financial men of the community; he was very active in securing a charter in Delaware for the Bank of North America when it was attacked by the Pennsylvania legislature, and was warmly thanked for his success by President Willing, in a letter dated February 6, 1786.^[118]

Whether any considerable amount of Mr. Bassett’s large fortune was invested in public securities at the inception of the new government it is impossible to ascertain, on account of the meagre records of the state of Delaware preserved in the Treasury Department. In the later documents of the central office of the Treasury there appears the remnant of “an old account” to the amount of a few hundred dollars worth of 3 per cents and 6 per cents under dates of 1796 and 1797.^[119] A reasonable inference from the entry would be that Bassett, like other members of Congress, carried on his transactions directly with the Treasury (whose early records are missing), and that these holdings were based on paper originally funded.

Gunning Bedford, of Delaware, was the son of a “substantial land owner”^[120] and a Bedford of that name appears on the tax lists of Newcastle county for the year 1776 for the amount of sixteen pounds, a moderate sum for those 77days.^[121] He was a lawyer, but the extent of his practice is not known. He was of high standing in the community, and was elected governor of his state a few years after the Convention met. He took an interest in the financial affairs of the state, and under his administration as governor the Bank of Delaware was organized. How far Bedford had an interest in public securities cannot be determined on account of the fact that only a few scraps of the loan office papers for Delaware seem to be preserved in the Treasury Department. An old loan office volume shows a Gunning Bedford down for one $400 certificate of May, 1779^[122] and traces of the financial connections of the member of the Convention with the government are to be found in the Pennsylvania loan office records.^[123]

John Blair, of Virginia, was born in that state about 1731. He received a collegiate education, prepared for the law, and “in a very few years rose to the head of his profession.”^[124] Pierce, in his notes on the men of the Convention, says: “Mr. Blair is one of the most respectable men in Virginia, both on account of his Family as well as fortune. He is one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of Virginia, and acknowledged to have a very extensive knowledge of the Laws. Mr. Blair is however no orator, but his good sense and most excellent principles compensate for other deficiencies.”^[125]

Blair took advantage of the excellent opportunity afforded by the formation of the new Constitution to profit by the rise of securities. He appears frequently in the 78fiscal transactions between the federal government and the Virginia loan office, of which a few illustrations need be given here. In March, 1791, he presented £577:16:7 in Virginia certificates toward the United States loan; and of these securities £249 had been invested by Blair himself in 1782. The remaining amount he had purchased on his own account.^[126] In the same year an agent of Blair presented two small certificates which had evidently been purchased by the principal because they were issued to other parties in 1778.^[127] In September of that year, Blair himself turned in nearly $10,000 worth of paper on the United States loan, of which a part was purchased and a part original issues to the holder.^[128]

William Blount, of North Carolina, was the son of Jacob Blount who died in 1789, “leaving a large estate.”^[129] Of the younger Blount’s property interests in 1787 it is impossible to speak in detail. Very early after the establishment of the new government he was connected with land speculations on a large scale.^[130] In 1790 he was appointed by Washington to the post of governor of the Territory South of the Ohio and it seems that he did not consider the employment of public office for personal gain as incompatible with the discharge of his administrative duties. In July, 1797, President Adams sent a message to Congress asserting that there was a conspiracy in the southwest to wrest New Orleans and the Floridas from the King of Spain and transfer them to the English crown, and adding that Blount, who was then a Senator from Tennessee, was implicated in the plot. The United States Senate immediately took action, and 79after inquiry expelled him by a vote of twenty-five to one on the charge of “high misdemeanor inconsistent with public trust and duty.” When the sergeant-at-arms went to arrest him and take him to Philadelphia for trial he refused to go; and in his refusal he was warmly supported by his friends, of whom he had a legion, for, as his biographer remarks, “He was a man of commanding presence, courtly yet simple manners, and having a large salary and large private means, he entertained lavishly at his house.”^[131]

It does not appear that Blount combined dealings in securities with speculations in land, for the loan office of North Carolina credits him with only a small holding, and the origin of that is not apparent.^[132] It is true that the records of that state are incomplete, but Blount’s appointment to the western post at the beginning of Washington’s administration must have precluded extensive operations in securities.

David Brearley, of New Jersey, was the grandson of John Brearley, who “owned 1600 acres of land near Newton, N. J. ... a hundred acre plantation on the Delaware ... besides several thousand acres of land near Lawrenceville.”^[133] A brief sketch of him states that he “received the honors of Princeton at the age of eighteen. On leaving that celebrated seminary, he commenced the study of law, and in a few years stood foremost at the bar of his native state.”^[134] In 1779 he was appointed chief justice of New Jersey, a post which he held until 1789 when he resigned to accept a position as judge of the United States district court of that state.^[135]

80Brearley died in the summer of 1790 and consequently could not have established any fiscal relations with the new government. The incompleteness of the early loan office records for New Jersey, preserved in the Treasury Department, renders impossible a positive statement concerning Brearley’s holdings of securities at the time of the Convention. Only one small entry appears in his name for a few hundred dollars in a certificate purchased in 1779;^[136] his relatives, however, appear frequently on the loan office books of his state; but their aggregate holdings were small. Joseph Brearley’s name occurs several times, for example in July, 1791, for $505.80 worth of 3 per cents;^[137] David Brearley had a son and a brother bearing that name.^[138] Elizabeth Brearley is also among the small holders, and the Chief Justice’s first and second wife and a daughter bore that name.^[139] The name of Zerujah Brearley—a sister of the member of the Convention^[140]—also appears.

Jacob Broom, of Delaware, was born at Wilmington, in 1752. His father “originally a blacksmith was regarded as one of ‘the gentry’ of the day, and was ‘a man of considerable substance, in real estate, silver, and gold,’ although not one of the very wealthiest of his class. ‘Class’ distinctions, arising from birth, education, and worldly possessions were not wholly ignored at that time by those who came to this land, to find a home, a sanctuary, and liberty. And so in the transactions of the period we find James Broom, Jacob’s father, referred to as James Broom, Gentleman; and Jacob Broom as Surveyor. And both of these men had 81lands and houses to rent and sell and gold and silver to loan on good security. And both of them sold and rented and loaned.”^[141]

Broom was a man of diversified financial resources. He was interested in cotton mills and other enterprises. He was one of the original stockholders of the Insurance Company of North America organized at Philadelphia in 1792.^[142] He was also one of the organizers and original stockholders of the Delaware Bank established under Bedford’s administration.^[143] As mentioned above, the fragmentary records of Delaware in the Treasury Department throw little light on the public security holders of that state at the time of the formation of the Constitution; but the ledgers of the central Treasury show that Broom was a holder of a small amount of 3 per cents in 1797 and that this was a remnant of an older account.^[144] Broom was also willing to serve the new government in an official capacity, for he applied to Madison in April, 1789, for an appointment as collector at Wilmington.^[145]

Pierce Butler, of South Carolina, was a descendant of the Duke of Ormond and was very vain of his noble birth.^[146] William Pierce in his notes on the members of the Convention records that Butler “is a gentleman of fortune and takes rank among the first in South Carolina.”^[147] He was a large slave-holder, having thirty-one in his possession at the time of the first census. He also possessed some public securities, for he was a stockholder and director of the first United 82States Bank, and must have purchased his shares on the same basis as other stockholders, that is, by the exchange of securities. He does not appear on the records of South Carolina, however, but his daughter, Sarah, had in 1792 a small amount of the assumed debt.^[148]

Daniel Carroll, of Maryland, is recorded by his contemporary, Pierce, as “a man of large fortune and influence in his state.”^[149] His interests were wide and varied. He was a stockholder in the Potomac Company;^[150] and he favored the adoption of a protective tariff, for he was among the signers of the petition for such a measure laid before the first Congress under the new Constitution.^[151] He was a holder of public securities, for his name occurs frequently in the Treasury records of the period.^[152] His chief source of profit out of the new system was however in the location of the capitol at Washington, on land which he owned.^[153] Incidentally, he was able to facilitate this last transaction, for he was a member of the Congress of 1789–1791 and was one of the commissioners appointed to lay out the District of Columbia.

George Clymer, of Pennsylvania, was the son of “a wellto-do 83merchant and ship builder of Philadelphia” who had augmented his fortunes by marrying the daughter of a fellow merchant of the same city.^[154] On the early death of his parents he was placed under the guardianship of William Coleman, one of the first business men of his native city, whose counting house he entered to learn all the arts of mercantile pursuits and “the principal part of whose fortune he inherited.”^[155] Clymer’s personal fortune was further enhanced by a happy marriage to Elizabeth Meredith, the daughter of Reese Meredith, “one of the principal merchants of Philadelphia.”^[156] He was thus a brother-in-law of Mr. Meredith the first treasurer of the Union, also a man of “large fortune.”^[157] For some time Clymer was associated in business with his father- and brother-in-law.^[158]

Mr. Clymer’s intimate associations were therefore merchantile and financial, and his large fortune and quick understanding of the needs of trade and commerce made him one of the first men of his city in the Revolution and gave him a wide influence during the critical period, the formation of the Constitution, and the establishment of the new government, which he served as a member of Congress and later in several official capacities.

