October 28, 2024 • 38 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, uncover the true story of Alexander Hamilton, a man of brilliance, contradictions, and enduring influence on American history. Here to tell the story is Ron Chernow, author of Alexander Hamilton.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people and all of our history segments are brought to
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, where you
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Their online courses are free. They're terrific. Go to Hillsdale
(00:31):
dot edu. Few figures in American history have been more
hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Ron
Chernow's New York Times bestselling biography about Hamilton became the
inspiration for the Broadway hit musical Here's Ron with the
story of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I think it's fair to say that nowadays even well
educated Americans are largely ignorant about the first Treasury Secretary.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
They know that he appears on.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The ten dollar bill, although you may notice with something
of a Hollywood makeover on the new currency. Hamilton I
think was the best looking of the founders, but the
Treasury Department and its wisdom, has decided that he needed
some plastic surgery. You'll notice that they have widened his face,
and they've given him this rugged, square droid look, as
(01:25):
if he were auditioning for a Hollywood action movie. There
was a marvelous piece in US News and World Report
reviewing the airbrushed images of the Founders on the latest bills,
And when the magazine came to Hamilton, it positively gushed
and I quote and asked for Hamilton, he now looks
(01:46):
like a real hunk. So took us two centuries to
get a hunky founder where we have him. Of course,
the other thing that everybody knows about Hamilton, or at
least used to know, was that he was gunned down
Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel in Weehawk in
New Jersey, two centuries before HBO and Tony Soprano took
(02:08):
over the nearby turf. Burr, you probably know, was the
only vice president in American history ever indicted from murder
in two states. Yes, and he actually presided over a
famous impeachment trial in the Senate of a Supreme Court
justice while Hebert was simultaneously on the lamb from the
(02:28):
law in New York and New Jersey. Never a dull
moment in the life of Aaron Burr. Hamilton unquestionably led
the most dramatic life of any founder. He was an
illegitimate boy born on the British island of Nevis, and
he had suffered through a series of childhood tramas that
would have shattered a lesser figure. His father abandons the
(02:49):
family when Alexander is eleven, mother dies of tropical fever
when he's thirteen. He's then farmed out to a first cousin,
who commits suicide. Years later, calamities a biblical proportions seem
to find their way to this young man. Now, in
seventeen seventy two, in other words, about a year before
the Boston Tea Party, a monster hurricane lashes Saint Croix,
(03:12):
and this self tought prodigy sits down and he pens
a description of the hurricane of such precocious force and
eloquence that the local merchants, recognizing this wonder in their midst,
band together to finance his education.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
In North America.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The Wonderkins studied at King's College in Lower Manhattan, later
renamed Columbia, King's being a slightly awkward and inconvenient name
after the Revolution, and already as undergraduate extraordinaire, Hamilton is
publishing stirring pamphlets against the British. He takes up a
musket and he drills with his fellow students in nearby
(03:48):
Saint Paul's Churchyard today adjacent to ground zero, and he
delivers spellbinding speeches to large crowds on what is today
New York City Hall Park. But this young man, and
for all his palpable ardor, is an ambivalent revolutionary. When
a rampaging mob of Patriots swoops down on the college,
hoping to tar and feather the Tory president Myles Cooper,
(04:11):
young Hamilton, who was only about five foot six and
rather slight of build, courageously stands in the doorway and
blocks their path. The young man craves liberty, yes, but
he also dreads disorder, and this is a fine balancing
act of recurring tension that will characterize.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
His entire career.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Before he has a chance to graduate, this slim, blue
eyed West Indian is appointed an artillery captain for the
Continental Army. He slips across the fog bound East River
during Washington's famous nocturnal retreat after the Battle of Brooklyn.
He then rises from his sick bed to cross the
icy Delaware to surprise the drowsing Hessians at Trenton. And
(04:52):
then just a few months later Hamilton is just twenty two.
That guy who had been a penniless orphan just five
years before in the trade house on Saint Croix is
miraculously appointed aide de camp to George Washington. In fact,
he proved so adept at handling Washington's correspondence. Washington is
able to give him the gist of a message and
(05:13):
out pops a beautifully worded, delicately nuanced letter from Hamilton
that it almost seems like an inspired act of ventriloquism.
You will see in this story that, with almost comical
Zelig like consistency, Hamilton has an act for being where
the action is. He is always there when history is unfolding.
It's like he's parachuted into every major event over a
(05:35):
thirty year period. For instance, Hamilton was there at Benedict
Arnold's house the morning that the treason plot was discovered
and Arnold fled down the Hudson River. Hamilton found himself
consoling the voluptuous but destroyed Peggy Arnold, who lay in
an upstairs bed. She was weeping in this very gaussy
and provocative lingerie as she faked a mad scene to
(05:59):
disguise the fact that she was in cahoots with her husband.
Hamilton I think was the brainiest of all the founders,
but I think it's fair to say that around beautiful
women he shed approximately fifty points on his IQ and
he was suckered in by this masterful performance by Peggy Arnold. Now,
(06:19):
surprisingly enough, you would think that after this ghastly Dickensian
childhood that Hamilton, aide to camp An effectively Chief of
Stafford George Washington, would be thrilled at his sudden station
in life. But he was Hamilton. No, he was chafing
at his desk. He dreamed of battlefield glory. Unlike so
many intellectuals then are now, Hamilton was a daredevil who
(06:43):
actually enjoyed courting physical danger. At the Battle of Monmouth,
he was horrified to find General Charles Lee in full
blown retreat with his panic stricken men. The young colonel
rides up to General Lee and says, I will stay
here with you, my dear General, and die with you.
All die rather than retreat.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And you're listening to Ron chernow, who wrote the book
about Alexander Hamilton and inspired the musical, but also inspired
readers to know so much more about their founders. And
my goodness, what a story he's telling here to folks
at the Library of Congress. When we come back, more
of the remarkable story of Alexander Hamilton here on our
(07:24):
American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories.
Every day we set out to tell the stories of
Americans past and present, from small towns to big cities,
and from all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But
we truly can't do this show without you. Our shows
(07:45):
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If you love what you hear, go to our American
Stories dot com and make a donation to keep the
stories coming. That's our American Stories dot com. And we
(08:09):
continue with our American Stories and with Ron Churnow telling
the story of Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Hamilton, of course, has his supreme moment of heroism at Yorktown. Hamilton,
after mercilessly badgering Washington, is given the command of the
first Infantry Battalion to storm the outer ramparts. Picture the scene.
Hamilton rises up out of the trench. He sprints across
a rutted wasteland, leading his men with frenzied war whoops.
(08:40):
Once at the parapet, Hamilton, whom I said was relatively short,
has one of his subordinates, Neil Hamilton, steps on his shoulder.
He springs up on the parapet, and then he exhorts
his men to follow. You could almost picture Tom Cruise
in the Starring sin Now. Despite crushing daytime duties for
George Washington, Hamilton, against all odds, manages to give himself
(09:04):
a crash course during the Revolution in finance, history and politics.
From camp to camp, this young autodidact is lugging to
enormous folio sized volumes called Malachy Postlewights Dictionary of Trade
and Commerce.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Not exactly light bedtime fair.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
After a day of heavy duty correspondence for George Washington,
Hamilton also totes along six volumes of Plutarch's lives, and
he takes the empty pages of a military paybook, and
we see him recording notes on foreign exchange, population growth, geography,
even European rivers that he will never set eyes on.
