Eliza Hamilton remembered the sleepless night when her husband gave immortal expression to a durable principle of constitutional law. As an ancient lady garbed in widow’s weeds, she told the story to a young man who recorded it this way in his journal:

‘Old Mrs. Hamilton…active in body, clear in mind…talks familiarly of Washington, Jefferson, and the fathers. I told her how greatly I was interested…on account of her husband’s connection with the government. “He made your government,“ said she. “He made your bank. I sat up all night to help him do it. Jefferson thought we ought not to have a bank and President Washington thought so. But my husband said, “We must have a Bank.” I sat up all night, copied out his writing, and the next morning he carried it to President Washington and we had a bank.“