In Part 2 of the 1804 conversation with Alexander Hamilton, he will persuade you as to why the Bill of Rights might be a bad thing. He’ll talk about how Jefferson was a coward that made a decent president. And he’ll clear up why not aiding the French made complete sense, even though they were there when we needed them the most.
Start episode 2 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 booking@hamiltonlives.com
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(00:28):
Welcome back to part twoof Alexander Hamilton.
In the last episode, we talked quitea bit about the absurdity of the
sitting vice president dueling, theformer secretary of the treasury.
And how after his unfortunateupbringing and indiscretions hamilton
was never going to be president.
In this next episode, Hamiltonis going to convince me that the
(00:49):
bill of rights is a bad thing.
. He is persuasive.
He'll also explain how Jeffersonwas a terrible person and a coward,
but not a bad president at all.
And he'll explain why those whocalled Hamilton a mushroom gentlemen.
We're right.
And then I mentionedmy speech of the 18th.
There are those who question mymotivation because in that speech
(01:12):
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, senators appointed by the
president for life, and a few otherincredibly strong central government
notions, one of which came withina single vote of being put into
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Constitution, which would have alloweda vote of the federal Congress to
nullify any act by any state government.
And I think perhaps from yourperspective, looking back, you can
imagine times when had a state actionbeen able to be nullified, the peace of
the nation might have been protected.
But in my speech, as I say, I talkedabout an incredibly strong central
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government, which caused some to saythat I was a monarchist and a militarist.
Others, perhaps more savvy.
suggested that what I was doing bycreating a pattern far to the right
of the Virginia plan was to suddenlymake the Virginia plan appear as
the , middle position Between theNew Jersey plan and my speech.
I agree.
(02:16):
You can decide , whether I was cleverenough in my politics to have done that.
. So this was a negotiatingtactic that you were using.
Well, I certainly believed in a strongcentral government, stronger than we saw.
In the Virginia plan, I wouldultimately say of the Constitution,
there was a thing of milk andwater, a frail and worthless fabric.
I spent my life propping up, butthat was in recent days as my
(02:38):
life has descended into darkness.
But I will say this it did work asa negotiatory document in making the
Virginia plan appear a reasonable middle.
Whether that was my intention allalong, I shall keep to myself.
, I'm backstepping a little bit.
What did General Washingtonthink of Aaron Burr?
(02:59):
He, General Washington despisedColonel Burr because he lacked honor.
I mentioned he opened theletters of the General.
Yeah, what's up with that?
You would have to ask Colonel Burr.
I remind you, I will repeatmy earlier evaluation that he
is for or against nothing butsuits his interest or ambition.
If there is an embryoseizure in America, tis Burr.
I'll say this, he and I oddly workedtogether well on a number of things.
(03:22):
He was a brilliant man, and weworked together on many law cases.
But he was without the fundamentalprinciples of honor that must
exist in a chief magistrate.
Which is why you can imagine what, howwe, in my day, I would say we dodged
a bullet in the case of Colonel Burrnot being successful in getting himself
appointed over Jefferson as the president.
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When a person is without honor,there is almost no limit to
what they might find reasonable.
It seems that at that time, whenthere's gotta be spies running around
everywhere, if somebody catchesAaron Burr snooping through General
Washington's private correspondence,they've gotta ask, is this man a spy?
Even beyond honor, am I wrong?
Well, you certainly would wonder.
(04:05):
There were a number of spies.
I was involved to somedegree with the spy networks.
They were important.
I will say this, it pains me to saysomething nice about Colonel Burr,
but I don't think the expectationwas, would have been that he was
a spy given his length of service,but rather that he was simply a
fully corrupt and dishonorable man.
Looking for his own interestsand not a foreign nation's.
(04:27):
Okay.
, so we were talking about theArticles of Confederation.
So, if you go through the timelineof the United States, you've got the
Declaration of Independence whichsays, hey, we're doing our own thing
now, thank you anyhow to the English.
And then we've got the Articles ofConfederation, which is basically a
kind of a watered down constitutionthat focuses more on the states
rather than the country as a whole.
(04:49):
. Yes, that, that was the first governingdocument of this nation was in
fact the Articles of Confederation.
So then what happens, that isway too weak and now that it's
time to make the constitution.
And the first ten, Articlesof the Constitution are
considered the Bill of Rights.
No, the First Ten Amendments.
(05:09):
Oh, the First Ten Amendments.
Yeah, the First Ten Amendments.
Were you against the Bill of Rights?
Yes, I'm against the Bill ofRights for a couple of reasons.
The Bill of Rights area political compromise.
The Anti Federalists, theAnti Constitutions, those
who oppose ratification.
At the various state conventions theywanted to be rid of this, and they argued
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that, in part, that the Constitutiondid not protect individual rights.
Well, that's nonsense.
As I said in Federalist 84,The Constitution is, to every
reasonable virtue and everypractical effect, a bill of rights.
There are some 27 different, if I recallcorrectly, specific rights guaranteed.
No titles of nobility, no workingcorruption of the blood, no, a variety
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of other specific protections that arein there that we felt were important.
So first, there were a lot of protectedrights in the body of the Constitution.
So second, there aretwo tremendous dangers.
The first is that by specifically sayingwhat a right is, you will potentially
give a future demagogic leader achance to say what the right is not.
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The First Amendment that is sooften listed as being so important
talks about freedom of speech.
Now clearly they're talkingabout political speech, but it
simply says freedom of speech.
Now, let us say that in your day, somedemagogue was elected who believed and
said it does not protect freedom of song.
It does not prevent freedom of play, thatis to say a theatrical production or any
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other entertainment machine in your day.
Therefore, I as the executive canrestrict freedom of speech in those areas.
But of course, for your political speakingout loud, you can say whatever you want.
There's a danger that when youlist rights, you are listing the
only rights that will later exist.
And as the nation grows and hopefullybecomes an industrialized nation,
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it will in fact need flexibilityin the constitution as a living
document to be able to growsuccessfully, to not be tied down by.
18th century notion ofwhat, say, commerce is.
And the other danger is that theindividual rights themselves may
become unimportant or tediousor worse, counterproductive.
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In my day, very few people worry Aboutthe third amendment, that is to say
that troops would be quartered intheir homes against their will, that is
simply not something that is a concern.
The second amendment seems an odd thingindeed because virtually everyone in
the country has a weapon to deal withgetting food and protecting themselves.
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It seems an odd thing to put inthere , and there were actually In Mr.
Madison's original, there were 12,not 10, but 12 proposed amendments.
The 11th potentially would have beento restrict pay raises for elected
members of the house and Senate andthe presidency until If they vote for
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a pay raise, an election has to takeplace before the pay raise kicks in.
And then the other one proposedto limit the size of the
standing army to 5, 000 members.
And this is one of the two timesthat General Washington spoke.
He rose from his chair and said,I will agree to this restriction
on the standing army, as long asthe constitution also prohibits any
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invading army from being over 5, 000.
At this point.
Was taken, and that was dropped.
The 11th, I'm not sure what, in myday, is still hanging out there.
But these built in rights I acceptit as a necessary, if unneeded,
mechanism by which to get the AntiFederalists to support the Constitution.
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Gosh, that is hilarious whatGeneral Washington said.
It kind of reminds me, in our time,I had heard somebody on one of the
borders, of the United States, theywere talking about building a 20 foot
tall wall to prevent people comingin that weren't supposed to be here.
And somebody said, well, you If you builda 20 foot wall, you think that's going
to do a lot, but the main thing it'sgoing to do is it's just going to create
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an industry of 25 foot ladders and whichis exactly what General Washington was
saying, speaking of let me ask you this.
Why?
Why would you be walling off America when?
Every single American, save the nativesthat were here, are in fact immigrants,
or trace their lineage to immigrants.
It seemed enormously foolish to wall offa nation from potential tools of talent.
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It it does, no, it does seem like you'dwant the talent in here, but weren't you
talking about just a little bit ago, Ithink you were saying, to prevent people
from coming into the country withoutpaying their proper taxes and so forth.
Well, I'm referring to criminalsattempting to sneak in and sell goods.
I'm not talking about shiploads ofhopeful people arriving from Europe.
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We definitely do not want criminalsable to bring their items to
port and evade paying taxes.
Understand that as of this day,roughly 95 percent of the budget
of the state of New York comes fromtariffs from the port of New York.
And if a mechanism was established thatallowed them to simply drop anchor.
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In Maine, and bring their goods downthat way without passing through New
York or paying their tariffs, it'd bevery difficult for New York to continue.
So it is important to have a revenueservice in ships at sea in her
coastal waters to make it difficult,if not impossible for criminals
to enter the nation illegallyto sell their ill gotten goods.
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But these revenue service vehicles,ships and such will not be
seeking out folks trying to comehere from our original lands.
Yeah, I think that'sBecause we need immigrants..
If we're to have a continental nationthat spans this continent, we're
certainly going to need more people.
Yeah, no, I actually agree with you and Ithink when people talk when people are for
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this giant wall Which I just don't thinkit solves anything because again somebody
just makes a bigger ladder or a way to gounder it But I think that their thinking
is that the wall would probably havea gate somewhere so that the criminals
would be on One side and the people thatwe could benefit the country could come
in very much like you would you mightpatrol the ports But again, I don't think
that That is the way to go, probably.
(11:18):
But let me go back to, it seemslike you have a strong position
to avoid foreign entanglements.
When I first read that, it seemedlike it was in conflict with your
desire to also make us a countrythat is involved with all these other
countries through commerce and so forth.
(11:39):
But there was a time where youwanted nothing to do with the
French during the revolution andRight after they had helped us.
And that was a little confusing to me.
What's the thinking on all of that?
Well, allow me to clarify.
I probably could clarify in lessthan an hour, so I shall begin now.
The key word that is missing from youranalysis is permanent for an entanglement.
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If you look at what I wrote for thegeneral for his second farewell address,
he talks about avoiding permanent.
And those are my words.
The idea being, and you mentionedthe French, we had a treaty of enmity
with Louis XVI, and then when theFrench Revolution came along, the
government changed, and Louis XVIbecame much shorter and much less able
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to function, as he was guillotined.
Right.
The government that took overin France was not the government
with which we had made the treaty.
Right.
And when France then began rattlingsabers after this horrible horrible
revolution, you, I understand, I knowthat you know about the guillotine,
but you also probably know that atthe city of Nice, they simply chained
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2, 500 of these so called aristocratstogether, sent them on a raft to the
middle of the river, and sank the raft,drowning these people by the thousands.
Gee.
This was the horrible.
It's a monstrous thing.
And Jefferson, because he was theambassador to France, he was there,
he actually would, in his carriage,see protests stop, allow him to pass,
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and then the fighting would restartbecause of the respect they had for
Jefferson as the author of the Articleof Declaration of Independence, which is
a brilliant piece of work, I will admit.
But Jefferson wrote, , and I paraphrase,forgive me, if at the end of the
revolution there is but one French manand one French woman alive, but they
are free, it will have been worth it.
And I will say that this is thekind of bloodthirsty talk one sees
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from someone who has not seen war.
