Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

  [Hamilton] advanced towards me, on my entering the room, with presented hand—I took no notice of his polite intention, but sat down without bowing to him....He then asked me if I was come from camp—I said, shortly, no, without the usual application of Sir, rose from my chair—left the room and him standing before the chair. I could not treat him much more rudely—I’ve reported my suspicions of his veracity on the trial so often that I expect the son of a bitch will challenge me when he comes.44

  In early December, Lee heaped further abuse upon Washington in print, and John Laurens urged Hamilton to rebut it. “The pen of Junius is in your hand and I think you will, without difficulty, expose...such a tissue of falsehood and inconsistency as will satisfy the world and put him forever to silence.”45 Perhaps because he was a party to the dispute, Hamilton, in a rare act of reticence, declined to lift his pen. Instead, Laurens challenged Lee to a duel to avenge the slurs against Washington. Hamilton agreed to serve as his second, the first of many such “affairs of honor” in which he participated.

  Dueling was so prevalent in the Continental Army that one French visitor declared, “The rage for dueling here has reached an incredible and scandalous point.”46 It was a way that gentlemen could defend their sense of honor: instead of resorting to courts if insulted, they repaired to the dueling ground. This anachronistic practice expressed a craving for rank and distinction that lurked beneath the egalitarian rhetoric of the American Revolution. Always insecure about his status in the world, Hamilton was a natural adherent to dueling, with its patrician overtones. Lacking a fortune or family connections, he guarded his reputation jealously throughout his life, and affairs of honor were often his preferred method for doing so. The man born without honor placed a premium on maintaining his.

  Late in the wintry afternoon of December 23, 1778, Hamilton accompanied John Laurens to the duel in a wood outside Philadelphia. Lee chose for his second Major Evan Edwards. By prearranged rules, Laurens and Lee strode toward each other and fired their pistols when they stood five or six paces apart. After Laurens shot Lee in the right side, Laurens, Hamilton, and Edwards rushed toward the general, who waved them away and requested a second round of fire. Neither Hamilton nor Edwards wanted Lee to continue, as they made clear in a joint account they issued the next day. “Col. Hamilton observed that unless the General was influenced by motives of personal enmity, he did not think the affair ought to be pursued any further. But as General Lee seemed to persist in desiring it, he was too tender of his friend’s honor to persist in opposing it.”47 But no second round ensued. The duel ended with Lee declaring that he “esteemed General Washington” as a man and had never spoken of him in the abusive manner alleged.48 For Laurens, this made sufficient amends, and the four men quit the woods. In their summary, Hamilton and Edwards praised the conduct of the two principals as “strongly marked with all the politeness, generosity, coolness, and firmness that ought to characterize a transaction of this nature.”49

  How was Hamilton affected by his first duel? He saw two gentlemen who had exhibited exemplary behavior and fought for ideals rather than just personal animosity. The object had not been to kill the other person so much as to resolve honorably a lingering dispute. Both Laurens and Lee walked away with their dignity more or less intact. Dueling may well have struck the young Hamilton less as a barbaric relic of a feudal age than as a noble affirmation of high honor. It was the last act of Charles Lee’s military career. He withdrew from the scene and lived in seclusion with his beloved dogs, first in Virginia and then in Philadelphia, where he died of tuberculosis in October 1782.

  One possible reason that Hamilton refrained from attacking Charles Lee in print that autumn was that he had just administered a stern rebuke to Maryland congressman Samuel Chase. A signer of the Declaration of Independence and later a Supreme Court justice, Chase was a tall, ungainly man with a resemblance to Dr. Samuel Johnson and a face so broad and ruddy that he was dubbed “Bacon Face.” He could be overbearing and blustered his way into controversies throughout his career.

  Hamilton had published anonymous diatribes against Chase after noticing that the price of flour needed by the newly arrived French fleet had more than doubled. He claimed that Chase had leaked knowledge of a secret congressional plan to buy up flour for the French to his associates, who then cornered the market. To expose Chase, Hamilton resumed his acquaintance with New-York Journal publisher John Holt, who now printed a newspaper from Poughkeepsie during the British occupation of New York.

  Using the pen name “Publius”—a lifelong favorite—Hamilton castigated Chase in three long letters in Holt’s paper between October and November 1778. Chase didn’t know the author was an adjutant to Washington. These essays belie the later caricature of Hamilton as a reflexive apologist for business, an uncritical exponent of the profit motive. After pointing to the punishment inflicted on traitors to the patriotic cause, he noted that “the conduct of another class, equally criminal, and, if possible, more mischievous has hitherto passed with that impunity....I mean that tribe who...have carried the spirit of monopoly and extortion to an excess which scarcely admits of a parallel. When avarice takes the lead in a state, it is commonly the forerunner of its fall. How shocking is it to discover among ourselves, even at this early period, the strongest symptoms of this fatal disease?”50

  The first “Publius” letter pointed out that greed can corrupt a state and that a public official who betrays his trust “ought to feel the utmost rigor of public resentment and be detested as a traitor of the worst and most dangerous kind.”51 In the second letter, Hamilton lapsed into gratuitous calumny against Chase. “Had you not struck out a new line of prostitution for yourself, you might still have remained unnoticed and contemptible,” he hectored Chase. “It is your lot to have the peculiar privilege of being universally despised.”52 In the third letter, Hamilton gave a possible clue to his overwrought style: he was already thinking ahead. “The station of a member of C[ongre]ss is the most illustrious and important of any I am able to conceive. He is to be regarded not only as a legislator but as the founder of an empire.”53 Hamilton expected that someday the struggling confederation of states would be welded into a mighty nation, and he believed that every step now taken by politicians would reverberate by example far into the future.

