Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

Abigail Adams had bewailed the situation: “It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me—to fight for ourselves for what we are robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”

my hopes are very feeble. Prejudice and private interest will be antagonists too powerful for public spirit and public good.”

Where revolutions, by their nature, resisted excess government power, the opposite situation could be equally hazardous. “As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to the ruin of the people.”16

Hamilton listed a litany of powers that Congress needed to strengthen the union, especially the powers to regulate trade, levy enforceable taxes on land and individuals, and appoint military officers of every rank. Only unity could wring from skittish foreign creditors the large loans necessary to conclude the war. In closing, Hamilton applauded the national bank proposed by Morris, which would wed the “interest of the monied men with the resources of government.”17

importunity.”

he received command of a New York light-infantry battalion and chose Nicholas Fish, his King’s College classmate, as his second in command.

vouchsafed

To Washington’s jubilation, Admiral de Grasse showed up even before he did, a fact that made the reserved Washington literally jump for joy. When Washington boarded the admiral’s flagship, the Ville de Paris—a resplendent triple decker with 120 guns—the Frenchman teased his towering American counterpart by calling him “Mon cher petit général!”29

In late September, Hamilton and his light infantry reached Williamsburg, the staging area for the Yorktown siege, where he enjoyed an exuberant reunion with a trio of old friends: Lafayette, then convalescing from malaria; John Laurens, just back from Paris with arms, ammunition, and a large French subsidy negotiated by Benjamin Franklin; and Lieutenant Colonel Francis Barber, his teacher from Elizabethtown days, who had been wounded at Monmouth and had fought valiantly throughout the war.

Cornwallis had been throwing up earthwork redoubts since early August, employing thousands of slaves who had defected to the British lines in expectation of earning their freedom.

Hamilton’s appointment at Yorktown has been shadowed by scurrilous gossip, mostly peddled by John Adams.

A portrait by Alonzo Chappell of Hamilton at the Yorktown siege

“Rochambeau”—“a good one,” said one American, because it “sounds like ‘Rush-on-boys’ when pronounced quick.”

the soldiers spared every man who ceased to

resist.”

British troops marched out of Yorktown and, to the tune of an old English ballad, “The World Turned Upside Down,”

Like Hamilton, Adams had sufficient faith in the people to want liberty for them but enough doubts to want to

by the “mercenary spirit of commerce.”28 He detested banks and believed that Hamilton’s system would “swindle” the poor and release the “gangrene of avarice” into the American atmosphere.29 Most important for his presidency, John Adams did not care for standing armies or closer relations with Great Britain—both views that were to lead to severe clashes with Hamilton.

Hamilton again suffered from excessive openness. “No man ever more disdained duplicity or carried frankness further than he,” Fisher Ames said.

Hamilton was incapable of a wise silence.

the Reynolds pamphlet.

‘I am a rake and for that reason I cannot be a swindler.’”

Madison’s reaction was more perceptive: “The publication . . . is a curious specimen of the ingenious folly of its author. Next to the error of publishing it at all is that of forgetting that simplicity and candor are the only dress which prudence would put on innocence.”

Alexander Hamilton was the most controversial public figure of his era.

The letter was eloquent for what it did not say. It confirmed that Washington thought Hamilton was being persecuted and that he wanted to express solidarity with him. The wine cooler would always be treasured by Eliza Hamilton. That she cherished this gift so much tells us something about her view of the Maria Reynolds scandal.

For Monroe, the “enemies of the French Revolution” were likewise “partisans for monarchy” in America.

He frequently sided with the French government, advised it to ignore Washington as an “Angloman,” and opposed the

Jay Treaty. After two years of such disloyal bungling, Monroe was recalled by Washington and chastised as “a mere tool in the hands of the French government.”

But Monroe was still smarting over his ignominious recall from Paris and did not wish to make life easy for Hamilton. On the other hand, it is equally noteworthy that Hamilton was intransigent and made it hard for Monroe to compromise without losing face.

The most fair-minded advice in the dispute came from Aaron Burr,

Resentment is more dignified when justice is rendered to its object.”

He was the one upright actor in the whole affair.

Merit, virtue, and talents must have enemies

you had married into a family less near the sun.

Did she see life with Hamilton the way Angelica did—that marriage to such an exceptional man entailed a large quota of pain and suffering that was abundantly compensated by his love, intelligence, and charm? The rest of her life suggests that this was indeed the case.

these and many, many other things testify to unflinching love for her husband. And the most convincing proof of all was the undying hatred that she bore for James Monroe.

the French had retaliated against the Jay Treaty

With Napoleon emerging as the new French military strongman, Hamilton had little doubt that his troops would spread despotism across Europe.

Writing under “Americus,” Hamilton had warned early in 1797 that the “specious pretence of enlightening mankind and reforming their civil institutions is the varnish to the real design of subjugating” other nations.1 Hamilton predicted that France would become “the terror and the scourge of nations.”2

“My opinion is to exhaust the expedients of negotiation and at the same time to prepare vigorously for

the worst,”

“Real firmness is good for everything. Strut is good for nothing.”

Hamilton wanted to lead the electorate and provide expert opinion instead of consulting popular opinion. He took tough,

Alexander Hamilton triumphed as a doer and thinker, not as a leader of the average voter.

founding fathers, Hamilton never believed in the perfectibility of human nature and regularly violated what became the first commandment of American politics: thou shalt always be optimistic when addressing the electorate.