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 WasHINCTON’s inauguration, he was appointed 
secretary of the treasury and established the economic and tariff 
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 
