232 THE PORTRAIT GALLERY 



reproof given him by the General, and entered the line again. 

 At Yorktown he led the storming party on the British redoubts. 



During the winter cessations of hostilities, he studied finance 

 and government most vigorously, and offered such a remarkable 

 plan of a national bank system that he was made collector of rev- 

 enue at New York and later a delegate to the Continental Con- 

 gress. He took an important role in the ratification of the peace 

 treaty, and in the formation of the Federalist party. So disin- 

 tegrated were the finances and policies of the colonies, that at 

 the constitutional convention of 1787, he proposed a scheme of 

 government, involving office for life and appointees of the presi- 

 dent as state governors, so aristocratic in type that it aroused the 

 powerful opposition of Benjamin Franklin and others, and the 

 modern constitution was adopted to defeat it. Personal friends 

 have always insisted that this scheme was a clever ruse to bring 

 order to the dissenting parties. Following the agreement as to 

 a constitution, Mr. Hamilton wrote a series of essays in "The 

 Federalist" that contained such brilliant logic as to convert the 

 necessary doubters to the constitutional adoption. 



At the time of Washington's inauguration, he was appointed 

 secretary of the treasury and established the economic and tarifif 

 policies that have defined the issues for the two great political 

 parties ever since. His report of January 14, 1790, on public 

 credit was the first great state paper in American history, and in 

 it he reduced the confused finances to order and formulated a plan 

 for the assumption of the state debts. During the same period 

 he prepared a system of revenue, a scheme for revenue cutters, 

 estimates on income and expenditure, temporary regulation of the 

 currency, navigation and coast-wise trade laws, plans for the 

 postal service, plans for West Point, plans for the management 

 of public lands, and settlements for the vast public and private 

 claims. Later he reported on the establishment of the mint, the 

 system of coinage, the national banks, the protective policy for 



