Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

A man of irreproachable integrity, Hamilton severed all outside sources of income while in office,

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Hamilton’s opinions were so numerous and his influence so pervasive that most historians regard him as having been something akin to a prime minister. If Washington was head of state, then Hamilton was the head of government, the active force in the administration.

Unfortunately, William Duer suffered from a severe case of moral myopia and always found rather blurry the line between public service and private gain.

Lovely turn of phrase

Hamilton divested himself of any business investments that might create conflicts of interest.

“as a breach in the public faith cannot be made on a certain number of subjects without seeming to be made on all.”

Montesque on obligations of the government

On the other hand, he was naïve in thinking that the rich would always have a broader sense of public duty and would somehow be devoid of self-interest, instead of being captives to an even larger set of interests.

Hamilton, using the pen name “Civis” in a newspaper piece of February 23, 1791, penned the following telling sarcasm to Madison and Jefferson: “As to the negroes, you must be tender upon that subject. . . . Who talk most about liberty and equality . . . ? Is it not those who hold the bill of rights in one hand and a whip for affrighted slaves in the other?”

the heated debate over his funding system, which allowed southern slaveholders to proclaim that northern financiers were the evil ones and that slaveholders were the virtuous populists, upright men of the soil.

It was testimony to the political genius of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison that they diverted attention from the grisly realities of southern slavery by casting a lurid spotlight on Hamilton’s system as the paramount embodiment of evil. They inveighed against the concentrated wealth of northern merchants when southern slave plantations clearly represented the most heinous form of concentrated wealth.

“He sits in a lounging manner, on one hip commonly, and with one of his shoulders elevated much above the other. . . . [H]is whole figure has a loose, shackling air.”4 His dress was casual, almost sloppy. The folksy air charmed people and allowed Jefferson to root out their secrets. The plain dress, mild manners, and unassuming air were the perfect costume for a crafty man intent upon presenting himself as the spokesman for the common people.

“The most effectual means of being secure against pain is to retire within ourselves and to suffice for our own happiness.”

This pampered life rested on a foundation of slavery.

However much Jefferson deplored the “moral and political depravity” of slavery, his own slaves remained in bondage to his career and his incorrigibly spendthrift ways.10

Only thirty-nine at the time, Jefferson survived his wife by forty-four years but never remarried. Ensconced at Monticello with his books, inventions, and experiments, Jefferson became an unfathomable loner.

You know, except for Sally Hemings and their 5 children...

When the new government was formed, the Declaration had not yet attained the status of American Scripture. (Jefferson’s authorship remained largely anonymous until he found attribution politically convenient in the 1790s.)

Though the Virginia Assembly exonerated him of any wrongdoing, Hamilton wasn’t the only one who suspected Jefferson of cowardice.

“I dread the reveries of your philosophic politicians who appear in the moment to have great influence and who being mere speculatists may aim at more refinement than suits either with human nature or the composition of your nation.”