idnot intend to fire, his pistol going off involuntarily as he fell. Hamilton wasapparently opposed to dueling following the fatal shooting of his son Philip in a duel in 1801. Further,Hamilton told the minister who attended him as he laid dying, "I have no ill-will against Col. Burr. I methim with a fixed resolution to do him no harm. I forgive all that happened." Hamilton's death was verygenerally deplored as a national calamity. A summary of his beliefsHamilton's mind was eminently legal. His writings are distinguished by their clarity, vigor and rigidreasoning rather than any show of scholarship. In his earliest writings of 1774-75, he started out with theordinary pre-Revolutionary War Whig doctrines of natural rights and liberty. After the War's conclusion,his experiences of semi-archaic states' rights and individualism ended his earlier fervor. Hamilton saw thefeeble inadequacies of conception, the infirmity of power, factional jealousy, disintegrating particularism,and vicious finances that marred the Confederation. No other author saw more clearly the concretenationalistic remedies for these concrete ills or pursued remedial ends so constantly and consistently asHamilton. He wanted a strong union and energetic government that should "rest as much as possible onthe shoulders of the people and as little as possible on those of the state legislatures." As early as 1776, he urged the direct collection of federal taxes by federal agents. In1781 he created the idea that a non-excessive public debt would be a blessing. Heconceived the constitutional doctrines of liberal construction, "implied powers," andthe "general welfare," which were later embodied in the decisions of John Marshall. Liberty, he reminded his fellows, in the New York Convention of 1788, seemed to be the onlyconsideration for the new government. Hamilton pointed out another thing of equal importance; "aprincipal of strength and stability ...