In all financial matters he took a deep interest. He helped to create the temporary Bank of Pennsylvania in 1780, and subscribed £5000 to its capital stock. When the Bank of North America was organized he became one of the directors and later was president of the Philadelphia Bank.^[159]

Clymer turned his extensive financial experience to some 84account in handling the securities of the new government which he had been instrumental in framing, for he is recorded in the Pennsylvania books as holding, in August, 1791, over $3000 worth of 3 per cent securities.^[160] If he held sixes deferred and funded, as may be assumed, although the incomplete records apparently do not permit of a verification or denial of this, he had in all over $10,000 worth of the government paper.

Wm. R. Davie, of North Carolina, was born in England in 1756 and was brought to America in 1763 by his father, who left him in care of his maternal uncle, William Richardson, a Presbyterian clergyman, who took charge of his education and on his death bequeathed to him his estate.^[161] Davie chose the profession of law, and by a lucrative practice “he quickly accumulated a large estate.”^[162] He was of counsel in the famous case of Bayard v. Singleton, and he had the satisfaction of securing from the court an opinion declaring an act of the state legislature unconstitutional.^[163] He held a fine plantation at Tivoli and at his death left a considerable estate which was the subject of litigation as late as 1892 in the Supreme Court of the United States. His personal property certainly was not small for he was able to pay $5000 for a thorough-bred colt.^[164] His connections with the landed proprietors of his region were intimate and extensive and he is reported to have drawn all the wills made during his time in that part of the state.^[165]

85Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey, was associated with, and agent for, John Cleves Symmes, in the purchase of an enormous tract of land in Ohio in July and October, 1787, the year of the Convention (formally consummated in 1788), and before the ensealing of the contract Symmes and his associates had paid into the Treasury $82,198 “one seventh in military rights and the residue in the public securities of the United States.” The remainder was to be paid in gold or silver or the securities of the United States, and part (one seventh) in military rights. In 1792 Symmes and Dayton complained that on account of the “advanced price of certificates,” they must have easier terms. It is apparent from this record,^[166] that they were engaged in buying up military certificates and government securities about the time of the meeting of the Convention.

Afterward, by collusion with Ludlow, the official surveyor, and the inadvertence of Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, Symmes, Dayton, and associates secured “the advantage of paying almost two-sevenths of their contract and above one-half of their actual payments in military warrants of one acre for an acre and a half of the supposed million, instead of one-seventh part of the actual payments” at a loss to the United States of more than $30,000.^[167] In March and April, 1800, Dayton purchased about 15,000 acres of public lands with military certificates.^[168]

If further evidence were needed that Dayton was speculating vigorously in government securities and military certificates, it is to be found in a suit brought by him and his partner, Lawrence, against Childs, a member of their concern in 1800, which was carried before Chancellor Livingston and later withdrawn. In this case Childs exhibited 86sixteen letters from Dayton, showing that while the latter was Speaker of the House of Representatives he had been engaged in speculations in public land warrants. Dayton was not unaware of the improper character of such transactions, for in a letter of April 17, 1796, he wrote to Childs: “The contents of this letter are of such a nature as to render it improper to be seen by any except yourself; burn it therefore, when you have perused it.”^[169]

The conclusive evidence of Dayton’s extensive operations in public securities during the period of the establishment of the new government and his term of service as Speaker is afforded by the records of the Treasury Department. Here he appears so frequently on the books of the loan offices of several states that some pages of this volume would be required to present the bare data of his transactions. However, a few examples of his dealings may be given by way of illustration. He appears on the loan office books of New York in February and March, 1791, for the following amounts: $17,060.82, $8530.40, $11,332.93, $7401.31, $3700.73, and $5100.61, totalling more than $50,000.^[170] At another point he is recorded for more than $15,000;^[171] and at another point for $6000.^[172] Although Woods is not celebrated for the painstaking impartiality of his famous History of Adams’ Administration, he is singularly accurate in one of his characterizations: “Jonathan Dayton, of New Jersey, the late speaker of Congress, is notorious from Boston to Georgia. The deeds of other members of Congress were scarcely known beyond the circle of their respective states, but the speculations of this man have rung throughout the western world.”^[173]

87John Dickinson, of Delaware, was a member of one of the established landed families of the south. He was born in 1732, on a plantation in Talbot County, on the eastern shores of Maryland; and eight years after his birth, his father, Samuel Dickinson moved from Maryland to Delaware “where he purchased a large estate in Kent County, near Dover.”^[174] Dickinson was a student of law in the Middle Temple and took up the practice of his profession in Philadelphia in 1757.^[175] Within five years he had acquired an extensive practice and won a respectable standing at the bar.

If his personal fortunes, however, had not been sufficient to assure him a satisfactory position in the business and professional world at Philadelphia, his marriage into one of the first and wealthiest commercial families would have more than made up for his deficiencies.

In 1770 he married Mary Norris, and for a time lived at the family estate, Fairhill, one of the show places of the day: “This house,” says Simpson,^[176] “was in its day a very grand mansion and a place of great celebrity, with a large front of sixty feet. It was surrounded by forest and evergreen trees of majestic growth and well-arranged shrubbery. It commanded a beautiful prospect of the city, with a distant view of the Delaware.... The mansion was two stories high and most substantially built, with a very wide hall running through its centre. The library was papered, but the parlors and hall were wainscotted with oak and red cedar unpainted, but polished with wax and kept in bright and handsome order by constant rubbing. The carriage way was finely graduated and wound through an extensive lawn, from its approach on the Germantown road which was bordered with shrubbery. The pleasure grounds, 88lawn, green house, and gardens, fish-ponds, and walks, embraced a large area of several acres in extent.” It is true the vast estates bequeathed to Miss Norris by her father were transferred to collateral male heirs in order to preserve the family holding and name, but she retained the “considerable personal property” which her father left to her.^[177] Dickinson was able to make a large gift to Dickinson College, named in his honor; and he and his wife were widely celebrated for their extensive benefactions.^[178]

The meagreness of the Treasury records for Delaware make it impossible to determine whether Dickinson was engaged in fiscal operations along with his intimate friends, Robert Morris, Thomas Willing, George Clymer, and other prominent Philadelphia men of affairs. It is possible that he was not largely engaged in the public security transactions,^[179] for he was an extremely cautious man in finances, and had got into serious discredit with the patriot party during the Revolution, because it was rumored that he had advised his brother against accepting the payment of debts in paper which was sure to depreciate. He was also unhappily involved with Robert Morris to the amount of £7000 at the time of the latter’s embarrassment, and may not have wished to incur further risks.^[180]

Oliver Ellsworth, of Connecticut, was the son of a clever Connecticut farmer who inherited a hundred pounds and “had the industry and the shrewdness to accumulate a considerable estate and to win the reputation of an excellent farmer.”^[181] Oliver was educated at Yale and Princeton and became a lawyer in spite of his father’s determination to 89force him into the ministry. Though he was almost briefless during the early days of his practice, he had the good fortune to wed the daughter of William Wolcott, of East Windsor, “a gentleman of substance and distinction.”^[182] He is described by his biographer as a man of great purpose, persistency, and of little imagination, and he rose rapidly to wealth and power at the bar of his native state. “It is doubtful,” says Brown, “if in the entire history of the Connecticut bar any other lawyer has ever in so short a time accumulated so great a practice.... Measured either by the amount of his business or by his earnings, it was unrivalled in his own day and unexampled in the history of the colony. Naturally shrewd, and with nothing of the spendthrift in his nature, he quickly earned a competence, and by good management he increased it to a fortune which for the times and the country was quite uncommonly large. From a few documents still in existence it is clear that he became something of a capitalist and investor. He bought lands and houses and loaned out money at interest. He was a stockholder in the Hartford Bank and one of the original subscribers to the stock of the old Hartford Broadcloth Mill (1788).”

With that natural shrewdness and economy which his latest biographer ascribed to him, Ellsworth accumulated a by no means negligible amount in public securities from which he profited by the rise of credit that accompanied the establishment of the new government. He was among the first citizens of Connecticut to have his paper funded into the new government securities, for he appears in December, 1791, with $1330.50 in deferred sixes, $2660.98 in funded sixes, and $1995.75 in 3 per cents.^[183] His wife, 90Abigail, and other members of her family, the Wolcotts, had also invested in securities.^[184]

William Few, of Georgia, was almost unique among the members of the Convention in being a representative, in origin and education, of the small farming class. His father was a Maryland farmer who was led by a successive failure of crops to try his fortune in North Carolina, where young Few labored with the ax and plow. Even here the elder Few did not prosper, and he became so deeply involved in debt that his son had to take over the management of his property. William, afterward, in 1776, settled in Georgia, and soon became engaged in politics and the Revolutionary War.

