Jefferson and Hamilton

by John Ferling

  24. AH to Livingston, April 25, 1785, PAH 3:609. The preceding paragraphs draw on Gordon S. Wood, “Interests and Disinterestedness in the Making of the Constitution,” in Gordon S. Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (New York, 2011), 127–69. The Henry Knox quotation is in Wood, page 134, while the “plebian despotism” and “fangs” quotations are in Jensen, American Revolution Within America, 155.

  25. William Grayson to JM, May 28, 1786, PJM 9:64; JM to Monroe, January 22, March 14, 18, 1786, ibid., 8:483, 497–98, 505–6.

  26. The two preceding paragraphs draw on Jensen, New Nation, 418–20; and Morris, Forging of the Union, 252–53.

  27. AH to William Hamilton, May 2, 1797, PAH 21:77–78.

  28. AH to ESH, September 8, 1786, PAH 3:684; Address of the Annapolis Convention, September 14, 1786, ibid., 3:686–90; Stuart Leibiger, Founding Friendship: George Washington, James Madison, and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville, Va., 1999), 61–62.

  29. GW to Knox, December 26, 1786, PGWCfed 4:481–82.

  30. AH, New York Assembly. Remarks on an Act Granting to Congress Certain Imposts and Duties, February 15, 1787, PAH 4:71–92. The quotations can be found on pages 83–84, and 91.

  31. For those who predominated in the Philadelphia Convention, see Clinton Rossiter, 1787: The Grand Convention (New York, 1966), 138–56, 241–54.

  32. AH to GW, July 3, 1787, PAH 4:224.

  33. Four delegates at the Philadelphia Convention took notes on AH’s presentation: Madison, Robert Yates, John Lansing, and Rufus King. Though varying in detail, the four sets of notes are in general agreement on what AH said. See PAH 4:187–207. Outlines that AH prepared to guide him in making his remarks can also be found in ibid., 4:178–87, 207–9.

  34. Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787 (New Haven, Conn., 1937), 1:363.

  35. Richard K. Matthews, The Radical Politics of Thomas Jefferson: A Revisionist View (Lawrence, Kan., 1984), 102.

  36. AH, Speech on a Plan of Government, June 18, 1787, PAH 4:189, 193; The Federalist, no. 6 and 68, ibid., 4:310, 311, 312, 589.

  37. Some of this paragraph draws on Gordon S. Wood, “The Radicalism of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine Considered,” in Wood, Idea of America, 213–28. AH’s “pernicious dreams” quotation can be found in Wood, 222. See TJ’s three drafts of a proposed constitution for Virginia in 1776, as well as his 1783 draft, in PTJ 1:337–64; 6:294–305. The quotation is from TJ, Albemarle County Instructions Concerning the Virginia Constitution [1783], ibid., 6:287.

  38. Constitutional Convention. Remarks on Equality of Representation of the States in the Congress, June 29, 1787, PAH 4:220–21, 221–23n.

  39. For GW’s diary while attending the Constitutional Convention, see Donald Jackson et al. eds., The Diaries of George Washington (Charlottesville, Va., 1976–1979), 5:156–86.

  40. AH to Rufus King, August 28, 1787, PAH 4:238; Constitutional Convention, AH’s Remarks on Signing the Constitution, September 17, 1787, ibid., 4:253. For a good summary of the convention, see Wood, American Revolution, 151–58.

  41. Pauline Maier, Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787–1788 (New York, 2010), 93.

  42. AH, To the [New York] Daily Advertiser, July 21, 1787, July 21, 1787, PAH 4:229–32. The quotes can be found on pages 229 and 232.

  43. PAH 4:281n.

  44. The quotations are in Chernow, AH, 245.

  45. AH to GW, October 11–15, 1787, PAH 4:280–81; GW to AH, October 18, 1787, ibid., 4:284–85.

  46. The Federalist, nos. 1 and 15. The quotations can be found in PAH 4:301 and 357.

  47. The Federalist, nos. 25. The quotation can be found in PAH 4:425.

  48. The Federalist, nos. 6, 8, 11, and 24. The quotations can be found in PAH 4:310–11, 314, 328, 332, 340, and 346.

  49. The Federalist, no. 60. The quotations can be found in PAH 4:545.

  50. The Federalist, nos. 67–77. The quotations can be found in PAH 4:587, 589, and 627.

  51. The Federalist, nos. 27, 66, and 78. See the Gottfried Dietze, The Federalist: A Classic on Federalism and Free Government (Baltimore, Md., 1960), 141–75; and Jill Lepore, “Benched,” New Yorker (June 18, 2012): 77–82.

