Alexander Hamilton: Stenographic Report of an Address Delivered at the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, N. Y., January 11, 1913 (Classic Reprint) - Softcover

Nicholas Murray Butler

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1333584199 ISBN 13: 9781333584191

Publisher: Forgotten Books, 2024

Synopsis

Excerpt from Alexander Hamilton: Stenographic Report of an Address Delivered at the Hamilton Club of Brooklyn, N. Y., January 11, 1913

There is nothing that I can say about Hamilton which will be novel to members of a club that bears his name. Yet after the passage of all these years, what a splendid memory that personality suggests, what a romance-that life was, what a revelation of human power and of human service his contributions to mankind and to the progress of civilization!

I like to think of the strands that entered into the making of that personality and that character. There was the high-purposed, rugged determination of the Scot, together with the almost fanatical devotion and enthusiasm of the Huguenot; these strands not meeting and inter twining under ordinary circumstances or under a gray and unfriendly sky, but under the bright sun of the West Indies on a little point of rich volcanic land, representing, perhaps, the ambition of mother earth to thrust herself up thru the blue waters of the tropical ocean in order to make a fit birthplace for a political genius. I like to think of the youthful beginnings of his boyish life, of the admiration of his mother for her brilliant child, who, in infancy, had the maturity of an experienced philosopher; a boy who, at nine, was writing letters worthy of a sage, and at thirteen was managing an important business for a distant client in the province of New York. I like to remember that when that dying mother felt the hand of death upon her at the early age of thirty - two, she summoned the little boy to her bed side and said to him: 'my son, never aim at the second best. It is not worthy of you. Your powers are in har mony with the everlasting principles of the universe.' Was ever a child, an orphan child, sent out from an island home to seek his fortune in a new and strange and troubled land with higher prophecy or with more beneficent bene~ diction?

And then the boy crosses the sea to. The province of New York. He casts about for an opportunity of obtaining an education. He is thirsting for information. He had read a few great books, books far beyond the capacity of an ordi nary boy of his age. He was seeking direction, instruction, opportunity, and he presented himself to President With erspoon of Princeton College. He said that he wanted to become a student there; that he had no time to devote four years to the very moderate course of instruction of that day, but that if he were allowed to pursue the course in less time and to complete it earlier he would be glad to enter his name. The president told him - after the fashion of college presidents - that there were rules that could not be broken and that his proposal was impossible. Did the boy enter himself at Princeton for four years? Not in the least. He moved on to New York and appeared before Myles Cooper, the scholarly Tory who was president of King's College, and made the same proposal to him. Myles Cooper, trained at Oxford and more a man of the world, said that it could be arranged; and it was. 80 Alexander Hamilton became a pupil in King's College over yonder, on the King's farm, just beyond where Trinity Church now stands and not far from the churchyard where his ashes lie.

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Edition details

• Publisher: Forgotten Books
• Publication date: 2024
• ISBN 10: 1333584199
• ISBN 13: 9781333584191
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 25