And Mr.
Jefferson was governor ofVirginia when the British invaded.
He noted his turn, his power.
His tenure had ended, , he decamped, heimmediately left for Carter Mountain.
He saw not a single day in uniform anddoes not understand military things.
In fact, he disdains themas useless wastes of money.
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But, I understood.
That in 1798, we began having this quasiwar, what we call the quasi war with the
French, because we had now made friendsagain with Britain, and the French were
no longer the French we had dealt with.
And Jefferson and Madison and otherswere shouting to the rafters, , we have
a treaty with France saying if theygo to war, we'll come on their side.
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. This was a foolish ideafor a couple of reasons.
First, as I mentioned, the governmentwe had dealt with were all dead.
And the other is that we as a country.
Much to Mr.
Jefferson's chagrin.
We as a country, for all of its faults,for all of its impositions, align far
better with Britain than with France.
We are a nation of Englishinfluence, far more than France.
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France in our customs, in our trade,in our governance, in our economics.
And so to take up arms againstBritain would be foolish.
Now, in this quasi war as the Frenchbecame more and more hysterically, it
was not entirely clear if the Frenchwould invade the United States our lands.
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And so then President Adams, who, as Isay, despised me, but was now president
realized we needed to raise an armyto deter the French from invading.
He went, of course, to that first andgreatest of all Americans, General
Washington, And asked him to becomecommander of a new United States army.
Now, Washington agreed,but with two conditions.
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First, he would only take thefield if a foreign invading army
actually landed on our shores.
But until then, his second conditionwas that I, Hamilton, would be
the day to day commander of all U.
S.
military forces.
And so recognizing he hadto have Washington on board,
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Adams reluctantly agreed.
And I became the commander of U.
S.
forces.
I raised an army of roughly 12, 000.
There was marching mobility.
There were marching in ranks.
Training went on to a great degreeto create a standing army, which I've
always believed in, of such power thatthe French would not dare to invade.
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And ultimately they did not.
But you can chafed Mr.
Adams to have to appoint mecommander of all military forces.
I became a major general, thetitle I go by to this day.
And we detered the French.
Is Washington, General Washington,is he just made of courage?
Because when he says that I'm onlygoing to take the field if they
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invade the land and there's soldiersactually on American soil, there is no
question in my mind, no matter how oldhe was, that he is on a horse with a
sword in his hand, , leading the men.
? Well, let me tell you a coupleof notions of the general
to give you a sense of that.
Yes.
He is a man of tremendouscourage, but recall, please.
When he was a British subject inthe French and Indian wars, his
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commands were disasters unfortunately.
, leave it to you to read the history ofthat, and the general learned a great
deal from those military shortcomings.
He learned, for example, that weas a tiny nation with a tiny army,
Cannot take on the open field, themost powerful military the world has
ever seen in the form of the British.
But he understood wecould nip at their heels.
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, the general was engaged inroughly nine major battles.
He clearly won only three of them, NewYork Princeton and of course, Yorktown.
But in the others, he inflictedsuch losses that the British became
unwilling to sustain the war effort.
So he was brilliant in that manner.
He was also unbelievablybrave as a person.
At the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse,early on in the war, General Charles
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Lee, one of our terrible generals,was attempting to command a group of
American soldiers in their battle againstthe British, and he was incompetent,
and the British advanced, the linesfell apart, the men retreated, and
General Washington and I rode on tothe battlefield to see General Lee
and his men running from the field.
And we came up to the general,and he said to General Washington,
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Your men sure they will not fight.
And Washington said, you goddamnPaltroon, which means coward, you goddamn
Paltroon, you have not tested them.
And he and I then rode directlyinto the British battle and rallied
the day, achieved essentially a tieas opposed to a horrible defeat.
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But in that battle, two buttons wereshot off of General Washington's coat.
Can you imagine our nation's history if asingle British soldier had aimed A couple
of inches to the other side and takendown General Washington, who was leading
from the front, sword in hand, in battle.
As I mentioned earlier, withoutWashington, We are all Canadians.
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The man is, , his effort is mythical.
It really is.
It's hard to believe, and , you canimagine what the myth of Washington
would be like, , all these years later.
He just seems superhuman.
He seems like, , he's 20 feettall, and I, like that wall, right?
You could just step over it.
He's 20 feet tall.
I would argue that he is more interestingas a man to know him as the man with his
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foibles, his swearing and blaspheming, hisyelling at me from the top of the stairs.
, in hindsight, now that he andI are completely reconciled, it
was a remarkable moment, but itshowed the humanity of a great man.
And this was not some mechanical manwho you wound a key in his back and he
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strode his way toward American victory.
Thank you.
This was an amazing human being, unlikeany other, a man who had been the
greatest horseman in Virginia, a manin his youth who could crush a walnut
between his thumb and first finger.
He was that massively strong.
, he stood six foot two in an era whenmost men were five age or smaller.
So he was, This incredible figureof a man who understood his power
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and used it for the greater good.
And when the time came again asCincinnati's before him resigned absolute
power to promote the rule of the people.
Speaking of war, it seems like youalways wanted to be in the battles.
You have all this other intellectualtalent, and yet you always
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wanted to be , in the battle.
And what is that?
Why risk your life , and bewilling to risk your life so often?
As I mentioned before, when one hasonly a sense of honor cannot rely on his
upbringing, cannot rely, he knows thathorrible things will be said about his
mother, a saintly woman who died you know.
When I was young an absent fatherwho was but a kind man, the kinds of
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horrible things that would be saidabout me the honor was all I had.
And for someone in my situation, asI mentioned earlier, the military was
really the only route toward greatness.
I was never going to be in commerce.
I could become a rich man likea John Hancock, but I wouldn't
become a national leader.
I really wanted to achieve andthrough military service was vital.
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And it is only by showing your braveryin the face of the enemy that you
demonstrate your true commitment tothese notions of what America can
be and hopefully is in your day.
I would hope that all Americanmen would feel that if a war for
America's survival was on the horizon.
We would see them all leap to arms.
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One time I had read in something, andI actually don't know who said this.
It almost sounds like John Adams.
And they had referred toyou as a mushroom gentleman.
And that is basically sproutingout of nowhere, a shot at you.
Coming from nowhere andnot being born a gentleman.
Have you ever heard that phrase?
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Yes, and it's true I mean it is anaccurate reflection of their view of
me In that to be a gentleman Not onlydo you have to have the intellect and
the wit and the bravery But you haveto have the family background which
I was never going to have and as wediscussed earlier Which would always have
prevented me from becoming president,but men like washington understood
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, forgive me for I flatter myself, theremarkable capabilities that I had.
And I think Mr.
Jefferson referred to me as theColossus and, , others have referred
to me in other ways in terms ofbeing this massive force of the day.
And it is true.
As I said earlier, Washingtontook my advice over the
Virginians on every occasion.
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I created an economic system.
I played a vital rolein your legal system.
The first case involving the notionof what would become judicial review.
And so, yes, I was a critically importantperson in the founding, which I find
myself as remarkable given what I hadto overcome, but I'm sure in the history
from my day to yours, you can think ofother individuals who've had to overcome
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horrific upbringings and have achievedgreatness and perhaps tragically,
if you cannot wondering about whatmight have been for those gentlemen.
Well, certainly there have been many,but , your reputation here is sterling.
In fact, using that word sterling,you'd probably like to know that your
name, your face is on our money now.
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And I'm curious, if you were goingto have your face on one of our
dollar bills, whether it was a oneor a five or a ten or a twenty or
a hundred, which would you prefer?
Which one would be appropriate?
Well, how high do they go, sir?
Just to a hundred.
Ah, well, whatever, I would saythis, whatever bill is the most
important in your day shouldhave the general's picture on it.
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And I will say this one of my less modestmoments, I quoted the French finance
minister, Laguerre, who had said that ifthe king is made in the image of God, it
must be the minister of finance who mostnext closely appropriates that image.
I do not believe that I amdivinely inspired in my looks,
but I would say that if Mr.
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Jefferson is on the most importantbill perhaps I can take some
solace in being on the second mostimportant bill recognizing my role.
You just said Mr.
Jefferson being on themost important bill.
I think you meant Washington.
Oh I did indeed.
I mean Mr.
Washington.
I apologize for thathorrible misstatement.
I suspect that in your day, Mr.
Jefferson having been the presidenthe has been and I will point this
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out interestingly enough, he'sprobably on your dollar bill as well.
However, Mr.
Jefferson as president so far has beena federalist president, not If you
look at what he has actually done,and I will put forward the Louisiana
Treaty as the most remarkable example.
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In every case that a decision hasbeen put forward that he must do,
he has taken a federalist position.
I'm sure it galls him enormously,but he's smart enough to
recognize the importance of it.
For example he believes thatyou can't do anything that's
not listed in the Constitution.
I believe that the Constitution is adocument which lives, and as times change,
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interpretations may change as well.
And so, for example, on theLouisiana Purchase, now, in my
view, for the dollars that Mr.
Jefferson gave to the dictatorNapoleon, he could have raised an
army of 25, 000 and provisioned itfor 25 years, and we could have taken
what he calls the Louisiana Purchase.
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Napoleon was not there, he couldnot defend it, he could not
exploit it, he could not use it.
It was his name only and wesimply should have taken it.
And I wrote this at the time andsaid, we should further them to
a filibuster into Florida andkick the Spanish out of Florida.
It is our continent.
When Mr.
Jefferson declined that and decidedto pay the dictator the money, I did
support the action and I supportedhis sending of Lewis and Clark off
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to see what they could make of it.
Fundamentally, Mr.
Jefferson did not havethe power in his mind.
to sign a treaty paying a foreigndictator for a section of what
he would make the United States.
And he proposed two differentconstitutional amendments to his
friend James Madison, who had beenmy friend before he flipped sides
(26:02):
and became a Jefferson lackey.
He turned to Madison andMadison said, Are you mad?
In the time it will take to pass theseamendments, Napoleon will change his mind.
Take the deal, which he did.
And Congress passed essentiallya law authorizing it and Mr.
Jefferson with a stroke of hispen doubled the size of America.
He did it the wrong way, but hedid it in a way that ultimately
(26:24):
worked out adequately and withoutan amendment to the Constitution.
Imagine how much it must have galled Mr.
Jefferson to take the Hamiltonian,the Washingtonian position of using
a law from Congress to give himselfa power he did not believe he had.
But a president, as I wrotein the federalist papers, a
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president must be able to act withsecrecy, energy, and dispatch.
In other words, he must beable to do secret negotiations.
He must be able to do themenergetically with that means
with force and a force of militarynecessary and dispatch meaning speed.
We cannot wait for a Congress to passa bill to do everything we need to do.
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The president must have certainsecrets energetic, energetic.
When you're talking about him as apresident and going the Federalist way,
he would have been considered a Republicanprior to being president, but you're
saying that once he became president,maybe saw a little less of his theory
of how things should work and saw howthey were actually working and acted a
(27:30):
little bit more in concert with maybewhat the Federalists, which would be the
group that you would be involved with.
Is that right?
Yeah.
That is correct.