  52. Maier, Ratification, 84.

  53. Melancton Smith to Nathan Dane, June 28, 1788, in Merrill Jensen, John P. Kaminski et al., eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution (Madison, Wisc., 1976–), 22:2015–16; Jane Butzner, comp., Constitutional Chafe: Rejected Suggestions of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (reprint, Port Washington, N.Y., 1970), 162.

  54. For AH’s numerous speeches and his comments in the debates, see PAH 5:14–34, 36–60, 62–89, 92–135, 138–40, 141–47, 149–60, 163–77, 178–85, and 188–96. His contradictory comments on the states can be found in AH, Speech on a Plan of Government, June 18, 1787, ibid., 4:191; and AH, Remarks to the New York Ratifying Convention, June 27, 1788, ibid., 5:100.

  55. For the best account of the long, complicated New York ratifying convention, see Maier, Ratification, 340–400, upon which my account draws, but also see John Kaminski, “New York: The Reluctant Pillar,” in Stephen L. Schecter, ed., The Reluctant Pillar: New York and the Adoption of the Federal Constitution (Troy, N.Y., 1985), 48–117.

  56. TJ to Demeunier, June 24, 1786, PTJ 10:14; JM to TJ, March 19, 1787, ibid., 11:219–20; TJ to JM, June 20, 1787, ibid. 11:480–81; TJ to JA, August 30, 1787, AJL 1:196.

  57. TJ to JA, November 13, 1787, AJL 1:212; TJ to JM, December 20, 1787, PTJ 12:439–42; TJ to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787, February 2, 1788, ibid., 12:356–57; TJ to John Rutledge Jr., February 2, 1788, ibid., 12:557; TJ to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789, ibid., 14:650; TJ to Edward Carrington, December 21, 1787, ibid., 12:446. The “energetic government is always oppressive” quotation is in Malone, TJ, 2:169.

  58. TJ to JM, July 31, 1788, PTJ 13:442.

  59. AH to GW, August 13, 1788, PAH 5:201–2.

  60. AH to GW, September [?], November 18, 1788, PAH 5:220–22, 233–34; John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York, 2009), 273–75.

  61. TJ to Jay, November 19, 1788, PTJ 14:214–15; TJ to Elizabeth Wayles Eppes, December 15, 1788, ibid., 14:355; TJ to JM, August 28, 1789, ibid., 15:368–69.

  62. TJ to Nicholas Lewis, July 29, 1787, PTJ 11:640.

  63. JM to TJ, May 27, 1789, PTJ 15:153.

  64. Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (New York, 2008), 326–27; “The Memoirs of Madison Hemings,” in Annette Gordon-Reed, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (Charlottesville, Va., 1997), 246.

  65. Maria Cosway to TJ, August 19, 1789, PTJ 15:351. TJ received her letter on August 27.

  CHAPTER 9: “THE GREATEST MAN THAT EVER LIVED WAS JULIUS CAESAR”: THE THRESHOLD OF PARTISAN WARFARE

  Chernow, AH, 270–390; McDonald, AH, 117–236; Miller, AH, 219–321; Cooke, AH, 73–96; Brookhiser, AH, 75–100; Malone, TJ 2:242–370 and 3:198–206; Peterson, TJ, 390–446; Cunningham, TJ, 131–70.

  1. John P. Kaminski and Jill Adair McCaughan, eds., A Great and Good Man: George Washington in the Eyes of His Contemporaries (Madison, Wisc., 1989), 117–21.

  2. JA to GW, May 17, 1789, PGWP 2:312–141; AH to GW, May 5, 1789, PAH 5:335–36; Ron Chernow, Washington: A Life (New York, 2010), 577.

  3. Kenneth R. Bowling and Helen E. Veit, eds., The Diary of William Maclay and Other Notes on Senate Debates (Baltimore, Md., 1988), 342, 349; Worthington C. Ford, The True George Washington (Philadelphia, 1896), 174; John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York, 2009), 278–80; Douglas South-all Freeman, George Washington (New York, 1948–1957), 6:77–78; Forrest McDonald, The Presidency of George Washington (Lawrence, Kans., 1974), 28–30; John C. Miller, The Federalist Era, 1789–1801 (New York, 1960), 5–10; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of F
ederalism (New York, 1993), 49; Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (New York, 2009), 75–85; John Ferling, The First of Men: A Life of George Washington (reprint, New York, 2010), 377. The McHenry quote can be found in Wood, Empire of Liberty, 75.

  4. McDonald, Presidency of George Washington, 36–38; Chernow, Washington, 619; Wood, Empire of Liberty, 91.

  5. JM to TJ, May 27, June 30, 1789, PTJ 15:153, 228.

  6. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 93–94.

  7. Quoted in Thomas K. McCraw, The Founders and Finance: How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy (Cambridge, Mass., 2012), 92.

