Jefferson and Hamilton

by John Ferling

  Jefferson was, at last, the president-elect. He had been the first to take the lead in organizing opposition to Hamiltonianism, and he was the symbol around which those who hated the Federalist Party rallied, the figure above all others who had articulated the dreams of political and social change that all along had been part of the American Revolution. The Federalist leadership, including Hamilton, had failed to comprehend the new political culture that had been materializing during the past quarter century—and especially in the 1790s—and in time the party came to be seen as representing interests disconnected from much of the citizenry. Once the party was thought to have been taken over by extremists, it was doomed.

  No one contributed more to the Federalist Party’s demise than Hamilton. In his quest for glory he had created an army that much of the citizenry feared and hated; in his scorn for Adams, Hamilton had sundered a party in which many members both continued to believe in the president and yearned for the honorable peace that he sought. Adams, in fact, had done better than his party in the election of 1800. The president was defeated in a squeaker, while other Federalists were drubbed in numerous congressional contests, losing control of the House and for the first time the Senate as well.

  The Nationalists—the conservatives—had written a Constitution in 1787 that aimed at making change difficult, and the election of 1800 demonstrated just how hard change could be. Jefferson won by a slender margin, and despite his oft-repeated denials, it is likely that he had agreed to a bargain with the Federalists in order to win the election. Burr was told at the time by friends in Washington that Jefferson had struck a deal. Furthermore, a Maryland congressman gave credence to the story, and Bayard’s correspondence—and the subsequent testimony under oath by two participants in the purported negotiations—point toward a bargain having been made.55 In addition, Jefferson’s actions as president lend credence to the allegations. Despite his decade-long fight against Hamiltonianism, President Jefferson never touched the Bank of the United States, continued borrowing by the federal government, and never sought the wholesale removal of Federalist officeholders.56

  But if Jefferson had agreed to a secret bargain, he had not acted disgracefully. Indeed, by doing so, he may have prevented civil war and saved the Union.

  Chapter 15

  “This American world was not made for me”

  A Glorious Beginning and a Tragic End

  Jefferson spent the fifteen days between the House’s decisive vote and Inauguration Day, March 4, putting together his cabinet, contemplating diplomatic assignments, and working on his forthcoming address.

  Sometime before Abigail Adams departed for home—she left on the Friday that the House cast its twenty-ninth ballot—Jefferson called on her to say goodbye. Sadly, the warmth she had once felt for him was a casualty of several years of partisan rancor, and the atmosphere of what would be their final visit must have been cold and formal. Her feelings were shared by her husband, who refused to call on and congratulate his newly elected successor.1

  Jefferson was living at Conrad and McMunn’s, where he had taken lodgings in November. The boardinghouse, on the south side of Capitol Hill, was home to thirty residents, all Republicans, including a couple of congressmen who had brought their wives to Washington. The boarders joined Jefferson every day for breakfast and dinner at a common dining table. For the most part, the other lodgers had a small room or shared accommodations “like scholars in a college or monks in a monastery,” as Adams put it. Jefferson lived more commodiously. He had rented a private room, parlor, and reception room. Hardly posh, they were convenient for greeting visitors, of which there was no shortage.2

  On the Monday before Wednesday’s inaugural celebration, Jefferson rented a carriage. Where he rode is not known, but if he toured Washington, he saw a work in progress. It was mostly a construction zone littered with piles of building materials, rude shacks for the free and slave work crews, and unpaved roads that long since had been turned to a fetid ooze by winter snows and rains and heavily laden wagons. Five hotels, a few inns, several boardinghouses, and a sprinkling of shops dotted the landscape. The two-story brick Treasury was the only completed federal building. The Capitol and the President’s House, like the buildings for the State and War Departments, were usable, though unfinished.3 Jefferson spent Tuesday in his apartment, probably making the final changes to the inaugural address which had already undergone at least two drafts.

