Not Your Father's Founders
Page 8
The End of Hamilton’s Public Service Career
It wasn’t Hamilton’s controversial views about the role of the federal government that did him in. It was a foolish moral lapse that led to his resignation from his position and ended his public service career.
Hamilton was the male star of the nation’s first major political sex scandal. He had a two-year affair with Maria Lewis Reynolds, the wife of one of his acquaintances, James Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds knew about the affair; he used it to blackmail Hamilton, with Maria’s complicity. Hamilton made at least two payments to satisfy Reynolds’s demands. Eventually, Hamilton admitted his role in the affair to two congressional investigators, James Monroe and Frederick Muhlenberg. They handled the matter discreetly, and it was relegated to old news. The federal government had weathered its first real political scandal.
After the investigation ended, Hamilton went back to his law practice and never held national office again. But he kept interfering in national political affairs. He helped engineer Thomas Jefferson’s election as president in 1800 in order to spite his old nemesis, John Adams, who had no love for Hamilton.
Adams and Hamilton engaged in a constant struggle for the leadership of the Federalist Party. During Adams’s presidency, Hamilton sought constantly to advise his cabinet members, which aggravated the president. Hamilton exacerbated the rift between them close to the election of 1800 when he attacked Adams’s policies in a document intended for private circulation, titled The Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq., President of the United States.
In the document, Hamilton included confidential information about Adams’s cabinet activities. Aaron Burr, Hamilton’s legal and political adversary and Jefferson’s vice-presidential running mate, published a copy of the treatise without Hamilton’s knowledge. Burr’s duplicity heightened the animosity between him and Hamilton.
Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
“THIS BASTARD BRAT OF A SCOTCH PEDLAR [SIC].”
—JOHN ADAMS ABOUT ALEXANDER HAMILTON
In the 1800 presidential election, Jefferson and Aaron Burr were tied in the number of electoral votes. In the House of Representatives, which would cast the deciding vote, Hamilton campaigned against Burr to help get Jefferson elected. Four years later, he again worked to keep Burr out of the White House.
Burr took exception to Hamilton’s meddling in the presidential elections. He challenged Hamilton to a duel on the pretext of some alleged insults Hamilton had hurled at Burr. They met on the Weehawken, New Jersey, dueling diamond on July 11, 1804.
REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS
Alexander Hamilton’s oldest son Philip had lost his life in a duel three years earlier—on the same ground.
Burr shot Hamilton, who died the next day. Burr killed more than a man; he killed a national treasure. Hamilton’s service to the United States had been extraordinary. Sadly, the man who had done so much to build his adopted country was done in by an affair and a duel.
JOHN HANCOCK
Braintree, Massachusetts
January 12, 1737−October 8, 1793
Did He Really Say That?
John Hancock is best known for his exaggerated signature on the Declaration of Independence. But he earned the right to do that. Hancock was a successful merchant and the president of the Second Continental Congress from 1775 to 1777, when the document was adopted. Later, he served as the first governor of the commonwealth of Massachusetts from 1780–1785 and 1787–1793, and served as the inspiration for an insurance company.
Me, in Politics?
As a young man, John Hancock was not interested in politics. Running a business was his primary interest. After graduating from Harvard in 1754, Hancock began an apprenticeship at his uncle’s retail and shipping business, which he inherited in 1764. By then he was increasingly opposed to the growing number of British acts aimed at raising tax revenues from the colonists.
In 1764, Hancock cofounded the local Society to Encourage Trade. Subsequently, he was elected to one of Boston’s seven selectmen seats in 1765. When news of the impending Stamp Act reached the colonies, Hancock seemed uninterested. He had other problems to deal with: His balance sheet was a mess, he had very little cash, and his suppliers refused to let him operate on credit.
Quotations to Live (and Die) By!
“I SELDOM MEDDLE WITH POLITICKS, & INDEED HAVE NOT TIME NOW TO SAY ANYTHING ON THAT HEAD.”
—JOHN HANCOCK
By the time the Stamp Act became effective, Hancock owed one supplier alone £19,000. American trade was stagnant, and merchants vigorously protested the Stamp Act. At this point, his financial distress was great enough that Hancock joined the growing number of protesters. Samuel Adams befriended Hancock, supported his bid for selectman, introduced him to members of the patriot clubs, and invited him to a few secret meetings. Suddenly, John found himself in a position to exert influence. Other merchants looked to him for guidance.
Meddling in Politics Becomes a Passion
Hancock informed his agents in London that he would no longer import British goods until the Stamp Act was repealed, which it was, on March 18, 1766.
Hancock became an active leader in the fight against British taxation policies. Tensions came to a head on June 10, 1768, when British commissioners seized his sloop Liberty, alleging that he had not paid taxes on his entire cargo of wine.
