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GENERAL RELATION TO THE FAREWELL ADDRESS

matter, as to state my apprehension of the general relation which they bear to the finished Farewell Address. An analysis of Hamilton's abstract and original draught hereafter will demonstrate it.

The fundamental or radical thoughts of the Farewell Address appear in Washington's preparatory draught, and without reference to plan or style, and with little obligation otherwise to Madison's draught, which followed Washington's outline, they were originally and substantially Washington's. The selection of those thoughts was his. The responsibility for them was his. The individuality, for use in the Farewell Address, was his. In what was most strictly personal to him, the language of the preparatory draught was frequently, and as often as it could be, brought into the body of Hamilton's draught, and from that into the Address. In other instances, also, the language of Washington was to some extent incorporated with the thoughts. On the other hand, the expurgation of Washington's draught was Hamilton's. The plan of the Farewell Address was that of Hamilton's original draught. The central and dominant thought of the political part of his draught, and of that Address, was selected by him from Washington's thoughts, and made the governing principle of the whole. The bearing of other thoughts upon that centre was devised by him, and the separate suggestions which appeared in various places in Washington's draught, Hamilton developed and augmented, and worked into his draught; and he sustained them, not in the direct logical form, but with collateral illustrations and supports of his own, by which he combined and justified the thoughts of Washington, and made the whole of this portion of the Address which followed his draught, as much an

argument, as Washington's draught had made it a declaration of his political faith.

It is unnecessary to speak of Hamilton's intellectual capacity for the part of the work that was assigned to him; but his special qualification for it was moral, as much as it was intellectual. It was his full sympathy with Washington in both his personal and political aspirations. He knew better than any man what Washington felt and thought, and as well as any man what Washington ought to feel on the occasion, both as a President and as a man; and he knew better than Washington what Washington ought to say, and what he ought to suppress, in matters which had personally wronged him. Perhaps any man of sense and discretion is a better judge in this last particular than the party himself; but Hamilton's special fitness as an adviser in such a matter, sprang from his true conception of Washington's greatness, from sympathy with his glory, from a perfect apprehension of the estimate which the world had formed of him, from accordance with him as to both the men and the policy that were opposed to him, and as to the proper principles of administration under the Constitution; while, at the same time, Hamilton himself was free from every particle of rivalry or competition with the great chief of the country, and supremely elevated above the desire or thought of vindicating any wrongs of his own, through the resentments, in the same direction, of any person whatever.

Two men were never better fitted for just such a joint work; fitted by different, and even by contrasting, qualities, and by reciprocal trust and respect.

Hamilton habitually approved Washington's great purposes, and generally his suggestions made upon deliberate

consideration. Washington, on the other hand, approved what Hamilton's constructive as well as analytical mind built up or developed from Washington's suggestions, or corrected by wise qualifications; and ceased to approve even a suggestion of his own, after Hamilton had shown that it was out of place in the position given to it, or out of parallel or keeping with the ideal which Washington's admirers throughout the world had formed of him. Hamilton was slow, therefore, to consent to Washington's abating any portion of his claims through an excessive modesty, or impairing them by condescending to rebuke the invectives which had irritated him, as he knew him to be far above their reach on the great theatre of the world; though he was ready to be overruled where Washington was to speak personally; and probably felt himself to be overruled, in retaining certain parts of Mr. Madison's language.

Washington's practical and executive life-that great preparation of his virtues for the destiny that awaited him—took him away in early youth from long scholastic training in letters, and made them of secondary pursuit with him afterwards. He was not addicted to complex or formal composition, though he wrote well and effectively. The seeds of all sound political and moral action were in him, and they grew and expanded with his position, until it became the highest in the country; and his also was a singularly wise judgment to apply the work of another in aid of his own knowledge or design; but suggestiveness and facility were not the most striking properties of his mind. Hamilton, on the other hand, strenuously cultivated from his youth, his remarkable genius for speculative inquiry, for political and legal argument, and for arrangement and order in the mar

shalling of his thoughts for either persuasion or demonstration. His was the germinating, arranging, and exhibitive mind, the mind to make a structure from the separate materials provided by the mind of Washington; but no structure that Hamilton or any one could raise, was beyond the accurate survey and scrutiny of Washington, or his ability to appreciate the nature and degree of the connection, dependency, and coherence of the parts. Such was the adaptation of Washington and Hamilton to the work of the Farewell Address.

Hamilton's original draught, as printed in the seventh volume of his Works, of which a corrected copy was sent to Washington on the 30th July, 1796,-is the startingpoint in the collation and comparison of Hamilton's work, with the Farewell Address. The draught was altogether Hamilton's preparation, and there can be no doubt of the genuineness and authenticity of this document. The original, in his handwriting, is deposited in the Department of State. The copy in his Works has been published under the authority of Congress. It is printed in such a manner as, by reference to words and sentences at the foot of the pages, to indicate what are called in the first note, "the "final alterations in this draught," which does not mean the final alterations, from the corrected copy sent to Washington the 30th July, nor from the revision sent to Washington on the 6th September; but the final alterations in this, the original draught, before it was amended and sent to Washington, on the 30th July.

The comparison of the Farewell Address must, in the first instance, be made with this draught. The revision of the draught, or, as Hamilton expressed it in his letter to

Washington of 5th September, "the draught corrected "agreeably to your intimations," was sent to Washington on the 6th September, having been returned by Washington to Hamilton for revision, at his request, on the 25th August. It was not found, Mr. Sparks says, among the papers of Washington. Doubtless Mr. Sparks has never seen it. It may, or may not, appear hereafter.

The disappearance of this paper is remarkable. It is the only paper which relates to the formation of the Farewell Address, that has disappeared from the papers of Washington on this head, from the year 1792. All the other papers, it will be seen, came into the hands of Mr. Sparks, the editor of Washington's Writings. There were several of them, without including the letters of Madison or Hamilton;-Madison's draught, Washington's copy of that draught, his own paper, called by Mr. Sparks "Hints, or "Heads of Topics," Washington's completed paper sent to Hamilton, and Hamilton's correction of that paper by incorporation of amendments. They were all found among the papers of Washington. This copy of Hamilton's original draught, his revision, is acknowledged by Washington, commented upon by him several times by letter, was returned by Washington to Hamilton, sent back to Washington, after revision, by Hamilton, according to Washington's urgent request, for the purpose of being immediately copied and sent to the press; and though its safe arrival does not, from any letter that remains, appear to have been expressly acknowledged by Washington, the short clause on Education prepared by Hamilton at Washington's instance, expressly mentioned by Hamilton as having been made in the revision, and which appears in Washington's Farewell Address, in the place which