  A creature of habit, Jefferson arose as usual before dawn on March 4. He wrote a single letter, tending to private business in Richmond, and enjoyed breakfast with the usual clan at the congested dining table. Mostly, he waited for the ceremonies to begin. At ten o’clock the Washington artillery company began firing its field pieces, and soon thereafter a company of riflemen from Alexandria paraded in the muck before the president-elect’s boardinghouse.

  Around eleven o’clock Jefferson emerged. Like his predecessors, he had chosen to wear a plain suit, but unlike them, he eschewed a ceremonial sword. There was another striking difference. Washington had ridden to his first inaugural in his luxurious coach, and Adams had been conveyed to his in a splendid carriage drawn by six huge horses. Jefferson chose to walk, the simple and commonest means of getting about for most Americans, who found carriages, and in some instances even horses, beyond their means.

  The little procession was led by United States marshals and officers of Alexandria’s militia, who marched with swords drawn. Jefferson was joined by all the Republicans in Congress and two members of Adams’s cabinet. Adams himself was not present. Misguidedly construing the festivities as a celebration of his defeat, Adams refused to join in. He had caught the four A.M. stagecoach out of town.4

  As the ceremony began in Washington, celebrations were occurring elsewhere. News of Jefferson’s election by the House had already triggered cannonading and spontaneous parades, bonfires, and the pealing of bells in many towns. The Aurora, a Republican newspaper in Philadelphia, had declared: “The Revolution of 1776 is now, and for the first time, arrived at its completion.” Until now, it went on, much that Americans had sought in throwing off British domination had been held in check by “the secret enemies of the American Revolution.” But Jefferson’s election meant nothing less than the triumph of “the true … Republican principle.” Now, on Inauguration Day, a second round of celebrating commenced in many cities and hamlets. A float in Philadelphia’s parade featured a young woman dressed as Liberty who was harassed by kings, soldiers, and clergy, but was saved by a man playing Jefferson.5

  Jefferson’s mud-splattered walk up gently sloping Capitol Hill took only a few minutes. When he arrived at the Capitol, still under construction, nearby artillery rang out and his militia honor guard saluted smartly. Passing through a scrum of curious onlookers and well-wishers, he entered the building and was escorted into the Senate chamber. Some Federalist congressmen had stayed away, unable to endure the sight of Jefferson taking office, but seemingly everyone else in Washington was there. A newspaper reported that 1,140 people, including 154 women, were packed into the tiny chamber. Burr, of course, was present, and had taken his oath of office earlier in the morning. He surrendered his chair to Jefferson. Following an introduction by the vice president, Jefferson rose and read his address in a barely audible voice, described by one observer as “almost femininely soft.”6

  Of the first four inaugural addresses, only Jefferson’s was memorable. Much of it was a lyrical paean to the new president’s belief that America’s revolutionary heritage had at last been fulfilled. But there was more. Hoping to defuse passions and restore unity in the fractured land, he began by attempting to reassure the losers. He spoke of his hopes for a restoration of “harmony and affection without which liberty, and even life itself, are but dreary things.” He insisted that the vanquished in the recent election “possess their equal rights.” Americans have differed over policies, he added, “but every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different
names brethren of the same principle. We are all republicans: we are all federalists.” He did not capitalize the terms, as he was not referring to political parties. He meant that members of both parties embraced republicanism and federalism, in which the national government possessed some powers and the states other powers.

  Summarizing his ideology and expectations, Jefferson declared that the sum of good government was restraint in spending and commitment to the liberty and equality of all free persons. He added that the nation’s rulers must focus on this “chosen country,” not any foreign nation. The best government would seek peace through commerce and avoid “entangling alliances.” Such a government would have no reason to impose onerous taxes on its citizenry. It “shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned,” was how he put it. He acknowledged that some worried that such a government would be too weak to secure the interests of the United States, but he declared that America possessed “the strongest government of earth.” It was the world’s only government, he said, “where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard … and meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern.”