A mob assembled on the wharf to support Hancock. As the drama played out, the mob became more agitated and rowdy. Patriots seized a boat owned by one of the commissioners and burned it near Hancock’s mansion as their leaders urged the crowd to “take up arms and be free.” Hancock helped disperse the crowd before it became more riled. The Liberty affair bolstered his growing popularity.
The war between Hancock and the customs commissioners was not over. On November 3, 1768, he was arrested for smuggling. John Adams defended Hancock in court. Despite irregular proceedings by the prosecution, Hancock was acquitted and became more of a public hero than ever.
The stress of the court proceedings over his arrest for smuggling and the public horror over the Boston Massacre convinced him that inflammatory politics were not the best way to fight British taxation policies—until Britain passed the Tea Act of 1773.
The Last Straw
The tea tax was Parliament’s effort to save the faltering East India Company, an English joint stock firm, by selling its tea in Boston at a bargain price. Bostonians protested the act by dressing up as Indians and dumping the tea into the harbor on the night of December 16, 1773. Hancock did not play a direct role in the protest. He did attend a meeting earlier that night at which he spoke and told everyone there to do what they thought was right.
Tensions in Boston ran high. In 1775, General Thomas Gage, the new military royal governor of Massachusetts, ordered his soldiers to fortify the town’s defenses and canceled a General Assembly meeting of the Provincial Congress slated to convene in nearby Salem.
Defiant congressional delegates met anyway. They established the Massachusetts Committee of Safety, charged with forming a 15,000-man army and securing supplies, arms, and artillery. Hancock, convinced war was imminent, settled his debts with his London agent, and went into the revolution still cash poor, but ready for action.
FEDERAL FACTS
British troops received copies of a handbill that identified the troublemakers who were responsible for inciting public sentiment against the British government. The handbill included Hancock’s name.
Hancock was reelected to the Provincial Congress and selected as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. His activities set him even more firmly in the sights of the occupying British forces. General Thomas Gage ordered the seizure of the Boston Safety Committee’s munitions. The stage for war was set.
REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS
Hancock was so busy that he postponed his marriage to Dorothy Quincy, a young lady of prominent social stature selected for him by his Aunt Lydia. He wrote to Dorothy to explain his atten
tions were required elsewhere and promised to “return as soon as possible,” hoping she would not be “saucy” when he did. They married eventually.
Hancock was elected president of the Second Continental Congress. He successfully walked the fine line between the radicals who desired independence and moderates who favored reconciliation. In the process, he incurred the enmity of John Adams and Samuel Adams, who tried to curtail his growing power and influence. They believed that Hancock’s vanity and lavish lifestyle did not set a good example for people who were struggling to establish a new country and sacrificing material goods and personal wealth in the process.
FEDERAL FACTS
When John Hancock volunteered to be commander in chief of the Continental Army, John Adams and Samuel Adams supported George Washington. By 1776, the rift deepened between Hancock and the Adamses. The cousins tried to undermine any future Hancock planned in Massachusetts politics by securing a coalition that excluded him and attacked his allies and associates.
Hancock learned by May 1776 that he had been deliberately excluded from the Massachusetts lower house and the Governor’s Council. Seeing the mood of the times and the radicals moving into popular sentiment, he became an ardent convert to the cause of independence.
Hancock’s father-in-law, Edmund Quincy, advised him after the British left Boston that “Nothing will answer the end so well as a Declaration to all the world for absolute Independency.” Hancock took that advice, as his large signature on the Declaration demonstrates. While he is purported to have said, “There, I guess King George will be able to read that” about his signature, there is no definitive proof that he actually uttered those words or anything like them.
FEDERAL FACTS
The Declaration of Independence was signed starting on August 2, 1776; not all fifty-six signers were present that day. There was some rhyme and reason to the order in which the delegates signed the document. John Hancock signed first because he was the president of the Congress. The other fifty-five delegates signed by state, arranged from the northernmost state (New Hampshire) to the southernmost (Georgia).
Return to Massachusetts
After Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, Hancock returned to Boston to renew his political aspirations and earn some money. He feared that he might be attacked en route from Philadelphia to Boston. So, in a typical example of the Hancock extravagances that riled John and Samuel Adams, he requested an armed escort from George Washington, who provided him with fifteen horsemen.
Shortly after his return, Hancock was elected as governor of Massachusetts by a landslide. Hancock spent his gubernatorial career largely as a figurehead, with enough sense to let the powers of the legislature have their way.
Hancock served additional terms as governor of Massachusetts and was elected to the Massachusetts convention to ratify the U.S. Constitution. He had hopes of serving as the first president of the United States, but realized the national political current would not support him.
His career ended prematurely. Hancock was fifty-six years old when he died, ending his career as a master politician. His place in history will always rest on his large signature on the Declaration of Independence.