At the close of the War, he relates, “I possessed not much property nor had I any expectation that I did not acquire by my own industry. I therefore determined to commence the practice of law, although I had never spent one hour in the office of an attorney to prepare for business, nor did I know anything of the practice.” He adds, however, that his practice grew in spite of his deficiencies and that his “pecuniary prospects were very flattering,” by the time he was elected a member of the Convention. At all events he acquired a plantation in Columbia County, and after the expiration of his term as Senator in 1793, he retired there and engaged in agricultural pursuits. In 1799 he left Georgia for New York, where he managed his small fortune in real and personal property, according to his own estimate, about $100,000.^[185]

Few’s personal interest in the new government was probably rather small, but the absence of the full records of Georgia from the books of the Treasury Department renders 91impossible a categorical statement. He was connected with the Georgia Union Company, which was involved in the Yazoo land deals;^[186] and he presented for funding a certificate of the issue of 1779 to the amount of $2170 nominal value, which he had secured from one Spears.^[187] His name appears occasionally on other records for small amounts, and the index in the office of the Register of the Treasury cites him as being among the security holders recorded in a volume not found.^[188]

Thomas Fitzsimons, of Pennsylvania, was intimately identified with the mercantile interests of his city. He is described as “an extensive merchant,” and his family connections were with people engaged in his own line. He married the daughter of Robert Meade, and established business relations with his brother-in-law “who was one of the prominent merchants and shipowners of Philadelphia.”^[189] It is recorded of him that “His influence in the country and especially among merchants was second to none.... Mr. Fitzsimons was one of those efficient and able men who laid the foundations of the commercial and financial systems of the United States.”^[190] It is not surprising to find that he was also a “conspicuous advocate of a protective tariff.”^[191]

Like his prominent associates in Philadelphia, Mr. Fitzsimons combined mercantile and financial operations. He was “for a long time a director in the Bank of North America and President of the Insurance Company of North America, in which latter office he continued until his death.”^[192] Indeed 92he was so extensively involved in the speculations of Robert Morris that his resources were seriously crippled by the failure of that gentleman.^[193]

His intimate knowledge of finance and his immediate business connections doubtless invited him to deal in public securities; and Maclay sets him down among the speculators as follows: “The Speaker gives me this day his opinion that Mr. Fitzsimons was concerned in this business [of speculating] as well as Mr. Morris, and that they stayed away (from Congress) for the double purpose of pursuing their speculation and remaining unsuspected.”^[194] It is probable that Maclay’s version is correct, for in 1791 Fitzsimon’s agent, Michael Conner, presented for him certificates of 1778 to the amount of nearly $12,000 nominal value which he had evidently bought up.^[195] He appears also on the records of the 6 per cents and the threes for small amounts, and his operations extended beyond his native state.^[196]

Fitzsimons was also involved extensively in land speculations with Robert Morris, for the latter in a letter of October 9, 1795, writes to James Marshall, their European agent, to the effect that Fitzsimons and he had put on sale in London “about 360,000 acres of land situated in Georgia.”^[197] But as pointed out above Fitzsimons’ relations with Morris cost him dearly and snatched away from him all that he had made in public securities and more besides.

Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsylvania, in the midst of his 93varied activities as printer, diplomat, statesman, and philosopher, managed withal by thrift and investments to accumulate a considerable fortune for his day, about $150,000.^[198] At his great age on the assembling of the Convention, it would hardly have been practicable for him to have engaged in investments in public securities had he been so inclined; and he died in 1790, before the funding system went into effect. A short time before his death, however, he was interested in land speculations;^[199] and in his will he bequeaths “lands near the Ohio” and three thousand acres granted by the State of Georgia to him.^[200] He does not appear to have held any public paper.

Nicholas Gilman, of New Hampshire, was in public life from his youth until his death. He entered the army at the age of twenty-one, and after the War he served in Congress and in other public positions. He does not seem to have been a man of much weight either in private life or the Convention. A French observer remarks of his election as a member of the Federal Convention: “Cette circonstance prouve qu’il n’y a pas un grand choix à faire dans cet Etat, ou que du moins les hommes des plus sensés et les plus habiles ne sont pas assés riches pour accepter une place publique.”^[201]

In financial matters, there was no doubt of Gilman’s ability. He managed to accumulate a considerable amount of public securities before the meeting of the Convention, and apparently added to his holdings later. In the Nicholas Gilman papers preserved in the Library of Congress there is a list of certificates of the liquidated debt to the amount of $5400.67, declared to be the property of Nicholas Gilman, 94on December 9, 1786. This paper was bought up by Gilman, for the list of original holders is given. A receipt bearing the date of June 29, 1787, preserved in the above papers, shows Nicholas Gilman to have received interest on $6654.79 of the public debt. He and the various members of the Gilman family of New Hampshire were extensively engaged in transactions in public securities.^[202] One entry in the Treasury books of the new government shows Nicholas Gilman to have $11,021.95 worth of 6 per cent Deferred Stock;^[203] and he supplemented his purely fiscal operations by dealing in military certificates (that is, soldier’s paper which could be bought from necessitous holders at a fraction of its value), and in public lands.^[204]

While Gilman was quick to look after his own interests, his devotion to his native state made him anxious for her towns to participate in the general prosperity enjoyed by holders of public securities after the formation of the Constitution. On September 3, 1787, he had already discovered the probable effect of the proposed Constitution, not yet ready to lay before the people, upon the securities of the government. On that day he wrote to the President of New Hampshire advising the towns to buy up public securities at the prevailing low price in order to have paper to transfer to the federal government in lieu of taxes and other charges. He says: “I find many of the states are making provision to buy in their quota’s of the final settlements, and I must ardently wish that the towns in New Hampshire may be so far awake to a sense of their interest as to part with their property freely in order to purchase their several quota’s of the public securities now in circulation, 95while they are to be had at the present low rate; which is in this place, at two shillings and six pence on the pound. If they suffer the present opportunity to pass and we should be so fortunate as to have an efficient Government, they will be obliged to buy them of brokers, hawkers, speculators, and jockeys at six or perhaps eight times their present value.”^[205]

Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, was born in Marblehead in 1744. His father was a merchant of good standing and comfortable estate. His biographer states that after his graduation from Harvard, Elbridge “turned his attention to that line of life in which his father’s prosperity seemed to hold out the greatest inducements to a young and enterprising mind; and he plunged at once into the most active pursuits of commerce. His fairness, correctness, and assiduity, and the extensive knowledge of commercial concerns which he acquired from his father’s experience and his own exertions were crowned with good fortune, and while yet young in business and in years he acquired a considerable estate and a very high standing at Marblehead.”^[206]

As a merchant, Gerry was closely in touch with the needs of commerce, and was deeply impressed with the necessity for national resistance to the discriminations of Great Britain. In April, 1784, he presented a report to Congress in which he called attention to the fact that Great Britain had adopted regulations destructive to American commerce in the West India Islands, and that these measures of discrimination were growing into a system. “Unless the United States in Congress assembled,” he urged, “shall be vested with powers competent to the protection of commerce, they can never command reciprocal advantages in trade; 96and without these, our foreign commerce must decline and eventually be annihilated.” The West Indian trade affected New England particularly, and Gerry is thus reflecting a local interest in demanding a national system of commercial protection.^[207]

In addition to his mercantile interests, Gerry was concerned in financial affairs. In the Convention he strongly urged inserting in the Constitution a clause conferring on the new government not only the power but also the obligation to provide fully for the holders of public securities. According to Madison’s notes, “Mr. Gerry considered giving the power only, without adopting the obligation, as destroying the security now enjoyed by the public creditors of the United States. He enlarged on the merit of this class of citizens, and the solemn faith which had been pledged under the existing Confederation.”^[208] Later in the Convention, when Colonel Mason objected to making the full discharge of the debt obligatory, Gerry again took exceptions. He said, “that for himself he had no interest in the question, being not possessed of more of the securities than would by the interest pay his taxes. He would observe, however, that as the public had received the value of the literal amount, they ought to pay that value to somebody. The frauds on the soldiers ought to have been foreseen. These poor and ignorant people could not but part with their securities. There are other creditors who will part with anything rather than be cheated out of the capital of their advances.... If the public faith would admit, of which he was not clear, he would not object to a revision of the debt so far as to compel restitution to the ignorant and distressed who had been defrauded. As to the Stock-jobbers he saw no reason 97for the censures thrown on them. They kept up the value of the paper. Without them there would be no market.”^[209]

