In ten days after the establishment of the Treasury Department, Alexander Hamilton was appointed its chief. He was still in the flower of his youth, but had already proved himself, not only in practical action, but in the rarest gifts of pure intellect, to be the most versatile and remarkable man of his time. Of good birth, yet, at twelve years of age, dependent upon his own exertions for support, he bore, at that tender age, the entire responsibility of a large shipping house. He seemed endowed with the quality of intellect which amounts to inspiration—unerring in perception, sure of success. The boy-manager of the shipping house earned his bread in the day time, and in the night wrote articles on commercial matters, equally remarkable for their comprehensiveness and practical knowledge. A native of St. Croix, West Indies, at fourteen he came to the United States; at eighteen, entered Kings, now Columbia College, where he at once attracted attention by his brilliant essays on political subjects. At the beginning of the Revolution, he raised and took command of a company of artillery. The same transcendent intuition which made him supreme as a financier, made him remarkable as a soldier. In Washington’s first interview with him, he made him his _aide-de-camp_, and through the entire Revolutionary war, he was called “the right arm” of the Commander-in-chief. At the close of the war he returned to New York, and stepped at once to the very front of his profession. A more remarkable and interesting group of men probably never discussed and decided the fate of a nation, than Washington, Morris, and Hamilton. Morris, wise, experienced, analytic; Washington, grave, thoughtful, far-seeing, slow to invent, but ready to comprehend, and quick to follow the counsel which his judgment approved; Hamilton, young, impetuous, impassioned, prophetic, yet practical; in comprehension and gifts of creation, the supreme of the three. Never was a nation more blessed than this, in the united quality of the men who decided its financial destiny. The first official act of Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, was to recommend that the domestic and foreign war debt be paid, dollar for dollar. When the paper containing this recommendation was read before Congress, it thought that the new Secretary of the Treasury had gone mad. How was a nation of less than four millions of people to voluntarily assume a debt of seventy-five millions of dollars! Hamilton thought that this aggregated debt, created for the support of the national cause, should be assumed by the individual States; the outstanding Continental money to be funded at the rate of one dollar in specie for each hundred in paper, and the whole united to make the national resources available for the security of the public creditors.