The excitement gradually
subsided. It left ugly scars behind it, but once more Hamilton had saved
his party, and perhaps the Union. In connection with the much disputed
authorship of the Farewell Address I will merely quote a statement,
heretofore unpublished, made by Mrs. Hamilton, in the year 1840.
Desiring that my children shall be fully acquainted with the
services rendered by their father to our country, and the
assistance rendered by him to General Washington during his
administrations, for the one great object, the independence and
stability of the government of the United States, there is one
thing in addition to the numerous proofs which I leave them, and
which I feel myself in duty bound to state: which is that a short
time previous to General Washington's retiring from the Presidency,
in the year 1796, General Hamilton suggested to him the idea of
delivering a farewell address to the people on his withdrawal from
public life, with which idea General Washington was well pleased,
and in his answer to General Hamilton's suggestion, gave him the
heads of the subject on which he would wish to remark, with a
request that Mr.
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