  It was fitting that Hamilton should have mused about America’s future greatness in the fall of 1778, for the struggle with the British had expanded into a sweeping transatlantic conflict. Spain had entered the war on the colonial side after failing to regain control of Gibraltar from England. France had also decided to wage war on Britain for reasons having to do less with ideological solidarity with America—it scarcely behooved Louis XVI to encourage revolts against royal authority—than with a desire to subvert Britain and even the score after losing the French and Indian War. The French also sought better access to Caribbean sugar islands and North American ports. This early lesson in Realpolitik—that countries follow their interests, not their sympathies—was engraved in Hamilton’s memory, and he often reminded Jeffersonians later on that the French had fought for their own selfish purposes. “The primary motives of France for the assistance which she gave us was obviously to enfeeble a hated and powerful rival by breaking in pieces the British Empire,” he wrote nearly two decades later. “He must be a fool who can be credulous enough to believe that a despotic court aided a popular revolution from regard to liberty or friendship to the principles of such a revolution.”54

  According to his King’s College classmate Nicholas Fish, Hamilton had a direct hand in prodding Lafayette to advocate bringing a French army to America. Before Admiral Jean Baptiste d’Estaing came with his fleet in July 1778, Hamilton played on Lafayette’s vanity by touting the merits of having a French ground force with Lafayette as its commander. “The United States are under infinite obligations to [Lafayette] beyond what is known,” Hamilton told Fish later, “not only for his valour and good conduct as major general of our army, but for
his good offices and influence in our behalf with the court of France. The French army now here . . . would not have been in this country but through his means.”55

  Hamilton was posted to greet Admiral d’Estaing aboard his majestic flagship and became a frequent emissary to the French. He often served as interpreter for Washington, who did not speak the language and considered himself too old to learn. Hamilton also provided impeccable translations of diplomatic correspondence into French, with just the right dash of high-flown language. In this manner, the alliance with France further enhanced Hamilton’s stature in the Continental Army.

  Many French radicals who flocked to the Revolution were descended from nobility and were enchanted by Hamilton’s social grace, ready humor, and erudition. J. P. Brissot de Warville recalled Hamilton as “firm and...decided[,]... frank and martial” and later had him named an honorary member of the French National Assembly.56 The marquis de Chastellux marveled that such a young man “by a prudence and secrecy still more beyond his age than his information justified the confidence with which he was honored” by Washington.57 The duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt observed of Hamilton, “He united with dignity and feeling, and much force and decision, delightful manners, great sweetness, and was infinitely agreeable.”58 At the same time, the duke noticed that some things were so blindingly self-evident to Hamilton that he was baffled when others didn’t grasp them quickly—an intellectual agility that could breed intolerance for less quickwitted mortals.

  Though Hamilton was adored by the French officers in their royal blue-andscarlet uniforms, he also nursed grievances against them. Familiarity bred contempt along with affection. Hamilton deplored many French aristocrats as vainglorious self-promoters who wanted to snatch a particle of fame from the Revolution and parlay it into a superior rank at home. He had to endure in silence insults from them about incompetent continentals. “The French volunteers, generally speaking, were men of ordinary talents and skills in the military arts,” remarked Robert Troup, “and yet most of them were so conceited as to suppose themselves Caesars or Hannibals in comparison with the American officers.”59

  The self-made Hamilton was offended by favoritism shown toward the French, a situation that demoralized many in the continental ranks who fought at considerable personal sacrifice. “Congress in the beginning went upon a very injudicious plan with respect to Frenchmen,” he informed one friend. “To every adventurer that came without even the shadow of credentials they gave the rank of field officers.”60 It often fell to Hamilton to smooth ruffled feelings between the allies, as when he arbitrated an early dispute between General John Sullivan and Admiral d’Estaing.

  It was the bane of Hamilton’s service that he had to draft numerous letters to Congress, requesting promotions for undeserving Frenchmen. If Congress spurned these requests, then he had to apply balm to the wounded suitors through oily compliments. Hamilton once told John Jay that he wrote these letters to shield Washington from the inevitable resentment of rejected Frenchmen. In private, nobody railed more against the preferential treatment of French aristocrats than Hamilton, who was later so freely branded an “aristocrat” by rivals. At the same time, he saw that an aristocratic class could contain progressive members and that republican wisdom wasn’t a monopoly held by mechanics and tradesmen.

