Part 29 (1/2)
Jefferson had arrived on March 21st, and entered at once upon his duties as Secretary of State. He disapproved of the a.s.sumption measure, but was so absorbed in the perplexing details of his new office, in correspondence, and in frequent conferences with the President on the subject of foreign affairs, that he gave the matter little consecutive thought. Moreover, he was dined every day for weeks, all the distinguished New Yorkers, from Hamilton down, vying with each other in attentions to a man whose state record was so enlightened, and whose foreign so brilliant, despite one or two humiliating failures. He rented a small cottage in Maiden Lane, and looked with deep disapproval upon the aristocratic dissipations of New York, the frigid stateliness of Was.h.i.+ngton's ”Court.” The French Revolution and the snub of the British king had developed his natural democratism into a controlling pa.s.sion, and he would have preferred to find in even the large cities of the new country the homely bourgeois life of his highest ideals.
No one accused him of inconsistency in externals. With his s.h.a.ggy sandy hair, his great red face, covered with freckles, his long loose figure, clad in red French breeches a size too small, a threadbare brown coat, soiled linen and hose, and enormous hands and feet, he must have astounded the courtly city of New York, and it is certain that he set Was.h.i.+ngton's teeth on edge. It is no wonder that when this vision rises upon the democratic horizon of to-day, he is hailed as a greater man than Was.h.i.+ngton or Hamilton.
Shortly after the final recommitment of the resolution in favour of a.s.sumption, the Federalist leader met this engaging figure almost in front of Was.h.i.+ngton's door, and a plan which had dawned in his mind a day or two before matured on the instant. He had no dislike for Jefferson at the time, and respected his intellect and diplomatic talents, without reference to differences of opinion. Jefferson grinned as Hamilton approached, and offered his great paw amiably. He did not like his brother secretary's clothes, and his. .h.i.therto averted understanding was gradually moving toward the displeasing fact that Hamilton was the Administration; but he had had little time for reflection, and he succ.u.mbed temporarily to a fascination which few resisted.
Hamilton approached him frankly. ”Will you walk up and down with me a few moments?” he asked. ”I have intended to call upon you. You have returned at a most opportune time. Do you realize, sir, that the whole business of this nation is at a deadlock? There is nothing in this talk of the North seceding, but so great is the apprehension that the energies of the country are paralyzed, and no man thinks of anything but the possible failure of the Government. I am convinced that a.s.sumption is not only necessary to permanent union, to the solution of the financial problem, but to the prosperity of the States themselves.” He then proceeded to convince Jefferson, who listened attentively, wondering, with a sigh, how any man could pour out his thoughts so rapidly and so well. ”Will you turn this over in your mind, and let me see you again in a day or two?” asked Hamilton, as he finished his argument. ”Let me reiterate that there is no time to lose. The Government is at a standstill in all matters concerning the establishment of the country on a sound financial basis, until this subordinate matter is settled.”
”You alarm and deeply interest me,” said Jefferson. ”I certainly will give the matter my attention. Will you dine with me to-morrow? We can then discuss this matter at leisure. I will ask one or two others.”
The next day, at Mr. Jefferson's epicureous board, Hamilton played his trump. Having again wrought havoc with his host's imagination, but by no means trusting to the permanence of any emotion, he proposed a bargain: if Jefferson would use his influence with the Virginians and other Southern anti-a.s.sumptionists in Congress, he and Robert Morris would engage to persuade obstinate Northerners to concede the Capital city to the South. Hamilton made no sacrifice of conviction in offering this proposition. There was no reason why the Government should not sit as conveniently on the banks of the Potomac as elsewhere, and if he did not carry the Union through this new crisis, no one else would. All his great schemes depended upon his bringing the hostile States to reason, and with his usual high-handed impatience he carried his object in his own way.
Jefferson saw much virtue in this arrangement. The plan was an almost immediate success. White and Lee of Virginia were induced to change their votes, and a.s.sumption with some modifications pa.s.sed into a law.
The Government, after a ten years' sojourn in Philadelphia, would abide permanently upon the Potomac.
XXI
Mrs. Hamilton, albeit she had not a care in the world, sighed heavily.
She was standing before her mirror, arrayed in a triumph of art recently selected by Mrs. Church, in London. On her head was an immense puff of yellow gauze, whose satin foundation had a double wing in large plaits.
The dress was of yellow satin, flowing over a white satin petticoat, and embellished about the neck with a large Italian gauze handkerchief, striped with white. Her hair was in ringlets and unpowdered. She was a very plate of fas.h.i.+on, but her brow was puckered.
