Alexander Hamilton Part 1: I’m Not from a State, I’m an American.

On July 10th, 1804, Alexander Hamilton was preparing for his trip to Weehawken, New Jersey, when he received a call from the future…

In this episode, Hamilton talks about his duel with Vice President Aaron Burr, scolds me for bringing up his affair with Mariah Reynolds, and explains his vision to unite the 13 states and create the most powerful nation the world has ever known.

Start the episode now to join the conversation.

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Hal Bidlack’s portrayal of Alexander Hamilton embodies the brilliance and complexities of this indispensable Founding Father. As a retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel with over 25 years of service, Hal’s distinguished military career included roles in national security, diplomacy, and education as a Political Science professor at the Air Force Academy. With a doctorate from the University of Michigan, he has also served in key environmental roles at the White House. He is now a full-time performer and writer, bringing Alexander Hamilton to life for anyone lucky enough to attend his live performance.

You can learn more at hamiltonlives.com or reach him at [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

(00:28):
Um, Tony Dean.
And today we'll be calling historyto speak with Alexander Hamilton.
He'll be answering ourcall on July 10th, 1804.
The day before his fatalduel with Aaron Burr.
When we think of the duel betweenAaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton,
of course, we think about thewildly popular Broadway show.
But what we often forget is that thisdual or the interview, as they called it.

(00:54):
It wasn't just two regular menpointing guns at each other
to settle a dispute of honor.
This was the sitting vice presidentof the United States pointing a gun
and killing the former secretary ofthe treasury who had worked directly
under president George Washington.
It would be about as absurd as formersecretary of state Hillary Clinton

(01:16):
getting into an argument with MikePence and then Hilary guns down
Pence behind a CVS in Maryland.
It's madness, but that's what happened.
As a result, Aaron Burr's life andreputation were ruined and he died in a
boarding house with no money or friends,Alexander Hamilton on the other hand.

(01:37):
Goes down in history as the person whocreated the bank of the United States,
he was responsible for the plan thatassumed state war debts, that overnight
made America a powerhouse of growth.
He helped replace the weakarticles of Confederation that
we're barely holding the statestogether with the U S constitution.

(01:58):
Then he wrote most of the Federalistpapers to convince the nation
that a ratified constitutionwould bring us together.
As one strong United country, he createdthe coast guard, initiated a federal mint
so that the United States would have onecurrency instead of a different one for
every state and founded the New York post.

(02:21):
And he did all of this.
After starting life as an orphan ona little island in the Caribbean sea
that most people have never heard of
ladies and gentlemen, fellowhistory, lovers, and masters
of the Quill everywhere.
I give you Alexander Hamilton
. Hello, is that you, general Hamilton?
It is.
Hi, how are you this day, sir?

(02:43):
Oh, I'm well, sir.
I am so thankful for thisopportunity to speak with you today.
My name is Tony Dean and I'm talking toyou from the future in the 21st century.
The device that you're holding iscalled a smartphone and it allows us
to speak as if you and I were sittingin the same room with one another.
It also allows me to share arecord of our conversations
with people around the world.

(03:05):
And I was hoping that I could askyou some questions today and maybe
even clear up some of the bad pressthat you've received over the years.
But before I do, I understandthis is a strange introduction.
Can I answer any questionsthat you might have first?
Well, I will say that you said referto bad press as given what is perhaps
happening on the morrow I'm notentirely sure what you're referring

(03:28):
to because I was quite popular withthe Federalist and most importantly
with his excellency the general Butcertainly this device is fascinating.
My first thought is to wonder howit might be used to aid in commerce
and manufacturing and in militarymatters, where it would improve
communications tremendously.
I suspect if my great adversary, Mr.
Jefferson, was here, he wouldbegin dissecting it immediately

(03:49):
to find out what makes it tick.
Oh, I think Jefferson would beinterested in this, but I think
that you would be even moreinterested because you are spot on.
This device is used in commerce.
People don't even leavetheir homes anymore.
They go into the device, they say, Ineed these goods delivered to my home.
They communicate through them.
It's all the things thatyou would have wanted as you

(04:10):
were, , building the financialsystem that is the United States.
And so, yeah, I thinkthat you would like it.
You've created a manservant in a box.
Ha.
Well, and, but to go back to what yousaid about bad press I guess, some of that
came from Aaron Burr, and I understandthat over the years, you and he have

(04:32):
had not the greatest relationships,and I, if it's my understanding of the
timeline where you are, you have somesort of engagement with him tomorrow.
Well, Colonel Burr howmuch time do we have, sir?
Because to list his faultswill require quite some time.
I will give you an example.
When I joined General Washington's staff,I was his closest aide and he was in

(04:53):
all ways but biology a father to me.
Colonel Burr was alsoappointed to the staff.
He lasted some 10 days before beingsacked for opening and reading the
General's private correspondence.
Colonel Burr in the election of1800 was absolutely scandalous.
I assume you will be asking me about Mr.
Jefferson's despicable actionsin the election of 1800.

(05:13):
I won't go over those now.
But they precipitated what wecall an interview that is to
happen at Weehawken tomorrow.
But a number of things.
I said of Aaron Burr that he is foror against nothing but suits his
interests and ambitions if there isan embryo Caesar in America, tis Burr.
Wow!
That is a big statement right there.

(05:33):
An embryo Caesar?
Indeed.
The man quested for nothing but power.
And it's a shame, becausehe had a brilliant mind.
But, for example, I will tell youthat when the election of 1800
occurred, it was perhaps the dirtiestelection in American history.
I don't know about your time, but in thistime, we have things called broadsides,

(05:54):
, which were essentially politicalposters, the advertising of the day.
To give you an example of how dramaticit was, a Federalist poster opposing Mr.
Jefferson read, If theatheist Jefferson is elected.
Every virgin in America will bedeflowered, every Bible seized and
burned, and the streets will run redwith the blood of murdered patriots.

