time or upon any occasion, ever apply to shield them from punishment; because such conduct is not only an infringement of the rights of men, as thy are defined by strict law, but is absolutely incompatible with honor, honesty, or mistaken good intention. On such men let the attorney general bring forth all the artillery of his office, and the thanks and blessings of the whole public will follow him. But this is a totally different case. Whatever private calumny may mark this work, it has not been made the subject of complaint, and we have therefore nothing to do with that, nor any right to consider it. We are trying whether the public could have been considered as offended and endangered if Mr. Hastings himself, in whose place the author and publisher have a right to put themselves, had, under all the circumstances which have been considered, composed and published the volume under examination. That question cannot, in common sense, be anything resembling a question of law, but is a pure question of fact, to be decided on the principles which I have humbly recommended. I therefore ask of the court that the book itself may now be delivered to you. Read it with attention, and, as you shall find it, pronounce you verdict.

[Alexander Hamilton was born in the island of Nevis, West Indies, 1757. Much uncertainty surrounds his birth and parentage, but the accepted view is that he was the son of James Hamilton, a Scotch merchant, and a French lady named Faucette. At the age of thirteen he was placed in the office of a West Indian merchant, where he showed such precocity that funds were supplied by relatives and friends to send him to this country. He arrived in New York in 1772, and later entered King's (now Columbia) College. At a patriotic meeting in the fields on July 6, 1774, he made a speech which brought him, at the age of seventeen, into public notice. Thereafter, upon the platform and in the press, he was active in the colonial cause. In 1776 he organized a company of artillery, and commanded it in subsequent engagements with such gallantry that he was placed on Gen. Washington's staff. He held this position until 1781, when he resigned on account of a reproof from Washington; but he remained with the army, and commanded a storming party which took one of the British redoubts at Yorktown. Meantime, in 1780, he had married a daughter of Gen. Schuyler. After he left the army, and while he was studying law in Albany, Robert Morris, who had been impressed by some of Hamilton's financial studies, appointed him continental receiver of taxes in New York. He was shortly afterwards admitted to the bar in that city. In 1782 he entered congress, where he made a hopeless attempt to relieve the troubles of the Confederacy. In 1783 he returned to his practice; but the needs of the nation were uppermost in his mind, and he was one of the delegates to the Annapolis convention of 1786. He framed the call for the Philadelphia convention of 1787, in which he was also a delegate. His participation in the formation of the constitution, and his services with voice and pen in securing its adoption, are well known. Placed at the head of the treasury department by President Washington, he displayed the highest order of creative statesmanship. His Report on Public Credit, 1790, is one of the greatest state papers in our history. In 1795 he resigned, and returned to the practice of the law in New York. He defended Jay's treaty in the celebrated papers of Camillus, and contributed largely to Washington's farewell address. He was chiefly instrumental in securing the election of Jefferson over Burr, and in 1804 was killed by the latter in a duel. He was buried in Trinity churchyard, New York.]

The extraordinary versatility which characterized Hamilton's career has left so many imposing evidences of creative statesman

ship that his professional reputation seems slight in comparison. Yet he was for several years the recognized leader of the New York bar. He had, indeed, a mind suited to the law. His technical learning, though not profound, was thoroughly systematized. He had emphatically a logical mind; everything to which he devoted his attention took the form of argumentative statement. To the comprehensive grasp of his understanding he added a penetration, power of analysis, and quickness of apprehension which fitted him peculiarly for the law. His greatest efforts, it is true, were directed elsewhere. His share in the institution of a federal government constitutes his chief title to remembrance. The Federalist still remains the most profound and penetrating exposition ever made of that instrument. And his political writings and speeches abound in ideas which then and there found their first expression, but which have become so firmly impressed upon our institutions that their origin is forgotten.

Of his purely professional work, few specimens have been preserved. The New York reports during his time show that he was engaged in almost all the important causes, and he argued several important cases in the supreme court of the United States. His greatest forensic effort was his argument in behalf of Crosswell, charged with a criminal libel on President Jefferson. The issue in this case was the same as that involved in the Dean of St. Asaph's case, and his precise and logical brief may be favorably compared with the order of Erskine's argument of the same question:

"(1) The liberty of the press consists in the right to publish, with impunity, truth, for justifiable ends, though reflecting on government, magistracy, or individuals.

“(2) That the allowance of this right is essential to the preservation of free government; the disallowance of it fatal.

"(3) That its abuse is to be guarded against by subjecting the exercise of it to the animadversion and control of the tribunals of justice; but that this control cannot safely be intrusted to a permanent body of magistracy, and requires the effectual co-operation of court and jury. "(4) That, to confine the jury to the mere question of publication and the application of terms, without the right of inquiry into the intent or tendency, referring to the court the exclusive right of pronouncing upon the construction, tendency, and intent of the libel, is calculated to render nugatory the function of the jury, enabling the court to make a libel of any writing whatsoever, the most innocent or commendable.

