principles he stepped out, raised his hand—the Society of the Cincinnati jumped back to their saddles and the fight was over.
There was much honest disagreement as to how to protect those sacred rights in this country. Hamilton and Jefferson had the two opposite viewpoints and battled fiercely over their convictions, so bitterly in fact that at a cabinet meeting when Washington was absent they came to blows and beat each other on the floor. Yet when Aaron Burr sought to disrupt the country Hamilton, although of Burr's party, made Jefferson President of the United States—and Jefferson placed a bust of Hamilton in Monticello—showing the triumph of principle. This act of Hamilton undoubtedly caused his death. An interesting sidelight on that famous duel is the fact that the evening before was the annual meeting of the Society of the Cincinnati. Hamilton presided in his usual jolly manner. At the close he stood on the table and sang, "How Stands the Glass Around." Burr sat in the back part of the mom, a traitor to the principles of the organization which represented the thought of all true patriots, and the following morning killed Hamilton. The society realizing that their work must go on after their death provided that as a member died his eldest son or next male in line should take the obligation as representative of the original member. In this way the society has continued and the original members are represented, some by the third and some by the seventh and eighth generations. Only a few remain whose own grandfathers wtre original members. It evidently was the thought of the founders to keep the membership small by limiting it to the eldest son and so centralizing the responsibility, as a father of ten sons leaves only one as executor of his will but does not distrust the ability or loyality of the others. In numbers the society has never been a political factor. Its power lay in the truth. Its percentage of membership to the total population is infinitesimal but the truth showing the Divine *Right of man is as strong today as it was when in this county our founders pledged that they and their successors would relinquish all to perpetuate that principle "without which the high rank of a rational being is a curse instead of a blessing." Item 2 of the society was likewise observed. As to the harmony between states, it is interesting to note that during the Civil War contact between the societies of the northern and the southern states was not broken. 26