In fact, in his notes very interesting notes called from Bluetarch,
(09:44):
we see a young man who seems absolutely bewitched by
the bizarre sexual practices of ancient Rome. For instance, Hamilton
noted that an ancient Rome, young married women seem to
enjoy being whipped by lusty young noblemen. Why because they
thought that it aided conception. I can tell you, when
you study our founding fathers, you are led down all
sorts of unexpected byways. In fact, Hamilton had such a
(10:09):
roving eye for the young women that Martha Washington during
the Revolution nicknamed her lascivius Tomcat Hamilton, which must have
made for some interesting moments at headquarters with George grumbling
Hamilton and Martha calling for Hamilton. Now, Hamilton, as you
will know, is a very proud, ambitious outsider without money.
He lacked what the eighteenth century referred to as birth
(10:31):
or breeding. He knew that he needed to marry into
a respectable family, and indeed, soon after Elizabeth Skyler, the
daughter of a very powerful New York dynasty, visits the
Continental Army in seventeen eighty, one of Hamilton's colleagues reports, quote,
Hamilton is a gone man.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
The wedding at the Skyler mansion is a very.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Bittersweet affair because Eliza Hamilton has this huge, rich family,
It's teeming with all sorts of Van Cortland and ven
Rinsel are cousins. Well, Hamilton has only a single friend
from Washington's staff, and of course he doesn't have a
single family member in attendance. I mean, think of the
underlying poignancy of that emotional imbalance in that affair. And
(11:14):
yet the very very status conscious Skylar family always embraces
Hamilton as an adored member of the family.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
When Hamilton then launches his post war legal career, being Hamilton,
his exploits again seemed to verge on the superhuman. At
the time, he usually served a three year apprenticeship period
to qualify for the law. Hamilton, being Hamilton, manages to
qualify after six months of self study. In fact, he
cobbles together a cribsheet of New York legal procedures and practices.
(11:47):
He does it so expertly that it becomes a textbook
for a generation of New York lawyers.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
WonderBoy. He then immediately does.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Something quite fearless and of course quite controversial. Hamilton begins
to defend the Chants who had remained in occupied New
York during the British wartime occupation, and those Tory merchants
were now being persecuted by returning patriots. Hamilton always feared
a frenzy of revolutionary retribution. I fear, in fact, it
would be realized in the French Revolution. He also wanted
(12:18):
to retain the capital and connections and know how of
those toy merchants in order to rebuild New York. Our
city lost somewhere between a quarter and a half of
all of its buildings during the Revolution. Now you'll hear
it said, and very often it's taught this way in school,
that Hamilton was a ferocious snob, that he was.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
The stooge of the plutocrats of his day.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
In fact, it would be desperate with Napoleonic ambitions.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And of course, in.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
This particular morality play of early American history, Thomas Jefferson
is always represented as the pure and virtuous tribune of
the people. The situation was far more complicated than that
historical cartoon. Case in point. During the war, it is Hamilton,
of course, who champions an audacious plan to emancipate any
(13:06):
slave who's willing to pick up a musket for the
continental cause. In the seventeen eighties. It is Hamilton who
co founds the first abolitionist society in New York, the
New York Manumission Society. Remember that trading firm in Saint
Croix that I had mentioned that Hamilton worked for as
a teenager. That firm had imported up to three hundred
(13:27):
slaves per year from Western Africa, and it's clear from
subsequent actions that this firsthand experience of slavery left Hamilton
with a permanent detestation of the system. In fact, Caribbean
slavery was the most brutal in the world. Even those
who managed to survive the Middle Passage, their life expectancy
(13:47):
once they started working in the sugar cane breaks of
the West Indies was somewhere between three and five years.
So you constantly have these poor people who are perishing
in the fields, and this supply had to be constantly replenied. Hamilton,
despite the historic stereotype, turns out to have been the
most consistent abolitionist among the founders. Barnun I repeat barn Nunn. Hamilton,
(14:12):
it also turns out, had very enlightened views about Native Americans.
There is a college in upstate New York called Hamilton College. Well,
the origins of that school. It started out as a
secondary school that was supposed to educate Native Americans. Hamilton
lent his name and his prestige to that undertaking. Hamilton
turns out to have had very benign and enlightened views
about Jews. He said in an unpublished paper that the
(14:35):
success of the Jews could only be explained by special providence.
So here's this man whom we're taught to regard as
this ferocious snob, who again and again shows himself as
not only devoid of prejudice, but with a special sympathy
for the oppressed. Now, I think, with the clear exception
of George Washington, nobody did more than Alexander Hamilton to
(14:56):
well the thirteen squabbling states into the powerful nation we
know today. Hamilton personally drafts the first appeal for the
Constitutional Convention. He attends that he is the sole New
York delegate to sign it. As Hamilton who dreams up
and then supervises the most influential defense of the document
ever written, the Federalist Papers. Of those eighty five essays,
(15:18):
Hamilton manages to draft an astonishing fifty one. No less astonishing,
there are periods where he's publishing them at a rate
of as many as five or six per week. No
less astonishing. He's doing it as a sideline. He had
a full time legal practice. In fact, we have anecdotal
evidence of the printer sitting in the outer office as
Hamilton scribbles the final lines of an essay. No single
(15:42):
treatise on the US Constitution has been cited more frequently
by the Supreme Court than the Federalist papers, nearly three
hundred times over the.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Past two centuries.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And if you chart the frequency of citation, the frequency
of citation actually is rising with time, not decreasing. Hamilton, boy,
wonder the new federal government is created. He hits the
ground running. Hamilton is only thirty four years old when
Washington appoints him the first Treasury Secretary. This instantly makes
(16:13):
him not only the most powerful person in America, guarantees
that he'll be the most controversial.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Why.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Remember Washington's cabinet, and the term was not used. It
was originally called the General Council. Washington's cabinet consisted of
just three people. There was Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State,
Henry Knox, Secretary of War, and Hamilton a treasury I
think fair to say, pound for pound, the best cabinet
in American history. Even the Attorney General Edmund Randolph is
(16:44):
a part time legal advisor to the president, lacking that
small thing called the Justice Department at that point.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And you've been listening to Ron chernow, author of the
definitive biography an Alexander Hamilton, called Alexander Hamilton, And what
a story we're listening to. He didn't have the birth
that is, he wasn't born to blue bloods. Obviously, he
was born well in Saint Croix with nothing, but he
had that talent, that writing talent to start. Remarkably, Hamilton
(17:15):
drafts fifty one of the Federalist Papers. And he did
it in his spare time. He was a lawyer and
self taught and just a prodigy. What's so fascinating about
the Federalist Papers that it's the most cited document in
Supreme Court jurisprudence and in case law than any other
(17:36):
document there is, and it continues to be cited with
increasing frequency. In other words, the writing of Hamilton more
relevant than ever in our nation's battles that are often
settled in the courts. When we come back more of
the story of Alexander Hamilton here on our American stories.
(18:07):
And we continue with our American stories and with the
story of Alexander Hamilton as told by his definitive biographer,
Ron Chernow this talk again came from the Library of Congress.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Now, in the early days, Jefferson at State starts with
six employees. Henry Knox starts with a mere dozen. At war,
Hamilton starts out with about three dozen, and the number
quickly balloons to several hundred employees, a frightening bureaucracy by
the standards of the day, and also again many times
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larger than the rest of the government combined. Which is
why when you read histories of the period, historians tend
to like in Hamilton's position in Washington's administration to that
of a prime minister rather than a mere department head.
When you say to people Alexander ham Hamilton was the
first Treasury secretary, it just does not begin to capture
the scope and magnitude of the power that this man wielded.
(19:09):
Beyond the size of the Treasury Department is a reportion
of the government. Remember, Hamilton had to invent that department
from scratch. At the time, there were no income taxes.
