The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1896-03-29

SUIT. With Taylor and Fillmore IN tie
psesaoency. with the greatest Whfx cab
met ever known ard with at least prcs-
psct OF success a. late as the deaths Of
Clay and Webster.
The Federalists under Hamilton, late gem
eral in chief OF the American amy. would
not have failed TO be the soufese ana
strongest IN the war Of 49,. In tia. event
the treaty OF Client, instead Of being t,se
most inconsequential and absurd contract
ever done into dipiona.ical history. would
nave been real treaty. in which the large
WOMB have been fo-eStaiied By forty-ore
years. Free flags would have made free
goods on all the seas. and free goods IN
der any nag would have been EXEMPT from
Spitzbergen to Rosario. from the Strait Of
Malacca to Hudson bay.
II Burr's pistol had missed the diyi-
sion and evolution OF political parties in
America would have been simple and ra-
tional. There would have been a ccnstruc-
tive party, strong in it's sympathias
Tor a general power extending over the
nation and weak in its sympathies for
local Independence. There would have
been party great In its attachment to
local independence and Indifferent to
centralized dominion. From this middle
line OF division the two parties would have
stood off on the one aide and the other con-
nually for power and the spoils OF Office
There would have been simple Democrat
ie principle in America on the one hand,
contending with the simpliied Federalist
principle on the other. With the fall of
Hamilton the latter principle became con-
fused. indistinct. fn1briated, OF no effect
until the shock OF the civil war evoked IL
IN new form, and made it masterfui
Federalism. in word. went to pieces. and
the opposition to the Jeffersonian theory
and practice became chaotic-because
Burr's pistol did not miss.
II were not extravagant to say that with
Alexander Hamilton in the presidency
from the year 1903 to the year 1877 the civil
war would never have been 1t appears
that events would have taken another
course. Monroe. in that event,
might have been a possibility. but
not Jackson. The sword in that
event. might etill have hung by the con-
sutution in the executive mansion. but
not the bowie knife! In that event. John
Quincy Adams might have been. or even
Van Buren,, but not Polk and much less
Buchanan, La that event. Democracy
could hardly have been go welded to sla-
Very as TO suggest the dissolution of the
Union In order that one-haif might be
built forever on human servitude. In that
event, Federalism must have become i'm
bued with the principles OF freedom to the
degree that the abolition OF slavery
throughout the British empire would not
have preceded the like humanity in the
American republic by the full space of a
lifetime.
AS II was, the civil war must come Tie
nation must suffer a tempest of fire and
a deluge of blood. Burrs weapon did
not miss. and the civil war began with
the pistol shot at Weehawken. Z stood at
sunrise on the July morning and heard<t
again as in 1904. The first gun was not
fired from the shore at Charleston against
the side of Sumter, but was leveled by
the relentless, steady ard dastardly hand
OF Aaron Burr against the breast of the
greatest American Of his age-him whom
the jealous John Adams once stigmatized
as that brat of a Scotch peddler!''
JOHN CLARK RIDPATH.