Ford says, [Footnote: Ford,
_op. cit._, p. 119.] Burr's pistol blew the brains out of the
Federal party.
2
When the constitution was written, "politics could still be managed by
conference and agreement among gentlemen" [Footnote: _Op. cit._,
p. 144] and it was to the gentry that Hamilton turned for a
government. It was intended that they should manage national affairs
when local prejudice had been brought into equilibrium by the
constitutional checks and balances. No doubt Hamilton, who belonged to
this class by adoption, had a human prejudice in their favor. But that
by itself is a thin explanation of his statecraft. Certainly there can
be no question of his consuming passion for union, and it is, I think,
an inversion of the truth to argue that he made the Union to protect
class privileges, instead of saying that he used class privileges to
make the Union. "We must take man as we find him," Hamilton said, "and
if we expect him to serve the public we must interest his passions in
doing so." [Footnote: _Op. cit._, p. 47] He needed men to govern,
whose passions could be most quickly attached to a national interest.
These were the gentry, the public creditors, manufacturers, shippers,
and traders, [Footnote: Beard, _Economic Interpretation of the
Constitution, passim._] and there is probably no better instance in
history of the adaptation of shrewd means to clear ends, than in the
series of fiscal measures, by which Hamilton attached the provincial
notables to the new government.
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