Most revenues came from import duties. This meant he had
to create a custom service. To have a custom service,
you have to create beacons in boys and lighthouses up
and down the eastern seaboard. Smuggling, as you know, was
(19:33):
a favorite revolutionary pastime. Suddenly this activity has to be
stopped in the name of patriotism. So Hamilton has to
construct a fleet of so called the revenue cutters, the
start of course, of the Coast Guard. Again and again
we see Hamilton forging the basic building blocks of the
American government. He takes a country bankrupted by revolutionary war debt,
(19:55):
he restores its credit. He devises our first tax system,
our first budget system, our first central bank, our first
monetary system.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
He has the federal government to adopt all of the
state debt. Why does he do that?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
That seems counterintuitive for the federal government to add that
to what it already had. Well, Hamilton knew that if
the federal government adopted the state that creditors would transfer
their allegiance to the federal government, and it would also
forever after give the federal government a kind of moral
authority over revenues that the States would never have. Very
(20:28):
cunning and very characteristic of Hamilton in terms of embedding
a political program in a seemingly technocratic program. Again, again,
no less important than all of these pragmatic achievements as
Treasure Secretary, it is Hamilton, the great constitutional scholar, who
makes the enduring arguments that all of these new activities
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are in fact permitted under the new national chart. Remember
Washington's first question first administration always is is this permissible
under the constitution. Hamilton, the kind of clairvoyance that is
hard to explain, encourages manufacturing stock exchanges, banks, and corporations
at a time when these activities seemed like scary, futuristic
(21:11):
stuff to many people. In the book, I dub him
the messenger from the future, or as the New York
Historical Society would have at the man who made modern America.
So why has Hamilton been villainized as a dangerous reactionary
since he seems to anticipate things that happened one hundred
or two hundred years later rather than looking backward. Partly,
(21:35):
I think this goes back to the deadly rivalry between
Hamilton and Jefferson in Washington's cabinet. Jefferson, you know, a
man of very decided opinions, was a rather shy, soft
spoken man. And Jefferson actually shrank from open disagreement. If
you happen to find yourself at a dinner party with
Thomas Jefferson and you disagreed with him, Jefferson would not
(21:57):
openly confront you. Hamilton would certainly openly confront you. What
Jefferson would do he would repair to his lodgings that evening,
he would record the statement that you had made, and
then he would store it up for later use. And
boy did he store things up. With Hamilton and Jefferson's
secret diary, there are nearly four dozen references to Hamilton.
(22:17):
The epic animosity between these two Olympian figures is partly
a matter of clashing visions. Jefferson, once a rural America
with a weak central government, stresses states rights, strict construction
of the constitution, tax cuts, limited government, etc. Hamilton's division
is of a bustling, diversified America of trade, finance, and
(22:38):
manufacturing as well as traditional agriculture. Hamilton favors an energetic
federal government, certainly a strong presidency, strong independent judiciary, relatively
weak states, and a very expensive interpretation of the Constitution.
You could see where the laconic Jefferson was quite understandably
(22:58):
terrified of Hamilton's sheer brilliance. Hamilton was one of these
frightening windbags whom you mead from time to time, who
can speak in perfectly worded paragraphs for hours on end,
and Hamilton did. Hamilton also was one of these intimidating
characters who could and did toss off a ten thousand
word opinion overnight for George Washington. And you could see
(23:19):
in Jefferson's diary that he's really struggling with Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Hamilton made a speech of three quarters of an hour
in the Cabinet today, as if he had been speaking
to a jury. The next day, Jefferson wearily records Hamilton
spoke again for three quarters of an hour. Hamilton was
quite frankly a word machine. Hamilton wrote enough in forty
nine years to fill twenty two thousand pages in the
(23:46):
latest edition of his collected papers, and your Speaker was
masochistic enough to read every one of those pages. It
is said that Harold Syrett, who edited the Papers for
Columbia University Press and outstanding job. Harrold Syret evidently used
to joke that he intended to dedicate the many volumes
to Aaron Burr quote, without whose cooperation this project would
(24:09):
never have been completed. When Hamilton publishes some articles supporting
Washington's neutrality proclamation, Jefferson contacted James Madison and pleaded with
(24:30):
him to robut Hamilton in print. Quote, for God's sake,
my dear sir, take up your pen, select the most
striking heresies and cut Hamilton to pieces.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
There is nobody else.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Who can and will enter the lists with him. There
was nobody else in America who could enter the lists
with Alexander Hamilton. Even James Madison orphan shrank from the invitation.
The cabinet feud between Hamilton and Washington become so vitriolic,
almost pathological, that poor long suffering Washington has to finally
plead with both of them to desist from their vicious
(25:06):
attacks on each other. Hamilton's attacks were directly written by Hamilton.
Jefferson would employ different surrogates, but the effect was the same.
In the end, it's Jefferson, not Hamilton, who leaves Washington's
cabinet and defeat and Hamilton, who reigns triumphant. But as
you will know, the glittering prize that eludes Alexander Hamilton
(25:26):
as the presidency, and of course, Thomas Jefferson goes on
to become a two term president. During the summer of
seventeen ninety one, remarkably enough, at the height of his
powers as Treasury Secretary, a young twenty three year old
woman named Mariah Reynolds knocks at his door. Government was
then in Philadelphia. She asked to speak to Hamilton privately,
(25:49):
and she spills out a woeful tale of how she
has been cruelly abandoned by her husband, this Bulgarian named
James Reynolds. She appeals to Hamilton for financial aid. Hamilton,
several years later narrated what happened next quote in the evening,
I put a bank bill in my pocket and went
to her rooming house. I inquired for missus Reynolds, and
(26:09):
was shown upstairs at the head of which she met
me and conducted me into a bedroom. I took the
bill out of my pocket and gave it to her.
Some conversation that ensued from Richard was quickly apparent that
other than pecuniary consolation.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Would be acceptable. The eighteenth century had away with words.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And you've been listening to Ron Churnow, author of the
definitive biography an Alexander Hamilton called Alexander Hamilton, and of
course that book inspired the musical that has made its way.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Around the world more than once.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And what a story, by the way, what a battle
between him and Jefferson about competing visions for the United States,
and some of those battles still happening today. Clearly Hamilton
won in the larger, broader vision of a strong central government,
but the battle today between the States and the big
bureaucracies in Washington, d C. Prevail and continue to dominate
(27:10):
the headlines even when we come back more of this
remarkable story, the story of Alexander Hamilton, with author Ron Churnow.
Here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(27:38):
American stories and with the author of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Churnou.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Let's pick up where we last left.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Off, now for full year.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Despite all of the controversies swirling around his programs, when
Hamilton should have been most vigilant of his reputation the
smartest man in American politics, does about the most foolish
thing Imaginablemilton, to his embarrassment, never knew whether Missus Reynold's
attraction for him was real or just a clever con job.
He later wrote, the variety of shapes which this woman
(28:08):
could assume was endless. Hamilton keeps furtively slipping off in
the night to these assignations with Missus Reynolds, even after
mister Reynolds, who.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Was this rather coarse character.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Mister Reynolds suddenly appears and instead of stopping the adulterous
affair between Hamilton and his wife, mister Reynolds decides it
would be more fun to tax it. Hamilton begins to
fork over blackmail money to the scrifter James Reynolds, despite
the obvious fatal damage that this can do to Hamilton's career,
(28:41):
not to mention to his devoted, long suffering wife Eliza.