He was a democratic Republican as he wascalled at the time which is the mismatch
of a number of things, but the federalistnotion of which Mr, obviously Mr.
Washington, Mr.
Adams were the only truly federalistpresidents, but every my life has,
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what they may have pronounced as beinga democratic Republican, renouncing
federal power demanding more state power.
They have all been putto task as president.
Enforced to use the energy secrecyand dispatch of a president of great
power from a federalist perspective.
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It happens again and again withtreaties, with negotiations, with
actions of federal government, simplypointing out that we were correct,
that a strong central governmentwith states reduced in their power.
Is vital to the nationsurviving in the long term.
It is a tricky balance because when yougive them that power, it's very easy for
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somebody to say, okay, I'm all powerfuland then you end up with a monarch
again, or, , a bad situation that wejust got out of, not if you have the
appropriate checks and balances as theywere called in my day in that you have.
In the document, I assume youhave read all 85 of the Federalist
Papers recently, re read them?
Not recently, no.
But I have read some of them.
(28:57):
Okay, well, I assume that yourevening reading will consist of , the
eighty five volumes of the FeralistPapers to be here on out until you've
completely interpreted them again.
But they are very clear, andthere were three authors,
mr.
J wrote Foreign Entanglements.
, and he stopped after about sixbecause of an illness involving
gout and some other illnesses.
He was not a healthy man.
Mr.
Madison, having received literallybarrels full of books from Jefferson
(29:21):
in France on previous government,from the Romans and the Greeks on, Mr.
Madison wrote about the It's afundamental historical basis by
which we make our decisions onwriting what's in the Constitution.
And I wrote the practical notion, lookingat every section of the Constitution and
what it really means, which is why I wroteon the Electoral College, I wrote on what
(29:44):
the various departments would do, I wroteon voting, a number of different things.
So I wrote the practical lessonson how it will function under
the Articles of Administration.
And in fact, at the ratificationat Poughkeepsie one of Mr.
McClay, one of the anti federalistsstood up and said Hamilton must think
it's the divine guidance becausehe quotes it so much, because I
(30:06):
quoted my own writings, which I did.
Those federalist papers clearly lay outhow a nation can survive In the long term
by having a constitution that can and willand must adapt with the days as they pass.
. So the purpose of the Federalistpapers was basically to make the
(30:27):
Constitution palatable to the masses.
It.
To say it even more roughly the FederalistPapers were political propaganda published
twice weekly in a number of newspapers.
And it's exactly as you said,to explain to people why the
Constitution was a good thing.
And for example in Federalist 51 Mr.
Madison, although I will admit thatthe night a couple of nights ago I was
(30:50):
at my friend a friend of mine's homeand I wrote It is a volume of plenty,
what, who wrote what, and I tookcredit for 51, but I will admit now
that my judgment was probably spotty.
Madison wrote Federalist 51, inwhich he explained, brilliantly,
that the people were wrong whenthey thought a small republic, what
Jefferson would call a ward republic,would best protect their liberty.
(31:13):
In fact, Madison in 51 argueswhy, , a large republic is vital.
He said, essentially, that the only wayto get rid of factions, be they political
parties or other factions, the onlyway to be rid of them is either to have
everyone believe the same thing, Or, toutterly repress them so much that you
(31:34):
crush all free speech, which is anathemato the principles of the Constitution.
So he said what we must satisfy ourselveswith is mitigating the impact of faction.
And he said the way we do this is bynot having a small republic, but by
having a large republic in which thereare so many factions that they will
(31:55):
all argue with each other and no onefaction will be able to achieve permanent
supremacy, suppressing all the others.
Over the years, they willbattle and they will fight.
Their power will come and go, will ebb.
But the idea being that we needmore faction, not less, given
that we cannot be rid of it.
And this is brilliant and accurate.
(32:17):
He said in 51, if men were angels,no government would be necessary.
But men are not angels.
And so a constitution like oursis vital to protect your rights.
And most importantly, to protect therights of those who at that moment,
So would you say then that the waythat America is set up where the
(32:40):
political factions are constantlyfighting each other, are you
saying that is not a problem?
It's a feature?
It is precisely what we hoped for.
Because in your day, I will ask youthis, do you have situations where
your various political factionsfight and have to compromise?
Absolutely.
Then we were correct, sir.
(33:01):
That's fantastic.
Which of the FoundingFathers is the weakest?
Oh, that is an unkind question, sir.
. I will answer the questionbecause I am not shy.
But you, sir, are whatwe would call a puppy.
We're answering it.
Puppy being one of the severalterms that could cause one to
come into an affair of honor.
In terms of physical weakness, Mr.
Madison, Mr.
(33:22):
Madison was perhaps five feet tall.
He, I believe he claimsto be five foot two.
That is a kindness I will award him.
He is slight of figure and coughs intoa handkerchief with some regularity.
He has been ill and weak his entire life.
I'm surprised he has madeit to the age he is today.
Burr was not weak intellectually,but he was weak morally.
(33:43):
Mr.
Adams presents a very difficult conundrum.
Let me ask you this, in your day, Is Mr.
Adams forgotten or is he highly respected?
He's a complicated man because Ithink he's definitely respected
because people certainly respecthim for being the second president.
But, he seems like a man whospeaks very loudly with a lot of
(34:06):
energy and is extremely forceful.
I think , well let me say it this way.
Mr.
Adams is an American hero in some regard.
His defense of the British soldiersat the Boston, Massacre demonstrates
his commitment to what is rightrather than what is convenient.
That said he was a petty little man.
And he assumed that given thatWashington was afforded two terms,
(34:28):
he too would be afforded twoterms, as a matter of courtesy.
And when Mr.
Jefferson stood against him, andultimately won the election of
1800 uh, Adams was greatly saddenedby that, he did not attend Mr.
Jefferson's inauguration
.Now, I will say this, he lived life of honor primarily, but he
could be astonishingly petty.
(34:48):
He was the man who spent the firstthree weeks of the first Washington
administration as president ofthe Senate, which is the vice
president's only true role.
The first three weeks werespent deciding by what title Mr.
Adams should be called in his role.
Should he be called some of theexamples would be his excellency,
(35:11):
the president of the Senate, hisexcellency, the vice president, the
United States and president of theSenate, his most exquisite excellency,
the vice president of the United States,
it went on for three weeks ashe sat there as they debated by
what term he should be called.
This is not what a vicepresident should do.
But his treaty with the uh, Pashaof Tripoli as president was an
(35:34):
honorable thing, understandingour role internationally.
He did many honorable things.
So he is a difficult one.
I certainly think he is intelligent.
You asked about the weakest.
Mr.
Adams may have been second only to me.
in terms of comments made thatturned out to be self destructive.
. So you think you had more ofthose destructive comments?
(35:55):
Well, I published two of them.
That's true.
The first was the Reynoldspamphlet, after which Mr.
Adams in fact declared that mypolitical career was over, and
he was essentially correct.
And the second was in theelection of 1800, when Mr.
Adams stood against Mr.
Jefferson, I wrote a pamphlet itwas titled a letter from Alexander
Hamilton concerning the public conductand character of John Adams Esquire,
(36:16):
President of the United States.
Now it was some 50 pages long.
It's shortly over 50 pages.
The first 49 pages were attacks onJohn Adams, and his personality, and
his capability, and his intellect.
Then there were three pagesdefending myself, and the final
four paragraphs stated thatnonetheless, I do not wish to deny Mr.
(36:39):
Adams any electoral votes.
So, 49 pages of , anti Adams rants,three pages of station keeping, and
four paragraphs of, nevertheless,you should probably vote for Adams.
You can imagine the response to that.
Yeah.
This was, the second great publishingstupidity of mine, but again, my
sense of honor required it, eventhough it did devastating damage
(36:59):
to my potential in the future.
We've almost said nothingat all about slavery.
And very early it seems that youhad a strong position against that.
Is that right?
Yeah, I did.
Well, more radically than you might think.
, I grew up on an island with some 600whites and 15, 000 enslaved Africans.
(37:20):
Wow.
And I grew up from thatdate with a visceral hatred.
An absolute loathing ofthe institution of slavery.
But I will say this, I amcareful in my criticisms of Mr.
Jefferson and others on slavery.
, during the Revolutionary War, the BritishArmy offered the enslaved Africans
(37:42):
in this country a pretty good deal.
They said, run away from yourmasters, fight for us, and when
the war is over, we will free you.
The British Prime Minister at the timesaid of Americans, those who yelp most for
liberty are the drivers of Negro slaves.
So this was a difficult thing, and Ithen wrote a letter to John, my friend
(38:03):
John Lawrence and others, in whichI said something truly radical for
the time, in support of the argumentthat had been put forward, free the
slaves, have them fight for us, Andthey can be free when the war's over.
And I argued in this letter, andI paraphrase, a radical notion.
Not only did I argue that they were peopleand should be free, I, in this letter,
(38:25):
I argued that I believe their facultiesand facilities to be the equal of ours.
And any difference of opinionis a function of our education
and not their inhatability.
I argued for the intellectualequality of Negro slaves, which, as
you can imagine, was truly radical.
There were others who wereabolitionists besides myself.
(38:47):
Abolitionists meaning someone whobelieved in the getting rid of slavery.
Mr.
Jefferson, I believe in hisheart, was an abolitionist.
He was born into a situation wherehis first memory is being carried
on a silken pillow by a slave woman.
He's just writing theDeclaration of Independence.
Enslaved people arebringing him his lunch.
And he once wrote of slavery, itis like holding a wolf by the ears.
(39:10):
You cannot hold on, butyou dare not let go.
And I would ask you, sir, with yourwisdom of your day, if you come back
to my day, a day in which there areenslaved Africans by the millions, do you,
from your enlightened future, Have thewords that can fix it, that can end it.
(39:31):
, unfortunately, , no . And that iswhy the constitution simply kicked
the can as one might say, down to1820 and which of course in your day,
looking back, it all seems like timecrushed together, but we simply said
we will not touch slavery for 20 years.
And had we not done that, we wouldnot have gotten the votes of the
Carolinas and Georgia, the Constitutionwould not have been ratified, the
(39:52):
country would have fallen apart, andthe British would have reinvaded.
As a necessary condition of the foundationof the nation, we gritted our teeth
and accepted slavery where it existed,and hoped that future generations would
find a better solution than we had.
We were talking a little bit ago aboutbattle that you were involved with,
(40:13):
and one of them I hear about somethingwhere you stole some cannons, and then
there was the another one where youcharge without bullets in your gun,
or without I, I liberated cannons.
Liberated, right.
Borrowed.
Well, I had no intentionof giving them back.
At the Battle of Long Island, theBattle of, we had the Battle of
New York, , I created, out of myown pocket, I had created a small
(40:34):
military company of a few men.
We called ourselves the Corsicanslater called the Heart of Oak.
And we had green coats and leathercaps with Liberty or death embroidered,
we drilled in a courtyard and I, astheir captain of artillery and captain
of this group, one of the first waysI became known to the general officers
around me was when we discovered thatat the very point of Manhattan the,
(40:58):
where it ends to the West is a battery.
