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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

to washington ( Private .) - Alexander Hamilton, The Works of Alexander Hamilton, (Federal Edition), vol. 10 [1774]

Edition used:

The Works of Alexander Hamilton, ed. Henry Cabot Lodge (Federal Edition) (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904). In 12 vols. Vol. 10.

Part of: The Works of Alexander Hamilton, (Federal Edition), 12 vols.

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to washington
(Private.)

  • New York,

June 15, 1799.

Dear Sir:

I wrote to you a few days since, chiefly to inform you of the progress of the measures respecting the recruiting service, and that the symptoms with regard to it were sufficiently promising. The accounts continue favorable.

I have just received a letter from General Wilkinson,1 dated the 13th April, in which he assures me he will set out in the ensuing month for the seat of government. The interview with him will be useful.

It strikes me forcibly that it will be both right and expedient to advance this gentleman to the grade of major-general. He has been long steadily in service and long a brigadier. This in so considerable an extension of the military establishment gives him a pretension to promotion.

I am aware that some doubts have been entertained of him, and that his character on certain sides gives room for doubts. Yet he is at present in the service, is a man of more than ordinary talent—of courage and enterprise,—has discovered upon various occasions a good zeal, has embraced military pursuits as a profession, and will naturally find his interest, as an ambitious man, in deserving the favor of the government. While he will be apt to become disgusted if neglected, and through disgust may be rendered really what he is now only suspected to be. Under such circumstances it seems to me good policy to avoid all just grounds of discontent and to make it the interest of the individual to pursue his duty.

If you should be also of this opinion, I submit to your consideration whether it would not be advisable for you to express it in a private letter to the Secretary of War.2

[1]James Wilkinson, a soldier of the Revolution, and conspicuous at the time of Burr’s conspiracy and in the War of 1812. He was a born intriguer. During the Revolutionary War he was mixed up in the Conway cabal. He was involved with Burr, whom he finally decided to give up, at the time of the latter’s conspiracy, and in the War of 1812 he was singularly unsuccessful and contentious. Hamilton’s apparently favorable opinion is rather curious, although it is obvious that he recommends Wilkinson’s promotion with many doubts.

[2]Now first printed from the Hamilton papers in the State Department.