One day, Missus Reynolds was entertaining a friend named Jacob
Klingman when Hamilton comes unexpectedly the door, and even Hamilton
took certain precautions like always being alone with Missus Reynolds,
Hamilton is petrified to discuss and eye witness, So what
does he do?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
He pretends that he's simply.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Dropping off a message for the low life. James Reynolds
pause a moment to picture this kind of let it
sink in. Imagine your home. One day, there's a knock
of the door, you go downstairs, you're open the door,
and there's Colin Power Donald Remsfelt, pretending to be the
FedEx delivery man and imagining that he's going to get
away with the disguise. Hamilton ultimately publishes a ninety five
(29:33):
page pamphlet admitting to the affair. Because his enemy said, oh,
you know that money he was paying to James Reynolds,
that was for illicit speculation and treasury securities. Hamilton says, no, no, no,
says it in ninety five pages. No, no, no, that
was adultery that the money was for. Now, I know
that all of this intrigue in backstabbing runs countered to
our preferred image of the founders. These tales may remind
(29:57):
us more of the fallen state of our tabloid political
culture today than of the men enshrined in our school textbooks.
And let me stress so that there's not any misunderstanding.
My tempt here is in no way to deny the
greatness of the Founders. The very best thing about spending
five years on Alexander Hamilton. I got on a daily
basis just to drink in his glorious words, to spend
(30:18):
five years not only in his company, but that of
all of the Founders, and if anything, I came away
with a far more exalted sense of their brilliance, their depth,
their integrity, et cetera. At the same time, I wanted
to liberate Hamilton and the other Founders from what I
thought was a sometimes stultifying image of gentility of these
(30:40):
people with powdered wigs and silver buckle shoes. The Founding
Fathers were not statues chiseled in stone. They were passionate,
fascinating figures of tremendous force and intensity.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Once the revolution was over, they exhibited.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Very much the same lust for power, status, and influence
as other human beings. Nor do I think that we
should fault them for that. In fact, it was their
candidly realistic view of the ambition and the avarice rooted
in human nature that enabled them to construct the most
ingenious constitution that has guarded us against human frailty for
(31:18):
more than two centuries. As you know Madison wrote famously
in Federalists fifty one, if men were angels, no government
would be necessary.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Thank God that they.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Took that grim, that pessimistic view of human nature, rather
than assuming that we would have a succession of saints
in the White House. The Founders, i think, wrote these
things not just from abstract speculation, but from their own
personal experiences and observation.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Let me jump ahead to the duel.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Six times earlier in his career, Alexander Hamilton had entered
into the highly ritualized quarrels known as affairs of honor.
The potential culmination of affair of honor.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Could always be a duel. On those previous six.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Occasions Hamilton had as it were settled out of a court.
The quarrels had not ended up in the dueling ground
they could have. Hamilton was a very combative man. He
was hyper sensitive, I think, probably because of his illegitimate
boyhood in the Caribbean and what was a lifelong sense
of shame about his illegitimacy. So he's always very vigilant
(32:23):
anything concerning his reputation and sense of honor. The novelty
of what happens with Aaron Burr in eighteen oh four
was that for the first time Hamilton is on the
receiving end of the challenge instead of issuing it. I
think this throws him off balanced psychologically. When Hamilton and
Burr met on the field of honor in Weehawk in
New Jersey on July eleventh, eighteen oh fourth, Hamilton and
(32:46):
Vice President Aaron Burr were two politicians with their careers
in sharp decline, as shown by the Reynolds affair. Hamilton
had perhaps committed political suicide in public ones to orphan.
By this point, Aaron Burr, for his part, had alienated
Thomas Jefferson. He was of Jefferson's party. During the famous
tie election of eighteen hundred. To try to explain it
(33:07):
briefly for those of you aren't familiar with it, there
was not a separate vote in.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
The electoral College for president and vice president.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Jefferson and Berber nominally on the same ticket, the understanding
being that Jefferson would be president Aaron Burr vice president.
When there is a tie between Jefferson and Burr and
the electoral College, Aaron Burr suddenly decides that it might
be rather pleasant to be president of the United States
instead of merely vice president Thomas Jefferson, who incredibly enough
(33:35):
wins that election with an assist from Alexander Hamilton, of
all people, burb becomes vice president. Thomas Jefferson has a
very very long memory for such fatal miscalculations, decides to
drop Burr from the ticket. In eighteen oh four, Berber
turns to New York tries to run for governor again.
(33:55):
Hamilton blocks Burr's path. Hamilton's explanation for it was as follows.
He said that he supported Jefferson rather than Burr because
he would rather have somebody with the wrong principles rather
than no principles. He thought that Burr was unprincipled and unscrupulous.
(34:17):
Of course, Burr is during that tie and tacitly flirting
with the Federalists. A lot of Federalists, who like Hamilton,
disliked Thomas Jefferson, said, well, Burr may be an opportunist,
he maybe a lose canon whatever, but we can cut
a deal with Burr.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Whereas Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
They realized that he had the wrong principles, but he
was a man of very fixed.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And unalterable principles. At the time.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Hamilton, who had engaged in a lot of legitimate criticism,
but also a lot of hyperbole toward Thomas. Jefferson wrote
what I think was the most candid and accurate appraisal
of Jefferson that he ever did, in a letter at
the time the tie election. He said, you know, I
used to watch mister Jefferson when he was Secretary of
(35:05):
State and I was Secretary of the Treasuring and he said,
I often thought that he was like a man who
knew that he was someday inherit an estate, the estate
being the presidency, and in spite of his rhetoric, did
not really want to deplete the estate which he knew
he would someday inherit. And Hamilton predicted that Jefferson, once
(35:26):
in office, would in fact enjoy it and would betray
a taste for federal power that had not been apparent
in his rhetoric, certainly when he was in opposition to
the policies of Washington and Hamilton. The duel occurs when
Aaronburg reads in a newspaper that Hamilton has issued a
(35:46):
despicable opinion about him at an Albany dinner party. Burt
was never unduly disturbed by having killed Hamilton. He had
a rather macabre sense of humor. He liked to refer
jokingly quote to my friend Hamilton, whom I shot. Let
me say in closing that I knew with Hamilton that
I had been handed a precious biographer's gift. I seemed
(36:08):
to like these large, floud figures who forced me to
wrestle with their contradictions and with Hamilton. Every time I
began to lapse into hero worship, he would pull me
up with some colossal, unexpected blunder. And every time I
started to lose patience with him, he would redeem himself
again with some beautiful act of statesmanship or friendship or love.
(36:28):
I had maintained that from Lexington and Concord in seventeen
seventy five to these Jefferson's first inauguration in eighteen oh one,
nobody stood more consistently at the center of American political
life than Alexander Hamilton. This is a story, an incredible
story of an illegitimate, orphan young man who comes out
of nowhere, sets the world on fire, and grows up
(36:51):
quite literally.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Alongside his adopted country and a.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Terrific job on the editing by our own Greg Hengler
and a special thanks to Ron Churnow. This talk was
given at the Library of Congress in Washington, d C.
And we love bringing you speeches and stories from the
past and sometimes from the very distant past. And this
by no better a storyteller in American history than Ron
(37:17):
Chernow again, the book is Alexander Hamilton. If you haven't
read it, get it. If you haven't seen the musical,
see it. But you'll understand what inspired the musical if
you read the book. I love what he said about
Hamilton that every time he started to get into some
hero worship, well, Hamilton had do something that had well,
that would take his mind off that, let's just say.
(37:39):
And then every time he got frustrated with Hamilton, well
he'd get lifted right out of that frustration by something
either heroic or beautiful or dazzling that Hamilton would do.
He was a fierce abolitionist and had a heart for
the oppressed, for Jews, for the American Indian. So in
addition to being this towering financial figure, this incredible fighter,
(38:02):
he had a soul for the outsider. The story of
Alexander Hamilton indeed the story of one of our fundamental founders.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Here on our American stories,
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American Stories,
the show where America is the star and the American
people and all of our history segments are brought to
us by the great folks at Hillsdale College, where you
can go to learn all the things that are good
in life and all the things that are beautiful in life.
