Bruce’s Reviews > Alexander Hamilton > Status Update

Veep Aaron Burr on the run: "As president of the Senate, Burr was to preside over the impeachment trial of Samuel Chase, an... associate justice of the Supreme Court who had... been charged... under the Sedition Act.... In other words, 'a man under indictment for MURDER presided at the trial of one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, accused of a petty misdemeanor!' Did a good job, too.

Washington asked James Madison to draft up a farewell speech for him he didn't use in 1796, then turned to Hamilton to rewrite it from scratch in 1800. That one, he (contributed to and) used, to lasting credit and fame. Now, there's a man that knew how to delegate and to whom.

Defending the Jay Treaty: "Hamilton was not content to write as Camillus alone. Two days after his second essay appeared, he began to publish... a parallel series as 'Philo Camillus.' For several weeks, Philo Camillus indulged in extravagant praise of Camillus and kept up a running attack on their Republican adversaries. The prolific Hamilton was now writing pseudonymous commentaries on his own pseudonymous essays."

Confronting Hamilton with charges of corruption, Congressmen Muhlenberg, Venable, and (James!) Monroe are instead treated to overshares of 'exculpatory' evidence of adultery and blackmail. Awkward! "At least one of them 'delicately urged me to discontinue it as unnecessary... I insisted upon going through the whole and did so.'" So they leave embarrassed and in a hurry.

Hamilton's report on native manufacturing is a bit pollyanna-ish: "Of the productive British cotton mills, he commented: 'It is worthy of particular remark that, in general, women and children are rendered more useful, and the latter more early useful by manufacturing establishments than they otherwise would be." Meh. What was good for the goose?

To curb smuggling and bring customs duties into federal coffers, Hamilton invents the Coast Guard, in the process issuing a directive against overbearing searches and seizures. "So masterly was Hamilton's directive about boarding foreign vessels that it was still being applied during the 1962 Cuban missile crisis."

Surgeons operate sans anesthetic to remove a 'malignant carbuncle' from Washington's left thigh in June of 1789, the presiding surgeon exclaiming, "Cut away... Deep--deeper--deeper still. Don't be afraid. You will see how well he bears it!" An event all would-be stoics would do well to anticipate.

Founder shock: In Virginia, "['Give me freedom or give me death'] Patrick Henry, the leading antifederalist, warned delegates who supported the Constitution, 'They'll free your niggers.'" Henceforward, I don't want to hear any strict constructionist citing Henry in defense of the Constitution. That louse opposed it on the basest of terms.

Founder fun: "John Jay wrote of the randy Morris, 'Gouverneur's leg has been a tax on my heart. I am almost tempted to wish he had lost something else. Morris's peg leg did not seem to detract from his sexual appeal and may even have enhanced it."

PA delays in sending its militia against the post-war Bonus army, forcing Congress to pull up stakes: "The Philadelphia mutiny had major repercussions in American history, for it gave rise to the notion that the national capital should be housed in a special federal district where it would never stand at the mercy of state governments." Can't DC's suffrageless citizens at least now be returned to MD?