There were 21 nine pound cannonsthat were there and the British ship
HMS Asia, which is a monstrous shipwith dozens of cannon, I want to
say 54, but I could be incorrect onthat, but a large number of cannons
all in one line firing these blasts.
(41:19):
The people down there on our sidewith only these little nine pound
cannons had fled, which meant thatthose cannons would be And their
powder and shot will be captured bythe British when they came ashore.
So I arranged for a small group of men,myself included, to run down and gather
these 21 nine pound cannons which we did.
(41:39):
And then when I got back to safety,I discovered that one of my men, to
whom I had handed my musket as I was.
Liberating cannon had leftthe musket behind out of fear.
It was irritating me enormously, soI then ran back into the fire of the
HMS Asia to retrieve my musket, whichI did, and returned back, and then
these cannons became guns for liberty.
(41:59):
It was a remarkablebattle, I will tell you.
You got a certain realization aboutlife when dozens upon dozens of
cannonballs are exploding all around you.
, do you want to ask about which was theother battle you wish to ask me about?
Where you took the bullets from your gun.
Oh, well, this of course was Yorktown.
Yes.
The climactic battle.
You recall I spoke earlier of theargument that I'd had with General
(42:22):
Washington, well, the dressing down Igot from General Washington, from which
I immediately resigned from his staff.
I actually was thereanother couple of months.
And then Lafayette, who would be givena large command to Yorktown, gave
me command Over one of his subunitsat Yorktown and this subunit, which
I had command was going to be thefirst over the wall at Yorktown.
(42:46):
And as a result we had If Isay what a redoubt is, do you
understand, sir, in your day
yes.
It is a military fortress.
That one might even call a smallfort where there's a a trench.
Often in circles, not always in circles.
But it's a place from which anenemy can fire under some cover.
And there were a number of thesespaced out beyond the actual
(43:09):
walls of the Yorktown Fort.
These readouts were outersecurity, if you will.
And readout number 10 is the onethat that we attacked firsthand.
And I realized that because of the smallsize of readout number 10, there was going
to be a very difficult time If the menhad to shoot, stop, reload, and shoot,
(43:30):
because recall please, that our brown bestmuskets fired a single round at a time.
Now, you would have to then run a roddown to clean out the debris, run down
a powder, a musket ball, a patch, ram ithome, and then be ready to fire again.
A very skilled rifleman.
could fire a brown best, perhapsthree times a minute and stress beat
(43:53):
times of great stress, like a battleor other less skilled individuals.
It might take you a whole minutewith shaking hands to reload.
And that time an enemy can advanceon you in a trench very quickly.
So I ordered my men to to unload.
The muskets and instead of fixed bayonets,the bayonets we used were triangular in
(44:15):
shape so that the wound could not closeand one might bleed to death if stabbed.
Nasty weapon.
But I ordered my men to charge withessentially spears, muskets with these
bayonets affixed, and I led them allwith sword in hand, and we attacked the
British, and it is not important nordignified to describe what one sees in
(44:36):
such situations, but we took the readout,and that readout capture was critical
to the ultimate capture of Yorktown,giving us a position from which we could
shell the facility into surrender whenthey finally had to run up a white flag.
The French were in the port to theirback, so they could not leave and we had
an army surrounding them on three sides,so it was a heroic and successful battle.
(45:00):
It amazes me that when you look atyour history and anything that you
were willing to do for your country,whether it was hours and hours of work
with a pen, or whether it was runninginto a situation like that with a sword
in your hand and risking everything.
How anybody could ever questionyour honor and your character.
(45:20):
It just seems like itdoesn't even make any sense.
. Well, you must ask Mr.
Jefferson, Mr.
Adams, that question.
When you speak to them I suspect Mr.
Jefferson would say herespected my intellect, but
did not respect my character.
I found his character weak,but I also understand the
circumstance from which he came.
It's interesting that you saythat, because I did speak with Mr.
Jefferson, and he said exactly that.
(45:43):
Well, perhaps we're both insightful men.
One of us fought in battle, one of ustwice saved Congress from capture by
the British, one of us took sword inhand to defend democracy in the most
literal possible sense, and one of usdecamped to Carter Mountain when he
found his term as governor had expired.
I'm not necessarily calling Mr.
Jefferson a coward.
I'm simply recounting hisactions, which somehow managed to
(46:04):
always avoid military conflict.
I see.
in our time, there is a verypopular play about your life.
And in that play , it talks aboutthe women that you were involved with
of course, there is Eliza, yourwife, and then there was Angelica,
who is her sister, correct?
(46:24):
And Peggy, . I called them my brunettes.
Well, in the play, they suggestthat Angelica fancied you.
Is that true?
Not at all.
Your playwright is a liar.
Plays are not necessarily designedto be the accurate written history
of any particular event, I suppose.
Angelica and Peggy, for thatmatter were delightful people.
(46:45):
But my love was for Elizabeth,the most remarkable woman I
think one could ever encounter.
, but I will say Angelica and Peggy alsowere remarkable people themselves.
But by the time I was attempting toget Elizabeth to fall to my, into my
spell Angelica was already a marriedwoman and a happily married one.
(47:07):
So your author is taking great liberties.
And I think that's unfortunate.
Well, if I meet the author, I'lllet him know he's a liar from you.
Well, tell him that in, in, I don'tknow if you still do affairs of honor,
but perhaps it would be worth it.
Well, in case he listens to this,maybe you should just say right
now, Lin Manuel, you're a liar.
(47:27):
Just say that.
Well, I won't say that, because hemay honestly believe what he believes.
He's just maybe miseducated.
But I will say that there wasa A party we were attending.
And to give you a sense of how, even inour day, there was humor back and forth.
And there was what one might evencall spicy humor back and forth.
In this case I was at a partywith the three sisters, and
(47:49):
Angelica lost a bow off her shoe.
And Peggy scooped it up and put itin my buttonhole and said, There,
brother, I have made you a knight.
Angelica said, But of what order?
He cannot be a knight ofthe garter in this country.
And Peggy said, True, sister, but hewould be one if you would let him.
So that is as off coloras we would get in my day.
Oh, that is spicy.
That is very spicy.
(48:10):
Well, I'll tell you one thing that theplaywright did get correct, and I'm
glad you said that about your wife,Eliza, is that she shines in that as a
strong woman that stood behind her manthrough some very difficult times and
through some And and then, , it does manywonderful things later in life as well.
So, obviously, you feel the same way.
(48:30):
Well, I do, and this evening I'vewritten two letters to my dear Elizabeth
to be delivered on the occasion of mypassing, should that happen tomorrow.
And in one letter, I urge herto be generous to relatives and
things, which she always would be.
But in the final letter, I end this way.
I say, The scruples of a Christian havedetermined me to expose my own life to
(48:53):
any extent, rather than subject myself tothe guilt of taking the life of another.
This must increase my hazardsand redoubles my pangs for you.
But you had rather I dieinnocent than live guilty.
Heaven can preserve me,and I humbly hope will.
But in the event, I charge you toremember that you are a Christian.
God's will be done.
(49:14):
The will of a merciful God must be good.
Once more, adieu my darling, darling wife.
That will be delivered to her tomorrow,should the occasion call for it.
Well, let's hope that doesn't happen.
I hope things go well tomorrow.
Indeed.
, let us hope that this is alsofinally the end of Colonel
Burr's influence in America.
The idea that a city vice presidentwould duel with a former secretary
(49:37):
of the treasury should be deeplyoffensive to most gentlemen.
And Colonel Burr's, uh.
economic incompetence and his moraldepravity should have long since
disqualified him from public service.
And one hopes by the sunsettomorrow, he is forever doomed
to be a footnote of history.
Well, let's hope this is the end.
(49:58):
Again, I thank you for all of yourtime and everything that you did.
It's just the list of things you've donefor our country so that it can thrive now.
It's, there's just no end to it.
It's as long as that list ofthings that you wrote about
that were wrong about Burr.
But I guess I'd like to askyou, is there anything else
you'd like to say as we finish?
Well, I can only hope you, you havehinted, both by the technology you
(50:21):
present and some of your words, thatthe nation that we have founded And
still sits on uncertain footing, hassucceeded, at least in some degree,
for the next two or more centuries.
We look back on two centuries beforemy time, when settlers were first
arriving, and you wonder what theymight think of the city of New York
(50:43):
today, or even Washington City.
And one hopes that the fundamentalprinciples of the Constitution,
the fundamental notions that if youbreathe, you should breathe free.
Those remarkable words that I credit Mr.
Jefferson for saying in the Declaration ofIndependence, which begin with the phrase,
(51:03):
we hold these truths to be self evident.
Those remarkable words that government iscreated for the people and by the people.
And when the government doesn't servethe people, it should be replaced.
The most powerful words ever said.
In a political world.
And I can only hope that Mr.
(51:23):
Franklin was correct when hesaid a republic if you can keep
it, and I hope you've kept it.
General Hamilton, I thankyou so much for your time.
It's a pleasure speaking with you, sir.
Now if you'll excuse me, Ihave more letters to write.
And that was it.
Hamilton's life ended the nextday after he and Aaron Burr
pointed pistols at one another.
(51:43):
Uh, Hamilton appeared to bewearing his glasses, implying
that he needed them to aim.
And although it is disputed whether ornot he missed intentionally, he missed.
Burt shot on the otherhand was deadly yeah.
Considering how tragicallyAaron Burr's life ended.
You could say they both died that day.
Hamilton's legacy was that of awarrior who fought for freedom
(52:05):
with both the pen and the sword.
A politician who servedhis nation honorably.
And the genius that sold the constitutionto its own citizens and created
the United States financial system.
Without Alexander Hamilton, howlong would the states have had their
own money causing us to fall behindwhile other nations were growing?
(52:25):
What our land have eventuallydivided into four or five regions,
all fighting for the same space andresources instead of one United States.
And finally much like the play.
I'm going to end with astory about Eliza Hamilton.
She died at the age of 97, survivingHamilton by 50 years, she had eaten dinner
with eight different presidents tellingthem stories about when she went on
(52:48):
long horse rides with George Washingtonand danced with Thomas Jefferson.
But.
After his presidency.
James Monroe was feeling terrible aboutwhat he had done to Hamilton by leaking
information about the Reynolds affair.
And he asked to meet withEliza to clear his conscience.
Eliza loved Hamilton andrefused to see Monroe.
(53:11):
Her children said, motherhe's a former president.
You have to meet with him.
She relented and Monroe was showninto a room where there was a single
chair , already occupied by Eliza.
He gave a speech about forgivingand forgetting, she looked
him in the eye and she said, Mr.
Monroe, if you have come hereto say that you are sorry.
(53:32):
Very very sorry about themisrepresentations slander and stories.
You've told about my dear husband.
. So be it, but if not, no passageof time, no near-miss to the grave.
Makes any difference.
Then she threw him out.
By the way in this podcast, manyhistorical names were mentioned and nearly
(53:52):
all of them have already been recorded.
You can go back to the otherepisodes and listen to Aaron Burr.
Albert Galatin, George Washington,Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Franklin and James Madison.