  8. AH, Report on Public Credit, January 9, 1790 [submitted on January 14, 1790], PAH 6:65–168; McCraw, The Founders and Finance, 95.

  9. Mark Schmeller, “The Political Economy of Opinion: Public Credit and Concepts of Public Opinion in the Age of Federalism,” Journal of the Early Republic 29 (2009): 49; McCraw, The Founders and Finance, 97–98.

  10. Quoted in Wood, Empire of Liberty, 103.

  11. Chernow, Washington, 598.

  12. TJ to GW, December 15, 1789, February 14, 1790, PTJ 16:34–35, 184; GW to TJ, January 21, 1790, ibid., 16:116–18.

  13. TJ to Jean Nicolas Démeunier, April 29, 1795, PTJ 28:341; TJ to Robert Lewis, October 5, 1791, ibid., 22:186; Henry Wiencek, Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves (New York, 2012), 89.

  14. JM to GW, January 4, 1790, PGWP 4:536–37; TJ to JM, February 20, PTJ 6:550. For a full account of the evolution on the relationship between TJ and JM, see Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York, 2010), 65–217.

  15. TJ, Anas, February 4, 1818, in Padover, CTJ, 1207–8. On TJ’s clothing styles and his switch to a more republican attire, see Deborah Norris Logan, ed., Memoir of Dr. George Logan of Stanton (Philadelphia, 1899), 50.

  16. TJ to Benjamin Rush, January 16, 1811, PTJ: Ret. Ser. 3:305.

  17. William Maclay, The Journal of William Maclay: United States Senator from Pennsylvania, 1789–1791 (New York, 1927), 265–66.

  18. On the break between JM and AH, see Lance Banning, The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic (Ithaca, N.Y., 1995); Alan Gibson, “The Madisonian Madison and the Question of Consistency: The Significance and Challenge of New Research,” Review of Politics 64 (2002): 311–38; Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Great (New York, 2006), 143–72; and Michael Schwarz, “The Great Divergence Reconsidered: Hamilton, Madison, and U.S. British Relations, 1783–1789,” Journal of the Early Republic 27 (2007): 407–36.

  19. TJ to David Howell, June 23, 1790, PTJ 16:553; Lance Banning, The Jeffersonian Persuasion: Evolution of a Party Ideology (Ithaca, N.Y., 125–51.

  20. Benjamin Rush to JM, April 10, 1790, PJM 13:146; Maclay, Journal of William Maclay, 184, 189, 204, 205, 267, 301, 325. The “eastern phalanx” quote is in Chernow, AH, 327.

  21. JA to Benjamin Rush, January 25, 1806, in John Schutz and Douglass Adair, eds., The Spur of Fame: Dialogues of John Adams and Benjamin Rush, 1805–13 (San Marino, Cal., 1966), 48. The newspaper essay on AH as arrogant is cited in Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the Early Republic (New Haven, Conn., 2001), 46.

  22. Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 211–41; John Ferling, A Leap in the Dark: The Struggle to Create the American Republic (New York, 2003), 320–23. The following are excellent works on the life and thought—including the changing thought—of JM: Banning, Sacred Fire of Liberty; and Jack N. Rakove, James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic (New York, 1990).

  23. JM to Edmund Pendleton, June 22, 1790, PJM 13:252–53.

  24. Jefferson’s Account of the Bargain on the Assumption and Residence Bills,” [1792], PTJ 17:205–7.

  25. Maclay, Journal of William Maclay, 285, 286, 296, 304, 319, 326–32. The quotations can be found on pages 296 and 319. See also Josiah Parker to JM, June 15, 1790, PJM 13:246.

  26. TJ, Anas, February 4, 1818, in Padover, CTJ, 1208–9; TJ to GW, September 9, 1792, PTJ 24:352.

  27. TJ to John Harvie Jr., July 25, 1790, PTJ 17:271; TJ to Monroe, June 20, 1790, ibid., 16:537.

  28. The literature on the Compromise of 1790 is considerable. For a good starting point, see Jacob E. Cooke, “The Compromise of 1790,” William and Mary Quarterly 27 (1970): 524–45; Kenneth R. Bowling, “Dinner at Jefferson’s: A Note on Jacob E. Cooke’s ‘The Compromise of 1790,’ ” ibid., 28 (1971): 629–48; Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 146–61; John Ferling, A Leap in the Dark, 321–26; and Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 217–20. On GW’s selection of the site for the Federal City, see Ferling, Ascent of George Washington, 294–95; and Ferling, The First of Men, 397–98.

  29. JMB 1:770n; William Temple Franklin to TJ, July 20, 1790, PTJ 17:236–39; TJ to William Temple Franklin, July 25, 1790, ibid., 17:267–69.

