Editing Alexander Hamilton (section)

==Quasi-War==
{{main|Quasi-War}}

During the military build-up preceding the [[Quasi-War]] with France, and with the strong endorsement of Washington, Adams reluctantly appointed Hamilton a [[Major general (United States)|major general]] of the army. At Washington's insistence, Hamilton was made the senior major general prompting Henry Knox, who had served as [[United States Secretary of War]] and years earlier in wartime as a Continental Army major general, to decline the appointment to serve as Hamilton's junior believing it would be degrading to rank beneath him.<ref name=chernow558-560>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n593 pp. 558–560].</ref><ref>Kaplan, pp. 147–149</ref>

Hamilton served as [[List of Inspectors General of the United States Army|inspector general of the United States Army]] from July 18, 1798, to June 15, 1800. Because Washington was unwilling to leave Mount Vernon unless it were to command an army in the field, Hamilton was the ''de facto'' head of the army, to Adams's considerable displeasure. If full-scale war broke out with France, Hamilton argued that the army should conquer the [[Spanish North America|North American colonies]] of France's ally, Spain, bordering the United States.<ref>Morison and Commager, p. 327; Mitchell II:445.</ref> Hamilton was prepared to march the army through the [[Southern United States]] if necessary.<ref>{{cite book |title=His Excellency |first=Joseph J. |last=Ellis |author-link=Joseph J. Ellis |year=2004 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-1-4000-3253-2 |pages=250–255}}</ref>

To fund the army, Hamilton wrote regularly to [[Oliver Wolcott Jr.]], his successor at the treasury, Representative [[William Loughton Smith]], and U.S. senator [[Theodore Sedgwick]]. He urged them to pass a direct tax to fund the war. Smith resigned in July 1797, as Hamilton complained to him for slowness, and urged Wolcott to tax houses instead of land.<ref>Newman, pp. 72–73.</ref> The eventual program included taxes on land, houses, and slaves, calculated at different rates in different states and requiring assessment of houses, and a stamp act like that of the British before the Revolution, though this time Americans were taxing themselves through their own representatives.<ref>Kaplan, p. 155.</ref> This provoked resistance in southeastern Pennsylvania nevertheless, led primarily by men such as [[John Fries]] who had marched with Washington against the Whiskey Rebellion.<ref>Newman, pp. 44, 76–78.</ref>

Hamilton aided in all areas of the army's development, and after Washington's death he was by default the [[Commanding General of the United States Army|senior officer of the United States Army]] from December 14, 1799, to June 15, 1800. The army was to guard against invasion from France. Adams, however, derailed all plans for war by opening negotiations with France that led to peace.<ref>{{cite book |first=Neil A. |last=Hamilton |title=Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hikn4BGc2nUC&pg=PA18 |year=2010 |publisher=Infobase |page=18 |isbn=978-1-4381-2751-4}}</ref> There was no longer a direct threat for the army Hamilton was commanding to respond to.<ref>Mitchell II:483</ref> Adams discovered that key members of his cabinet, namely Secretary of State [[Timothy Pickering]] and Secretary of War [[James McHenry]], were more loyal to Hamilton than himself; Adams fired them in May 1800.<ref>{{cite book |first=Lynn H. |last=Parsons |title=The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9lkWDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=17 |isbn=978-0-19-975424-3}}</ref>