Staunton spectator, and general advertiser. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 183?-1849, 1842-06-16
From the Baltimore American.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON.

a complete edition of Ilamilton's writings in.
Guiding his letters, many of which have never
been published, is about TO be issued in New
York. One volume has already appeared.
III has been the fate of this distinguished man
to suffer from misrepresentation even beyond the
usual lot OF public men. One of the warmest
and most devoted friends, and certainly the ablest
advocate that constitutional freedom ever had a.
mong the statesmen Of this country, Alexander
Hamilton, has been denounced as monarchist
and Toe 10 liberty. No one labonred more
zealously, or more successfully in establishing
our present constitution. There is not conserva-
1--WE element IIr that great charter Of freedom
which he did not mainly plant there. Whoever
reads his writings Illustrative of the principles
| oil The constitution before The formation of the
government, and his stale papers as Secretary OF
the Treasury afterw ards, will observe with won
der The iar-secing sagacty Of his mind, the COM
prehensiveness Of his views, and that admirable
combination of faculties which enabled him to
embrace within the scope of his observation
both the general and the particular principl, 8
and details, theories and facts.
The New York Evening Post-a paper ultra
democratical-speaking OF the volume which
has recently appeared, quotes passage from one
OF his earlier productions in which Hamilton dis
putes the right of the British Parliament TO le-
glsate for the colonies, and thus bears testimony:
"famIiton essay breathes the spirit Of en-
lightened patriotism throughout his sympathies
seem TO be strongly with the people; he insists
upon their natural and nalienable RICH, to consti-
tute government according to their own notions
OF happiness; and closes his argument with this
startling paragraph. which, in the original work
is printed in large type 1.-The sacred rights of
mankind are not TO be rumaged for in any old
parchments and rusty records. They are written
as with sunbeam in the whole volume Of hn-
man nature, by the hand Of the Divinity itself:
and can never be erased or obscured by mortal
power."'
Hamilton differed from his great rival Jeffer-
son not IN attachment to liberal principles, for
they were both patriots but in having more
common sense aed ctterjudgment. lie was not
D'isled by names. He reverenced Liberty as a
practical reality founded upon rights, not abstract,
but actua-rights involving duties. Those wild
notions OF freedom which the French Republi-
cans INDUCED in, without regard to the facts
OF human nature and of human xperience-ideas
founded upon lancied equality and an magina-
~ perfection In the human species, and PRACTICAL
" subvcrsive of all government by making each
man law unto himself and giving predominance
to animal impulses and vindictive and selfish
passions-such notions Of license under the name
Of liberty found no entertainment in the clear,
weil-baIanced mind of Hamilton. The Time is
coming, and perhaps now is, when the character
OF iis lllustrlous statesman and true patriot may
ne likely to meet more just appreciation than
has been awarded to it generally since the tcrmf-
lion OF his political career. The prejudices Of
party spirit cannot last always; can the i3c
fuence Of them prevail in the end against the
power, slow but certain, of truth and reality.