BENJAMIN HARRISON
Berkeley, Virginia
April 5, 1726−April 24, 1791
Virginia’s Odd Man Out
Benjamin Harrison was the stereotypical unsung hero of the Revolutionary War era. His accomplishments were overshadowed by those of some of his contemporary Virginia politicians of note, such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. Nevertheless, his contributions were noteworthy. He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses (the colony’s legislature) and the Continental Congress; was governor of Virginia; signed the Declaration of Independence; distinguished himself as a member of the Board of War; and advised the Virginia delegation on how to strengthen the U.S. Constitution by adding necessary amendments. He did it all quietly, but persuasively, despite the lack of recognition he has received from historians over the years.
Sixth Man
Benjamin Harrison was like the sixth man on a basketball team. The starting five included George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, Richard Henry Lee, Francis Lightfoot Lee, and Carter Braxton. Harrison would have started on a lot of other teams, but historians focused more on his contemporaries because of their credentials.
One of the major differences between Harrison and his Virginia peers in the lead-up to the Revolutionary War was his age. With the exception of Wythe, Harrison was older than most of the Virginia delegates at the First Continental Congress. Wythe and Harrison were both born in 1726.
A second difference was education. Although Harrison had matriculated at William & Mary College, he did not graduate, as did most young men from affluent families in Virginia at the time. That explains in part why he was not elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses until he was nearly thirty years old, which gave him a late start in politics.
REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS
While Benjamin Harrison was away at college, his father and two sisters were struck and killed by lightning. The young man cut his studies short and returned home to manage the family’s estate.
Harrison spent most of his youth managing the family’s large estate following his father’s death. That did not give him time to fulfill the political obligations that were almost mandatory for young men from aristocratic families at the time. But he did not like what he was seeing in the 1760s, as the British government passed acts aimed at siphoning off Americans’ money. Thus, he was eager to curb what he felt were Britain’s infringements on Americans’ freedom.
Harrison took the initial step toward that goal in 1756 when he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses for the first time. He served a two-year term as a representative from Surry County, then took an eight-year hiatus. Harrison was elected again in 1766 to represent Charles City County. He became a leader in the house. That was a double-edged sword for him.
The pro-independence and the loyalist factions in Virginia both wanted him on their side.
Virginia’s Royal Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier tried to seduce Harrison into accepting an appointment to his Executive Council in 1765 after the House of Burgesses passed its anti–Stamp Act resolutions in defiance of the act. Harrison turned down the offer, telling Fauquier he preferred to act according to republican principles.
Harrison made it plain to his fellow delegates that he wanted to end Britain’s right to rule over the Americans. His toast at a dinner on September 2, 1774, made that clear: “A constitutional death to the Lords Bute, Mansfield and North.” Why he included Bute was a mystery. He had been King George III’s confidant and prime minister, but he had resigned in 1763. Mansfield and North were legitimate political targets, however. Mansfield was the lord chief justice of the King’s Bench, and North was the chancellor of the exchequer. They were influential officials who were instrumental in developing and implementing Parliament’s tax legislation.
On the Whole…
Harrison was occasionally named to chair the prestigious Committee of the Whole at the Second Continental Congress, a revolving appointment. One of those times was in 1776. As such, he was privy to deliberations, communications, and decisions regarding a variety of matters, ranging from General Washington’s dispatches to the regulation of trade and the overall state of the colonies. His evenhanded approach and calm demeanor made him an effective leader, especially as a member and chairman of the Board of War created in 1776 to oversee the American army and the conduct of the war.
Toward the end of the Revolutionary War, Harrison was reelected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and named Speaker.
Harrison left the House of Burgesses in 1782 after being elected as governor of Virginia. He was reelected twice, which was the maximum number of times he could serve as governor. But he was not through serving Virginia.
REVOLUTIONARY REVELATIONS
Benjamin Harrison served on the Second Continental C
ongress’s Committee of Secret Correspondence in 1776 with Benjamin Franklin, John Dickinson, John Jay, Robert Morris, and Thomas Johnson of Maryland.
Based on his history and reputation, Benjamin Harrison was elected to Virginia’s Constitution ratification committee. He was not a proponent of the document, because it did not contain a bill of rights.
Virginia took an unusual two-step approach to ratifying the U.S. Constitution. Step one was the declaration of ratification. Step two was a recommendation that a bill of rights be added.
Perhaps because of his opposition to the Constitution as written, and certainly in deference to his ill health at the time, Harrison did not take an active part in the debate. However, he served on a committee charged with drafting a sample bill of rights.
Harrison had two more opportunities to serve his fellow Virginians after the ratification. The first was another term as governor, which he turned down. The second was in the state legislature. He was elected to that body in April 1791. He died the day after the election.
In the long run, Harrison was every bit as effective as his better known contemporaries. He proved, however, that the people who helped gain independence did not have to be ostentatious. All they had to be was dedicated and industrious—as he was.