Their online courses are free. They're terrific. Go to Hillsdale
(00:31):
dot edu. Few figures in American history have been more
hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Ron
Chernow's New York Times bestselling biography about Hamilton became the
inspiration for the Broadway hit musical Here's Ron with the
story of Founding Father Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I think it's fair to say that nowadays even well
educated Americans are largely ignorant about the first Treasury Secretary.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
They know that he appears on.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
The ten dollar bill, although you may notice with something
of a Hollywood makeover on the new currency. Hamilton I
think was the best looking of the founders, but the
Treasury Department and its wisdom, has decided that he needed
some plastic surgery. You'll notice that they have widened his face,
and they've given him this rugged, square droid look, as
(01:25):
if he were auditioning for a Hollywood action movie. There
was a marvelous piece in US News and World Report
reviewing the airbrushed images of the Founders on the latest bills,
And when the magazine came to Hamilton, it positively gushed
and I quote and asked for Hamilton, he now looks
(01:46):
like a real hunk. So took us two centuries to
get a hunky founder where we have him. Of course,
the other thing that everybody knows about Hamilton, or at
least used to know, was that he was gunned down
Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel in Weehawk in
New Jersey, two centuries before HBO and Tony Soprano took
(02:08):
over the nearby turf. Burr, you probably know, was the
only vice president in American history ever indicted from murder
in two states. Yes, and he actually presided over a
famous impeachment trial in the Senate of a Supreme Court
justice while Hebert was simultaneously on the lamb from the
(02:28):
law in New York and New Jersey. Never a dull
moment in the life of Aaron Burr. Hamilton unquestionably led
the most dramatic life of any founder. He was an
illegitimate boy born on the British island of Nevis, and
he had suffered through a series of childhood tramas that
would have shattered a lesser figure. His father abandons the
(02:49):
family when Alexander is eleven, mother dies of tropical fever
when he's thirteen. He's then farmed out to a first cousin,
who commits suicide. Years later, calamities a biblical proportions seem
to find their way to this young man. Now, in
seventeen seventy two, in other words, about a year before
the Boston Tea Party, a monster hurricane lashes Saint Croix,
(03:12):
and this self tought prodigy sits down and he pens
a description of the hurricane of such precocious force and
eloquence that the local merchants, recognizing this wonder in their midst,
band together to finance his education.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
In North America.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
The Wonderkins studied at King's College in Lower Manhattan, later
renamed Columbia, King's being a slightly awkward and inconvenient name
after the Revolution, and already as undergraduate extraordinaire, Hamilton is
publishing stirring pamphlets against the British. He takes up a
musket and he drills with his fellow students in nearby
(03:48):
Saint Paul's Churchyard today adjacent to ground zero, and he
delivers spellbinding speeches to large crowds on what is today
New York City Hall Park. But this young man, and
for all his palpable ardor, is an ambivalent revolutionary. When
a rampaging mob of Patriots swoops down on the college,
hoping to tar and feather the Tory president Myles Cooper,
(04:11):
young Hamilton, who was only about five foot six and
rather slight of build, courageously stands in the doorway and
blocks their path. The young man craves liberty, yes, but
he also dreads disorder, and this is a fine balancing
act of recurring tension that will characterize.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
His entire career.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Before he has a chance to graduate, this slim, blue
eyed West Indian is appointed an artillery captain for the
Continental Army. He slips across the fog bound East River
during Washington's famous nocturnal retreat after the Battle of Brooklyn.
He then rises from his sick bed to cross the
icy Delaware to surprise the drowsing Hessians at Trenton. And
(04:52):
then just a few months later Hamilton is just twenty two.
That guy who had been a penniless orphan just five
years before in the trade house on Saint Croix is
miraculously appointed aide de camp to George Washington. In fact,
he proved so adept at handling Washington's correspondence. Washington is
able to give him the gist of a message and
(05:13):
out pops a beautifully worded, delicately nuanced letter from Hamilton
that it almost seems like an inspired act of ventriloquism.
You will see in this story that, with almost comical
Zelig like consistency, Hamilton has an act for being where
the action is. He is always there when history is unfolding.
It's like he's parachuted into every major event over a
(05:35):
thirty year period. For instance, Hamilton was there at Benedict
Arnold's house the morning that the treason plot was discovered
and Arnold fled down the Hudson River. Hamilton found himself
consoling the voluptuous but destroyed Peggy Arnold, who lay in
an upstairs bed. She was weeping in this very gaussy
and provocative lingerie as she faked a mad scene to
(05:59):
disguise the fact that she was in cahoots with her husband.
Hamilton I think was the brainiest of all the founders,
but I think it's fair to say that around beautiful
women he shed approximately fifty points on his IQ and
he was suckered in by this masterful performance by Peggy Arnold. Now,
(06:19):
surprisingly enough, you would think that after this ghastly Dickensian
childhood that Hamilton, aide to camp An effectively Chief of
Stafford George Washington, would be thrilled at his sudden station
in life. But he was Hamilton. No, he was chafing
at his desk. He dreamed of battlefield glory. Unlike so
many intellectuals then are now, Hamilton was a daredevil who
(06:43):
actually enjoyed courting physical danger. At the Battle of Monmouth,
he was horrified to find General Charles Lee in full
blown retreat with his panic stricken men. The young colonel
rides up to General Lee and says, I will stay
here with you, my dear General, and die with you.
All die rather than retreat.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
And you're listening to Ron chernow, who wrote the book
about Alexander Hamilton and inspired the musical, but also inspired
readers to know so much more about their founders. And
my goodness, what a story he's telling here to folks
at the Library of Congress. When we come back, more
of the remarkable story of Alexander Hamilton here on our
(07:24):
American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of our American Stories.
Every day we set out to tell the stories of
Americans past and present, from small towns to big cities,
and from all walks of life doing extraordinary things. But
we truly can't do this show without you. Our shows
(07:45):
are free to listen to, but they're not free to make.
If you love what you hear, go to our American
Stories dot com and make a donation to keep the
stories coming. That's our American Stories dot com. And we
(08:09):
continue with our American Stories and with Ron Churnow telling
the story of Alexander Hamilton.
Speaker 4 (08:16):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Hamilton, of course, has his supreme moment of heroism at Yorktown. Hamilton,
after mercilessly badgering Washington, is given the command of the
first Infantry Battalion to storm the outer ramparts. Picture the scene.
Hamilton rises up out of the trench. He sprints across
a rutted wasteland, leading his men with frenzied war whoops.
(08:40):
Once at the parapet, Hamilton, whom I said was relatively short,
has one of his subordinates, Neil Hamilton, steps on his shoulder.
He springs up on the parapet, and then he exhorts
his men to follow. You could almost picture Tom Cruise
in the Starring sin Now. Despite crushing daytime duties for
George Washington, Hamilton, against all odds, manages to give himself
(09:04):
a crash course during the Revolution in finance, history and politics.
From camp to camp, this young autodidact is lugging to
enormous folio sized volumes called Malachy Postlewights Dictionary of Trade
and Commerce.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
Not exactly light bedtime fair.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
After a day of heavy duty correspondence for George Washington,
Hamilton also totes along six volumes of Plutarch's lives, and
he takes the empty pages of a military paybook, and
we see him recording notes on foreign exchange, population growth, geography,
even European rivers that he will never set eyes on.
In fact, in his notes very interesting notes called from Bluetarch,
(09:44):
we see a young man who seems absolutely bewitched by
the bizarre sexual practices of ancient Rome. For instance, Hamilton
noted that an ancient Rome, young married women seem to
enjoy being whipped by lusty young noblemen. Why because they
thought that it aided conception. I can tell you, when
you study our founding fathers, you are led down all
sorts of unexpected byways. In fact, Hamilton had such a
(10:09):
roving eye for the young women that Martha Washington during
the Revolution nicknamed her lascivius Tomcat Hamilton, which must have
made for some interesting moments at headquarters with George grumbling
Hamilton and Martha calling for Hamilton. Now, Hamilton, as you
will know, is a very proud, ambitious outsider without money.