But sadly, no James Monroe, becauseEliza wouldn't let them on yet.
Thank you for listening.
And don't forget that when you tella friend about the calling history
podcast, your plants will start textingyou when they need to be watered.
(54:15):
I'm Tony Dean.
And until next time.
. I'm history
Welcome back to part twoof Alexander Hamilton.
In the last episode, we talked quitea bit about the absurdity of the
sitting vice president dueling, theformer secretary of the treasury.
And how after his unfortunateupbringing and indiscretions hamilton
was never going to be president.
In this next episode, Hamiltonis going to convince me that the
(00:49):
bill of rights is a bad thing.
. He is persuasive.
He'll also explain how Jeffersonwas a terrible person and a coward,
but not a bad president at all.
And he'll explain why those whocalled Hamilton a mushroom gentlemen.
We're right.
And then I mentionedmy speech of the 18th.
There are those who question mymotivation because in that speech
(01:12):
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, senators appointed by the
president for life, and a few otherincredibly strong central government
notions, one of which came withina single vote of being put into
(01:35):
Constitution, which would have alloweda vote of the federal Congress to
nullify any act by any state government.
And I think perhaps from yourperspective, looking back, you can
imagine times when had a state actionbeen able to be nullified, the peace of
the nation might have been protected.
But in my speech, as I say, I talkedabout an incredibly strong central
(01:56):
government, which caused some to saythat I was a monarchist and a militarist.
Others, perhaps more savvy.
suggested that what I was doing bycreating a pattern far to the right
of the Virginia plan was to suddenlymake the Virginia plan appear as
the , middle position Between theNew Jersey plan and my speech.
I agree.
(02:16):
You can decide , whether I was cleverenough in my politics to have done that.
. So this was a negotiatingtactic that you were using.
Well, I certainly believed in a strongcentral government, stronger than we saw.
In the Virginia plan, I wouldultimately say of the Constitution,
there was a thing of milk andwater, a frail and worthless fabric.
I spent my life propping up, butthat was in recent days as my
(02:38):
life has descended into darkness.
But I will say this it did work asa negotiatory document in making the
Virginia plan appear a reasonable middle.
Whether that was my intention allalong, I shall keep to myself.
, I'm backstepping a little bit.
What did General Washingtonthink of Aaron Burr?
(02:59):
He, General Washington despisedColonel Burr because he lacked honor.
I mentioned he opened theletters of the General.
Yeah, what's up with that?
You would have to ask Colonel Burr.
I remind you, I will repeatmy earlier evaluation that he
is for or against nothing butsuits his interest or ambition.
If there is an embryoseizure in America, tis Burr.
I'll say this, he and I oddly workedtogether well on a number of things.
(03:22):
He was a brilliant man, and weworked together on many law cases.
But he was without the fundamentalprinciples of honor that must
exist in a chief magistrate.
Which is why you can imagine what, howwe, in my day, I would say we dodged
a bullet in the case of Colonel Burrnot being successful in getting himself
appointed over Jefferson as the president.
(03:44):
When a person is without honor,there is almost no limit to
what they might find reasonable.
It seems that at that time, whenthere's gotta be spies running around
everywhere, if somebody catchesAaron Burr snooping through General
Washington's private correspondence,they've gotta ask, is this man a spy?
Even beyond honor, am I wrong?
Well, you certainly would wonder.
(04:05):
There were a number of spies.
I was involved to somedegree with the spy networks.
They were important.
I will say this, it pains me to saysomething nice about Colonel Burr,
but I don't think the expectationwas, would have been that he was
a spy given his length of service,but rather that he was simply a
fully corrupt and dishonorable man.
Looking for his own interestsand not a foreign nation's.
(04:27):
Okay.
, so we were talking about theArticles of Confederation.
So, if you go through the timelineof the United States, you've got the
Declaration of Independence whichsays, hey, we're doing our own thing
now, thank you anyhow to the English.
And then we've got the Articles ofConfederation, which is basically a
kind of a watered down constitutionthat focuses more on the states
rather than the country as a whole.
(04:49):
. Yes, that, that was the first governingdocument of this nation was in
fact the Articles of Confederation.
So then what happens, that isway too weak and now that it's
time to make the constitution.
And the first ten, Articlesof the Constitution are
considered the Bill of Rights.
No, the First Ten Amendments.
(05:09):
Oh, the First Ten Amendments.
Yeah, the First Ten Amendments.
Were you against the Bill of Rights?
Yes, I'm against the Bill ofRights for a couple of reasons.
The Bill of Rights area political compromise.
The Anti Federalists, theAnti Constitutions, those
who oppose ratification.
At the various state conventions theywanted to be rid of this, and they argued
(05:30):
that, in part, that the Constitutiondid not protect individual rights.
Well, that's nonsense.
As I said in Federalist 84,The Constitution is, to every
reasonable virtue and everypractical effect, a bill of rights.
There are some 27 different, if I recallcorrectly, specific rights guaranteed.
No titles of nobility, no workingcorruption of the blood, no, a variety
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of other specific protections that arein there that we felt were important.
So first, there were a lot of protectedrights in the body of the Constitution.
So second, there aretwo tremendous dangers.
The first is that by specifically sayingwhat a right is, you will potentially
give a future demagogic leader achance to say what the right is not.
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The First Amendment that is sooften listed as being so important
talks about freedom of speech.
Now clearly they're talkingabout political speech, but it
simply says freedom of speech.
Now, let us say that in your day, somedemagogue was elected who believed and
said it does not protect freedom of song.
It does not prevent freedom of play, thatis to say a theatrical production or any
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other entertainment machine in your day.
Therefore, I as the executive canrestrict freedom of speech in those areas.
But of course, for your political speakingout loud, you can say whatever you want.
There's a danger that when youlist rights, you are listing the
only rights that will later exist.
And as the nation grows and hopefullybecomes an industrialized nation,
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it will in fact need flexibilityin the constitution as a living
document to be able to growsuccessfully, to not be tied down by.
18th century notion ofwhat, say, commerce is.
And the other danger is that theindividual rights themselves may
become unimportant or tediousor worse, counterproductive.
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In my day, very few people worry Aboutthe third amendment, that is to say
that troops would be quartered intheir homes against their will, that is
simply not something that is a concern.
The second amendment seems an odd thingindeed because virtually everyone in
the country has a weapon to deal withgetting food and protecting themselves.
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It seems an odd thing to put inthere , and there were actually In Mr.
Madison's original, there were 12,not 10, but 12 proposed amendments.
The 11th potentially would have beento restrict pay raises for elected
members of the house and Senate andthe presidency until If they vote for
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a pay raise, an election has to takeplace before the pay raise kicks in.
And then the other one proposedto limit the size of the
standing army to 5, 000 members.
And this is one of the two timesthat General Washington spoke.
He rose from his chair and said,I will agree to this restriction
on the standing army, as long asthe constitution also prohibits any
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invading army from being over 5, 000.
At this point.
Was taken, and that was dropped.
The 11th, I'm not sure what, in myday, is still hanging out there.
But these built in rights I acceptit as a necessary, if unneeded,
mechanism by which to get the AntiFederalists to support the Constitution.
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Gosh, that is hilarious whatGeneral Washington said.
It kind of reminds me, in our time,I had heard somebody on one of the
borders, of the United States, theywere talking about building a 20 foot
tall wall to prevent people comingin that weren't supposed to be here.
And somebody said, well, you If you builda 20 foot wall, you think that's going
to do a lot, but the main thing it'sgoing to do is it's just going to create
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an industry of 25 foot ladders and whichis exactly what General Washington was
saying, speaking of let me ask you this.
Why?
Why would you be walling off America when?
Every single American, save the nativesthat were here, are in fact immigrants,
or trace their lineage to immigrants.
It seemed enormously foolish to wall offa nation from potential tools of talent.
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It it does, no, it does seem like you'dwant the talent in here, but weren't you
talking about just a little bit ago, Ithink you were saying, to prevent people
from coming into the country withoutpaying their proper taxes and so forth.
Well, I'm referring to criminalsattempting to sneak in and sell goods.
I'm not talking about shiploads ofhopeful people arriving from Europe.
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We definitely do not want criminalsable to bring their items to
port and evade paying taxes.
Understand that as of this day,roughly 95 percent of the budget
of the state of New York comes fromtariffs from the port of New York.
And if a mechanism was established thatallowed them to simply drop anchor.
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In Maine, and bring their goods downthat way without passing through New
York or paying their tariffs, it'd bevery difficult for New York to continue.
So it is important to have a revenueservice in ships at sea in her
coastal waters to make it difficult,if not impossible for criminals
to enter the nation illegallyto sell their ill gotten goods.
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But these revenue service vehicles,ships and such will not be
seeking out folks trying to comehere from our original lands.
Yeah, I think that'sBecause we need immigrants..
If we're to have a continental nationthat spans this continent, we're
certainly going to need more people.
Yeah, no, I actually agree with you and Ithink when people talk when people are for
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this giant wall Which I just don't thinkit solves anything because again somebody
just makes a bigger ladder or a way to gounder it But I think that their thinking
is that the wall would probably havea gate somewhere so that the criminals
would be on One side and the people thatwe could benefit the country could come
in very much like you would you mightpatrol the ports But again, I don't think
that That is the way to go, probably.
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But let me go back to, it seemslike you have a strong position
to avoid foreign entanglements.
When I first read that, it seemedlike it was in conflict with your
desire to also make us a countrythat is involved with all these other
countries through commerce and so forth.
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But there was a time where youwanted nothing to do with the
French during the revolution andRight after they had helped us.
And that was a little confusing to me.
What's the thinking on all of that?
Well, allow me to clarify.
I probably could clarify in lessthan an hour, so I shall begin now.
The key word that is missing from youranalysis is permanent for an entanglement.
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If you look at what I wrote for thegeneral for his second farewell address,
he talks about avoiding permanent.
And those are my words.
The idea being, and you mentionedthe French, we had a treaty of enmity
with Louis XVI, and then when theFrench Revolution came along, the
government changed, and Louis XVIbecame much shorter and much less able
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to function, as he was guillotined.
Right.
The government that took overin France was not the government
with which we had made the treaty.
Right.
And when France then began rattlingsabers after this horrible horrible
revolution, you, I understand, I knowthat you know about the guillotine,
but you also probably know that atthe city of Nice, they simply chained
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2, 500 of these so called aristocratstogether, sent them on a raft to the
middle of the river, and sank the raft,drowning these people by the thousands.
Gee.
This was the horrible.
It's a monstrous thing.
And Jefferson, because he was theambassador to France, he was there,
he actually would, in his carriage,see protests stop, allow him to pass,
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and then the fighting would restartbecause of the respect they had for
Jefferson as the author of the Articleof Declaration of Independence, which is
a brilliant piece of work, I will admit.
But Jefferson wrote, , and I paraphrase,forgive me, if at the end of the
revolution there is but one French manand one French woman alive, but they
are free, it will have been worth it.
And I will say that this is thekind of bloodthirsty talk one sees
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from someone who has not seen war.
And Mr.
Jefferson was governor ofVirginia when the British invaded.