Gerry here explains to his colleagues that he is a holder of securities; but he modestly underestimates the amount, or his taxes were rather high, for the loan office records of Massachusetts show that the interest on his securities, issued pursuant to the act of Congress of April 28, 1784, was about $3500 a year, an amount which, even at the prevailing rate of depreciation, would have covered the taxes on a considerable estate.^[210] The incompleteness of the records in the Treasury Department does not permit of an exact estimate of Gerry’s holdings; but they must have been large, for the following items appear to his credit: $14,266.89 on the Liquidated Debt Book of the Massachusetts loan office,^[211] $2648.50 worth of sixes and threes in 1790 on the Pennsylvania loan office books,^[212] $409.50 in threes on the Pennsylvania ledger under the date of December 13, 1790,^[213] and £3504:8:10 worth of old paper funded into federal securities in the Massachusetts loan office, August 24, 1791.^[214] There may be of course some duplication of amounts but there can be no doubt that Gerry’s interest income from confederate securities in one year shortly before the meeting of the Convention was about $3500, and also there can be no doubt that Gerry had bought largely with a view to speculation, for a very few of his certificates were issued to him originally. He had therefore more than an academic sympathy with the stockbrokers. Nevertheless, it should be 98noted that notwithstanding his large interests at stake, Gerry for several reasons strongly opposed the ratification of the Constitution.^[215]

However, Gerry during his entire public career seems to have intermixed his official relations with his private economic affairs. While he was a member of Congress, before the adoption of the Constitution, he became interested in the public lands. On March 1, 1785, Timothy Pickering,^[216] one of the leading land operators of the period, wrote to Gerry: “As you have expressed your wishes to be concerned in the purchase of lands on the other side of the Alleghany mountains thro’ our agency, we think it very material to your interest as well as our own that we be informed, if possible, what plan Congress will probably adopt in disposing of those lands which lie west of the Ohio. If they mean to permit adventurers to make a scramble ... it will behove us to engage seasonably with some enterprising, but confidential character, to explore the country and make locations.... If there must be a scramble, we have an equal right with others, and, therefore, the information 99desired in the beginning of this letter may be of essential importance. Your answer to this letter will much oblige your sincere friends who wish to advance your interest with their own.”^[217]

Gerry was then a member of Congress, which had under consideration the disposal of the western lands. If this land company, of course, could secure inside information, it would be advantageous to Mr. Gerry who contemplated speculating in those lands, as well as to Mr. Pickering’s agency.

Gerry undoubtedly took advantage of the opportunity to invest in western enterprises, for he was a share-holder in the Ohio Company, proprietors of lands on the Muskingum River^[218]—a concern in which he apparently became interested while a member of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, during the organization of the Company and the procuring of the public grant.

Nathaniel Gorham, of Massachusetts, was a successful merchant at Charlestown, the place of his birth. He was prominent in the political life of his community, having served as a member of the legislature and the constitutional convention of his state.

In addition to his mercantile and political pursuits, Gorham engaged in land speculation on a large scale. In 1786, Massachusetts, by a compromise with New York, secured a large area of western country, and in April, 1788, “sold all this land to Nathaniel Gorham, of Charlestown, and Oliver Phelps, of Granville, for a million dollars, to be paid in three annual instalments in the scrip of Massachusetts, known as consolidated securities, which were then much below par.... Behind Phelps and Gorham there was a syndicate 100of persons who desired to speculate in the lands, but who, in order not to compete with each other, had united and allowed these two to act for all.”^[219]

Robert Morris was one of Gorham’s associates in this venture, and other prominent men were behind the project; but the projectors were unable to realize fully on their scheme, because the rise of Massachusetts scrip, after the adoption of the Constitution, made it impossible for them to fulfil the original terms of their contract. Consequently, they received only a portion of the original purchase.

The unhappy outcome of this venture apparently left Gorham without a very large fortune at his death in 1796. He does not seem to have combined any considerable transactions in continental securities with those in state scrip; although he was doubtless a holder in some amount because his will shows him to have been possessed of twenty shares in United States Bank stock.^[220] Inasmuch as holders of this paper secured it in exchange for old securities and some specie, it may be surmised that Gorham must have had some of the continental paper at the time of the establishment of the Bank, although it may be that he purchased the stock as an investment. The tangled state of his affairs at his death makes this latter conclusion improbable at least.

We have now come to the colossal genius of the new system, Alexander Hamilton. It is true, that he had little part in the formation of the Constitution, but it was his organizing ability that made it a real instrument bottomed on all the substantial interests of the time. It was he who saw most keenly the precise character of the social groups which 101would have to be rallied to the new government in order to draw support away from the states and give the federal system a firm foundation. He perceived that governments were not made out of thin air and abstract principles. He knew that the Constitution was designed to accomplish certain definite objects, affecting in its operation certain definite groups of property rights in society. He saw that these interests were at first inchoate, in process of organization, and he achieved the task of completing their consolidation and attaching them to the federal government.

He saw, in the first place, that the most easily consolidated and timorous group was composed of the creditors, the financiers, bankers, and money lenders. He perceived that they were concentrated in the towns and thus were easily drawn together. He saw that by identifying their interests with those of the new government, the latter would be secure; they would not desert the ship in which they were all afloat. It has been charged that he leaned always on the side of the financial interest against the public as represented in the government; but it must be remembered that at the time the new system went into effect, the public had no credit, and financiers were not willing to forego their gains and profits for an abstraction. It is charged against him that he did not buy up government paper in behalf of the public at the most favorable terms; but to have done so would have diminished the profits of the very financiers whose good will was necessary to the continuance of the government.

The second group of interests which Hamilton saw ready for organization were the merchants and manufacturers who wished protective tariffs. He would have been blind, indeed, if he had not discovered and interpreted the widespread movement for protection which was swiftly gathering 102headway during the years preceding the formation of the Constitution. He was not blind. His first report on manufactures show how keenly alive he was to the extent and diversity of the groups whose financial advantage lay in a system of protection. Whether this was for the good of the whole people need not be argued here. Hamilton’s relations were with the immediate beneficiaries. They were the men who were to throw their weight on the side of the new government. How persistently Hamilton sought to inform himself of the precise nature of the interests needing protection in the separate localities, from New Hampshire to Georgia, is evidenced by his unpublished correspondence with business men in all the commercial centres.^[221]

The third interest which Hamilton consolidated was composed of the land speculators and promoters and embraced all the leading men of the time—Washington, Franklin, Robert Morris, James Wilson, William Blount, and other men of eminence.^[222] This dealing in land was intimately connected with public securities, for a large portion of the lands were bought with land warrants purchased from the soldiers, and with other stocks bought on the open market at low prices. Hamilton saw clearly the connection of this interest with the new government, and his public land policies were directed especially to obtaining the support of this type of operators.^[223]

Without the conciliation and positive support of these powerful elements in American society, the new government could not have been founded or continued. With keen insight, Hamilton saw this. He made no attempt to conceal it; for whatever may have been his faults he did not add the crime of demogogy. It is true that in private he often 103expressed a contempt for popular rule which is absent from his public papers; but his public papers contain a plain statement of his policies, and show why he considered them necessary to the strength and stability of the government.

Thousands of small farmers and debtors and laboring mechanics were opposed to his policies, but they did not have the organization or consciousness of identity of interests which was necessary to give them weight in the councils of the new government. They were partly disfranchised under the existing laws, and they had no leaders worthy of mention. The road to power and glory did not yet lie in championing their cause. It required the astute leadership of Jefferson, and the creation of a federal machine under his direction, to consolidate the heterogeneous petty interests against the Federalist group.

But during Hamilton’s administration, representatives of these smaller interests began to attack his policies as inimical to public interest, i.e., their own interests; and out of this attack grew the charge that Hamilton himself was privately engaged in augmenting his personal fortune by the methods which he had created for the advantage of public creditors and financiers generally. Although this charge, even if true, should not be allowed to obscure the real greatness of Hamilton’s masterly mind, and has little bearing upon a scientific application of the economic interpretation to the period, it deserves examination at length.

Rumors that Hamilton was personally interested in securities were persistent from the beginning of his career as Secretary of the Treasury, and in his famous Reynolds pamphlet, published in 1797, he precisely states the charge against himself: “Merely because I retained an opinion once common to me and the most influential of those who opposed me, that the public debt ought to be provided for on the 104basis of the contract upon which it was created, I have been wickedly accused with wantonly increasing the public burthen many millions in order to promote a stock-jobbing interest of myself and friends.”^[224] That this heavy burden was necessary to secure the support of the financial interests concerned, and that their support was absolutely indispensable to the establishment of the new national system on a substantial basis, was admitted by many of Hamilton’s worst enemies; but this did not prevent their attacking the Secretary on mere rumors of private peculations.

It now remains to examine the evidence against Hamilton, and state the case fairly so far as our existing records will allow. In 1793, Hamilton was accused of a criminal violation of the laws, and laid under the suspicion of being a defaulter. The House of Representatives was so impressed with the charges that it appointed a committee to investigate the conduct of the Treasury Department, particularly with regard to the charge that Hamilton had made the public moneys “subservient to loans, discounts, and accommodations” to himself and friends.