He lacked what the eighteenth century referred to as birth
(10:31):
or breeding. He knew that he needed to marry into
a respectable family, and indeed, soon after Elizabeth Skyler, the
daughter of a very powerful New York dynasty, visits the
Continental Army in seventeen eighty, one of Hamilton's colleagues reports, quote,
Hamilton is a gone man.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
The wedding at the Skyler mansion is a very.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Bittersweet affair because Eliza Hamilton has this huge, rich family,
It's teeming with all sorts of Van Cortland and ven
Rinsel are cousins. Well, Hamilton has only a single friend
from Washington's staff, and of course he doesn't have a
single family member in attendance. I mean, think of the
underlying poignancy of that emotional imbalance in that affair. And
(11:14):
yet the very very status conscious Skylar family always embraces
Hamilton as an adored member of the family.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Amazing.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
When Hamilton then launches his post war legal career, being Hamilton,
his exploits again seemed to verge on the superhuman. At
the time, he usually served a three year apprenticeship period
to qualify for the law. Hamilton, being Hamilton, manages to
qualify after six months of self study. In fact, he
cobbles together a cribsheet of New York legal procedures and practices.
(11:47):
He does it so expertly that it becomes a textbook
for a generation of New York lawyers.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
WonderBoy. He then immediately does.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Something quite fearless and of course quite controversial. Hamilton begins
to defend the Chants who had remained in occupied New
York during the British wartime occupation, and those Tory merchants
were now being persecuted by returning patriots. Hamilton always feared
a frenzy of revolutionary retribution. I fear, in fact, it
would be realized in the French Revolution. He also wanted
(12:18):
to retain the capital and connections and know how of
those toy merchants in order to rebuild New York. Our
city lost somewhere between a quarter and a half of
all of its buildings during the Revolution. Now you'll hear
it said, and very often it's taught this way in school,
that Hamilton was a ferocious snob, that he was.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
The stooge of the plutocrats of his day.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
In fact, it would be desperate with Napoleonic ambitions.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
And of course, in.
Speaker 2 (12:44):
This particular morality play of early American history, Thomas Jefferson
is always represented as the pure and virtuous tribune of
the people. The situation was far more complicated than that
historical cartoon. Case in point. During the war, it is Hamilton,
of course, who champions an audacious plan to emancipate any
(13:06):
slave who's willing to pick up a musket for the
continental cause. In the seventeen eighties. It is Hamilton who
co founds the first abolitionist society in New York, the
New York Manumission Society. Remember that trading firm in Saint
Croix that I had mentioned that Hamilton worked for as
a teenager. That firm had imported up to three hundred
(13:27):
slaves per year from Western Africa, and it's clear from
subsequent actions that this firsthand experience of slavery left Hamilton
with a permanent detestation of the system. In fact, Caribbean
slavery was the most brutal in the world. Even those
who managed to survive the Middle Passage, their life expectancy
(13:47):
once they started working in the sugar cane breaks of
the West Indies was somewhere between three and five years.
So you constantly have these poor people who are perishing
in the fields, and this supply had to be constantly replenied. Hamilton,
despite the historic stereotype, turns out to have been the
most consistent abolitionist among the founders. Barnun I repeat barn Nunn. Hamilton,
(14:12):
it also turns out, had very enlightened views about Native Americans.
There is a college in upstate New York called Hamilton College. Well,
the origins of that school. It started out as a
secondary school that was supposed to educate Native Americans. Hamilton
lent his name and his prestige to that undertaking. Hamilton
turns out to have had very benign and enlightened views
about Jews. He said in an unpublished paper that the
(14:35):
success of the Jews could only be explained by special providence.
So here's this man whom we're taught to regard as
this ferocious snob, who again and again shows himself as
not only devoid of prejudice, but with a special sympathy
for the oppressed. Now, I think, with the clear exception
of George Washington, nobody did more than Alexander Hamilton to
(14:56):
well the thirteen squabbling states into the powerful nation we
know today. Hamilton personally drafts the first appeal for the
Constitutional Convention. He attends that he is the sole New
York delegate to sign it. As Hamilton who dreams up
and then supervises the most influential defense of the document
ever written, the Federalist Papers. Of those eighty five essays,
(15:18):
Hamilton manages to draft an astonishing fifty one. No less astonishing,
there are periods where he's publishing them at a rate
of as many as five or six per week. No
less astonishing. He's doing it as a sideline. He had
a full time legal practice. In fact, we have anecdotal
evidence of the printer sitting in the outer office as
Hamilton scribbles the final lines of an essay. No single
(15:42):
treatise on the US Constitution has been cited more frequently
by the Supreme Court than the Federalist papers, nearly three
hundred times over the.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Past two centuries.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And if you chart the frequency of citation, the frequency
of citation actually is rising with time, not decreasing. Hamilton, boy,
wonder the new federal government is created. He hits the
ground running. Hamilton is only thirty four years old when
Washington appoints him the first Treasury Secretary. This instantly makes
(16:13):
him not only the most powerful person in America, guarantees
that he'll be the most controversial.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Why.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Remember Washington's cabinet, and the term was not used. It
was originally called the General Council. Washington's cabinet consisted of
just three people. There was Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State,
Henry Knox, Secretary of War, and Hamilton a treasury I
think fair to say, pound for pound, the best cabinet
in American history. Even the Attorney General Edmund Randolph is
(16:44):
a part time legal advisor to the president, lacking that
small thing called the Justice Department at that point.
Speaker 1 (16:52):
And you've been listening to Ron chernow, author of the
definitive biography an Alexander Hamilton, called Alexander Hamilton, And what
a story we're listening to. He didn't have the birth
that is, he wasn't born to blue bloods. Obviously, he
was born well in Saint Croix with nothing, but he
had that talent, that writing talent to start. Remarkably, Hamilton
(17:15):
drafts fifty one of the Federalist Papers. And he did
it in his spare time. He was a lawyer and
self taught and just a prodigy. What's so fascinating about
the Federalist Papers that it's the most cited document in
Supreme Court jurisprudence and in case law than any other
(17:36):
document there is, and it continues to be cited with
increasing frequency. In other words, the writing of Hamilton more
relevant than ever in our nation's battles that are often
settled in the courts. When we come back more of
the story of Alexander Hamilton here on our American stories.
(18:07):
And we continue with our American stories and with the
story of Alexander Hamilton as told by his definitive biographer,
Ron Chernow this talk again came from the Library of Congress.
Speaker 4 (18:22):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (18:25):
Now, in the early days, Jefferson at State starts with
six employees. Henry Knox starts with a mere dozen. At war,
Hamilton starts out with about three dozen, and the number
quickly balloons to several hundred employees, a frightening bureaucracy by
the standards of the day, and also again many times
(18:45):
larger than the rest of the government combined. Which is
why when you read histories of the period, historians tend
to like in Hamilton's position in Washington's administration to that
of a prime minister rather than a mere department head.
When you say to people Alexander ham Hamilton was the
first Treasury secretary, it just does not begin to capture
the scope and magnitude of the power that this man wielded.
(19:09):
Beyond the size of the Treasury Department is a reportion
of the government. Remember, Hamilton had to invent that department
from scratch. At the time, there were no income taxes.