”What is it?” asked her husband, entering from his room. ”You are a vision of loveliness, my dear Eliza. Is there a rose too few, or a hoop awry?”
”No, sir, I am well enough pleased with myself. I am worrying lest General Was.h.i.+ngton ask me to dance. It will be bad enough to go out with Mr. Adams, who snaps at me every time I venture a remark, but he at least is not a giant, and I do not feel like a dwarf. When the President leads me out--that is to say, when he did lead me out at the Inauguration ball, I was like to expire of mortification. I felt like a little polar cub trotting out to sea with a monster iceberg. And he never opened his lips to distract my mind, just solemnly marched me up and down, as if I had done something naughty and were being exhibited. I saw Kitty Livingston giggle behind her fan, and Kitty Duer drew herself up to her full height, which is quite five feet six, and looked down upon me with a cruel amus.e.m.e.nt. Women are so nasty to each other. Thank heaven I have a new gown for to-night--anyhow!”
Hamilton laughed heartily; she always amused him, she was half his wife, half the oldest of his children. ”And you are fresher far than any of them; let that console you,” he said, arranging her necklace. ”I am sure both the President and the Vice-President will take you out; they hardly would have the bad taste not to. And you look very sweet, hanging on to Was.h.i.+ngton's hand. Don't imagine for a moment that you look ridiculous.
Fancy, if you had to walk through life with either of them.”
Betsey shuddered and smoothed her brow. ”It _would_ be a walk with the dear General,” she said. ”I dare not dwell upon what it would be with Mr. Adams--or anyone else! You are amazing smart, yourself, to-night.”
”This new costume depressed me for a moment, for it is very like one Laurens used to wear upon state occasions, but I had not the courage to wear the light blue with the large gilt b.u.t.tons, and the pudding cravat Morris inconsiderately sent me; not with Jefferson's agonized eye to encounter. The poor man suffers cruelly at our extravagance and elegance.”
”He is an old fright,” quoth Betsey, ”and I'd not dance with him, not if he went on his knees.”
She looked her husband over with great pride. He wore a coat of plum-coloured velvet, a double-breasted Ma.r.s.eilles vest, white satin breeches, white silk stockings, and pumps. There were full ruffles of lace on his breast and wrists. A man of to-day has to be singularly gifted by nature to s.h.i.+ne triumphant above his ugly and uniform garb, whereas many a woman wins a reputation for beauty by a combination of taste with the infinite range modern fas.h.i.+on accords her. In the days of which we write, a man hardly could help looking his best, and while far more decorative than his descendant, was equally useful. And as all dressed in varying degrees of the same fas.h.i.+on, none seemed effeminate.
As for Hamilton, his head never looked more ma.s.sive, his glance more commanding, than when he was in full regalia; nor he more ready for a fight. All women know the psychological effect of being superlatively well dressed. In the days of our male ancestors' external vanities it is quite possible that they, too, felt unconquerable when panoplied in their best.
The ball that night was at Richmond Hill, the beautiful home of the Vice-President and his wife, Abigail Adams, one of the wisest, wittiest, and most agreeable women of her time. This historic mansion, afterward the home of Aaron Burr during his successful years, was a country estate where Varick Street now crosses Charlton in the heart of the city. It stood on an eminence overlooking the Hudson, surrounded by a park and commanding a view of the wild Jersey sh.o.r.e opposite. The Adamses were ambitious people and entertained constantly, with little less formality than the President. The early hours of their receptions, indeed, were chilling, and many went late, after dancing was, begun or the company had scattered to the card-tables. The Vice-President and his wife stood at the head of the long drawing-room and said good evening, and no more, as the women courtesied to the ground, or the men bowed as deeply as their varying years would permit. The guests then stood about for quite an hour and talked in undertones; later, perhaps, the host and hostess mingled with them and conversed. But although Mrs. Adams was vastly popular, her distinguished husband was less so; he was not always to be counted upon in the matter of temper. This grim old Puritan, of an integrity which makes him one of the giants of our early history, despite the last hours of his administration when he was beating about in the vortex of his pa.s.sions, and always honest in his convictions, right or wrong, had not been gifted by nature with a pleasing address, although he could attach people to him when he chose. He was irascible and violent, the victim of a pa.s.sionate jealous nature, without the saving graces of humour and liveliness of temperament. But his st.u.r.dy upright figure was very imposing; his brow, which appeared to end with the tip of his nose, so bold was the curve, would have been benevolent but for the youthful snapping eyes. His indomitability and his capacity for hatred were expressed in the curves of his mouth. He was always well dressed, for although a farmer by birth, he was as p.r.o.nounced an aristocrat in his tastes as Was.h.i.+ngton or Hamilton. At this time, although he liked neither of them, he was the staunch supporter of the Government. He believed in Federalism and the Const.i.tution, insignificant as he found his rewards under both, and he was an ally of inestimable value.