The result of this investigation was a vindication of the Secretary by the committee on the basis of affidavits from the officers and employees of the various banks involved, public and private. Hamilton cites the report of this committee of the House as containing the “materials of a complete exculpation.”^[225] But this investigation does not cover the dealings which Hamilton might have had with stock brokers and other persons handling public securities. Evidences of such relations would not have been contained in the public and private papers available to the committee. Indeed, on account of his intimate business relations with all the leaders who were buying and selling public securities, 105and, on account of the fact that he could have seen them personally at New York and Philadelphia, it would not have been necessary for him to make any written record of such transactions. But of the larger charges brought against him in Congress we may regard this report as a complete vindication.

The direct charge, however, that Hamilton had violated the solemn obligations of his own office by buying up public securities, as distinct from the charge that he had employed his high authority in the interests of his friends and his class, first took on a serious form in 1797, when the notorious pamphleteer J. T. Callender, in his History of the United States for the Year 1796 published a series of papers purporting to show that in 1791 and 1792 Hamilton had been engaged in speculative ventures with one James Reynolds and Mr. Duer.^[226] It appears that in 1792 a Mr. Clingman, then in jail for a crooked transaction with the government, got into communication with Speaker Muhlenburg and hinted that a fellow-prisoner, Reynolds, had been associated with Hamilton in security operations, and had in his possession papers that would establish the facts in the case. Muhlenburg communicated with Monroe and Venable, and the three heard from Reynolds and his wife grave charges against the Secretary.

On learning of these serious charges, Muhlenburg, Venable, and Monroe confronted Hamilton with them and the Secretary explained that the whole charge of speculation was false and that his relations with the Reynolds grew out of an unhappy amour with Mrs. Reynolds. The three investigators accepted this explanation, although Monroe prosecuted further inquiries which resulted in his accumulating additional charges. The papers in the case, it was 106agreed by Hamilton and his three investigators,^[227] were to be kept secret and out of the reach of publication. It turned out, however, that Monroe, angered by the abuse heaped upon him later by the Federalists, gave the documents out for publication, much to the scandal of the country. Hamilton promptly replied in a pamphlet in which he denied any improper financial relations with Reynolds, and explained in painful detail his affair with Reynolds’ wife.^[228]

When all the external and internal evidence is taken in this case, and the documents connected with it are carefully analyzed, it will be apparent that a decision will rest upon the answer to this question: “Shall Hamilton’s testimony as to speculations outweigh that of an undoubted rascal and his wife?” Mr. F. T. Fox, in a recent study of the matter, attempts to convict Hamilton on the internal evidence of his vindication; and apparently does so. But on an examination of Mr. Fox’s brief against the Secretary, it soon comes out that he has made a mistake in the crucial dates on which turns his whole case.^[229] Consequently, this particular matter rests just where it did more than a hundred years ago. Fair-minded men will be inclined to exonerate Hamilton of the charge brought in the Reynolds indictment.

That Hamilton himself made any money in stocks which he held personally has never been proved by reference to any authentic evidence. He did hold a small amount of public securities, for in a letter of June 26, 1792, to William 107Seton, he says, “All my property in the funds is about $800, 3 per cents. These at a certain period I should have sold, had I not been unwilling to give occasion to cavil.”^[230] The origin of this holding is not explained. Even if it was derived from the funding under the acts of August, 1790, and the 6 per cents, funded and deferred were added, it would not have made more than a trifling amount.

That Hamilton ever held any considerable sum in securities seems highly improbable, for he was at no time a rich man, and at his death left a small estate. Though he lived well, and had a large income apart from his paltry salary as Secretary, his earnings as an eminent lawyer may very well account for such sources of revenue as he may have enjoyed. Certainly, had he seen fit to employ his remarkable talents in private enterprise, he might have died one of the rich men of his day. However this may be, the question may be legitimately asked whether Hamilton had any personal connections with any of the security operations which were carried on during his administration of the Treasury?

Hamilton’s defenders, in response to such an inquiry, will cite his famous reply to Henry Lee in 1789, when the latter asked him for his opinion about the probable rise of public securities: “I am sure you are sincere when you say that you would not subject me to an impropriety, nor do I know that there would be any in answering your queries; but you remember the saying with regard to Cæsar’s wife. I think the spirit of it applicable to every man concerned in the administration of the finances of the country. With respect to the conduct of such men, suspicion is ever eagle-eyed, and the most innocent things may be misinterpreted.”^[231]

108On the other hand, Maclay, who, as United States Senator during the funding operations, had opportunities for first-hand information, answers the above question in the affirmative. He says, in his record of the Senate on February 1, 1790: “If I needed proof of the baseness of Hamilton, I have it in the fullest manner. His price was communicated in manuscript as far as Philadelphia. Thomas Willing, in a letter to the speaker of the Representatives, after passing many eulogiums on Hamilton’s plan, concludes, ‘For I have seen in manuscript his whole price,’ and it has been used as the basis of the most abandoned system of speculation ever broached in our country.”^[232] What Maclay doubtless means here is that Hamilton had communicated to one of the leading financiers of Philadelphia, a partner of Robert Morris and dealer in securities,^[233] his proposed plans for redemption of the public debt in full, previous to their publication in the first report to the House on public credit, January 9, 1790. On the question as to how much credence should be given to the assertions of the querulous Maclay, students of history will differ, and impartial scholars will seek further evidence.

Far from admitting any truth in Maclay’s allegations, Hamilton’s friends would indignantly deny that he had any private connections with security operations in any form. Hamilton’s son, in his Reminiscences, states that “Hamilton requested his father-in-law, General Schuyler, not to permit his son to speculate in the public securities lest it should be inferred that their speculations were made upon information furnished by Hamilton; or were made in part on Hamilton’s account. Schuyler inhibited any speculations; as Van Rensellaer Schuyler, my uncle, told me, complaining at 109the same time that, but for this inhibition, he would have made a large sum of money.”^[234]

The General, however, evidently did not regard this inhibition as binding upon himself, for he appears upon the records as one of the large dealers in public paper in New York. Examples of his extensive financial transactions can be readily found by reference to the old loan books in the Treasury Department; there appear in March, October, and November, 1791, the following amounts to his credit: $23,189.21; $15,594.61, $8036.50, $20,689.21.^[235]

Neither did Hamilton deem it necessary to inhibit his brother-in-law, J.B. Church, from dealing in securities. During Hamilton’s administration of the Treasury, Church was a large holder of public securities.^[236] One entry credits him with $28,187.91 worth. Moreover, while Secretary of the Treasury, through his agents, Thomas Willing in Philadelphia, and Wm. Seton in New York, Hamilton bought and sold for his brother-in-law. In the Hamilton Mss. in the Library of Congress is preserved a letter from Thomas Willing bearing the date of February 24, 1790, and addressed to Hamilton, which shows that the former was then selling stocks under the latter’s orders for Church.^[237]

110At a later date, Hamilton was engaged in an extended correspondence with William Seton of the New York Bank, which shows that the latter was buying United States Bank stocks for Church, under Hamilton’s orders. On November 21, 1793, Seton writes that he has not been able to make an investment for Mr. Church on account of the high price of bank stock.^[238] Five days later Seton writes to Hamilton that he thinks it will be possible in a day or two to purchase stock for Mr. Church “under your limits;” and adds, after further remarks, “I therefore feel loth to enter into the market without further orders from you.”^[239] Here follows voluminous correspondence showing Seton’s successful purchases.

Hamilton’s operations for his brother-in-law, Church, also extended to speculations in public lands; for in the Hamilton Manuscripts there is a letter bearing the date of August 24, 1792, from William Henderson to him relative to the purchase of large quantities of land (45,000 acres).^[240] It appears that Hamilton, Church, and General Schuyler were involved in this negotiation, and that Church was the principal.

Hamilton was also personally interested in western land schemes, for he held five shares of the Ohio Company, proprietors 111of land on the Muskingum River.^[241] Although this concern was organized before the formation of the Constitution, Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury was called upon to pass upon the validity of claims involving thousands of acres. He felt the delicacy of this situation, for on May 9, 1792, he wrote to Washington that he regretted that he was required by law to decide a case in which he was an interested party, and stated that he had left the matter to be adjusted by the accounting officers of the Treasury acting under an opinion of the Attorney General.^[242]

Although Hamilton showed great hesitancy in passing upon his own land claims while Secretary, he did not deem it incompatible with his official duties to communicate occasionally with friends as to the probable prices of public securities and bank stock.