(06:15):
Now that, sir, is a negative ad.
Wow.
Colonel Burr, in thiselection stood as Mr.
Jefferson's vice president.
Now Mr.
Jefferson in what was certainly thefirst purely partisan political act
in American history, he realized thatbecause of the abomination known as
the Three Fifths Clause, that he wouldcarry the electoral votes of the South.

(06:36):
But he was unsure if he wouldcarry it up in the North, where Mr.
Adams was quite popular, at leastto some degree, as a Federalist.
And so he decided to add aNortherner to his ticket.
And he selected Colonel Burr.
Now, Colonel Burr was of the wrongparty, but of course, if you have
no morals, that's not a problem.
Colonel Burr just switched andbecame Jefferson's running mate.

(06:58):
Now in Philadelphia at the ConstitutionalConvention, we did make a mistake, which
was corrected later by the 12th amendment.
That mistake was to vote for thepresident and the vice president
separately in the electoral college.
As a result.
Even though everyone in the nationknew that the nation had picked Mr.
Jefferson as president, Colonel Burras vice president, the tie was at

(07:22):
73 electoral votes for Jeffersonand 73 electoral votes for Burr.
And in the Constitution, itprovides for that situation.
It is sent to the House ofRepresentatives, where each state votes
with a single vote, and the winner of thatvote in the House will become president.
Now, through some 35 ballots they remaintied because , Burr realized that if

(07:44):
he could get a single of Jefferson'sstates to switch to him, instead of the
worthless position of vice president, hecould be president of the entire republic.
And this went on for 35 ballots.
Finally, I could take it nolonger, and I wrote to a friend.
For a letter to be publicized.
And I said this of Jefferson, I admitthat his politics are tinctured with
fanaticism, that he is too much inearnest in his democracy, that he has

(08:06):
been a mischievous enemy of the principlemeasures of our past administration,
that he is crafty and persevering in hisobjects, that he is not scrupulous about
his means of success, nor is he mindfulof the truth and he is a contemptible.
But I went on to say, by everyvirtuous and prudent calculation, Mr.
Jefferson is to bepreferred over Colonel Burr.

(08:27):
He is by far not so dangerous a man,and he has pretensions to character.
On the 36th ballot, Mr.
William Bayard of Connecticutwithheld his electoral vote from Burr.
Mr.
Jefferson became president, Mr.
Burr became vice president,and I will say that he became
disquieted with me on that date.
It would get worse as the time passed.

(08:49):
I don't understand how it makes sensefor the loser to become vice president.
, , how is that relationshipeven gonna function?
this is how you first saw it.
Of course, under Washington wehad Adams, but under Adams we had
Jefferson as the vice president.
Jefferson Mr.
Adams for all his many uh, I cango on at quite some length about Mr.

(09:10):
Adams later if you prefer.
He was elected president to Mr.
Jefferson Vice.
Mr.
Jefferson was approached by Mr.
Adams who said, we have bothbeen selected by the American
people, shall we work together?
And Jefferson said no.
And he spent his four years asvice president using public funds
and other measures to publishsecret tirades against Mr.
Adams and myself.

(09:31):
So then , when we see the election of1800 and Jefferson runs for president,
even though he always claimed he didn'tdie, I wrote of him that he most ardently
quests after the presidential chair.
We saw him in all his political glory.
The 12th amendment corrected perhaps anoptimism that we had in Philadelphia.
The hope was By doing it the way weoriginally wrote the Constitution,

(09:52):
the very best man would be electedpresident, and the very next best
man would be elected vice president,and they would work together for
the betterment of the nation.
What we did not anticipate was how quicklyfactions political parties formed.
And the 12th Amendment was a vitalcorrection so that we elected a
ticket, a president and vice president,rather than voting individually, and

(10:15):
as a result, we've never had thisexact same situation arise again.
. , you had mentioned John Adams, and asI was doing some preparation for our
conversation, I ran into something thatJohn Adams had said, which was that you're
the bastard brat of a Scottish peddler.
Have you ever heard that?
Well, you have an interesting interviewstyle, sir, I will say, to bring up

(10:38):
gross insults from a silly little man.
Mr.
Adams said a number of, I will tell youthat he referred to me as that little man,
though I was taller than he, he referredto me as the most indefatigable intriguer
in the United States, and perhaps in theworld, and most famously, as you quoted,
as the bastard brat of a Scots cuddler.
Now, my father wasactually a Scottish lord.

(10:59):
He did depart the family, abandonus when I was but a child.
But I would write later that Iactually had better claims in noble
title than those who preen themselveson title in this country, like Mr.
Adams.
I simply called Mr.
Adams your rotundity.
For he was a man of spherical dimensionand when he fired , the cabinet
that General Washington appointed, Isaid, he is as wicked as he is mad.

(11:22):
And I I would say later I wouldbe astonished of Adam's actions
in the quasi war with France ifI was capable of being astonished
from anything from that quarter.
And depending upon, I assume,sir, that your audience is
gentleman, I will say this.
Adam said of me that I suffered froma super abundance of secretions and

(11:43):
could not find enough whores andchristened men to draw them off.
So you see our politics was atad rougher than you might expect
looking back from your day.
Oh my gosh.
That is, it is literally no holds barred.
, but it does seem like you got thebetter of the argument on Adams though.
Well, and understand, sir, that wewere in our day quite uncertain as

(12:06):
to the future of the United States.
And in your introduction, I believe yousaid it wrong, it's the United States.
The emphasis should be on the first word.
Because this was the remarkable thingthat we achieved with the Republic.
As Dr.
Franklin was asked upon leaving theconvention, What have you given us?
And he said a Republic if you can keep it.
It was not at all clear in mytime, that we would keep it at all.

(12:28):
We had the Quasi War with France Theonly thing that prevented the pettiest
European power from invading us wasthe glory of the Atlantic Ocean.
So we certainly are in a delicateposition, I hope in your day, the
fact that you are speaking to mesuggests the nation has survived
and so that is a good thing, but wewere unsure whether it would or not.
These were difficult questions.

