The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Convention of New York
• Speech On the Compromises of the Constitution 1
• Speech On the Constitution Resumed
• Speech On the Senate of the United States
• Brief of Argument On the Constitution of the United States
• Draft of Proposed Ratification of the Constitution of the United States, With Specified Amendments. 1
• Addresses
• Letters of H. G.
• Letter I
• Letter Ii
• Letter Iii
• Letter Iv
• Letter V
• Letter Vi
• Letter Vii
• Letter Viii
• Letter Ix
• Letter X
• Letter Xi
• Letter Xii
• Letter Xiii
• Letter Xiv
• Letter Xv
• Letter Xvi
• Taxation and Finance
• Report On Impost Duty
• Speech On the Revenue System 1
• Finance
• First Report On the Public Credit
• Operations of the Act Laying Duties On Imports
• Arrears of Pay 1
• Public Credit
• Hamilton to Supervisors of Boston
• Loans
• Spirits, Foreign and Domestic 1
• Additional Supplies For 1792
• Hamilton to Short 1 (cabinet Paper.)
• Hamilton to Washington 1 (cabinet Paper.)
• Objections 1 and Answers Respecting the Administration of the Government
• Address to the Public Creditors 1 By a Friend.

hamilton to washington1
(Cabinet Paper.)

• Philadelphia,

August 18, 1792.

Sir:

I am happy to be able, at length, to send you answers to the objections which were communicated in your letter of the 29th of July.

They have unavoidably been drawn in haste, too much so, to do perfect justice to the subject, and have been copied just as they flowed from my heart and pen, without revision or correction. You will observe that here and there some severity appears. I have not fortitude enough always to hear with calmness calumnies which necessarily include me, as a principal agent in the measures censured, of the falsehood of which I have the most unqualified consciousness. I trust I shall always be able to bear, as I ought, imputations of errors of judgment; but I acknowledge that I cannot be entirely patient under charges which impeach the integrity of my public motives or conduct. I feel that I merit them in no degree; and expressions of indignation sometimes escape me, in spite of every effort to suppress them. I rely on your goodness for the proper allowances.

With high respect and the most affectionate attachment, I have the honor to be, sir, etc.

[1]This important letter is in reply to one from Washington, dated July 29, 1792, at Mount Vernon, giving the opinions he had heard expressed in Virginia as to the new government, and also certain objections to the financial policy offered by Col. George Mason at the instigation, probably, of Jefferson. It is printed here, because it is in effect a defence of the funding system.