Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander

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      Chapter VI

       Hamilton, The Lawyer

       Table of Contents

      Hamilton's choice of a profession was made even before the end of the war, for in his well-known letter to General Schuyler, written February 18, 1781, in which he recounted his quarrel with Washington and his future prospects, he said: "If a handsome command in the campaign in the light infantry should offer itself, I shall balance between this and the artillery. My situation in the latter would be more solid and permanent, but as I hope the war will not last long enough to make it progressive, this consideration has less force. A command for the campaign would leave me the winter to prosecute my studies relative to my future career in life." Although it has been stated that after he went to Albany to prepare himself, in 1782, he was admitted to the bar after less than five months' study, there are those who believe that he had, for many years, been accumulating a knowledge of the law, for he could not have accomplished what he did in so short a space of time. Certainly the early literary work in which he engaged, which was called forth by Seabuty's Tory pamphlets, indicated a trained and logical mind. Estabrook, who has written an exceedingly interesting paper, said that Hamilton not only argued like a lawyer, but displayed the knowledge and habits of a lawyer, even as far back as 1774; and his two papers to which reference has been made, namely, "A Full Vindication," and "The Farmer Refuted," bore intrinsic evidences of a familiarity with the law and the authorities of the time, and a capacity for logical deduction quite beyond his years.

      While his genius was everywhere apparent, the trend of his mind was always analytical, and-is systematic habits of thought and argument served him in good stead, not only in his chosen calling, but later in the conduct of public affairs. Certainly the observations of De Tocqueville as to the value of legal training as the requirement of a statesman had, in this case, ample proof and illustration. He entered into his new calling with enthusiasm, and although it did not receive his undivided attention, for he was, at the same time, devoting his energies to the construction of the American Constitution, he no doubt had enough lucrative work to do when he left Albany and opened his office at No. 57 Wall Street.

      About this time he wrote to Lafayette:

      Albany, November 3, 1782.

      I have been employed for the last ten months in rocking the cradle and studying the art of fieecing my neighbors. I am now a grave counsellor-at-law, and shall soon be a grave member of Congress. The Legislature, at their last session, took it into their heads to name me, pretty unanimously, as one of their delegates.

      I am going to throw away a few months more in public life, and then retire a simple citizen and good paterfamilias. I set out for Philadelphia in a few days. You see the disposition I am in. You are condemned to run the race of ambition all your life. I am already tired of the career, and dare to leave it.

      With his partner, Balthazar De Heart, his services were now everywhere in demand. Naturally, many of his cases were connected with the claims of those people who had suffered by the war, and whose property had been taken from them by order of Governor Tryon and other Tories. Among these were claims for damages arising from the seizure of cattle on Long Island, and actions growing out of the trespass law. Again we find that he appeared as counsel in the will cases of Dr. Peter Middleton, Philip Livingston, and Henry Beekman.

      Suits for reprisal and claims for damages engaged his attention, and the papers he left, throw much light upon matters connected with the American Revolution, and the unsettled period at its conclusion. It would appear that in those days petty political officers were not above recourse to extortion and graft, which at times since, has distinguished the municipal affairs of the city of New York. We find that during the early part of the Revolution, when the statue of George III was torn down and demolished, and the types of Printer Rivington distributed and condemned for the purpose of making bullets, there was a general levy upon the citizens of New York for the lead in the window-sashes throughout the city for the same purpose, and that subsequently, when restitution was demanded for this form of contribution, it was the custom for the representative of the auditor to mulct the complainant nine shillings for a certificate showing the validity of the claim. One Peter R. Fell employed Hamilton as his counsel to prepare a memorial to the Assembly of the State of New York, in which he urged his grievances. In this he stated that he was one of those from whose windows leads were taken by order of the Convention at the commencement of the late war; that soon after the last sitting of the legislature it was learned that one Daniel Dunscomb was ordered to render an account to the auditor of the leads so taken; that Fell requested Dunscomb to give a certificate to this effect, but the latter exacted nine shillings therefor from the messenger, although he, Dunscomb, had been allowed twenty pounds by the auditor as full compensation for his services. He naturally complained that "as leads were taken from one thousand houses in the city, the exaction of nine shillings is a species of petty extortion, highly censurable, and unbecoming СКАЧАТЬ