He noted his turn, his power.
His tenure had ended, , he decamped, heimmediately left for Carter Mountain.
He saw not a single day in uniform anddoes not understand military things.
In fact, he disdains themas useless wastes of money.
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But, I understood.
That in 1798, we began having this quasiwar, what we call the quasi war with the
French, because we had now made friendsagain with Britain, and the French were
no longer the French we had dealt with.
And Jefferson and Madison and otherswere shouting to the rafters, , we have
a treaty with France saying if theygo to war, we'll come on their side.
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. This was a foolish ideafor a couple of reasons.
First, as I mentioned, the governmentwe had dealt with were all dead.
And the other is that we as a country.
Much to Mr.
Jefferson's chagrin.
We as a country, for all of its faults,for all of its impositions, align far
better with Britain than with France.
We are a nation of Englishinfluence, far more than France.
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France in our customs, in our trade,in our governance, in our economics.
And so to take up arms againstBritain would be foolish.
Now, in this quasi war as the Frenchbecame more and more hysterically, it
was not entirely clear if the Frenchwould invade the United States our lands.
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And so then President Adams, who, as Isay, despised me, but was now president
realized we needed to raise an armyto deter the French from invading.
He went, of course, to that first andgreatest of all Americans, General
Washington, And asked him to becomecommander of a new United States army.
Now, Washington agreed,but with two conditions.
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First, he would only take thefield if a foreign invading army
actually landed on our shores.
But until then, his second conditionwas that I, Hamilton, would be
the day to day commander of all U.
S.
military forces.
And so recognizing he hadto have Washington on board,
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Adams reluctantly agreed.
And I became the commander of U.
S.
forces.
I raised an army of roughly 12, 000.
There was marching mobility.
There were marching in ranks.
Training went on to a great degreeto create a standing army, which I've
always believed in, of such power thatthe French would not dare to invade.
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And ultimately they did not.
But you can chafed Mr.
Adams to have to appoint mecommander of all military forces.
I became a major general, thetitle I go by to this day.
And we detered the French.
Is Washington, General Washington,is he just made of courage?
Because when he says that I'm onlygoing to take the field if they
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invade the land and there's soldiersactually on American soil, there is no
question in my mind, no matter how oldhe was, that he is on a horse with a
sword in his hand, , leading the men.
? Well, let me tell you a coupleof notions of the general
to give you a sense of that.
Yes.
He is a man of tremendouscourage, but recall, please.
When he was a British subject inthe French and Indian wars, his
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commands were disasters unfortunately.
, leave it to you to read the history ofthat, and the general learned a great
deal from those military shortcomings.
He learned, for example, that weas a tiny nation with a tiny army,
Cannot take on the open field, themost powerful military the world has
ever seen in the form of the British.
But he understood wecould nip at their heels.
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, the general was engaged inroughly nine major battles.
He clearly won only three of them, NewYork Princeton and of course, Yorktown.
But in the others, he inflictedsuch losses that the British became
unwilling to sustain the war effort.
So he was brilliant in that manner.
He was also unbelievablybrave as a person.
At the Battle of Monmouth Courthouse,early on in the war, General Charles
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Lee, one of our terrible generals,was attempting to command a group of
American soldiers in their battle againstthe British, and he was incompetent,
and the British advanced, the linesfell apart, the men retreated, and
General Washington and I rode on tothe battlefield to see General Lee
and his men running from the field.
And we came up to the general,and he said to General Washington,
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Your men sure they will not fight.
And Washington said, you goddamnPaltroon, which means coward, you goddamn
Paltroon, you have not tested them.
And he and I then rode directlyinto the British battle and rallied
the day, achieved essentially a tieas opposed to a horrible defeat.
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But in that battle, two buttons wereshot off of General Washington's coat.
Can you imagine our nation's history if asingle British soldier had aimed A couple
of inches to the other side and takendown General Washington, who was leading
from the front, sword in hand, in battle.
As I mentioned earlier, withoutWashington, We are all Canadians.
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The man is, , his effort is mythical.
It really is.
It's hard to believe, and , you canimagine what the myth of Washington
would be like, , all these years later.
He just seems superhuman.
He seems like, , he's 20 feettall, and I, like that wall, right?
You could just step over it.
He's 20 feet tall.
I would argue that he is more interestingas a man to know him as the man with his
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foibles, his swearing and blaspheming, hisyelling at me from the top of the stairs.
, in hindsight, now that he andI are completely reconciled, it
was a remarkable moment, but itshowed the humanity of a great man.
And this was not some mechanical manwho you wound a key in his back and he
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strode his way toward American victory.
Thank you.
This was an amazing human being, unlikeany other, a man who had been the
greatest horseman in Virginia, a manin his youth who could crush a walnut
between his thumb and first finger.
He was that massively strong.
, he stood six foot two in an era whenmost men were five age or smaller.
So he was, This incredible figureof a man who understood his power
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and used it for the greater good.
And when the time came again asCincinnati's before him resigned absolute
power to promote the rule of the people.
Speaking of war, it seems like youalways wanted to be in the battles.
You have all this other intellectualtalent, and yet you always
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wanted to be , in the battle.
And what is that?
Why risk your life , and bewilling to risk your life so often?
As I mentioned before, when one hasonly a sense of honor cannot rely on his
upbringing, cannot rely, he knows thathorrible things will be said about his
mother, a saintly woman who died you know.
When I was young an absent fatherwho was but a kind man, the kinds of
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horrible things that would be saidabout me the honor was all I had.
And for someone in my situation, asI mentioned earlier, the military was
really the only route toward greatness.
I was never going to be in commerce.
I could become a rich man likea John Hancock, but I wouldn't
become a national leader.
I really wanted to achieve andthrough military service was vital.
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And it is only by showing your braveryin the face of the enemy that you
demonstrate your true commitment tothese notions of what America can
be and hopefully is in your day.
I would hope that all Americanmen would feel that if a war for
America's survival was on the horizon.
We would see them all leap to arms.
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One time I had read in something, andI actually don't know who said this.
It almost sounds like John Adams.
And they had referred toyou as a mushroom gentleman.
And that is basically sproutingout of nowhere, a shot at you.
Coming from nowhere andnot being born a gentleman.
Have you ever heard that phrase?
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Yes, and it's true I mean it is anaccurate reflection of their view of
me In that to be a gentleman Not onlydo you have to have the intellect and
the wit and the bravery But you haveto have the family background which
I was never going to have and as wediscussed earlier Which would always have
prevented me from becoming president,but men like washington understood
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, forgive me for I flatter myself, theremarkable capabilities that I had.
And I think Mr.
Jefferson referred to me as theColossus and, , others have referred
to me in other ways in terms ofbeing this massive force of the day.
And it is true.
As I said earlier, Washingtontook my advice over the
Virginians on every occasion.
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I created an economic system.
I played a vital rolein your legal system.
The first case involving the notionof what would become judicial review.
And so, yes, I was a critically importantperson in the founding, which I find
myself as remarkable given what I hadto overcome, but I'm sure in the history
from my day to yours, you can think ofother individuals who've had to overcome
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horrific upbringings and have achievedgreatness and perhaps tragically,
if you cannot wondering about whatmight have been for those gentlemen.
Well, certainly there have been many,but , your reputation here is sterling.
In fact, using that word sterling,you'd probably like to know that your
name, your face is on our money now.
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And I'm curious, if you were goingto have your face on one of our
dollar bills, whether it was a oneor a five or a ten or a twenty or
a hundred, which would you prefer?
Which one would be appropriate?
Well, how high do they go, sir?
Just to a hundred.
Ah, well, whatever, I would saythis, whatever bill is the most
important in your day shouldhave the general's picture on it.
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And I will say this one of my less modestmoments, I quoted the French finance
minister, Laguerre, who had said that ifthe king is made in the image of God, it
must be the minister of finance who mostnext closely appropriates that image.
I do not believe that I amdivinely inspired in my looks,
but I would say that if Mr.
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Jefferson is on the most importantbill perhaps I can take some
solace in being on the second mostimportant bill recognizing my role.
You just said Mr.
Jefferson being on themost important bill.
I think you meant Washington.
Oh I did indeed.
I mean Mr.
Washington.
I apologize for thathorrible misstatement.
I suspect that in your day, Mr.
Jefferson having been the presidenthe has been and I will point this
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out interestingly enough, he'sprobably on your dollar bill as well.
However, Mr.
Jefferson as president so far has beena federalist president, not If you
look at what he has actually done,and I will put forward the Louisiana
Treaty as the most remarkable example.
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In every case that a decision hasbeen put forward that he must do,
he has taken a federalist position.
I'm sure it galls him enormously,but he's smart enough to
recognize the importance of it.
For example he believes thatyou can't do anything that's
not listed in the Constitution.
I believe that the Constitution is adocument which lives, and as times change,
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interpretations may change as well.
And so, for example, on theLouisiana Purchase, now, in my
view, for the dollars that Mr.
Jefferson gave to the dictatorNapoleon, he could have raised an
army of 25, 000 and provisioned itfor 25 years, and we could have taken
what he calls the Louisiana Purchase.
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Napoleon was not there, he couldnot defend it, he could not
exploit it, he could not use it.
It was his name only and wesimply should have taken it.
And I wrote this at the time andsaid, we should further them to
a filibuster into Florida andkick the Spanish out of Florida.
It is our continent.
When Mr.
Jefferson declined that and decidedto pay the dictator the money, I did
support the action and I supportedhis sending of Lewis and Clark off
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to see what they could make of it.
Fundamentally, Mr.
Jefferson did not havethe power in his mind.
to sign a treaty paying a foreigndictator for a section of what
he would make the United States.
And he proposed two differentconstitutional amendments to his
friend James Madison, who had beenmy friend before he flipped sides
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and became a Jefferson lackey.
He turned to Madison andMadison said, Are you mad?
In the time it will take to pass theseamendments, Napoleon will change his mind.
Take the deal, which he did.
And Congress passed essentiallya law authorizing it and Mr.
Jefferson with a stroke of hispen doubled the size of America.
He did it the wrong way, but hedid it in a way that ultimately
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worked out adequately and withoutan amendment to the Constitution.
Imagine how much it must have galled Mr.
Jefferson to take the Hamiltonian,the Washingtonian position of using
a law from Congress to give himselfa power he did not believe he had.
But a president, as I wrotein the federalist papers, a
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president must be able to act withsecrecy, energy, and dispatch.
In other words, he must beable to do secret negotiations.
He must be able to do themenergetically with that means
with force and a force of militarynecessary and dispatch meaning speed.
We cannot wait for a Congress to passa bill to do everything we need to do.
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The president must have certainsecrets energetic, energetic.
When you're talking about him as apresident and going the Federalist way,
he would have been considered a Republicanprior to being president, but you're
saying that once he became president,maybe saw a little less of his theory
of how things should work and saw howthey were actually working and acted a
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little bit more in concert with maybewhat the Federalists, which would be the
group that you would be involved with.
Is that right?
Yeah.
That is correct.
He was a democratic Republican as he wascalled at the time which is the mismatch
of a number of things, but the federalistnotion of which Mr, obviously Mr.
