Above all members of the first administration, Hamilton stood for an
efficient National Government. He saw opportunity in the administration
and interpretation of the written document to correct the weak places
which he had sought in vain to avoid when the frame was being made.
A constructive genius by birth, a financier by study, a leader of men
by nature, Hamilton had, in the Treasury Department, that function of
the new Government which needed the most strengthening, and in its
present condition the necessity which would support the strongest
measures. Called upon by Congress at the time of its first adjournment
to inform them of the exact financial condition of the country, he
drew up an exhaustive report showing that the National and State
governments together owed something like fifty-two millions of dollars.
The national obligation to-day is twenty times that sum. Its proportion
to eighty millions of people is not much less than the fifty-two
millions were to the three and a half millions of people who faced the
debt of Hamilton's time. But the debt now is of fixed form and assured
payment before it is incurred.
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