Most revenues came from import duties. This meant he had
to create a custom service. To have a custom service,
you have to create beacons in boys and lighthouses up
and down the eastern seaboard. Smuggling, as you know, was
(19:33):
a favorite revolutionary pastime. Suddenly this activity has to be
stopped in the name of patriotism. So Hamilton has to
construct a fleet of so called the revenue cutters, the
start of course, of the Coast Guard. Again and again
we see Hamilton forging the basic building blocks of the
American government. He takes a country bankrupted by revolutionary war debt,
(19:55):
he restores its credit. He devises our first tax system,
our first budget system, our first central bank, our first
monetary system.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
He has the federal government to adopt all of the
state debt. Why does he do that?
Speaker 2 (20:07):
That seems counterintuitive for the federal government to add that
to what it already had. Well, Hamilton knew that if
the federal government adopted the state that creditors would transfer
their allegiance to the federal government, and it would also
forever after give the federal government a kind of moral
authority over revenues that the States would never have. Very
(20:28):
cunning and very characteristic of Hamilton in terms of embedding
a political program in a seemingly technocratic program. Again, again,
no less important than all of these pragmatic achievements as
Treasure Secretary, it is Hamilton, the great constitutional scholar, who
makes the enduring arguments that all of these new activities
(20:48):
are in fact permitted under the new national chart. Remember
Washington's first question first administration always is is this permissible
under the constitution. Hamilton, the kind of clairvoyance that is
hard to explain, encourages manufacturing stock exchanges, banks, and corporations
at a time when these activities seemed like scary, futuristic
(21:11):
stuff to many people. In the book, I dub him
the messenger from the future, or as the New York
Historical Society would have at the man who made modern America.
So why has Hamilton been villainized as a dangerous reactionary
since he seems to anticipate things that happened one hundred
or two hundred years later rather than looking backward. Partly,
(21:35):
I think this goes back to the deadly rivalry between
Hamilton and Jefferson in Washington's cabinet. Jefferson, you know, a
man of very decided opinions, was a rather shy, soft
spoken man. And Jefferson actually shrank from open disagreement. If
you happen to find yourself at a dinner party with
Thomas Jefferson and you disagreed with him, Jefferson would not
(21:57):
openly confront you. Hamilton would certainly openly confront you. What
Jefferson would do he would repair to his lodgings that evening,
he would record the statement that you had made, and
then he would store it up for later use. And
boy did he store things up. With Hamilton and Jefferson's
secret diary, there are nearly four dozen references to Hamilton.
(22:17):
The epic animosity between these two Olympian figures is partly
a matter of clashing visions. Jefferson, once a rural America
with a weak central government, stresses states rights, strict construction
of the constitution, tax cuts, limited government, etc. Hamilton's division
is of a bustling, diversified America of trade, finance, and
(22:38):
manufacturing as well as traditional agriculture. Hamilton favors an energetic
federal government, certainly a strong presidency, strong independent judiciary, relatively
weak states, and a very expensive interpretation of the Constitution.
You could see where the laconic Jefferson was quite understandably
(22:58):
terrified of Hamilton's sheer brilliance. Hamilton was one of these
frightening windbags whom you mead from time to time, who
can speak in perfectly worded paragraphs for hours on end,
and Hamilton did. Hamilton also was one of these intimidating
characters who could and did toss off a ten thousand
word opinion overnight for George Washington. And you could see
(23:19):
in Jefferson's diary that he's really struggling with Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
Quote.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Hamilton made a speech of three quarters of an hour
in the Cabinet today, as if he had been speaking
to a jury. The next day, Jefferson wearily records Hamilton
spoke again for three quarters of an hour. Hamilton was
quite frankly a word machine. Hamilton wrote enough in forty
nine years to fill twenty two thousand pages in the
(23:46):
latest edition of his collected papers, and your Speaker was
masochistic enough to read every one of those pages. It
is said that Harold Syrett, who edited the Papers for
Columbia University Press and outstanding job. Harrold Syret evidently used
to joke that he intended to dedicate the many volumes
to Aaron Burr quote, without whose cooperation this project would
(24:09):
never have been completed. When Hamilton publishes some articles supporting
Washington's neutrality proclamation, Jefferson contacted James Madison and pleaded with
(24:30):
him to robut Hamilton in print. Quote, for God's sake,
my dear sir, take up your pen, select the most
striking heresies and cut Hamilton to pieces.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
There is nobody else.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Who can and will enter the lists with him. There
was nobody else in America who could enter the lists
with Alexander Hamilton. Even James Madison orphan shrank from the invitation.
The cabinet feud between Hamilton and Washington become so vitriolic,
almost pathological, that poor long suffering Washington has to finally
plead with both of them to desist from their vicious
(25:06):
attacks on each other. Hamilton's attacks were directly written by Hamilton.
Jefferson would employ different surrogates, but the effect was the same.
In the end, it's Jefferson, not Hamilton, who leaves Washington's
cabinet and defeat and Hamilton, who reigns triumphant. But as
you will know, the glittering prize that eludes Alexander Hamilton
(25:26):
as the presidency, and of course, Thomas Jefferson goes on
to become a two term president. During the summer of
seventeen ninety one, remarkably enough, at the height of his
powers as Treasury Secretary, a young twenty three year old
woman named Mariah Reynolds knocks at his door. Government was
then in Philadelphia. She asked to speak to Hamilton privately,
(25:49):
and she spills out a woeful tale of how she
has been cruelly abandoned by her husband, this Bulgarian named
James Reynolds. She appeals to Hamilton for financial aid. Hamilton,
several years later narrated what happened next quote in the evening,
I put a bank bill in my pocket and went
to her rooming house. I inquired for missus Reynolds, and
(26:09):
was shown upstairs at the head of which she met
me and conducted me into a bedroom. I took the
bill out of my pocket and gave it to her.
Some conversation that ensued from Richard was quickly apparent that
other than pecuniary consolation.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Would be acceptable. The eighteenth century had away with words.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
And you've been listening to Ron Churnow, author of the
definitive biography an Alexander Hamilton called Alexander Hamilton, and of
course that book inspired the musical that has made its way.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Around the world more than once.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
And what a story, by the way, what a battle
between him and Jefferson about competing visions for the United States,
and some of those battles still happening today. Clearly Hamilton
won in the larger, broader vision of a strong central government,
but the battle today between the States and the big
bureaucracies in Washington, d C. Prevail and continue to dominate
(27:10):
the headlines even when we come back more of this
remarkable story, the story of Alexander Hamilton, with author Ron Churnow.
Here on our American stories, and we continue with our
(27:38):
American stories and with the author of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Churnou.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Let's pick up where we last left.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Off, now for full year.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
Despite all of the controversies swirling around his programs, when
Hamilton should have been most vigilant of his reputation the
smartest man in American politics, does about the most foolish
thing Imaginablemilton, to his embarrassment, never knew whether Missus Reynold's
attraction for him was real or just a clever con job.
He later wrote, the variety of shapes which this woman
(28:08):
could assume was endless. Hamilton keeps furtively slipping off in
the night to these assignations with Missus Reynolds, even after
mister Reynolds, who.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Was this rather coarse character.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Mister Reynolds suddenly appears and instead of stopping the adulterous
affair between Hamilton and his wife, mister Reynolds decides it
would be more fun to tax it. Hamilton begins to
fork over blackmail money to the scrifter James Reynolds, despite
the obvious fatal damage that this can do to Hamilton's career,
(28:41):
not to mention to his devoted, long suffering wife Eliza.
