[101] Born at Nevis, in West Indies, January 11, 1757; died, July 12, 1804. Developed an astonishing precocity, and was sent to New York City in 1772; entered Columbia College, and in 1774 made a public speech that was considered marvelous for a boy of seventeen; published numerous pamphlets of importance, and organized a cavalry company which he led at Long Island and White Plains; was member of Washington’s staff, 1776–1781; ended his military career by leading the final charge at Yorktown; member of Congress, 1782–1783; member of Annapolis Convention in 1786, and Federal Convention in 1787; was the chief writer of _The Federalist_; converted a two-thirds majority in the New York Convention of 1788 into a minority against the Constitution; as Secretary of the Treasury under Washington founded the national financial system; resigned in 1795; was a constant power as a writer, until killed in a duel by Burr in 1804. [102] Born, 1751; died, 1836. Graduated at Princeton, 1772; member of Committee of Public Safety in 1774; member of the Virginia Convention in 1776; member of Continental Congress, 1780–1784, in which he was noted for the wisdom of his judgment and the aptness of his methods; did great service in securing religious liberty in Virginia in 1784–1787; member of the Annapolis Convention in 1786; most influential member of the Constitutional Convention of 1787; a leading member of Congress from 1789 to 1797; wrote the “Virginia Resolutions” in 1798; Secretary of State under Jefferson from 1801 to 1809; President from 1809 to 1817, during which time the war against Great Britain was forced upon him; lived in retirement at Montpelier, Virginia, from 1817 till his death. [Illustration: UNITED STATES IN 1789] PART III. THE ORGANIZATION OF POLITICAL PARTIES, 1789–1825. * * * * * CHAPTER XII. =THE COUNTRY AT THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.= GENERAL CONDITIONS. =257. Population and Area.=—The country over which Washington began to preside in 1789 was very different from the great nation it has grown to be. Counting about seven hundred and fifty thousand slaves, the population did not quite reach four millions. Eleven years later, by the second census, that of 1800, this population had increased to 5,308,480; but the area of 827,844 square miles was not yet settled at the ratio of six and a half persons to a square mile. It was only along the Atlantic coast from Virginia to Massachusetts that the original wilderness had been fairly conquered by settlements that furnished a population of from twenty-five to ninety inhabitants to the square mile.