Washington, Mr.
Adams were the only truly federalistpresidents, but every my life has,
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what they may have pronounced as beinga democratic Republican, renouncing
federal power demanding more state power.
They have all been putto task as president.
Enforced to use the energy secrecyand dispatch of a president of great
power from a federalist perspective.
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It happens again and again withtreaties, with negotiations, with
actions of federal government, simplypointing out that we were correct,
that a strong central governmentwith states reduced in their power.
Is vital to the nationsurviving in the long term.
It is a tricky balance because when yougive them that power, it's very easy for
(28:36):
somebody to say, okay, I'm all powerfuland then you end up with a monarch
again, or, , a bad situation that wejust got out of, not if you have the
appropriate checks and balances as theywere called in my day in that you have.
In the document, I assume youhave read all 85 of the Federalist
Papers recently, re read them?
Not recently, no.
But I have read some of them.
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Okay, well, I assume that yourevening reading will consist of , the
eighty five volumes of the FeralistPapers to be here on out until you've
completely interpreted them again.
But they are very clear, andthere were three authors,
mr.
J wrote Foreign Entanglements.
, and he stopped after about sixbecause of an illness involving
gout and some other illnesses.
He was not a healthy man.
Mr.
Madison, having received literallybarrels full of books from Jefferson
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in France on previous government,from the Romans and the Greeks on, Mr.
Madison wrote about the It's afundamental historical basis by
which we make our decisions onwriting what's in the Constitution.
And I wrote the practical notion, lookingat every section of the Constitution and
what it really means, which is why I wroteon the Electoral College, I wrote on what
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the various departments would do, I wroteon voting, a number of different things.
So I wrote the practical lessonson how it will function under
the Articles of Administration.
And in fact, at the ratificationat Poughkeepsie one of Mr.
McClay, one of the anti federalistsstood up and said Hamilton must think
it's the divine guidance becausehe quotes it so much, because I
(30:06):
quoted my own writings, which I did.
Those federalist papers clearly lay outhow a nation can survive In the long term
by having a constitution that can and willand must adapt with the days as they pass.
. So the purpose of the Federalistpapers was basically to make the
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Constitution palatable to the masses.
It.
To say it even more roughly the FederalistPapers were political propaganda published
twice weekly in a number of newspapers.
And it's exactly as you said,to explain to people why the
Constitution was a good thing.
And for example in Federalist 51 Mr.
Madison, although I will admit thatthe night a couple of nights ago I was
(30:50):
at my friend a friend of mine's homeand I wrote It is a volume of plenty,
what, who wrote what, and I tookcredit for 51, but I will admit now
that my judgment was probably spotty.
Madison wrote Federalist 51, inwhich he explained, brilliantly,
that the people were wrong whenthey thought a small republic, what
Jefferson would call a ward republic,would best protect their liberty.
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In fact, Madison in 51 argueswhy, , a large republic is vital.
He said, essentially, that the only wayto get rid of factions, be they political
parties or other factions, the onlyway to be rid of them is either to have
everyone believe the same thing, Or, toutterly repress them so much that you
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crush all free speech, which is anathemato the principles of the Constitution.
So he said what we must satisfy ourselveswith is mitigating the impact of faction.
And he said the way we do this is bynot having a small republic, but by
having a large republic in which thereare so many factions that they will
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all argue with each other and no onefaction will be able to achieve permanent
supremacy, suppressing all the others.
Over the years, they willbattle and they will fight.
Their power will come and go, will ebb.
But the idea being that we needmore faction, not less, given
that we cannot be rid of it.
And this is brilliant and accurate.
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He said in 51, if men were angels,no government would be necessary.
But men are not angels.
And so a constitution like oursis vital to protect your rights.
And most importantly, to protect therights of those who at that moment,
So would you say then that the waythat America is set up where the
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political factions are constantlyfighting each other, are you
saying that is not a problem?
It's a feature?
It is precisely what we hoped for.
Because in your day, I will ask youthis, do you have situations where
your various political factionsfight and have to compromise?
Absolutely.
Then we were correct, sir.
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That's fantastic.
Which of the FoundingFathers is the weakest?
Oh, that is an unkind question, sir.
. I will answer the questionbecause I am not shy.
But you, sir, are whatwe would call a puppy.
We're answering it.
Puppy being one of the severalterms that could cause one to
come into an affair of honor.
In terms of physical weakness, Mr.
Madison, Mr.
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Madison was perhaps five feet tall.
He, I believe he claimsto be five foot two.
That is a kindness I will award him.
He is slight of figure and coughs intoa handkerchief with some regularity.
He has been ill and weak his entire life.
I'm surprised he has madeit to the age he is today.
Burr was not weak intellectually,but he was weak morally.
(33:43):
Mr.
Adams presents a very difficult conundrum.
Let me ask you this, in your day, Is Mr.
Adams forgotten or is he highly respected?
He's a complicated man because Ithink he's definitely respected
because people certainly respecthim for being the second president.
But, he seems like a man whospeaks very loudly with a lot of
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energy and is extremely forceful.
I think , well let me say it this way.
Mr.
Adams is an American hero in some regard.
His defense of the British soldiersat the Boston, Massacre demonstrates
his commitment to what is rightrather than what is convenient.
That said he was a petty little man.
And he assumed that given thatWashington was afforded two terms,
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he too would be afforded twoterms, as a matter of courtesy.
And when Mr.
Jefferson stood against him, andultimately won the election of
1800 uh, Adams was greatly saddenedby that, he did not attend Mr.
Jefferson's inauguration
.Now, I will say this, he lived life of honor primarily, but he
could be astonishingly petty.
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He was the man who spent the firstthree weeks of the first Washington
administration as president ofthe Senate, which is the vice
president's only true role.
The first three weeks werespent deciding by what title Mr.
Adams should be called in his role.
Should he be called some of theexamples would be his excellency,
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the president of the Senate, hisexcellency, the vice president, the
United States and president of theSenate, his most exquisite excellency,
the vice president of the United States,
it went on for three weeks ashe sat there as they debated by
what term he should be called.
This is not what a vicepresident should do.
But his treaty with the uh, Pashaof Tripoli as president was an
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honorable thing, understandingour role internationally.
He did many honorable things.
So he is a difficult one.
I certainly think he is intelligent.
You asked about the weakest.
Mr.
Adams may have been second only to me.
in terms of comments made thatturned out to be self destructive.
. So you think you had more ofthose destructive comments?
(35:55):
Well, I published two of them.
That's true.
The first was the Reynoldspamphlet, after which Mr.
Adams in fact declared that mypolitical career was over, and
he was essentially correct.
And the second was in theelection of 1800, when Mr.
Adams stood against Mr.
Jefferson, I wrote a pamphlet itwas titled a letter from Alexander
Hamilton concerning the public conductand character of John Adams Esquire,
(36:16):
President of the United States.
Now it was some 50 pages long.
It's shortly over 50 pages.
The first 49 pages were attacks onJohn Adams, and his personality, and
his capability, and his intellect.
Then there were three pagesdefending myself, and the final
four paragraphs stated thatnonetheless, I do not wish to deny Mr.
(36:39):
Adams any electoral votes.
So, 49 pages of , anti Adams rants,three pages of station keeping, and
four paragraphs of, nevertheless,you should probably vote for Adams.
You can imagine the response to that.
Yeah.
This was, the second great publishingstupidity of mine, but again, my
sense of honor required it, eventhough it did devastating damage
(36:59):
to my potential in the future.
We've almost said nothingat all about slavery.
And very early it seems that youhad a strong position against that.
Is that right?
Yeah, I did.
Well, more radically than you might think.
, I grew up on an island with some 600whites and 15, 000 enslaved Africans.
(37:20):
Wow.
And I grew up from thatdate with a visceral hatred.
An absolute loathing ofthe institution of slavery.
But I will say this, I amcareful in my criticisms of Mr.
Jefferson and others on slavery.
, during the Revolutionary War, the BritishArmy offered the enslaved Africans
(37:42):
in this country a pretty good deal.
They said, run away from yourmasters, fight for us, and when
the war is over, we will free you.
The British Prime Minister at the timesaid of Americans, those who yelp most for
liberty are the drivers of Negro slaves.
So this was a difficult thing, and Ithen wrote a letter to John, my friend
(38:03):
John Lawrence and others, in whichI said something truly radical for
the time, in support of the argumentthat had been put forward, free the
slaves, have them fight for us, Andthey can be free when the war's over.
And I argued in this letter, andI paraphrase, a radical notion.
Not only did I argue that they were peopleand should be free, I, in this letter,
(38:25):
I argued that I believe their facultiesand facilities to be the equal of ours.
And any difference of opinionis a function of our education
and not their inhatability.
I argued for the intellectualequality of Negro slaves, which, as
you can imagine, was truly radical.
There were others who wereabolitionists besides myself.
(38:47):
Abolitionists meaning someone whobelieved in the getting rid of slavery.
Mr.
Jefferson, I believe in hisheart, was an abolitionist.
He was born into a situation wherehis first memory is being carried
on a silken pillow by a slave woman.
He's just writing theDeclaration of Independence.
Enslaved people arebringing him his lunch.
And he once wrote of slavery, itis like holding a wolf by the ears.
(39:10):
You cannot hold on, butyou dare not let go.
And I would ask you, sir, with yourwisdom of your day, if you come back
to my day, a day in which there areenslaved Africans by the millions, do you,
from your enlightened future, Have thewords that can fix it, that can end it.
(39:31):
, unfortunately, , no . And that iswhy the constitution simply kicked
the can as one might say, down to1820 and which of course in your day,
looking back, it all seems like timecrushed together, but we simply said
we will not touch slavery for 20 years.
And had we not done that, we wouldnot have gotten the votes of the
Carolinas and Georgia, the Constitutionwould not have been ratified, the
(39:52):
country would have fallen apart, andthe British would have reinvaded.
As a necessary condition of the foundationof the nation, we gritted our teeth
and accepted slavery where it existed,and hoped that future generations would
find a better solution than we had.
We were talking a little bit ago aboutbattle that you were involved with,
(40:13):
and one of them I hear about somethingwhere you stole some cannons, and then
there was the another one where youcharge without bullets in your gun,
or without I, I liberated cannons.
Liberated, right.
Borrowed.
Well, I had no intentionof giving them back.
At the Battle of Long Island, theBattle of, we had the Battle of
New York, , I created, out of myown pocket, I had created a small
(40:34):
military company of a few men.
We called ourselves the Corsicanslater called the Heart of Oak.
And we had green coats and leathercaps with Liberty or death embroidered,
we drilled in a courtyard and I, astheir captain of artillery and captain
of this group, one of the first waysI became known to the general officers
around me was when we discovered thatat the very point of Manhattan the,
(40:58):
where it ends to the West is a battery.
There were 21 nine pound cannonsthat were there and the British ship
HMS Asia, which is a monstrous shipwith dozens of cannon, I want to
say 54, but I could be incorrect onthat, but a large number of cannons
all in one line firing these blasts.