For the communication to Willing, mentioned above,^[243] we have, of course, only Maclay’s testimony; and if his statement is true Hamilton transmitted official secrets of the most significant character to a financier who, however great his integrity, was in a position to take advantage of them, and was engaged in dealing in securities on his own account and for Hamilton’s brother-in-law, Church, under Hamilton’s orders. When we remember that Maclay’s journal was private in its nature, not intended for publication, and not given to the world until long after all the men mentioned in it were dead, we are constrained to give some credence to his straightforward statements like the one in question, even though he was a bitter enemy of the Federalist leaders. But we are not constrained to attribute to Hamilton any improper motives. Those who assume that the Secretary of the Treasury could have carried out his 112enormous reorganization of the finances without conferring with the leading financiers of the time have only an elementary knowledge of Treasury administration.

As Secretary, he often found it necessary to set rumors at rest. An instance is afforded in a letter written by Hamilton, on August 17, 1791, to Rufus King, in which he mentioned having given out his opinion on prices to counteract an undue rise in script on the stock market, and concluded by giving King his standard of prices on that day, saying “I give you my standard that you may be able if necessary to contradict insinuations of an estimation on my part short of that standard for the purpose of depressing the funds.”^[244]

This letter from Hamilton was evidently drawn by one from King bearing the date of August 15, 1791, in which the latter cautions the former against giving out any statements which might affect prices, and informs him that his opinions had been quoted in efforts to depress stocks.^[245] King also adds that Duer had been injured in attempts to raise prices, but is of the opinion that “his conduct has been as correct as any buyer’s and seller’s could be.” King had little liking for popular vagaries in finance, for he tells Hamilton that “the fall of Bank certificates may have some good effects; it will operate to deter our industrious citizens from meddling in future with the funds, and teach them contentment in their proper avocations.”

On the same day that Hamilton replied to King’s letter which had informed him of Duer’s danger, he wrote to Duer cautioning him against pushing prices too high and repeating earlier warnings. He says: “I will honestly own I had serious fears for you—for your purse and for your reputation; 113and with an anxiety for both, I wrote you in earnest terms. You are sanguine, my friend. You ought to be aware of it yourself and to be on your guard against the propensity.... I do not widely differ from you about the real value of bank script. I should rather call it about 190, to be within bounds, with hopes of better things, and I sincerely wish you may be able to support it at what you mention.”^[246] There is of course, little beyond friendly advice in this, although Hamilton’s enemies may see impropriety in his communicating his own price to a man deeply engaged in speculation.

There is some evidence, however, which may reasonably be interpreted to imply that Hamilton might have used his official power in behalf of Duer. In reply to a letter from Duer (after his disastrous failure) making some request which is not explained by Mr. Lodge, the Secretary says: “Your letter of the 11th got to hand this day. I am affected beyond measure at its contents, especially as it is too late to have any influence upon the event you were apprehensive of, Mr. Wolcott’s instructions having gone off yesterday.”^[247] Wolcott was Hamilton’s subordinate in the Treasury Department, and evidently he had issued some instructions which affected Duer’s fortunes. Wolcott was the auditor of the Treasury whose duty it was under the act of September 2, 1789, “to receive all public accounts and after examination to certify the balance, and transmit the accounts with the vouchers and certificates to the Comptroller for his decision thereon.” This connection with Duer is the sole piece of evidence of what might be termed the possible use of the Secretary’s office in a private matter. The nature of this is not clear, and the plan was not carried out.

114The conclusion to be reached from this evidence is that Hamilton did not have in 1787 any more than a petty amount of public securities which might appreciate under a new system; that he did have some western land; but that an extensive augmentation of his personal fortune was no consideration with him. The fact that he died a poor man is conclusive evidence of this fact. That he was swayed throughout the period of the formation of the Constitution by large policies of government—not by any of the personal interests so often ascribed to him—must therefore be admitted. Nevertheless, it is apparent from the additional evidence given here that it was no mere abstract political science which dominated his principles of government. He knew at first hand the stuff of which government is made.

William C. Houston, of New Jersey, was of no consequence in the Convention, and little is known of his economic interests. He was a Princeton graduate, and was for a time professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. He entered the practice of law at Trenton, and from 1784 until his death in 1788 he was clerk of the Supreme Court of his state. On account of ill health he was unable to remain through the sessions of the Convention. A search among the New Jersey loan office records in the Treasury Department failed to reveal Houston as a holder of securities; but the records for that state are incomplete and Houston’s death in 1788 would have prevented his appearing on the Treasury Records of the new government. A William Houston is recorded in the New York books for small amounts of deferred sixes,^[248] but, although William Churchill Houston had a son by that name, the identity of the son and the public creditor cannot be established.

115Houston was, however, interested in the possibilities of western land speculations, for his biographer relates that he “joined with others in procuring for John Fitch, the steamboat inventor, the office of Deputy Surveyor. After the treaty of peace with England, the question of how the lands northwest of the Ohio should be disposed of was mooted in Congress. It was thought that they would be sold to pay the debts of the confederacy. Fitch was a land jobber and supposed that a good operation might be made by a presurvey of the country, so that when the Land Offices were opened, warrants might be taken out immediately for choice tracts. He found no difficulty in forming a company to forward such an enterprise. It was composed of Dr. John Ewing, Rev. Nathaniel Irwin, Wm. C. Houston.... These gentlemen put £20 each in a fund to pay expenses.”^[249] How far this venture was carried and whether Houston acquired lands through it is not related. As a member of the Congress under the Articles of Confederation, he doubtless learned of the advantages to be gained in the West.

William Houstoun, of Georgia, took some part in the proceedings of the Convention, but he was of little weight. He was the son of a royal officer in the government of Georgia; and he received his education in England and studied law at the Inner Temple. His colleague Pierce records that “Mr. Houstoun is an Attorney at Law, and has been a member of Congress for the state of Georgia. He is a gentleman of family, and was educated in England. As to his legal or political knowledge, he has little to boast of.”^[250] The meagre biographical details available do not permit a statement of his economic interests; and the paucity of the records of 116the Georgia loan office in the Treasury Department makes it impossible to say whether he was among the beneficiaries through the appreciation of public securities. An index to a volume of Treasury Records not found (Vol. XXVI, folio 44) contains the name of William Houstown, but whether this holder of public debt and the member of the Convention were identical cannot be determined.

Jared Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, was the son of Jared Ingersoll of Connecticut, sometime agent of that colony as commissioner in England and later admiralty judge in Pennsylvania. He graduated at Yale and studied in the Middle Temple. At the bar in Philadelphia he “soon rose to first rank. His practice was larger than any others. His opinions were taken on all important controversies, his services engaged in every great litigation.”^[251] Ingersoll was a man of considerable wealth, but he does not seem to be involved in the large transactions in public securities which engaged the attention of his intimate friends in the Convention.^[252] He does not appear on the Pennsylvania books as a holder of securities. If he held any, his transactions must have been with the Treasury direct, and this would have been very convenient as it was located in Philadelphia during the funding process. Ingersoll was a son-in-law of Charles Pettit, one of the security operators in Philadelphia.^[253]

Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, of Maryland, is reported by Pierce to have been “a gentleman of fortune” in his state.^[254] He was a planter and a slave-holder; the census 117of 1790 records his holding twenty slaves on one plantation under an overseer, but the number on his own plantation is illegible.^[255] It is probable also that he held a small amount of public securities at the establishment of the new government. He died in the latter part of the year 1790, but his son,^[256] Daniel Jenifer, Jr., appears on the loan office records as the holder of nearly six thousand dollars’ worth of paper in December, 1790,^[257] which he disposed of the following year.^[258]

William Samuel Johnson, of Connecticut, was a son of Samuel Johnson, a clergyman of Stratford, Connecticut, and a gentleman of some means. He was a graduate of Yale, and entered the practice of law. He refused to aid in the Revolutionary cause, because he could not “conscientiously” take up arms against England, and he lived in retirement until the War was over. After the establishment of independence he resumed the prominent position in public life which he had enjoyed before the struggle; and according to his biographer he took “the highest rank in his profession and became the renowned and high-minded advocate who was always crowded with cases and had his clients in New York as well as in every part of Connecticut.”^[259] He added to his own patrimony by marrying the daughter of a “wealthy gentleman” of Stratford.