  Though Hamilton often regarded the French allies as a royal nuisance, he never denied the decisive nature of their intervention. From the start, they had smuggled weapons and supplies to the patriots. Many were also fine soldiers, and Hamilton later paid tribute to the “ardent, impetuous, and military genius of the French.”61 By the spring of 1779, he could say categorically of these sometimes trying allies, “Their friendship is the pillar of our security.”62

  The status-conscious Hamilton was also sensitive to perceived inequities among Washington’s staff, even when it pertained to his closest friend, John Laurens. In November 1778, just before Henry Laurens stepped down as its president, Congress tried to promote John Laurens to lieutenant colonel as a reward for valorous conduct. Laurens declined but accepted the offer when it was renewed in March 1779. Hamilton didn’t urge Laurens to reject the commission, but he was dismayed nonetheless. “The only thing I see wrong in the affair is this,” Hamilton wrote to his friend. “Congress by their conduct ...appear to have intended to confer a privilege, an honor, a mark of distinction ...which they withhold from other gentlemen in the [military] family. This carries with it an air of preference, which, though we can all truly say we love your character and admire your military merit, cannot fail to give some of us uneasy sensations.”63

  Hamilton and Laurens shared an idealism about the Revolution that yoked them tightly together. They were both unwavering abolitionists who saw emancipation of the slaves as an inseparable part of the struggle for freedom as well as a source of badly needed manpower. “I think that we Americans, at least in the Southern col[onie]s, cannot contend with a good grace for liberty until we shall have enfranchised our slaves,” Laurens told a friend right before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.64 This represented a courageous stand for the son of a very significant South Carolina slaveholder. From the time he joined Washington’s family, Laurens unabashedly championed a plan in which slaves would earn their freedom by joining the Continental Army. (About five thousand blacks eventually did serve alongside the patriots, though they were frequently relegated to noncombat situations; short of soldiers, Rhode Island raised a black regiment in 1778 by promising slaves their freedom.) Laurens offered more than lip service to his scheme, telling his father that he was willing to take his inheritance in the form of a black battalion, freed and equipped to defend South Carolina.

  At the end of the year, Laurens’s proposal acquired increased urgency as the British redirected their military operations southward, hoping to rouse Loyalist sympathies. By January 1779, they had captured both Savannah and Augusta and threatened South Carolina. Laurens resigned from Washington’s family and returned to defend his home state, stopping in Philadelphia to solicit congressional approval for two to four black battalions for the Continental Army. Hamilton drafted an eloquent, supportive letter for his friend to deliver to John Jay, who had succeeded Henry Laurens as president of Congress. In the letter, Hamilton plainly revealed what he thought of the slave system that had surrounded him since birth: “I have not the least doubt that the negroes will make very excellent soldiers with proper management and I will venture to pronounce that they cannot be put in bettter hands than those of Mr. Laurens.” Hamilton brushed aside the fallacies that slaves were not smart enough to turn into soldiers and were genetically inferior: “This is so far from appearing to me a valid objection that I think their want of cultivation (for their natural faculties are probably as good as ours) joined to that habit of subordination which they acquire from a life of servitude will make them sooner become soldiers than our white inhabitants.”

  In a typical Hamiltonian manner, he placed political realism at the service of a larger ethical framework, stressing that both humanity and self-interest argued for the Laurens proposal:

  The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability or pernicious tendency of a scheme which requires such a sacrifice. But it should be considered that if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out will be to offer them ourselves. An essential part of the plan is to give them their freedom with their muskets. This will secure their fidelity, animate their courage, and I believe will have a good influence upon those who remain by opening a door to their emancipation.65

  Unfortunately, despite a supportive congressional resolution, Laurens’s battle in the South Carolina legislature to enact his program proved futile. South Carolina had a special stake in the sla
ve trade, with Charleston acting as the largest port of entry for slaves arriving in North America. As in many places, planters lived in dread of slave insurrections, constantly inspected slave quarters for concealed weapons, and sometimes themselves refused to serve in the Continental Army out of fear that in their absence their slaves might rise up and massacre their families.

  The northern states were not about to override their southern brethren on the slavery issue. All along, the American Revolution had been premised on a tacit bargain that regional conflicts would be subordinated to the need for unity among the states. This understanding dictated that slavery would remain a taboo subject. There was also the ticklish matter that many slave owners had joined the Revolution precisely to retain slavery. In November 1775, Lord Dunmore, the royal governor of Virginia, had issued a proclamation offering freedom to slaves willing to defend the Crown—an action that sent many panicky slaveholders stampeding into the patriot camp. “How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of Negroes?” Samuel Johnson protested from London.66 Horace Walpole echoed this sentiment: “I should think the souls of the Africans would sit heavily on the swords of the Americans.”67

  Many on the patriot side recognized the hypocrisy of the American position. Even before the Declaration of Independence, Abigail Adams had bewailed the situation: “It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to me—to fight for ourselves for what we are robbing and plundering from those who have as good a right to freedom as we have.”68 And yet, to the everlasting disgrace of the rebel colonists, it was General Sir Henry Clinton in June 1779 who promised freedom to runaway slaves defecting to the British side. The defeat of the Laurens plan left Hamilton utterly dejected. “I wish its success,” he wrote to Laurens later in the year, “but my hopes are very feeble. Prejudice and private interest will be antagonists too powerful for public spirit and public good.”69