(41:19):
The people down there on our sidewith only these little nine pound
cannons had fled, which meant thatthose cannons would be And their
powder and shot will be captured bythe British when they came ashore.
So I arranged for a small group of men,myself included, to run down and gather
these 21 nine pound cannons which we did.
(41:39):
And then when I got back to safety,I discovered that one of my men, to
whom I had handed my musket as I was.
Liberating cannon had leftthe musket behind out of fear.
It was irritating me enormously, soI then ran back into the fire of the
HMS Asia to retrieve my musket, whichI did, and returned back, and then
these cannons became guns for liberty.
(41:59):
It was a remarkablebattle, I will tell you.
You got a certain realization aboutlife when dozens upon dozens of
cannonballs are exploding all around you.
, do you want to ask about which was theother battle you wish to ask me about?
Where you took the bullets from your gun.
Oh, well, this of course was Yorktown.
Yes.
The climactic battle.
You recall I spoke earlier of theargument that I'd had with General
(42:22):
Washington, well, the dressing down Igot from General Washington, from which
I immediately resigned from his staff.
I actually was thereanother couple of months.
And then Lafayette, who would be givena large command to Yorktown, gave
me command Over one of his subunitsat Yorktown and this subunit, which
I had command was going to be thefirst over the wall at Yorktown.
(42:46):
And as a result we had If Isay what a redoubt is, do you
understand, sir, in your day
yes.
It is a military fortress.
That one might even call a smallfort where there's a a trench.
Often in circles, not always in circles.
But it's a place from which anenemy can fire under some cover.
And there were a number of thesespaced out beyond the actual
(43:09):
walls of the Yorktown Fort.
These readouts were outersecurity, if you will.
And readout number 10 is the onethat that we attacked firsthand.
And I realized that because of the smallsize of readout number 10, there was going
to be a very difficult time If the menhad to shoot, stop, reload, and shoot,
(43:30):
because recall please, that our brown bestmuskets fired a single round at a time.
Now, you would have to then run a roddown to clean out the debris, run down
a powder, a musket ball, a patch, ram ithome, and then be ready to fire again.
A very skilled rifleman.
could fire a brown best, perhapsthree times a minute and stress beat
(43:53):
times of great stress, like a battleor other less skilled individuals.
It might take you a whole minutewith shaking hands to reload.
And that time an enemy can advanceon you in a trench very quickly.
So I ordered my men to to unload.
The muskets and instead of fixed bayonets,the bayonets we used were triangular in
(44:15):
shape so that the wound could not closeand one might bleed to death if stabbed.
Nasty weapon.
But I ordered my men to charge withessentially spears, muskets with these
bayonets affixed, and I led them allwith sword in hand, and we attacked the
British, and it is not important nordignified to describe what one sees in
(44:36):
such situations, but we took the readout,and that readout capture was critical
to the ultimate capture of Yorktown,giving us a position from which we could
shell the facility into surrender whenthey finally had to run up a white flag.
The French were in the port to theirback, so they could not leave and we had
an army surrounding them on three sides,so it was a heroic and successful battle.
(45:00):
It amazes me that when you look atyour history and anything that you
were willing to do for your country,whether it was hours and hours of work
with a pen, or whether it was runninginto a situation like that with a sword
in your hand and risking everything.
How anybody could ever questionyour honor and your character.
(45:20):
It just seems like itdoesn't even make any sense.
. Well, you must ask Mr.
Jefferson, Mr.
Adams, that question.
When you speak to them I suspect Mr.
Jefferson would say herespected my intellect, but
did not respect my character.
I found his character weak,but I also understand the
circumstance from which he came.
It's interesting that you saythat, because I did speak with Mr.
Jefferson, and he said exactly that.
(45:43):
Well, perhaps we're both insightful men.
One of us fought in battle, one of ustwice saved Congress from capture by
the British, one of us took sword inhand to defend democracy in the most
literal possible sense, and one of usdecamped to Carter Mountain when he
found his term as governor had expired.
I'm not necessarily calling Mr.
Jefferson a coward.
I'm simply recounting hisactions, which somehow managed to
(46:04):
always avoid military conflict.
I see.
in our time, there is a verypopular play about your life.
And in that play , it talks aboutthe women that you were involved with
of course, there is Eliza, yourwife, and then there was Angelica,
who is her sister, correct?
(46:24):
And Peggy, . I called them my brunettes.
Well, in the play, they suggestthat Angelica fancied you.
Is that true?
Not at all.
Your playwright is a liar.
Plays are not necessarily designedto be the accurate written history
of any particular event, I suppose.
Angelica and Peggy, for thatmatter were delightful people.
(46:45):
But my love was for Elizabeth,the most remarkable woman I
think one could ever encounter.
, but I will say Angelica and Peggy alsowere remarkable people themselves.
But by the time I was attempting toget Elizabeth to fall to my, into my
spell Angelica was already a marriedwoman and a happily married one.
(47:07):
So your author is taking great liberties.
And I think that's unfortunate.
Well, if I meet the author, I'lllet him know he's a liar from you.
Well, tell him that in, in, I don'tknow if you still do affairs of honor,
but perhaps it would be worth it.
Well, in case he listens to this,maybe you should just say right
now, Lin Manuel, you're a liar.
(47:27):
Just say that.
Well, I won't say that, because hemay honestly believe what he believes.
He's just maybe miseducated.
But I will say that there wasa A party we were attending.
And to give you a sense of how, even inour day, there was humor back and forth.
And there was what one might evencall spicy humor back and forth.
In this case I was at a partywith the three sisters, and
(47:49):
Angelica lost a bow off her shoe.
And Peggy scooped it up and put itin my buttonhole and said, There,
brother, I have made you a knight.
Angelica said, But of what order?
He cannot be a knight ofthe garter in this country.
And Peggy said, True, sister, but hewould be one if you would let him.
So that is as off coloras we would get in my day.
Oh, that is spicy.
That is very spicy.
(48:10):
Well, I'll tell you one thing that theplaywright did get correct, and I'm
glad you said that about your wife,Eliza, is that she shines in that as a
strong woman that stood behind her manthrough some very difficult times and
through some And and then, , it does manywonderful things later in life as well.
So, obviously, you feel the same way.
(48:30):
Well, I do, and this evening I'vewritten two letters to my dear Elizabeth
to be delivered on the occasion of mypassing, should that happen tomorrow.
And in one letter, I urge herto be generous to relatives and
things, which she always would be.
But in the final letter, I end this way.
I say, The scruples of a Christian havedetermined me to expose my own life to
(48:53):
any extent, rather than subject myself tothe guilt of taking the life of another.
This must increase my hazardsand redoubles my pangs for you.
But you had rather I dieinnocent than live guilty.
Heaven can preserve me,and I humbly hope will.
But in the event, I charge you toremember that you are a Christian.
God's will be done.
(49:14):
The will of a merciful God must be good.
Once more, adieu my darling, darling wife.
That will be delivered to her tomorrow,should the occasion call for it.
Well, let's hope that doesn't happen.
I hope things go well tomorrow.
Indeed.
, let us hope that this is alsofinally the end of Colonel
Burr's influence in America.
The idea that a city vice presidentwould duel with a former secretary
(49:37):
of the treasury should be deeplyoffensive to most gentlemen.
And Colonel Burr's, uh.
economic incompetence and his moraldepravity should have long since
disqualified him from public service.
And one hopes by the sunsettomorrow, he is forever doomed
to be a footnote of history.
Well, let's hope this is the end.
(49:58):
Again, I thank you for all of yourtime and everything that you did.
It's just the list of things you've donefor our country so that it can thrive now.
It's, there's just no end to it.
It's as long as that list ofthings that you wrote about
that were wrong about Burr.
But I guess I'd like to askyou, is there anything else
you'd like to say as we finish?
Well, I can only hope you, you havehinted, both by the technology you
(50:21):
present and some of your words, thatthe nation that we have founded And
still sits on uncertain footing, hassucceeded, at least in some degree,
for the next two or more centuries.
We look back on two centuries beforemy time, when settlers were first
arriving, and you wonder what theymight think of the city of New York
(50:43):
today, or even Washington City.
And one hopes that the fundamentalprinciples of the Constitution,
the fundamental notions that if youbreathe, you should breathe free.
Those remarkable words that I credit Mr.
Jefferson for saying in the Declaration ofIndependence, which begin with the phrase,
(51:03):
we hold these truths to be self evident.
Those remarkable words that government iscreated for the people and by the people.
And when the government doesn't servethe people, it should be replaced.
The most powerful words ever said.
In a political world.
And I can only hope that Mr.
(51:23):
Franklin was correct when hesaid a republic if you can keep
it, and I hope you've kept it.
General Hamilton, I thankyou so much for your time.
It's a pleasure speaking with you, sir.
Now if you'll excuse me, Ihave more letters to write.
And that was it.
Hamilton's life ended the nextday after he and Aaron Burr
pointed pistols at one another.
(51:43):
Uh, Hamilton appeared to bewearing his glasses, implying
that he needed them to aim.
And although it is disputed whether ornot he missed intentionally, he missed.
Burt shot on the otherhand was deadly yeah.
Considering how tragicallyAaron Burr's life ended.
You could say they both died that day.
Hamilton's legacy was that of awarrior who fought for freedom
(52:05):
with both the pen and the sword.
A politician who servedhis nation honorably.
And the genius that sold the constitutionto its own citizens and created
the United States financial system.
Without Alexander Hamilton, howlong would the states have had their
own money causing us to fall behindwhile other nations were growing?
(52:25):
What our land have eventuallydivided into four or five regions,
all fighting for the same space andresources instead of one United States.
And finally much like the play.
I'm going to end with astory about Eliza Hamilton.
She died at the age of 97, survivingHamilton by 50 years, she had eaten dinner
with eight different presidents tellingthem stories about when she went on
(52:48):
long horse rides with George Washingtonand danced with Thomas Jefferson.
But.
After his presidency.
James Monroe was feeling terrible aboutwhat he had done to Hamilton by leaking
information about the Reynolds affair.
And he asked to meet withEliza to clear his conscience.
Eliza loved Hamilton andrefused to see Monroe.
(53:11):
Her children said, motherhe's a former president.
You have to meet with him.
She relented and Monroe was showninto a room where there was a single
chair , already occupied by Eliza.
He gave a speech about forgivingand forgetting, she looked
him in the eye and she said, Mr.
Monroe, if you have come hereto say that you are sorry.
(53:32):
Very very sorry about themisrepresentations slander and stories.
You've told about my dear husband.
. So be it, but if not, no passageof time, no near-miss to the grave.
Makes any difference.
Then she threw him out.
By the way in this podcast, manyhistorical names were mentioned and nearly
(53:52):
all of them have already been recorded.
You can go back to the otherepisodes and listen to Aaron Burr.
Albert Galatin, George Washington,Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin
Franklin and James Madison.
But sadly, no James Monroe, becauseEliza wouldn't let them on yet.
Thank you for listening.
And don't forget that when you tella friend about the calling history
podcast, your plants will start textingyou when they need to be watered.
(54:15):
I'm Tony Dean.
And until next time.
. I'm history
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