(12:49):
One reason we accepted GeneralWashington as the first president was
that we realized As a nation, thatthe precedence that he would establish
would become essentially the rulingprecedence for all future presidents.
And Washington was theAmerican Cincinnatus.
In fact, he was twice the Cincinnatus.
You recall, of course, from your owneducation, the Cincinnatus was the Roman

(13:12):
general who essentially left his plowin the field to take command, become an
emperor, and when the crisis was over,resigned power and returned to his home.
Washington did that twice.
He did it at the end of the RevolutionaryWar, when he could have simply become
a monarch, and he did it again at theend of his second presidential term.
And he honored me by having me writehis farewell address, which he warned

(13:34):
about a number of things, includingpermanent foreign entanglements.
, , why is it that you spend allthis time with Washington?
I mean, you're with him from thetime that you're young, from you're a
teenager, and then you go through andyou're the Secretary of the Treasury.
Not quite a teenager,but I take your point.
I was quite a young man.
Yes.
A young man.
I'm sorry.
And so you spend all this timewith him, and then you get to this

(13:57):
point, you're the Secretary of theTreasury, and you literally create the
financial system of the United Statesand all of this good that you do.
Why is it that you don't endup running for president?
Well, you ask a painful question.
I will say this aboutthe general very briefly.
As I said earlier, he was in allways, but biology, my father.
And was a remarkable man.

(14:17):
That does not mean we didnot have our disagreements.
, I'm curious how you would study history,because General Washington to many
people became almost God like in hispersonality, his image, the paintings,
the sculptures I knew him as a man whowas, as I said, capable of purple and
volcanic rages a most horrid swear andblasphemer toward the end of the war.

(14:43):
And I will admit that I have beenconstantly badgering the general
to, to allow me to return to combat.
I did in combat at thebeginning of the war.
And then he asked me to come be hisaid and I was for several years during
this time, but I was itching to getback into conflict because frankly, The
circumstances of my birth were awkward.
My parents were deeply in love.
And my mother was married,my father was not.

(15:05):
She was married to another man, a personin the Dutch Isles who was compelled to
become her husband when she was but 16.
An abusive man who beat her and she fled,leaving my half brother Peter behind.
And she met my father, JamesHamilton, and they were quite in love.
When I was a lad of about eight myfather left on a business trip that was
scheduled to last some three months.
He was gone for the next 35 years.

(15:27):
When I was a lad of roughly ten mymother and I were taken ill with an ague,
which you would call a tropical fever.
I survived the treatment of being bled.
She did not, and so Iwas essentially orphaned.
I was placed in the care of acousin who promptly hanged himself.
And another series of things until I hadthe first good fortune where a merchant
named Nicholas Kruger took me in.

(15:47):
And by the time I was 14, I was runninghis international, what might be
called an international corporation.
I was trading goods around the world.
And it was I should explainI'm not a modest man.
So I once told a person, Paintingmy portrait, to be sure and give
credit to the length of my nose.
And you can imagine what thesubtlety of that was about.

(16:09):
, I once said, I am aware of my gifts, Ionly wonder why I'm not more handsome.
Although the ladies did love meprimarily because I was slim.
Unlike so many of the gentlemen in my age.
But As I became acquainted withWashington, I adored the man, but
there was a time that we were atthe headquarters and I passed him on
the staircase and he said, ColonelHamilton, I need you to attend to me.

(16:31):
And I said, I will be therein just a moment, sir.
I have a document to deliver.
It was, of all things, a documentabout bedding and blankets
to give to the supply people.
And then Lafayette detainedme for perhaps a minute.
I returned to the bottom of thestairs only to see at the top of
the stairs the general shakingin one of his purple rages.

(16:53):
And he said, Sir, youtreat me with disrespect.
You have kept me waiting at the topof these stairs this full ten minutes.
Now, I had very little in my lifeother than my sense of honor.
I was born awkwardly.
All that I had was taken from me.
All that I could live onwas my wit and my intellect.
And to have my sense of honorchallenged was something that other

(17:17):
men with more resources might havebeen able to avoid, but I could not.
And I said, Sir, it was not ten minutes,but since you bring this up, we now part.
And at that moment, I resigned.
Within an hour, he sent emissariesincluding Lafayette to try to
apologize to get me to stay,but I would not be dissuaded.
And I was given a command and infact, led the first attack at the
climactic battle of Yorktown at thefirst readout number 10, I ordered

(17:41):
my men to unload their muskets andfix the bayonets and follow me.
And I was the first man over the wall.
in the final major battleof the Revolutionary War.
So the General and I were quite close.
And as I say, a father to me in all ways.
And I could go on, but I suspectyou'd rather ask another question.
Well, I heard one time, and this isperfect, that if you ask Hamilton

(18:02):
a question, that sometimes he'llgive you a hundred thousand words
whether you like them or not.
I love everything that you're saying.
But it still didn't answer the question.
? Why did you not run for president?
I mean, who?
I apologize.
I I became overcome with my own eloquence.
Well, there are there are two reasons.
Primarily the awkwardness of my birth.

(18:23):
I will tell you that one of my schoolrecords had written across it in large
red letters the phrase obscene child toensure that I would never be allowed to
attend school with unpolluted Children.
I was educated primarily through myown gravitas and reading, devouring
every book I could find on the island.

(18:44):
I I was as I say, educated incommerce, and those individuals, along
with the local minister, realizedthat I needed further education.
I was sent to the United States,then of course the colonies.
I was enrolled in a school whichwould complete, in theory, all the
education I had missed from a smalllad . I completed that in nine months.

