46

Quoting chief Justice about America's "natural antipathy to System of any kind"

Alexander Hamilton

Autograph Letter Signed, "A.H.," as Inspector General of the U.S. Army, to Secretary of War James McHenry,

remaking that he would expect much good from his proposal, if he were not persuaded by Chief Justice Ellsworth's view that "there is in a government like ours a natural antipathy [to] System of any kind." ¾ page, small 4to; worming at middle and lower right edge with loss to few letters of text (but still legible) repaired verso with tissue causing moderate staining recto, left edge reinforced recto, folds, remnants of hinging at upper edge verso.

New York, 19 February 1800.

  • Notes: "I have read with great pleasure your letter to the Committee of Defence. It presents the Subject in a very correct and interesting manner, such as I should expect much good from; if I did not begin to think with Chief Justice Ellsworth, that there is in a government like ours a natural antipathy [to] System of any kind."

    Published in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Harold Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), 24:237–38.

    The Revolutionary War did not put to rest doubts about the ability of the North American democratic republic to resist foreign influence, even in the years soon after the War. In 1797, Supreme Court Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth, and other Federalists, were concerned about the worsening of Franco-American relations after France openly supported the Democratic-Republican Party and their candidate Thomas Jefferson in the 1796 presidential election. When the Federalist Adams won, France declined to accept the new American minister to France and increased attacks upon American shipping, leading to the Quasi-War against France in 1798. Some believed that the growing opposition between the Federalists concentrating in New England and the Democratic-Republicans elsewhere, exacerbated by French support of the Democratic-Republicans, could lead to dissolution of the Union. On April 1, 1797, Ellsworth, while delivering a charge to a NY Circuit Court Grand Jury, suggested that elements within American society had become hostile to free government, and that their presence "opens a door to foreign influence, that 'destroying angel of republics'." Although no record has been published of Ellsworth's statement about American antipathy to systemic organization, it was presumably during this time that Ellsworth communicated the view that Hamilton paraphrases in this letter.
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