Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

Hamilton spoke himself into a state of exhaustion and suddenly cut short his speech. “Many other observations might be made on this subject,” he apologized, “but I cannot now pursue them, for I feel myself not a little exhausted. I beg leave therefore

Hamilton. Of his own part in passing the assumption bill, he later told

not always meticulous in matching specific loans to the laws authorizing them, but nobody ever proved that Alexander Hamilton had diverted a penny of public money for personal profit. Federalists rejoiced that the Republican vendetta had backfired, and one Boston Federalist exclaimed, “The conquest to the cause of government and the reputation of Hamilton must be as glorious as it was unexpected.”34 Hamilton, however, foresaw further attacks. “There is no doubt in my mind,” he told Rufus King, “that the next session will revive the attack with more system and earnestness.”35 By this point, harassment was exacting a terrible physical and mental toll on the exhausted Hamilton. Sometimes, he vented his rage in essays that he let molder in his drawer. In one unpublished essay, he railed against the Jeffersonians as “wily hypocrites” and “crafty and abandoned imposters.”36 He now viewed “hypocrisy and treachery” as “the most successful commodities in the political market. It seems to be the destined lot of nations to mistake their foes for their friends, their flatterers for their faithful servants.”37 He believed that he had made a huge but thankless sacrifice for his country. Hamilton was correct that Jefferson and his cohorts had no intention of desisting from their attacks. He now discovered that Muhlenberg, Venable, or Monroe—or perhaps all three—had breached the vow of confidentiality in the Reynolds affair. In early May

and all vicissitudes. . . . No one feels more than I do the motives