(19:05):
And then petitioned the Collegeof New Jersey, , for admission.
I said, I wish to be admitted as astudent on special status, because
I am frankly smarter and betterthan any student you've ever had.
I was not a modest man.
And the Reverend Witherspoon,the President, agreed.
And he took it to the Board of Trustees,who remembered another uh, young man,
several years my senior, who had attempteda similar study of two years and it

(19:29):
essentially completed it, but sufferedwhat might be called a nervous breakdown.
His name was James Madison.
And so I was refused.
I then went to In my irritation,went to King's College, , and made
the same request I was admitted.
I will confess that I did not graduatebecause the war arose, but by the time
I was 40 and some years, I had receivedeight different honorary degrees from

(19:52):
a number of prestigious universities.
I did not run for president though,because one, the awkwardness of my birth,
and second this is slightly more difficultto say, there were people who detested me.
I was not one to suffer fools gladly,and as a result, I made powerful
enemies in people such as Mr.

(20:13):
Adams.
And it is quite clear that had Iattempted to seek the presidency, I
would have been unsuccessful, becauseof the backroom politics that would
have denied me, based on prejudiceof the nation, of my status as, Mr.
Adams so colorfully claimed the bastardbrat as well as those who are offended
by my wit and my wisdom and my eloquence.

(20:34):
I did, however, I turned downan appointment to the Senate.
I twice turned down anappointment to the Supreme Court.
In fact, I even turned down two dealsin speculation of property that would
have made me a million dollars inmy currency because I said we must
always render ourselves to be asCaesar's wife in government service.
That is to say.

(20:55):
When you were offered a spot on theSupreme Court, I didn't know that.
I have to believe that something likethat, like sitting on a bench and just
listening and not being As active asyou normally were, it seems like that
would be a maddening position for you.
Is that something thatyou could possibly enjoy?
Well, it would have been interesting.
I love the law.
I studied law for some nine months,as one does in this century.

(21:18):
I studied in the libraryof a man named Duane.
And in the course of nine monthsbecame one of 35 lawyers in the
city of New York practicing law.
And I enjoyed the practice of law.
I was criticized for never chargingenough, which is why we always
lived on the edge of poverty.
In fact, there was one case forLouis Laguerre, he was a merchant.

(21:41):
The settlement, if you can imaginethe sum this large, the settlement
in his favor was 120, 000.
I built some 1, 500.
Aaron Burr was my co counsel.
He was my deputy, and he built 2, 500.
So there was a, uh, an interest in thelaw, and I certainly could have written
opinions, but I felt that I was moreeffective advocating the policies of

(22:03):
the Federalist Party, which, of course,because the Supreme Court can only respond
to what is brought before it, and is bydefinition, as we said in the convention,
the weakest of the three branches,Virtually no power other than to deal
with cases that are brought before it.
I would have been quite frustratedby the lack of important work to do.

(22:24):
Right.
And all the waiting.
That's what I'm thinking.
I'm thinking the Supreme Courtwould have been awful for you.
But the presidency, I think, is probablywhere you, maybe not, one of the
benefits of the electoral college isI wrote, I believe it was federal 68,
although I confess it might have been 63,but I believe it was 68, in which I said
that the electoral college We'll have asa primary function, the preventing of any

(22:46):
man who is not up to the task of beingchief magistrate, as we refer to the
presidency in that document the electoralcollege would stop anyone unskilled by
character or knowledge that the electoralcollege purpose would be to ensure
that should the people make a mistake.
And elect an ignorant demagogue, therewould be a mechanism to fix that.

(23:07):
In my time, of course, we had so fewelections, and by the 18 4, of course, Mr.
Jefferson in office it is notclear to me whether the Electoral
College will do that function, buthopefully they will in the future.
Okay.
You know, you're gonna haveto forgive this question.
I will not necessarily, sir.
You asked me to forgive your question.
I will remind you that I wasinvolved in 11 affairs of honor.

(23:28):
And should this question become tooinsulting, the count will become 12.
Well, that is the reason that I prefacedthis question with, it is not meant to be
insulting, but as you know, sometimes Ithink you would be guilty of this as well.
And I certainly am myself ofsaying what you're saying.
What you think, and without necessarilymeaning to harm, and that is the

(23:49):
case here with this question.
But I'm wondering if youare almost too strong.
And what I mean by that is, when you andWashington were working together, I've
always wondered if maybe Washington wasthat filter that kept you from going too
far, that was able to allow you to focusyour brilliance, because there is so

(24:10):
much of it, whether you're modest or not.
I wonder if Washingtonfunctioned like that for you.
What are your thoughts on that?
Well, when the general died, I wrote Mr.
Oliver, his private secretary, a letter.
And it is a letter which mycritics have taken out of context.
This is a problem in our age.
Hopefully by your timeyou have fixed this.

(24:31):
But I wrote in there that thegeneral was an aegis, very
essential to me, a protector.
Is the meaning of the word Aegis.
And perhaps one in the Republic hasgreater reason to regret his death than I.
Because he was, in Aegis,very essential to me.
But this is in more ways thanjust in mentorship, which he
was certainly brilliant at.

(24:51):
I mean, he had a well thumbed copyof the Federalist Papers on his desk
in the Executive Mansion in New York,but he was also a man of great and
this actually, in his later life,became almost a burden for him.
He was such a great man that at MountVernon when the young children, his

(25:11):
grandchildren, his step grandchildren,would come and play, he would walk
in the room to watch the childrenplay and they would fall silent
in the presence of this great man.
And he would have to leave sullen inthe fact that his own grandchildren
feared his immense greatness.
And so it is a burden to be Washington andyet without him, our nation is nothing.

(25:31):
He is the truly only essentialAmerican without, without Washington,
we are simply all Canadians this day.
Yeah.
Wow.
So when general Washington steppeddown, what did the nation look like
well, we had achieved a great deal.
Now, the general only wanted toserve one term, and in fact, at
the end of his term, asked Mr.
Madison to draft a farewellstatement, which he did, and then Mr.

(25:55):
Jefferson and I, who agreed, well,frankly I think we can say we agreed
on two things in our lives, ourrespect for General Washington and
our disdain for Aaron Burr, and Weboth approached the general and said,
Sir, the country is not yet on a firmenough footing that you can step down.
We still need you as the presidentin order to make sure the nation is

(26:16):
charting a course for the future.
And he reluctantly agreed, and he wouldlater say that he regretted only one
moment of his second term, and that it waseach and every goddamned moment therein.
So the General nobly served.
Ironically, Mr.
Jefferson would almost immediatelyresign as Secretary of State.
He was frustrated by having a staff ofsix and having very little influence.