When the Hamiltons entered his drawing-room to-night they found many people of note already there, although the minuet had not begun. The President, his graceful six feet in all the magnificence of black velvet and white satin, his queue in a black silk bag, stood beside his lady, who was as brave as himself in a gown of violet brocade over an immense hoop. Poor dame, she would far rather have been at Mount Vernon in homespun, for all this pomp and circ.u.mstance bored and isolated her. She hedged herself about with the etiquette which her exalted position demanded, and froze the social aspirant of insufficient pretensions, but her traditions and her propensities were ever at war; she was a woman above all things, and an extremely simple one.
John Jay, now Chief Justice of the United States, was there, as ever the most simply attired personage in the Union. His beautiful wife, however, beaming and gracious, but no less rigid than ”Lady Was.h.i.+ngton,” in her social statutes, looked like a bird of paradise beside a graven image, so gorgeous was her raiment. Baron Steuben was in the regalia of war and a breastplate of orders. Kitty Livingston, now Mrs. Matthew Ridley, had also received a fine new gown of Mrs. Church's selection, for the two women still were friends, despite the rupture of their families. Lady Kitty Duer, so soon to know poverty and humiliation, was in a gown of celestial blue over a white satin petticoat, her lofty head surmounted by an immense gauze turban. General and Mrs. Knox, fat, amiable, and always popular, although sadly inflated by their new social importance, were mountains of finery. Mrs. Ralph Izard, Mrs. Jay's rival in beauty, and Mrs. Adams's in wit, painted by Gainsborough and Copley, wore a white gown of enviable simplicity, and a string of large pearls in her hair, another about her graceful throat. Mrs. Schuyler, stout and careworn, from the trials of excitable and eloping daughters, clung to the kind arm of her austere and silent husband. Fisher Ames, with his narrow consumptive figure and his flas.h.i.+ng ardent eyes, his eloquent tongue chilled by this funereal a.s.semblage, had retreated to an alcove with Rufus King, where they whispered politics. Burr, the target of many fine eyes, was always loyal to his wife in public; she was a charming and highly respected woman, ten years his senior. Burr fascinated women, and adorned his belt with their scalps; but had it not been for this vanity, which led him to scatter hints of infinite devilment and conquest, it is not likely that he would have been branded, in that era of gallantry, a devirginator and a rake. All that history is concerned with is his utter lack of patriotism and honesty, and the unscrupulous selfishness, from which, after all, he suffered more than any man. His dishonesties and his treasonable attempts were failures, but he left a bitter legacy in his mastery of the arts of political corruption, and in a glittering personality which, with his misfortunes, has beG.o.dded him with the shallow and ignorant, who know the traditions of history and none of its facts. He was a poor creature, with all his gifts, for his life was a failure, his old age one of the loneliest and bitterest in history; and from no cause that facts or tradition give us but the blind selfishness which blunted a good understanding to stupidity. Selfishness in public life is a crime against one's highest ambitions.
Mrs. Hamilton kept a firm hold on her husband's arm, and her glance shot apprehensively from Was.h.i.+ngton to the Vice-President. The latter could not dance at present; the former looked as if petrified, rooted in the floor. Betsey had a clever little head, and she devised a scheme at once. She was the third lady in the land, and although many years younger than Mrs. Adams, had entertained from her cradle. No one else immediately following the entrance of her husband and herself, she did not move on after her courtesy, but drew Mrs. Adams into conversation, and the good lady by this time was glad of a friendly word.
”You will be detained here for an hour yet,” said Betsey, sweetly. ”Can I help you? Shall I start the minuet? Dear Mr. Adams will be too tired to dance to-night. Shall I choose a partner and begin?”
”For the love of heaven, do,” whispered Mrs. Adams. ”Take out Colonel Burr. He matches you in height, and dances like a courtier.”
Other people entered at the moment, and Betsey whispered hurriedly to Hamilton: ”Go--quickly--and fetch Colonel Burr. I breathe freely for the first time since the clock struck six, but who knows what may happen?”