5347. MONARCHY, Hamilton and.—[further continued] .
Harper takes great pains
to prove that Hamilton was no monarchist, by
exaggerating his own intimacy with him, and
the impossibility, if he was so, that he should
not at some time have betrayed it to him. This
may pass with uninformed readers, but not
with those who have had it from Hamilton's
own mouth. I am one of those, and but one of
many. At my own table, in presence of Mr.
Adams, Knox, Randolph and myself, in a dispute
between Mr. Adams and himself, he
avowed his preference of monarchy over every
other government, and his opinion that the
English was the most perfect model of government
ever devised by the wit of man, Mr.
Adams agreeing, “if its corruptions were done
away”; while Hamilton insisted that “with
these corruptions it was perfect, and without
them it would be an impracticable government”.—
To William Short. Washington ed. vii, 389.
Ford ed., x, 330.
(M.
1825)