(26:39):
I, as the Secretary of theTreasury, had a staff of over 145.
Although many of them wererevenue agents for tariffs to
be collected at our major ports.
I actually left the endof 1799, January 31st.
I resigned, but the general and Iremained in close correspondence and
I remained one of his key advisors.
And I, as I say, I'm not a modest man.

(27:00):
I flatter myself that the generalon every occasion where there
was an important decision to bemade, he went with my advice over
what I called the Virginia junta.
The Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, allthat group of which he himself was one,
the Virginians but without exception,the general relied on my advice

(27:21):
and followed the course of action Irecommended, which of course, as you
can imagine, was of great frustrationto people like Jefferson, but also
people like Adams, who felt ignored.
Well, of course you went with your advice.
, Jefferson, Madison,those guys are all smart.
But your ideas were better,and Well, I'm pleased to hear
you say that from your day.

(27:42):
It is, I will admit that in mylife at this moment, a rather
dark shadow has fallen across it.
In my private life, I now resideat the Grange, a house I had built.
On some 30 acres of farmland inHarlem that I purchased, and in
the last three years of farmingasparagus and strawberries, I

(28:04):
have created a crop worth of 18.
So there is certainly a challenge there.
I will tell you that the greatest crisisand tragedy of my life is the death of
my first born son, Philip, who at the ageof 18, three years ago, was essentially
murdered by an older man in his 30s.
My son had been at a play.

(28:26):
He had heard Mr.
George Aker and friends.
Speaking of what they speculated wasmy willingness to seize the government
by force if I had but an army.
Now I had a horse shot fromunder me twice, saving the U.
S.
Congress from capture, theContinental Congress from capture.
I served in arms, as I say first man overthe wall Yorktown to protect and fight

(28:47):
for what later became the United States.
So that is a nonsensical notion butmy son, well, the newest cops, Mr.
Acre, one of those cops, my son at18, bold and brash, challenged Mr.
Acre, who was in his 30s to a duel.
What we would call an affair of honor.
He should have denied.
He should have ignored it because itcame from but a child, but he did not.

(29:08):
And on the day of the duel I wasunaware of what my son was doing.
I was aware of what was going on.
This was late 1801.
And I had said that the onlyadvice I gave my son was a
gentleman throws away his fire.
That is to say, shoots abovethe head of an adversary.
Because it is not dignified totake the life, but you also don't
fire straight up in the air.
You indicate, I could choose to put yourlife at risk, but I do not, and I now

(29:31):
stand ready for your bravery or mercy.
And the goal in a duel, if youintend to kill, is to fire very
quickly on the command, present.
Ready, present.
Well, horrible morning of November23rd, my son and his second rode
across the Hudson to Weehawken in NewJersey a bluff halfway up the shore.

(29:52):
And Mr.
Aker and my son upon the commandto present aimed their pistols
at each other for a full minute.
And then my son movedhis pistol away and Mr.
Aker fired and killed him.
My eldest daughter, Angelica, veryclose to a brother, went absolutely
mad with grief and would remain to thisday mentally defective, wearing the

(30:15):
clothing of 18 1 and sitting at the pianoforte, playing the songs of that year.
Over and over again, so a doublecrisis in my private life and in
my professional life, the cloudwas there and that, as I say, Mr.
Jefferson was the president of the UnitedStates and it becomes so with my aid,
as I mentioned earlier, so I did notknow if that cloud, that shadow was a a

(30:39):
long winter's night or a brief eclipse.
And I worry as to what thefuture will hold in terms of
the length of that shadow.
I'm a little confused.
Are you saying, you told himto not fire, or to give up his
shot, , so you did counsel himthat he should attend the duel.
Correct?
Not precisely, because I, he was the man.

(31:00):
And I would not tell himwhat he can and cannot do.
But I said that in an affair ofhonor, a gentleman does these things.
Now, that is not as reckless as it mightsound, because, , , about 20 percent
of duels resulted in any injury at all.
These were smoothbore pistols.
And most people fired into theair to demonstrate their resolve
without the risk of taking life.

(31:22):
And I guess I assumed, tragically,horribly, mistakenly, that Mr.
Aker was a gentleman.
And , that morning I went to visitmy friend, Nathan Hosek, a family
physician, I found that he was gone.
And the only reason he would begone that early on a morning.
would be to be the physician of the duel.
And I was devastated.
Philip would die the next day inagony, his mother on one side, I

(31:45):
on the other, begging us for help.
And it was hope we could not provide.
I can't even imaginelosing your son like that.
. And the mind of my daughter.
Yeah.
Yeah, I just can't even imagine it.
And I guess what I'm wonderingisn't the plan for you to
have another duel tomorrow?
Well, you are brusque, sir.

(32:05):
Yes, there is an affair of honorand interview tomorrow with Mr.
Burr.
I will say this.
I'm a lawyer, and so I will tell youthe facts as I know them, and you can
decide on your own sense what I intend.
I wrote to my friend Rufus Kingthat I would fire into the air.
He wrote back and said, don't be a fool.
Burr will certainly shoot at you.

(32:25):
And I intend to not have thehair trigger set on my pistol,
which would have been allowed.
A hair trigger allows you to push thetrigger forward with just the slightest
little effort to discharge the weapon,which makes it much more accurate.
I indicated I would not set that.
And I told my friends I wouldsimply fire into the air.
Again, above Burr's head.

(32:45):
What his intentions are, I cannot know.
Remember, sir, that Mr.
Burr It's the sitting vicepresident of the United States.
Yeah.
Now, there were 11 letters.
When you ask the cause of theaffair of honor, of what will become
hopefully not a duel tomorrow in theinterview, there are two answers.