"(5) That it is the general rule of criminal law that the intent constitutes the crime, and that it is equally a general rule that the intent, mind, or quo animo, is an inference of fact to be drawn by the jury.

"(6) That, if there are exceptions to this rule, they are confined to cases in which not only the principal fact, but its circumstances, can be and are defined by statute or judicial precedent.

“(7) That, in respect to libel, there is no such specific and precise definition of facts and circumstances to be found; that, consequently, it is difficult, if not impossible, to pronounce that any libel is, per se, and exclusive of all circumstances, libelous; that its libelous character must depend upon intent and tendency, the one and the other being matters of fact."

Chancellor Kent, whose notes, taken at the hearing, are all that remain of Hamilton's argument, says of it: "He never before, in my hearing, made any effort in which he commanded higher reverence for his principles, nor equal admiration for the power and pathos of his eloquence." But the best available specimen of his reasoning powers as a lawyer is his opinion on the constitutionality of the United States Bank. This opinion, written in the closing weeks of a busy congressional session, is a splendid illustration of his creative genius at work upon the virgin page of constitutional law. With marvelous penetration and foresight he at once seized upon, and developed with faultless logic, the doctrine of implied powers,-a doctrine which has been to this day the support and protection of national power.

Hamilton had the passionate energy, and the strong, commanding will, characteristic of the true orator. Like Erskine, whom he is said to have resembled in manner, directness was his distinguishing trait, and, whether he appealed to the head or to the heart, he went straight to the mark. Chief Justice Spencer, of New York, his lifelong professional and political opponent, thus summed up his career:

"Alexander Hamilton was the greatest man this country has ever produced. I knew him well. I was in situations often to observe and study him. He argued cases before me while I sat as judge on the bench. Webster has done the same. In power of reasoning Hamilton was the equal of Webster, and more than this can be said of no man. In creative power, Hamilton was infinitely Webster's superior, and in this respect was endowed as God endows the most gifted of our race. If we call Shakespeare a genius or creator because he evoked plays and characters from the great chaos of thought, Hamilton merits the same appellation, for it was he, more than any other man, who thought out the constitution of the United States, and the details of the government of the Union, and, out of the chaos that existed after the Revolution, raised a fabric every part of which is instinct with his thought. I can truly say that hundreds of politicians and statesmen of the day got both the web and woof of their thought from Hamilton's brains. He, more than any other man, did the thinking of the time."

As time goes on, and only the broad outlines of our early history remain in view, many a reputation will be forgotten. But Hamilton's fame is secure, for, in comparison with his contemporaries, it may well be said of him, as was said of Papinian: "Omnes longo post se intervallo reliquerit."

OFFICIAL OPINION, AS SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, ON THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF A UNITED STATES BANK, 1791.

STATEMENT.

The primary importance of the prosperous administration of the finances of the new government led Alexander Hamilton, while secretary of the treasury, to recommend the incorporation of a national bank, as an instrument of great utility in the operations connected with the support of public credit. The constitutionality of the exercise of such a power was ably and elaborately debated in congress and in President Washington's cabinet. Thomas Jefferson, the secretary of state, and Edmund Randolph, the attorney general, united in the opinion that such a corporation was without warrant in the language of the constitution. The opposite view was maintained by Alexander Hamilton in the following opinion. President Washington adopted Hamilton's view, and approved the act incorporating the bank. It will be observed in the subsequent opinion of Chief Justice Marshall, in the case of McCulloch v. Maryand, that the learned judge adopted much of Hamilton's reasoning; in fact, at the close of the argument in that case, he remarked that "there was nothing in the whole field of argument that had not been brought forward by Hamilton."

OPINION.

The secretary of the treasury, having perused with attention the papers containing the opinions of the secretary of state and the attorney general, concerning the constitutionality of the bill for establishing a national bank, proceeds, according to the order of the president, to submit the reasons which have induced him to entertain a different opinion. It will naturally have been anticipated that, in performing this task, he would feel uncommon solicitude. Personal considerations alone, arising from the reflection that the measure originated with him, would be sufficient to produce it. The sense which he has manifested of the great importance of such an institution to the successful administration of the department under his particular care, and an expectation of serious ill consequences to result from a failure of the measure, do not permit him to be without anxiety on the public account. But the chief solicitude arises from a firm persuasion that principles of construction like those espoused by the secretary of state and the attorney general would be fatal to the just and indispensable authority of the United States.