One day, Missus Reynolds was entertaining a friend named Jacob
Klingman when Hamilton comes unexpectedly the door, and even Hamilton
took certain precautions like always being alone with Missus Reynolds,
Hamilton is petrified to discuss and eye witness, So what
does he do?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
He pretends that he's simply.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Dropping off a message for the low life. James Reynolds
pause a moment to picture this kind of let it
sink in. Imagine your home. One day, there's a knock
of the door, you go downstairs, you're open the door,
and there's Colin Power Donald Remsfelt, pretending to be the
FedEx delivery man and imagining that he's going to get
away with the disguise. Hamilton ultimately publishes a ninety five
(29:33):
page pamphlet admitting to the affair. Because his enemy said, oh,
you know that money he was paying to James Reynolds,
that was for illicit speculation and treasury securities. Hamilton says, no, no, no,
says it in ninety five pages. No, no, no, that
was adultery that the money was for. Now, I know
that all of this intrigue in backstabbing runs countered to
our preferred image of the founders. These tales may remind
(29:57):
us more of the fallen state of our tabloid political
culture today than of the men enshrined in our school textbooks.
And let me stress so that there's not any misunderstanding.
My tempt here is in no way to deny the
greatness of the Founders. The very best thing about spending
five years on Alexander Hamilton. I got on a daily
basis just to drink in his glorious words, to spend
(30:18):
five years not only in his company, but that of
all of the Founders, and if anything, I came away
with a far more exalted sense of their brilliance, their depth,
their integrity, et cetera. At the same time, I wanted
to liberate Hamilton and the other Founders from what I
thought was a sometimes stultifying image of gentility of these
(30:40):
people with powdered wigs and silver buckle shoes. The Founding
Fathers were not statues chiseled in stone. They were passionate,
fascinating figures of tremendous force and intensity.
Speaker 3 (30:55):
Once the revolution was over, they exhibited.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Very much the same lust for power, status, and influence
as other human beings. Nor do I think that we
should fault them for that. In fact, it was their
candidly realistic view of the ambition and the avarice rooted
in human nature that enabled them to construct the most
ingenious constitution that has guarded us against human frailty for
(31:18):
more than two centuries. As you know Madison wrote famously
in Federalists fifty one, if men were angels, no government
would be necessary.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
Thank God that they.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Took that grim, that pessimistic view of human nature, rather
than assuming that we would have a succession of saints
in the White House. The Founders, i think, wrote these
things not just from abstract speculation, but from their own
personal experiences and observation.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Let me jump ahead to the duel.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Six times earlier in his career, Alexander Hamilton had entered
into the highly ritualized quarrels known as affairs of honor.
The potential culmination of affair of honor.
Speaker 3 (31:58):
Could always be a duel. On those previous six.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Occasions Hamilton had as it were settled out of a court.
The quarrels had not ended up in the dueling ground
they could have. Hamilton was a very combative man. He
was hyper sensitive, I think, probably because of his illegitimate
boyhood in the Caribbean and what was a lifelong sense
of shame about his illegitimacy. So he's always very vigilant
(32:23):
anything concerning his reputation and sense of honor. The novelty
of what happens with Aaron Burr in eighteen oh four
was that for the first time Hamilton is on the
receiving end of the challenge instead of issuing it. I
think this throws him off balanced psychologically. When Hamilton and
Burr met on the field of honor in Weehawk in
New Jersey on July eleventh, eighteen oh fourth, Hamilton and
(32:46):
Vice President Aaron Burr were two politicians with their careers
in sharp decline, as shown by the Reynolds affair. Hamilton
had perhaps committed political suicide in public ones to orphan.
By this point, Aaron Burr, for his part, had alienated
Thomas Jefferson. He was of Jefferson's party. During the famous
tie election of eighteen hundred. To try to explain it
(33:07):
briefly for those of you aren't familiar with it, there
was not a separate vote in.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
The electoral College for president and vice president.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Jefferson and Berber nominally on the same ticket, the understanding
being that Jefferson would be president Aaron Burr vice president.
When there is a tie between Jefferson and Burr and
the electoral College, Aaron Burr suddenly decides that it might
be rather pleasant to be president of the United States
instead of merely vice president Thomas Jefferson, who incredibly enough
(33:35):
wins that election with an assist from Alexander Hamilton, of
all people, burb becomes vice president. Thomas Jefferson has a
very very long memory for such fatal miscalculations, decides to
drop Burr from the ticket. In eighteen oh four, Berber
turns to New York tries to run for governor again.
(33:55):
Hamilton blocks Burr's path. Hamilton's explanation for it was as follows.
He said that he supported Jefferson rather than Burr because
he would rather have somebody with the wrong principles rather
than no principles. He thought that Burr was unprincipled and unscrupulous.
(34:17):
Of course, Burr is during that tie and tacitly flirting
with the Federalists. A lot of Federalists, who like Hamilton,
disliked Thomas Jefferson, said, well, Burr may be an opportunist,
he maybe a lose canon whatever, but we can cut
a deal with Burr.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Whereas Jefferson.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
They realized that he had the wrong principles, but he
was a man of very fixed.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
And unalterable principles. At the time.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
Hamilton, who had engaged in a lot of legitimate criticism,
but also a lot of hyperbole toward Thomas. Jefferson wrote
what I think was the most candid and accurate appraisal
of Jefferson that he ever did, in a letter at
the time the tie election. He said, you know, I
used to watch mister Jefferson when he was Secretary of
(35:05):
State and I was Secretary of the Treasuring and he said,
I often thought that he was like a man who
knew that he was someday inherit an estate, the estate
being the presidency, and in spite of his rhetoric, did
not really want to deplete the estate which he knew
he would someday inherit. And Hamilton predicted that Jefferson, once
(35:26):
in office, would in fact enjoy it and would betray
a taste for federal power that had not been apparent
in his rhetoric, certainly when he was in opposition to
the policies of Washington and Hamilton. The duel occurs when
Aaronburg reads in a newspaper that Hamilton has issued a
(35:46):
despicable opinion about him at an Albany dinner party. Burt
was never unduly disturbed by having killed Hamilton. He had
a rather macabre sense of humor. He liked to refer
jokingly quote to my friend Hamilton, whom I shot. Let
me say in closing that I knew with Hamilton that
I had been handed a precious biographer's gift. I seemed
(36:08):
to like these large, floud figures who forced me to
wrestle with their contradictions and with Hamilton. Every time I
began to lapse into hero worship, he would pull me
up with some colossal, unexpected blunder. And every time I
started to lose patience with him, he would redeem himself
again with some beautiful act of statesmanship or friendship or love.
(36:28):
I had maintained that from Lexington and Concord in seventeen
seventy five to these Jefferson's first inauguration in eighteen oh one,
nobody stood more consistently at the center of American political
life than Alexander Hamilton. This is a story, an incredible
story of an illegitimate, orphan young man who comes out
of nowhere, sets the world on fire, and grows up
(36:51):
quite literally.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
Alongside his adopted country and a.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
Terrific job on the editing by our own Greg Hengler
and a special thanks to Ron Churnow. This talk was
given at the Library of Congress in Washington, d C.
And we love bringing you speeches and stories from the
past and sometimes from the very distant past. And this
by no better a storyteller in American history than Ron
(37:17):
Chernow again, the book is Alexander Hamilton. If you haven't
read it, get it. If you haven't seen the musical,
see it. But you'll understand what inspired the musical if
you read the book. I love what he said about
Hamilton that every time he started to get into some
hero worship, well, Hamilton had do something that had well,
that would take his mind off that, let's just say.
(37:39):
And then every time he got frustrated with Hamilton, well
he'd get lifted right out of that frustration by something
either heroic or beautiful or dazzling that Hamilton would do.
He was a fierce abolitionist and had a heart for
the oppressed, for Jews, for the American Indian. So in
addition to being this towering financial figure, this incredible fighter,
(38:02):
he had a soul for the outsider. The story of
Alexander Hamilton indeed the story of one of our fundamental founders.
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Here on our American stories,
Host
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