Digital heart book

Union meant
Washington in the supreme command, himself with the reins of government
in both hands. The financial, the foreign, the domestic policy of a
harmonious federation were as familiar to his mind as they are to us
to-day. Only he could achieve them, and only New York could give him
those reins of power.
It is true that he had but to move his furniture over to Philadelphia to
be welcomed to citizenship with acclamation by that ambitious town; but
not only was his pride bound up in the conquest of New York from
Clintonism to Federalism, but New York left out of the Union, dividing
as she did New England from the South and North, of the highest
commercial importance by virtue of her central position and her harbour,
meant civil war at no remote period, disunion, and the undoing of the
most careful and strenuous labours of the nation's statesmen. That New
York should be forced into the Union at once Hamilton was determined
upon, if he had to resort to a coup which might or might not meet with
the approval of the rest of the country.


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