than was proposed by Hamilton. The younger man, looking to the future needs of the country and to the example of European banks, recommended an institution with a capital of ten or fifteen millions, with authority to establish branches, and with the sole right to issue paper currency equal to the amount of its capital. He contemplated a close relation between the bank and the government, and the taking up, under contract with the United States, of all the paper issues of the Continental Congress.

Hamilton made a connection while still under twenty-four which fixed his status as a citizen of New York, and proved of value to him in many ways. While on his mission to Gates at Albany, he met Miss Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of General Philip Schuyler, one of the social as well as political leaders of the best element in New York. The acquaintance with Miss Schuyler was renewed in the spring of 1780 and ripened into an engagement, followed by their marriage on December 14 of that year. With the conclusion of the war, Hamilton was left with nothing but his title to arrears of pay in the army, and with a wife and child to support. He refused generous offers of assistance from his father-in-law, applied himself for four months to the study of the law, and in the summer of 1782 was admitted to the bar at Albany. While waiting for clients he continued his studies on financial and political questions and his vigorous arguments through the public prints for a strong federal union. He declined several offers of public place, but finally accepted an appointment from Robert Morris (June, 1782) as continental receiver of taxes for New York. This afforded him an opportunity of meeting the New York legislature, which had been summoned in extra session at Poughkeepsie, in July, to receive a report from a committee of Congress.

Congress in May, 1782, had taken into consideration the desperate condition of the finances of the country, and divided among four of its members the duty of explaining the common danger of the states. It was at the request of the delegation which went north that Governor Clinton called an extra session, and a communication was submitted on the necessity of providing for a vigorous prosecution of the war. Hamilton went to Poughkeepsie to aid his father-in-law, General Schuyler, and it was upon the motion of the latter that the Senate resolved itself into a committee of the whole on the state of the nation. Two days of deliberation were sufficient to produce a series of resolutions, probably drafted by Hamilton, which were unanimously adopted by the Senate and concurred in by the House.

These resolutions set forth that recent experience afforded "the strongest reason to apprehend from a continuance of the present constitution of the continental government a subversion of public credit" and danger to the safety and independence of the states. Turning to practical remedies, it was pointed out that the source of the public embarrassments was the want of sufficient power in Congress, particularly the power of providing a revenue. The legislature of New York, therefore, invited Congress "to recommend and each state to adopt the measure of assembling a general convention of the states especially authorized to revise and amend the confederation, reserving a right to the respective legislatures to ratify their determinations." These resolutions the government was requested to transmit to Congress and to the executives of the other states. Hamilton appeared before the legislature and discussed the subject of revenue, and one of the results of his manifest interest in the subject and his knowledge of finance was his selection by the legislature as one of the members of Congress from New York.

The impress of the organizing mind and far-sighted purposes of Hamilton was felt during his brief service in Congress. He took his seat from New York in November, 1782, and resigned in August, 1783. He cast his influence from the beginning in favor of a strong executive organization, and did his best to strengthen the heads of the recently created departments of finance and foreign affairs. He was of great service to Robert Morris, and almost carried the project of a general duty on importations, which was finally defeated by the obstinacy of Rhode Island. Such a measure, if carried out, would have afforded the central government a permanent revenue. It would have greatly mitigated the evils of the time, but would perhaps by that very fact have postponed the more complete union of the states which was to come under the Constitution of 1789. This was only one of the many projects germinating in the fertile mind of Hamilton. In a letter to Washington (March 17, 1783) he wrote:—

"We have made considerable progress in a plan to be recommended to the several states for funding all the public debts, including those of the army, which is certainly the only way to restore public credit and enable us to continue the war by borrowing abroad, if it should be necessary to continue it."

That it might be necessary to continue the war Hamilton seriously feared, in spite of the fact that the provisional treaty of peace with Great Britain was then before Congress. A grave question had arisen whether faith had been kept with France in the negotiation of this treaty. Congress had resolved unanimously (October 4, 1782) that "they will not enter into any discussion of overtures of pacification but in confidence and in concert with His Most Christian Majesty," the King of France. Adams and Jay, against the advice of Franklin, negotiated secretly with Great Britain, and only the moderation of Vergennes, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, prevented serious friction between the allies.

Hamilton, though far from being a partisan of France, believed in acting towards her with the most scrupulous good faith. He advocated a middle course between subserviency to Great Britain and implicit confidence in the disinterestedness of France. He declared (March 18, 1783), when the peace preliminaries were considered, that it was "not improbable that it had been the policy of France to procrastinate the definite acknowledgment of our independence on the part of Great Britain, in order to keep us more knit to herself, and until her own interests could be negotiated." Notwithstanding this caution regarding French purposes, he "disapproved highly of the conduct of our ministers in not showing the preliminary articles to our ally before they signed them, and still more so of their agreeing to the separate article." His own view was expressed in some resolutions which he offered, and which Congress adopted (May 2, 1783), asking a further loan from the French King, "and that His Majesty might be informed that Congress will consider his compliance in this instance as a new and valuable proof of his friendship, peculiarly interesting in the present conjuncture of the affairs of the United States."

II
THE FIGHT FOR THE CONSTITUTION

Hamilton was not a conspicuous national figure during the four years which elapsed between the termination of his term in Congress and his appearance in the Federal Convention of 1787. He was working none the less earnestly and persistently, however, in favor of a stronger union. Movements towards this union took form almost simultaneously in different parts of the country under the impulse of a common need. The wise and thoughtful words of Washington, in his circular letter to the governor of each state