(33:06):
The first I gave you in part, interms of my defeating his efforts
to become president in 1800.
In 1802, he ran for governor in New York.
I again intervened andprevented his election.
So he was quite frustrated withbeing stuck in the vice presidency
and his frustration with me.
The final straw, one might say.

(33:26):
is a newspaper story in a newspaper inAlbany where I had attended a party.
I enjoyed parties.
I enjoyed discussing things withladies, although I never once
had love for anyone but Eliza.
I certainly enjoyed their company.
And as the newspaper reporter statedsome days later in reporting on this
event, this party that Part of theevening was spent with people describing

(33:52):
Colonel Burr in horrible terms.
And then it said, and General Hamiltonstated, I could state an even more
despicable opinion of Burr, but I shan't.
And this was what, in Burr'smind, was the last straw.
He wrote me a letter in which hesaid, essentially, I paraphrase
what do you mean by despicable?
You must tell me what you meant.

(34:13):
I wrote back and I said in similar wordsyou have done so many despicable things.
If you will provide me with a list,I'll be happy to point out the one
that I'm referring to now, whichdid not go over well with him.
A series of another nine letters wentback and forth until it was resolved.
And in most cases, these letterswould resolve the matter.
This is why it's calledan affair of honor.

(34:35):
The interview, what you callthe duel, is a rare event.
Rarely taking place.
In fact, I will saythis is to my detriment.
General Washington, Mr.
Jefferson, Mr.
Adams, all of the leaders of thatage, almost certainly had demands
for duels, which they simply ignored.
Their strength of character was enough.

(34:55):
With my sense of honor knowingthat I had grown up, Desperate in
poverty in the Caribbean, uneducatedbecause of my bastard status, I
could not let any slight pass.
And you may judge me to be immaturefor this, but it is a simple fact.
And so I could not allow Mr.
Burr, of all people, a man who I knewI was the better of, A man who was so

(35:21):
reviled in his day, and I wouldn't be atall surprised if he's reviled in yours
that I could not let that pass, and Idid not necessarily expect it to end
with an exchange of shots if it did, Iexpected it to be An honorable affair
where both men fired over the headsand pronounced themselves satisfied.
We shall see what happens atdawn tomorrow at Weehawken.

(35:42):
Well, from a from this considerationof honor, I completely understand why
every slight It has to be addressedbecause your honor is everything.
Your reputation is everything.
I do understand that and especiallywhen you've got people like Adams
that will use absolutely anythinglike your poor upbringing , or
your family history against you.

(36:04):
But I guess the thing that I'mwondering is, and I you wrote
a long letter about the affair.
How does that not fallinto the realm of honor?
How did that happen?
You, sir, are a ruffian.
Forgive me.
To bring up, well, perhaps,to bring up Mariah Reynolds.
I am not at all proud of this.

(36:25):
Men are feeble beings.
I was at my station in Philadelphiaworking as the Secretary of the Treasury,
My wonderful wife was actually at herfather's home in the Albany area for
the summer where one would de camp toavoid the agues and illnesses that were
endemic in large cities during my day.

(36:48):
And this lovely woman approached me atwork, at my office, and said that she
was like me, a New Yorker, and thather horrible husband had abandoned her.
And knowing of my reputation, Forgallantry and generosity, could I

(37:08):
possibly provide her with any fundingat all that would allow her to get
home to her family in New York?
No, I'm a gentleman.
This was a young lady in distress.
Little did I know at the time that shewas what in our day we might call a woman
of ill repute, and her husband was thepurveyor of the woman of ill repute.
It was a plot.

(37:28):
But I said I didn't haveany currency with me.
But if she would tell mewhere she was staying.
I would come to her bedchambers thatday after I left work and provide
her with some small assistance.
I borrowed 50 from a friend.
And as I would write, you call it aletter, it's a pamphlet of some 96 pages
that I wrote because when her husband,despicable in this manner, would later be

(37:49):
arrested and accused of speculation withpublic monies, his excuse, his claim was
that I had actually been the agent andhe was simply my lackey doing the work.
And because I could not allow any.
Any attack on my honor as thesecretary of treasury to pass.
I wrote this long pamphlet, whichI began by saying that I'm accused

(38:12):
essentially of financial mismanagementfor what I'm actually guilty of is an
inappropriate relationship with his wife.
And I went on for some 96 pagesexplaining what had happened.
I said in the document that Itook the note out of my pocket and
gave it to her in her bedchamber.
And that a discussion ensued inwhich it soon became clear that
other than pecuniary consolationof the debt would be acceptable.

(38:34):
That's an awkward say of saying shecan pay me in other ways than money.
And let's simply say thatI received consolation A
number of occasions from Mrs.
Reynolds I would laterbreak it off with her.
And then later her husband demanded1, 500, which I had to borrow
half of that and I paid him off.

(38:56):
And he then sent me a letter saying, nowthat you have paid, I have no objection
to you seeing my wife as a friend.
And I received a letter from Mrs.
Saying that her love for me was so deep.
But not seeing me was causing her to die.
Now I asked you, sir, I couldnot allow this poor woman to die.
Right.
And the affair began again,but it was brief and faded.
And I finally did break it off someyears later, as you probably are aware.

(39:19):
I had a visit from speaker Molenberg,Senator Monroe, and one of their
gentlemen who had heard from Mr.
Reynolds about this speculation.
I explained it was a matter ofthe heart, provided them with
canceled checks, documents, letters.
They pronounced themselves.
Absolutely convinced of myinnocence and speculation, but Mr.
Monroe kept copies, and thesewould later be made public in a

(39:42):
scandalous and disgusting way,and it nearly ruined my life.
At this point, General Washingtoncame forward, sent me a set of six, a
wine cooler, that is to say a devicethat holds, a silver device that holds
six wine bottles, and to cool them.
And he said in his note, not for theintrinsic value of the thing, but just
as a statement of my sincere affectionand regard, to have the greatest

(40:06):
man in the world send you a noteprofessing his respect and regard at
the low point of your life, just showswhat a wonderful man Washington is.
. . Well, there is one thing I was wonderingabout pamphlet about the Reynolds
and that is, I don't understand whythere had to be so much detail in it.
You know, I was glancing at thatdocument earlier today, and it said

(40:29):
something about, you know, about how Mrs.
Reynolds was very bendy or she couldgo in a lot of different positions.
Why was that necessary to be in there?
I believe I was able to achievea wondrous array of positionings.
I'm a very thorough man.
when Secretary of the Treasury, Ihad, as you can imagine, made enemies.

