His family was of Scotland, a country which, the smallness of its population considered, has produced more able and useful men than any other. To be born at all is to be well born is the general belief in this very liberalminded age, but even the most determined of democrats is not averse to a good descent and Hamilton, who was a democrat in no sense, had one of the noblest ancestries in Europe, though himself of American birth.

40 tifying them, 1 it may not be unprofitable to glance over the career of one whose virtues, services, and genius are constantly rising in the estimation of his countrymen and of the world, “ the dead growing visible from the shades of time.' At this day, when events have so signally justified the views of Alexander Hamilton, and are daily jusVOL. successfully for ages as that financial system which he formed has ever worked, and which has never been departed from without the result being most injurious to the country. Had Hamilton been allowed to shape our national polity. A system, which, had it been rightly formed in the first place, would have been self-sustaining, was saved from destruction solely by the uprising of the people, who had to operate with bullets and bayonets, when it had been fondly hoped that the ballot would ever be a suffifciently formidable weapon in the hand of the American citizen, and that he never would have to become the citizen-soldier in a civil contest.

An American need not be possessed of high powers or position to venture the assertion that Hamilton divined American history, and foresaw all that we have suffered because our predecessors would build the national edifice on sand, so that it could not stand against the political storm which it was in the breath of selfish partisans to send against it, but has, as it were, to be buttressed by mighty fleets and armies. Talleyrand, who had a just appreciation of Hamilton’s talents and character, said that he had divined Europe. THE greatest name in American history is that of ALEXANDER HAMILTON, if we consider the versatility of the man who bore it, the early age at which he began a great public career, the success which attended all his labors, the impression which he made on his country and its government, and the rare foresight by which he was enabled to understand that our political system would encounter that very danger through which it has just passed,-and passed not without receiving severe wounds, which have left it scarcely recognizable even by its warmest admirers.

Writings by alexander hamilton