Hamilton, despite a mind trained to the subordination of private interests to public duty, knew that it was the crisis of his own destiny toward which he was hastening. He had bound up his personal ambitions with the principles of the Federalist party--so called since the publication in book form of the Publius essays; for not only was he largely responsible for those principles, but his mind was too well regulated to consider the alternative of a compromise with a possibly victorious party which he detested. Perhaps his ambition was too vaulting to adapt itself to a restricted field when his imagination had played for years with the big ninepins of history; at all events, it was inseparably bound up with nationalism in the boldest sense achievable, and with methods which days and nights of severe thought had convinced him were for the greatest good of the American people. Union meant Washington in the supreme command, himself with the reins of government in both hands. The financial, the foreign, the domestic policy of a harmonious federation were as familiar to his mind as they are to us to-day. Only he could achieve them, and only New York could give him those reins of power. It is true that he had but to move his furniture over to Philadelphia to be welcomed to citizenship with acclamation by that ambitious town; but not only was his pride bound up in the conquest of New York from Clintonism to Federalism, but New York left out of the Union, dividing as she did New England from the South and North, of the highest commercial importance by virtue of her central position and her harbour, meant civil war at no remote period, disunion, and the undoing of the most careful and strenuous labours of the nation's statesmen. That New York should be forced into the Union at once Hamilton was determined upon, if he had to resort to a coup which might or might not meet with the approval of the rest of the country. Nevertheless, he looked forward to the next few weeks with the deepest anxiety. An accident, an illness, and the cause was lost, for he made no mistake in estimating himself as the sole force which could bear Clinton and his magnificent organization to the ground. Hamilton was no party manipulator. He relied upon his individual exertions, abetted by those of his lieutenants,--the most high-minded and the ablest men in the country,--to force his ideas upon the masses by their own momentum and weight. Indeed, so individual did he make the management of the Federalist party, that years later, when the "Republican" leaders determined upon its overthrow, they aimed all their artillery at him alone: if he fell the party must collapse, on top of him; did he retain the confidence of the people, he would magnetize their obedience, no matter what rifts there might be in his ranks.