(40:50):
And the result was that as Secretaryof Treasury, there were those who were
convinced, Jefferson was convinced that Iwas cheating with the federal government.
I was speculating in some way, in otherwords, using public funds inappropriately.
And When his Secretary of the Treasury,Albert Gallatin, came into office,
Jefferson ordered him to check the booksof the United States, which he did, and

(41:12):
reported back to Jefferson that books ofthe United States balanced to the penny,
and that the tree that I grew, the economythat I grew, was so perfect that to
strike any branch from it would cause theentire system to wither, he said Hamilton
created a perfect economic system.

(41:33):
Jefferson, on the other hand, believed, that I was more clever at hiding
my But the simple fact is HamiltonJefferson's own secretary treasury
discovered that I had created a perfectsystem that balanced to the penny and
as secretary treasury with just a fewshort weeks left in the session Mr.

(41:53):
Jefferson's minions.
Directed the department of the treasuryto do a thorough accounting of the
entire books of the United States.
And in some three weeks, I wrote 60, 000words explaining the entire budget of the
United States and turned it into them.
The hope they had was that Congresswould adjourn , till the next

(42:15):
session and during the time they wereadjourned, I would, in theory, have
had time to hide all my malfeasance.
But the fact that within three weeks,I returned to complete accounting
of the United States in tremendousdetail undercut any efforts by them
to make me appear like a criminal.
So that is, I guess, myobsession with detail.

(42:35):
You never know when it'sgoing to be your friend.
Yeah.
What is it about you andthis attention to detail?
Because your history is that,, everything that you've written,
you know exactly where it is.
You're so organized with everything.
, you got your thoughts all in order.
Everything is, you know, It's soorganized and , this is one of the
things that I think Washington lovedabout you , I mean, how do you do that?

(42:59):
Where does this energy come from?
I, do you drink a lotof coffee or something?
, I think one must say that I had an unusualdrive and I return again to my notion
of honor that , in my day, I turnedto the military early on because for
someone with my awkwardness, there was nogentleman farmer situation awaiting me.

(43:20):
But through the military, onecould gain honor and respect.
And I did ultimately become , UnderPresident Adams, much to his
chagrin, , only because Washingtonintervened, I became the commanding
general of all American forces inthe quasi war with France in 1798.
This obsession with detailhas served me quite well.
As I said, Gallatin said, Hamiltonmade no blunders, committed no

(43:40):
frauds, he did nothing wrong.
Only because of the level of detail I wentinto, was he able to make that statement.
And, Thank you.
The foundation of theBank of the United States.
I wrote a famous paper report onmanufacturing, an area where Mr.
Jefferson and I sharply divergedwas the notion of what kind
of nation shall we have.

(44:01):
I believed.
That our nation was setfirst to be continental.
I said our, the future of ournation depends upon men who are
continental in their thinking.
Meaning, getting to the Pacific Ocean.
Jefferson thought it would take some900 years for the first American
settlers to reach that coast.
I I believe it only will takeperhaps 300 years for the first

(44:22):
Americans to reach the coast.
I have great faith in their ability.
And the notion that we must be amanufacturing society with an important
agricultural Opponent goes against Mr.
Jefferson who wanted a purely agriculture.
He wanted nine in ten Americans tofarm in their farms, live in what he
called ward republics of 20 familieswhere all the power would lie.

(44:45):
They would farm during the day, theywould barter for what they did not
have, and they would read Libby in theoriginal and play their violins by night.
And I would say, sir, that soundslike a wonderful view, a wonderful
idyllic notion, but is utterlyunreliable and utterly foolish.
It is through advances inmanufacturing, through medicine,

(45:07):
through architecture, but especiallymedicine, through engineering, through
businesses of yours that will allowthis nation to grow and prosper.
And the fact that you are speakingto me now, some two centuries since,
suggests that this view has comebefore because if you were one of Mr.
Jefferson's farmers, you wouldnot own the device you hold.
I think you called it a smartphone.

(45:29):
You would be holding a quill.
And sometimes it can be poetic.
Yeah, I think you'd be really happyhow things turned out, for sure.
Because your vision was very impressive.
I guess, kind Describe, you've gotthis vision of manufacturing in this
industrialized United States of America.
So, what do you picture theUnited States looking like in

(45:52):
a hundred years, for example?
Well, that's difficult to say but Iwould hope that it would be a nation of
great cities great rural areas as well,because they obviously, we must be fed,
but something that traded internationally.
Mr.
Jefferson once said that he hopedthe United States would be a fourth
or fifth rate power like China,that the world might leave us alone.

(46:16):
I believed we needed to be a great nation.
internationally as well as domestically,and that we could only rely on
the fortuitous positioning of twooceans to protect us for so long.
We must be ready.
And the best way to do that is toengage with the rest of the world
and to have a robust economic system.

(46:36):
The bank of the United States,which I created within 30
days was fully capitalized.
And as you can imagine, the sum is vast.
Ten million dollars, which wasmore than the wealth of all
other banks in America combined.
And my goal was to what I calltie the rich, the wise, the well
born, to the nation's success.

(46:56):
So people like Mr.
Hancock or Mr.
Jefferson, had he actually had anyfinancial success, which he did
not to tie them to the belief thatthe more successful the country is.
And I call banks, the engines of commerce,a bankers, the nursery of wealth.
A bank allows a person toborrow money to build a road.
Perhaps they charge a toll.