  30. Wiencek, Master of the Mountain, 89–90. On Patsy’s dowry, see Marriage Settlement for Martha Jefferson, February 21, 1790, PTJ 16:189–91.

  31. JMB 1:765–71.

  32. JMB 1:768–69.

  33. TJ, Anas, February 4, 1818, in Padover, CTJ 1209, 1211.

  34. AH, Report on Public Credit, January 9, 1790, PAH 6:102–3; Thomas P. Slaughter, The Whiskey Rebellion: Frontier Epilogue to the American Revolution (New York, 1986), 95–97. Slaughter is also my source for Hamilton’s Federalist comment on excise taxes; see the quotation on page 97.

  35. AH, First Report on the Further Provision Necessary for Establishing Public Credit, December 13, 1790, PAH 7:210–36; Slaughter, Whiskey Rebellion, 96–105; Journal of William Maclay, 370–72, 374–79, 386, 387. The quotations are from Journal of Maclay and can be found on pages 375, 376, 379, and 387.

  36. William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America’s Newfound Sovereignty (New York, 2006), 62.

  37. AH, Final Version of the Second Report on the Further Provision Necessary for Establishing Public Credit (Report on a National Bank), December 13, 1790, PAH 7:305–42; AH, Draft of an Act to Incorporate the Bank of the United States [December 1790], ibid., 7:399–406; McCraw, The Founders and Finance, 115.

  38. Journal of William Maclay, 345; PAH 7:244–46n; AH, Second Report on the Further Provision Necessary for Establishing a Public Credit (Report on a National Bank), December 14, 1790, ibid., 7:311.

  39. AH, Report on a National Bank, PAH 7:305–42. The quotes are on page 306.

  40. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 93–94; Gordon S. Wood, “Illusions of Power in the Awkward Era of Federalism,” in Gordon S. Wood, The Idea of America: Reflections on the Birth of the United States (New York, 2011), 257–59; Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), 35–54. Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), in Philip S. Foner, ed., The Complete Writings of Thomas Paine (New York, 1945), 1:20–21; Franklin to Joseph Galloway, February 25, 1775, in Leonard W. Labaree et al., eds., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin (New Haven, Conn., 1959–), 21:509. On the changes wrought in England, including the levels of taxation, see John Brewer, The Sinews of Power: War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 (New York, 1989), 29, 89, 118, 175, 193–96, 199, 200, 203.

  41. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 102–4; Gordon S. Wood, “The Radicalism of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine Considered,” in Wood, The Idea of America, 217–19, 222–23; Wood, Revolutionary Characters, 129–30.

  42. David Hume, Essays Moral, Political and Literary (1742), edited and with a forward, notes, and glossary by Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis, 1987), 206, 255, 261, 263, 271–73. This paragraph additionally draws on Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 92–131.

  43. Hume, Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, 261, 419–20. For an excellent assessment of AH’s thinking on humankind, society, and government, see Clinton Rossiter, Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution (New York, 1964), 113–84.

  44.
[AH], “The Continentalist,” no. 6, July 4, 1782, PAH 3:106; [AH], A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, &c., December 15, 1774, ibid., 1:56. See the longer essay in Gerald Stourzh, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government (Stanford, Cal., 1970), 189–205.

  45. Elkins and McKitrick, Age of Federalism, 229; Journal of William Maclay, 242, 243, 249, 341, 345–62; Banning, Jeffersonian Persuasion, 148–54. The quotations can be found in Maclay’s Journal on pages 341, 353, and 358; and in Banning, Jeffersonian Persuasion on page 148.

  46. Wood, Empire of Liberty, 145; Virginia Resolution on the Assumption of State Debts, December 16, 1790, in Henry Steele Commager, ed., Documents of American History (New York, 1968), 155–56.

  47. The quotation is from Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson (New York, 1997), 131.

  48. Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York, 2005), 46, 48.

  49. TJ, Notes on the Letter of Christoph Daniel Ebeling, [after October 15, 1795], PTJ 28:507. The “natural progress of things” quotation is from David N. Mayer, The Constitutional Thought of Thomas Jefferson (Charlottesville, Va., 1994), 84.

  50. Ferling, A Leap in the Dark, 337; TJ, Opinion on the Constitutionality of the Bill for Establishing a National Bank, February 15, 1791, PTJ 19:275–80. The quote about empowering Congress to do evil is on page 277.

  51. AH, Draft of an Opinion on the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank, [n.d.], PAH 8:64–97; AH, Final Version of an Opinion on the Constitutionality of an Act to Establish a Bank, February 23, 1791, ibid., 8:97–134. The quotation can be found on page 98.