Revolutionary period opens a wide theatre for the development of the rarest genius, and for the grandest display of all the richest qualities of the human soul. And while it is true that great benevolence, patriotism, or self-sacrifice at such times glows with a richer coloring, it is no less true that selfishness, peculation, and treason, are branded with a deeper infamy. The stirring events of the American Revolution brought to the surface a multitude of able and brilliant men, some of whom by directness and sterling integrity towered higher and higher through all their history, while others equally gifted, choosing the tortuous paths of stratagem and guile, sunk into national contempt, and blackened their names with undying disgrace. While few names in American history, on their bare announcement, suggest more than those of Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton, it would be difficult to find two young men whose early circumstances presented more numerous points of similarity, or upon whom nature and providence had more profusely lavished their gifts and opportunities. Born in the middle of the eighteenth century, with but eleven months'' difference in their ages, educated in the first circles of the times, fortunate in their matrimonial alliances; both small of stature, beautiful in person, courtly in carriage, rarely gifted in mind, distinguished for gallantry on the field of battle, and for success at the bar, they certainly had opportunities wide as the world for the realization of the highest worldly satisfaction, and for immortal renown.

Hamilton was born in the West Indies, where he lost his mother in childhood; his father early failed in business, continuing through life in poverty and dependence, leaving his son under the charge of relatives. The Revolution found young Hamilton a student in King''s (Columbia) College, where he displayed such extraordinary qualities of mind that he soon rose from obscurity to shine through life as a star of the first magnitude in the political and intellectual world. Having adopted New York as the city of his residence, he espoused the colonial cause unfalteringly, and early entered the army. He took part in the battle of Long Island, retired across the Harlem river as a captain of artillery under Washington when New York was abandoned to the enemy, shared the dispiriting retreat through the Jerseys, bore honorable part in the battles of Trenton and Princeton, and assisted at the capture of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown. He early became aide-de-camp to General Washington, whose confidence he always retained, conducting much of the General's correspondence during the war, receiving from him the appointment of first Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and assisting him in the preparation of his memorable Farewell Address. In all the early conventions in which the principles and forms of our government were settled, and in the pamphlet and periodical literature of his times, his influence was scarcely second to that of any other in the country. The practice of duelling, rife in his times, and by which he lost his eldest son, a youth of twenty years, two years previous to his own sad death, he utterly condemned; yet, yielding at last to the persistent demands of a false honor, he was mortally wounded at Weehauken by a ball from Burr's pistol, July 11th, 1804, and expired on the following day, in his forty-eighth year.