(47:17):
Perhaps they have a meeting houseor a lodging at the end of that road.
But they make their money because theroad became a multiplier of their wealth.
The road allowed travel,I would certainly propose.
I command a.
A fleet of revenue cutters to becoast guardians to make sure that
people who come to this countrycan't sneak in, but they must go

(47:38):
through ports and pay their tariffs.
, this creates wealth.
I would imagine a systemlike that on our rivers.
Our rivers are our highways.
Perhaps in your day that you havea way to make the roads better
than simply gravel or dust.
And then roads could become moreimportant, but the notion of an
industrialized society makingthings, and I tied to this.

(47:58):
A simple fact of of topography, virtuallyevery great river in America has at
some point near its headwaters, agreat waterfall and the Potomac, for
example has this wonderful waterfall.
And I argued that these greatwaterfalls can be used to harness
Hydraulic power, water turning wheels.

(48:19):
And as I said in the report onmanufacturing, these places can be made
to make everything from wire to hats.
And the machinery that can resultfrom this free energy, if you will,
these turning wheels and turninggears, will generate massive
wealth, far more than a farmer.
Planning is core.

(48:40):
A vital service, but notthe future of the nation.
How do you calm down with allof these thoughts in your brain?
Are you able to sleep at night?
Not well, I will admit.
I will pace back and forth.
If I'm going to give a speech, Iwill pace back and forth for some
hours until it is fully memorized.
I did give a speech on June the18th 1787 at the convention.

(49:00):
Shall I repeat that fivehour address for you now?
It will explain many things.
You can cut it down to fourand a half, that'd be great.
you mock me, sir, and I resent thatbut I will leave it to you to to
review the speech which talked aboutthe kind of country we should have.
One of the key things to me was thisnotion where Jefferson and I sharply
disagreed on the notion of states.

(49:23):
I alone among the founding fathers wasblessed by not having a home state.
The awkwardness of my birth,notwithstanding, it was
still in the Caribbean.
So I came to as this lad of 16 onthe ship Thunderbolt to the harbor
of New York, not being a New Yorkeror a Virginian or a Georgian or a
Carolinian, but wanting to be an American.

(49:45):
And the Articles of Confederation,you will recall this.
initial document for governance after wewon our independence largely, although
it took till the, yes, with the treaty,the Jay treaty in 94 to get it fully
done, but essentially got the Britsout of our way and created an America.
But the problem was that out oftheir previous sphere of a strong

(50:07):
central government by the name of KingGeorge, the third, there were authors
of the articles of confederation.
to empower the states and to have anincredibly weak national government
to handle that tiny handful of thingsJefferson called it delivering the
mail and guarding the coasts thatonly a central government could do.
Well, the problem with this is that itcreated these What I called jarring,

(50:32):
jealous, and perverse petty states.
If you had currency in New York andyou wish to go shopping in New Jersey,
when you cross the bridge, mid bridge,you would find yourself changing out
your coin for New Jersey currency.
If you saw thought trade withGeorgia, it was essentially
an international trade act.

(50:54):
And these petty, perverse, and jealousstates were What I call for them to be
reduced to mere administrative units,and I believe that because your rights
as an American, let me say this veryclearly, your rights as an American
should not vary based on the accidentof the geography of your birth.

(51:15):
An American born in Georgia shouldhave the same fundamental rights
as an American born in Virginia.
Why was that not popular?
Well, because the central governmentthey had seen under George III was so
repressive that the idea of anothercentral government was assumed to be
repressive, and frankly, without thefailure, the roughly decade failure of the

(51:38):
Articles, I'm not sure we would have beensuccessful in creating a new Constitution.
We initially And here's where I becameinvolved in a way that your historians
may say was a little sneaky , several ofus called for a meeting at Annapolis to
discuss the shortcomings of the articles.
And when we got to Annapolis wepretended that we had a quorum.

(52:01):
We did not.
We only had four, I believe fivestates attended, which was not enough.
But we pretended that we did, andin Annapolis we issued a call for
a convention in Philadelphia todiscuss correcting the flaws of
the Articles of Confederation.
Now, I, along with others, knew allalong that the way we intended to

(52:25):
correct them was by getting rid of them.
Now, the challenge is the articlesdid in fact have places which
explained how they could be changed,how they could be altered, and
how new states could be admitted.
So, it was not that the articleswere without a mechanism of change,
they were just so entirely flawed.
As to make no sense at all.

(52:45):
And so we began our ConstitutionalConvention with General Washington as the
leader, as the chair of the convention.
He spoke only two times, youcan perhaps ask me about those
later if you're interested.
But we did over the monthscome up with what became the
American Constitution, roughly.
Initially, there were two major plans.

(53:06):
Called the New Jersey Plan, which wasessentially a warmed over Articles of
Confederation that the small states liked.
And we had what we calledthe Virginia Plan, which was
what the large states liked.
And it was very similar, though notidentical, to what ultimately got passed.
It had things like a threeperson presidency and such.
And then I mentionedmy speech of the 18th.

(53:28):
There are those who question mymotivation because in that speech
on the 18th of June, I went on, as Isay, for some five hours explaining
why we needed an even stronger plan,an even stronger central government.
I called in that speech for a presidentfor life, I'm sorry, what did you say?
Did you say president for life?

(53:49):
With the monarchy just 20 years behind,this seemed like an odd position yet
in all of his brilliance, Hamiltonwill clear this one up as well.
In the next episode, he'll also answerthe question of which of the founding
fathers was the weakest he'll discusswhen he stole cannons from the British.
And he'll talk about his incrediblewife, Eliza who left behind a

(54:13):
magnificent legacy of her own.
Oh, and one more thing.
He's definitely going toinsult me a few more times.
In fact, right after the recordinghad stopped, he said, you know, Mr.
Dean, one more thing.
You don't many of the things thatyou've said to me today what have
resulted in a duel in my time.
I think I need to watch my stepwith these founding fathers.

(54:35):
I'm glad you're enjoying the podcast.
And if you haven't yet subscribednow, and we'll see you at the next
episode of the calling history podcastwith part two of Alexander Hamilton