Johnson was a member of the first Senate under the new Constitution, and he was included by Jefferson in the list of men “operating in securities.”^[260] It is highly probable that he did not aid the Revolutionary cause by investing his money in the original paper; and he does not appear on the Treasury 118Books for large amounts of stock,^[261] but there is every reason for believing that he carried on extensive operations through his son Robert Charles Johnson. The latter was speculating extensively in New York and Connecticut immediately after the establishment of the new government, and two entries show a credit to the father through the son.^[262] The loan office books under the date of December 13, 1791, credit Robert Charles Johnson, of Stratford, Gentleman, with nearly fifty thousand dollars’ worth of sixes and threes.^[263] Connecticut loan office receipts confirm this evidence of his extensive holdings. The New York loan office also shows large transactions in the name of Robert Charles Johnson.^[264]

Rufus King, of Massachusetts, was born in Scarborough, Maine, then in the province of Massachusetts, March 24, 1755. His father, in 1740, was “in prosperous business as a trader and factor for Ebenezer Thornton, one of the principal merchants in Boston for whom he purchased and prepared large quantities of timber.” On settling at Scarborough, his father became “both a farmer and a merchant, and in each capacity was so successful as to become the owner of three thousand acres of land divided into several valuable farms and to be the largest exporter of lumber from Maine.” 119Rufus was educated at Harvard. When his father died in 1775 he left a good estate which was divided among several children. Rufus King was also fortunate in his marriage; his wife was Mary Alsop. Her father at first sympathized with the movement against Great Britain, but, “taking umbrage at the manner in which the New York convention had conveyed their adhesion to the Declaration of Independence to the Congress, and besides unwilling to close the door of reconciliation with Great Britain,”—he retired to Middletown, Connecticut, and stayed until after the War was over, when he returned to New York, resumed business, and became president of the Chamber of Commerce. According to King himself, his wife “was the only child of Mr. John Alsop, a very respectable and eminent merchant in this city [New York]. Mr. Alsop declined business in 1775 with a very handsome fortune.”^[265] King thus had extensive mercantile and other business interests which were largely managed for him by others, so that he was able to devote most of his time to politics.

Nevertheless, he did not neglect matters of private economy. Robert and Gouverneur Morris were engaged in 1788 in a plan to associate a number of Americans in a project to purchase up the debt (or portions thereof) of the United States due to France. Wadsworth, General Knox, Osgood, and Colonel Duer were involved in it. It was first proposed to send Gouverneur Morris as minister to Holland to further the scheme. The originators of the plan finally hit upon the appointment of Rufus King. King replied to the overture: “I told Col. Duer that I was not indisposed to a foreign appointment—that the honor and duties of such an office wd. be my sovereign rule of Cond. and that if in perfect consistence with the duties and dignity of the office, I cd. 120promote the interest of my friends, it wd. be a great satisfaction to me. But that I desired not to be considered as giving an answer any way at present, that ... the opinions of Mr. Jay and Col. Hamilton were of consequence in my mind. That previous to any decision on my part I must be ascertained of their opinions.”^[266]

Whether King engaged in this ambitious project or not, there is evidence to show that he was a considerable holder of government paper shortly after its establishment. It may be that a part of his fortune had been invested originally in public securities, although this is not apparent from the early loan office books in the Treasury Department. Jefferson puts King down among the holders of bank stock and public securities;^[267] and he is correct in his statement. King was director in the first United States bank.^[268] He was also a large holder of government securities—one entry records more than $10,000 worth to his credit.^[269] King thought that speculations should be reserved to the experienced, and rejoiced in the hope that one of the crashes would teach the ordinary industrious citizens “contentment in their proper avocations.”^[270]

John Langdon, of New Hampshire, was born on the family farm near Portsmouth in 1740, and “after a mercantile education in the counting room of Daniel Rindge, he entered upon a sea-faring life, but was driven from it by the revolutionary troubles.” He must have prospered, however, before the War blighted his trade, for when the news of the fall of Ticonderoga reached Exeter, he rose in the legislature 121of which he was the speaker and said: “I have a thousand dollars in hard money; I will pledge my plate for three thousand more. I have seventy hogsheads of Tobago rum which will be sold for the most they will bring. They are at the service of the state. If we succeed ... I will be remunerated; if we do not then the property will be of no value to me.”^[271]

After the war, Langdon’s various mercantile and commercial enterprises took on new life, and there is every evidence that in his worldly affairs he was uniformly prosperous. A French report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Congress of 1788 speaks of John Langdon as a man of great wealth and pressing commercial interests: “M. L. a fait une grande fortune dans le commerce, c’est le Rob. Morris de son Etat, faisant une grande dépense et s’attachant beaucoup de citoyens par ses libéralités.”^[272]

John Langdon-Elwyn, grandson of John Langdon, in whose family were preserved the valuable private papers of the elder Langdon, wrote, sometime in the early part of the nineteenth century, a pamphlet on his celebrated grandfather. The author of this useful brochure “was nineteen years of age at the time of his grandfather’s death. A critical observer of men and affairs, his opportunities as a member of the family of Governor Langdon give the production of his pamphlet a special significance.”^[273] This writer characterizes John Langdon as “a man that loved money, at an age when it gets the upper hand, that was prone to banking and funding, to whom such atmospheres were familiar and congenial, that knew how to make it and keep it, and felt no envy of others that did so too.”^[274]

122That Langdon was deeply concerned in the financial operations connected with the new government is evidenced in many sources. According to his grandson, quoted above, “He voted for this bank [the first United States Bank]; and was we suppose an original subscriber of some account.... We believe he had been concerned in the Bank of North America: the first real National Bank: He was an intimate friend of Robert Morris.”^[275]

Maclay also adds his testimony to that of Langdon’s grandson. When he was a Senator, Langdon lodged in New York with a Mr. Hazard who followed the business of buying up government certificates of public debt which had been “issued in place of the paper money of the old Congress and bore interest for their face value,” and had depreciated to even as low as seven cents on the dollar. Maclay writes, “Mr. Hazard told me he had made a business of it; it is easy to guess for whom. I told him, ‘You are then among the happy few who have been let into the secret.’ He seemed abashed and I checked by my forwardness much more information which he seemed disposed to give.”^[276]

The loan office books of New Hampshire show that Langdon was a large creditor of the new government, and indeed he was one of the heavy original contributors who risked their fortunes on the outcome of the War.^[277] One entry in the New Hampshire ledger credits him with more than $25,000 worth of sixes and threes;^[278] and there are other entries as well. His brother, Woodbury Langdon, was also among the holders of public paper.

With that patriotism to his state and thrift in her interest 123that characterized his colleague, Gilman, Langdon sought to give the commonwealth some advantage in the various speculations in securities. On January 7, 1791, he wrote to the President of New Hampshire advising him of the approaching passage of the National Bank bill and advising that the state use its continental securities and some cash to buy stock in the new Bank. He says that the stock “would undoubtedly sell for specie at par at any time ...; and in all probability it would soon sell above par, the state would therefore run no risque of looseing.”^[279]

John Lansing, of New York, was a lawyer at Albany and the mayor of that city. William Pierce, in his notes on the Convention, speaks of him in the following language: “His legal knowledge, I am told, is not extensive nor his education a good one. He is however a man of good sense, plain in his manners, and sincere in his friendships.”^[280] Lansing was one of the stout opponents of the Constitution and left the Convention early. He was there long enough however to learn (what was not a very deep secret) the certain effect of an efficient government on continental securities; for in January, 1791, immediately after the establishment of the new financial system, he appeared at the New York loan office with paper to fund to the amount of over seven thousand dollars.^[281] All the members of the Lansing family in Albany seem to have taken advantage of the opportunity to augment their fortunes.^[282]

William Livingston, of New Jersey, was a member of the distinguished Livingston family which was among the largest proprietors in New York. He graduated at Yale, 124and in 1745 married Miss French “whose father had been a large proprietor of land in New Jersey.” He entered the practice of law in 1748 “and soon became a prominent member of the bar and employed in most of the important legal controversies of that day in New York and New Jersey.” He apparently accumulated a comfortable fortune, but had lost a portion of it in 1773 by the failure of his debtors, and the necessity of accepting depreciated continental currency.^[283]

Whether Livingston held any of the securities of the confederacy, it is impossible apparently to determine, for his death in the summer of 1790, before the funding system went into effect, would have precluded his appearing on the Ledger records. It is probable, however, that he did not entertain views in regard to the relation of public and private affairs different from those of his eminent colleagues. This theory will seem justified when it is understood that his son and heir, Brockholst Livingston, a New York lawyer, was among the heaviest security holders in that city; and in view of the wide-reaching ramifications of his operations and his connections with Le Roy and Bayard was reckoned among the princely speculators of his day. One entry in 1791 credits him with about $70,000 worth; another in the same year, in conjunction with Le Roy and Bayard, with nearly $30,000.^[284] At a slightly later date, 1792 and 1793, his 6 per cents alone amount to more than $100,000,^[285] and he appears frequently in the records of other states. How much of this was his own paper and how much was for friends who did not wish to appear among the records cannot be determined.