  In closing, Jefferson expanded on how his presidency would carry out the ideals of the American Revolution. He was committed to “a jealous care of the right of election by the people”; the “absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority”; the conviction that “a well disciplined militia [is] our best reliance in peace”; the “supremacy of the civil over the military authority”; the “honest payment of our debts”; “equal and exact justice to all men”; and the preservation of the rights and liberties of free men. “The wisdom of our sages, and blood of our heroes have been devoted” to attaining these ends. They should be the “creed of our political faith [and] … touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust.”7

  When Jefferson finished, Chief Justice John Marshall administered the oath of office. Thereafter, Jefferson returned to his boardinghouse, where he lived for two more weeks until all of the Adamses’ possessions had been removed from the President’s House. According to legend, it was mealtime at Conrad and McMunn’s when Jefferson returned to his residence, and he stood with his fellow boarders awaiting a chair so that he might have his dinner.8

  Alexander Hamilton was not in Washington for Jefferson’s inauguration. In fact, he never set foot near the District of Columbia, something he likely would have done had he ever visited Mount Vernon.

  Reading Jefferson’s speech in the newspapers, Hamilton agreed with the more moderate Federalists who thought it “better than we expected.” He publicly remarked that the address provided “a ray of hope” that Jefferson would not pursue a “violent and absurd” course. He was especially happy that Jefferson had neither designated funding nor the Jay Treaty as “abuses.”9

  Not many cared any longer what Hamilton thought. During his first week in office, Jefferson smugly noted that Hamilton was “almost destitute of followers.” Hamilton was all too aware of that, and no less aware of the malevolence “which friends as well as foes are fond of giving to my conduct.” Calling himself a “disappointed politician,” Hamilton had to wonder whether he had the slightest hope of ever again being an important figure on the national stage.10 At times, he seemed resigned to spending the remainder of his days in private pursuits. On occasion, he declared that the “passions” that had driven him to grasp power and win fame had waned because of the “triumphant reign of Decomocracy,” as he spelled it. At other times, however, he confessed that his dismal prospects spread “gloom” to “the bottom of my soul,” and he confided to close friends that he was waging a struggle “to abstract my self from” public affairs. If Burr was a capable judge, Hamilton’s inner turmoil was intense. In April, the vice president told Jefferson that Hamilton “seems to be literally Mad with spleen and envy and disappointment.”11

  Hamilton often maintained that nothing any longer mattered to him but his wife and children, and that he could “find true pleasure” only through them.12 “What can I do better than withdraw from the [public] Scene,” he said a year after Jefferson became president. Yet, he grew despondent observing the swirling social and political changes of Jefferson’s world all about him, and he was suffused with melancholy when he lamented, “Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me.”13

  As if to show that family mattered most, Hamilton began construction of a country estate, an undertaking that had never especially interested him before. He visualized the dwelling as “a fine house,” and named it “The Grange” after his clan’s ancestral home in Scotland. At times, he implied that the house was to be a “refuge” for one with no future in public affairs.14 He acquired thirty-five acres above Harlem Heights—between 140th and 147th Streets on today’s Upper West Side—for the stupendously expensive sum of fifty-five thousand dollars. Though a cottage, with barns and sheds, had been built on the property by a previous owner, Hamilton’s sylvan tract was still virgin woodlands in the bucolic northern reaches of Manhattan. It was nine miles from downtown, a ninety-minute carriage ride in his day, a problem for a lawyer who practiced in the city, though the distance also provided sanctuary from the recurrent yellow fever outbreaks that swept the urban center.