125James Madison, of Virginia, was a descendant of one of the old landed families of Virginia whose wealth consisted principally of plantations and slaves, and whose personal property was relatively small in amount. Madison’s father “was a large landed proprietor occupied mainly with the care and management of his extensive rural concerns.” Madison graduated at Princeton and studied law, but the practice of his profession did not appeal to him. His inclinations were all toward politics, for which he was prepared by long and profound researches in history, law, and political economy. He was constantly in public life, and seems to have relied upon the emoluments of office and his father’s generosity as a source of income. The postponement of his marriage until 1794 enabled him to devote himself to political pursuits rather than commercial or economic interests of any kind. He does not appear to have been a holder of public securities; for the small amounts credited to James Madison on the books of the Treasury Department^[286] seem to have belonged to his father, also named James Madison.^[287]

Having none of the public securities, Madison was able later to take a more disinterested view of the funding system proposed by Hamilton; and the scramble of politicians and speculators which accompanied the establishment of the new government did more than anything else to disgust him with the administration party and drive him into opposition. Writing to Jefferson in July, 1791, he said: “The subscriptions [to the Bank] are consequently a mere scramble for so much public plunder, which will be engrossed by those 126already loaded with the spoils of individuals.... It pretty clearly appears, also, in what proportions the public debt lies in the Country, what sort of hands hold it, and by whom the people of the United States are to be governed. Of all the shameful circumstances of this business, it is among the greatest to see the members of the legislature who were most active in pushing this job openly grasping its emoluments. Schuyler is to be put at the head of the Directors, if the weight of the New York subscribers can effect it. Nothing new is talked of here. In fact, stock-jobbing drowns every other subject. The Coffee-House is in an eternal buzz with the gamblers.”^[288]

Alexander Martin, of North Carolina, was a graduate of Princeton, and practised law. He was for a time governor of his state. Later he served in the United States Senate, and supported Adams and the alien and sedition laws; but was defeated for election in 1799.^[289] Martin was among the well-to-do planters and slave-owners of his state;^[290] but his tastes do not seem to have turned to dealings in public securities, for the Index to the holders of the public debt preserved in the Treasury Department does not contain his name, and a search among the papers of North Carolina fails to reveal any record of his transactions.

Luther Martin, of Maryland, was a descendant of English ancestors who had obtained “large grants of land in New Jersey [and] removed their domestic establishment there when a greater part of the colonial domain was a dense wilderness.” He was a graduate of Princeton and took up the practice of law. Being the third of nine children, and having little or no assistance from his parents, who were in pinched 127circumstances, he was thrown upon his own resources. He commenced his career in Virginia “where he soon acquired a full and lucrative practice, amounting, as he informs us, to about one thousand pounds per annum; which, however, was after a period diminished by the disturbance growing out of the American Revolution.”^[291]

Luther Martin’s fortune was never very large, although he had among his clients men of great wealth and influence, like Robert Morris.^[292] The census of 1790 records his owning only six slaves,^[293] and his holdings of public securities were apparently meagre—a few thousand dollars at most. One entry of sixes and threes on June 15, 1791, credits him with $1992.67, and he occasionally appears in other records.^[294] He was always more or less in sympathy with poor debtors, and was unwilling to preclude altogether the issue of paper money or moderate impairments of contract. He was accordingly a bitter opponent of the adoption of the Constitution in his state.^[295]

George Mason, of Virginia, was born in 1725. He was the son of a rich slave owning and planting family of Dogue’s Neck, and on account of the early death of his father he came into his vast estate on attaining his majority.^[296] His family fortunes were augmented by speculations in western lands. He married the daughter of a Maryland merchant, from whom a large estate came into his family.^[297] He was a member of the Ohio Company which was organized in 1749, and obtained a grant of “six hundred thousand acres of 128land, lying mostly west of the mountains and south of the Ohio.”^[298] In 1754 he also secured a patent for about fifteen hundred acres of land in Northern Neck.^[299] He was constantly increasing his holdings,^[300] and in 1769 “he seems to have come into possession of two thousand acres of land in the district of Kentucky.”^[301] As a member of the Virginia legislature he drew a bill “to encourage the making of hemp, woollen, linen, and other manufactures.”^[302]

His property at the time of the establishment of the Constitution was unquestionably large, for at his death in 1792 “he devised to his sons alone, some fifteen thousand acres, the greater part of his own acquisition, of the very best land in the Potomac region. Most of these estates were well improved, with large and comfortable mansions and all necessary outbuildings. But he left to be divided among his children what was solely acquired by himself: sixty thousand of among the finest acres in Kentucky, some three hundred slaves, more than fifty thousand dollars’ worth of other personal property, and at least thirty thousand dollars of debts due on his books, while his own indebtedness was absolutely nothing.”^[303] Very little of this personal property seems to have been in public securities, for a search in the records of the Treasury Department shows one small entry of a few hundred dollars’ worth of threes and sixes to his credit.^[304]

Mason frankly admitted his personal interest in certain landed property to be among his many objections to the Constitution—which he refused to approve and the adoption of which he bitterly opposed. Speaking on the 129dangers from the supremacy of the federal courts, in the Virginia ratifying convention, he said: “I am personally endangered as an inhabitant of Northern Neck. The people of that part will be obliged, by the operation of this power, to pay the quit rent of their lands.... Lord Fairfax’s title was clear and undisputed. After the revolution we taxed his lands as private property. After his death, an act of Assembly was made, in 1782, to sequester the quit rents due, at his death, in the hands of his debtors. Next year an act was made restoring them to the executor of the proprietor. Subsequent to this, the treaty of peace was made, by which it was agreed that there should be no further confiscations. But after this an act of Assembly was passed, confiscating his whole property. As Lord Fairfax’s title was indisputably good, and as treaties are to be the supreme law of the land, will not his representatives be able to recover all in the federal court? How will gentlemen like to pay an additional tax on lands in the Northern Neck?”^[305]

Mason proposed to limit the judicial power in such a manner that it should “extend to no case where the cause of action shall have originated before the ratification of this Constitution, except in suits for debts due the United States, disputes between states about their territory, and disputes between persons claiming lands under grants of different states.” He expressed a fear that under the Constitution as it stood the titles to all the country between the Blue Ridge and Alleghany Mountains would be upset in the federal courts and that the vast Indiana purchase would be rendered a subject of dispute.^[306]

James McClurg, of Virginia, was an accomplished man of 130letters and distinguished physician of his native state. He was born there in 1747, studied at the college of William and Mary, and finished his training in medicine at Edinburgh and Paris. He established himself in the practice first at Williamsburg, and about 1783 he settled in Richmond, where he took first rank as a physician, scholar, and man of the world.^[307]

McClurg’s knowledge of government was not academic. He knew the subject practically, as well as theoretically; for as early as November 23, 1790, he was engaged in operations in federal securities.^[308] And on February 17, 1791, he presented to the local loan office Virginia certificates to the amount of $26,819, all of which, except a few hundred pounds originally subscribed by himself, he had evidently bought for speculation.^[309] McClurg was also an investor in stock in the first United States Bank and one of the directors.^[310]

James McHenry, of Maryland, received a classical education in Ireland, the country of his birth, and came to Baltimore in 1771. He studied medicine with Dr. Benjamin Rush at Philadelphia and became an army surgeon during the War. He was for a time secretary to Washington and later to Lafayette, and from 1783 to 1786 he was a member of Congress from Maryland.^[311]

McHenry was the son of Daniel McHenry, a Baltimore merchant, who achieved “considerable financial success”^[312] and was in business with his son, John, a brother of James, until his death in 1782. John and James began buying 131town property, and when the former died in 1790, the latter inherited the entire estate, as John had never married. The death of James’ father, says Steiner, left him financially independent.

McHenry’s personal property must have been considerable. A casual letter of August 4, 1792, shows that one Dickinson owed him an amount secured by a bond for £5000.^[313] He was one of the original stockholders of the Insurance Company of North America organized in 1792.^[314] It is not apparent that he was among the original holders of federal securities, but an entry in 1797 records an old account to the amount of $6970.90, brought forward.^[315]

McHenry’s early mercantile interests left a deep impression on him, and he sympathized with the efforts made in his state to secure an adequate protective tariff. Indeed, he was among the signers of the memorial from Baltimore laid before Congress on April 11, 1789, praying for the protection and encouragement of American manufactures.^[316]

John Francis Mercer, of Maryland, was born in Virginia and graduated at William and Mary College in 1775. He served in the army and after the war studied law with Jefferson. He moved to Maryland in 1786. He seems to have been a man of some fortune, for he held six slaves,^[317] and a moderate amount of public securities.^[318] His sympathies, however, were with the popular party in Maryland. He joined with Luther Martin in violent opposition to the adoption of the Constitution. In 1801 he was elected governor of the state, and as governor he attacked the property qualifications 132on voters under the constitution of the commonwealth, at length securing the repeal of the provisions.

Thomas Mifflin, of Pennsylvania, was born in Philadelphia in 1744 and graduated at the College of Philadelphia, where he distinguished himself as a student of the classics. His father introduced him to a mercantile life by placing him in the counting house of William Coleman, one of the most eminent merchants of his native city. “When he was twenty-one years of age he visited Europe to improve his knowledge of commercial affairs, and after his return home he entered into business with his brother, the connection continuing until after the Revolution.”^[319]