  Hamilton hired a distinguished local architect and builder who completed the work with a speed that would have astonished Jefferson. By the summer of 1802 the Hamiltons were living in their new Federal-style clapboard house. The exterior was painted yellow and ivory, and included verandas and piazzas on two sides. A library, parlor, dining room, and two guest rooms made up the first floor. Six rooms with eight fireplaces were upstairs, including the family’s private living room, which opened onto a balcony with a breath taking view of the Hudson River, some two hundred feet below. Hamilton hung a Gilbert Stuart painting of Washington in the first-floor hallway, likely the first thing seen by visitors, and he furnished his home with Louis XVI sofas and chairs.15

  The house, and the acres of landscaping that Hamilton almost obsessively planned, cost about twenty-five thousand dollars. He had poured some eighty thousand dollars into his estate. His annual income was roughly twelve thousand dollars.16 As with his adversary from Monticello, Hamilton’s suddenly lavish lifestyle had plunged him into debt. Like it or not, Hamilton gave the appearance of one who understood that his days in public office were behind him. Still relatively young, and with many years left to practice law, retiring his debts would not be difficult. But everything about his having embarked on this endeavor was uncharacteristic, from his wish for a mansion, to his captivation with gardening, to his sudden spendthrift habits. Perhaps he saw redemption in it, recompense to a wife and children who had been overshadowed by politics and betrayed in marriage. Perhaps he really believed the estate offered asylum from the cruel world he had failed to conquer. Or, perhaps, this was his statement to the world that although defeated in politics, he was still a winner, a man who had risen from nothing to this crowning material success. It may not have been a coincidence that Hamilton launched his spending spree almost immediately after learning that President Adams had called him an immoral foreign bastard.

  Hamilton’s all-consuming passion had been to hold great power and win glory, and from adolescence he had never thought it hopeless to dream that dream. Time and again, he had learned that adversity could be overcome. On repeated occasions, he had discovered how unpredictable the future could be. Only four or five years after finding himself stuck in a dead-end job in Christiansted, he had become the aide-de-camp to the most important soldier in North America. It was a post that filled his future with bright promise, and he had capitalized on the opportunities that came along. His political fortunes had plummeted in 1799 and 1800, but who could know what the future held. Hamilton turned forty-six in 1801, still a young age for one in public affairs. At that age, John Adams had been sixteen years away from becoming president. General Washington anguished at Valley Forge in his forty-sixth year,
not yet an iconic figure and not even certain his position as commander of the Continental army was secure. Jefferson was a few months short of turning forty-six when he was offered the position of secretary of state, an opportunity that came a decade after his political career appeared to have ended disastrously in his wild flight from Colonel Tarleton’s soldiers. Hamilton knew the vagaries and vicissitudes of American politics, and he clung to the hope that in time the Federalists might regain the presidency or that the political parties might be reshuffled. Someday, somehow, he might again be on top.

  In 1801, Hamilton joined with friends to found a Federalist newspaper, the New-York Evening Post, which published its first issue in November.17 A month later, in his initial effort to claw his way back into political prominence, he placed the first of eighteen essays attacking Jefferson in his paper. In search of an issue that Federalists might ride back into power, Hamilton mostly blasted the Jeffersonian Republicans for removing a few Federalist officeholders and repealing the Judiciary Act of 1801, the Federalists’ last-ditch effort to pack the courts with their own judges before the opposition party took control. “The Examination,” as Hamilton’s acrid series was titled, attracted little attention. His pieces were turgid and painfully repetitive, his ideas shopworn, his style smacking of pettiness. (He chose to launch his enterprise with a shrill assault on a matter of little consequence: Jefferson’s decision to report on the state of the union in a written report rather than in a formal address to Congress.)18 That the country was prospering hardly aided Hamilton’s cause. “Go where you will,” observed his old friend Troup, and “you will behold nothing but the smiling face of improvements and prosperity.”19 Above all, Hamilton’s essays aroused no controversy because his stature had sunk so low that even fellow Federalists were largely indifferent to his polemics. His striving for political rehabilitation had failed. A wiser course might have been to abandon public affairs entirely for a few years, hoping that someday his party would summon him back to the playing field as an elder statesman.