Alexander Hamilton

by Chernow, Ron

  Starting with the first “H. G.” essay, Hamilton flung poisoned darts at Clinton. Reviewing the governor’s political and military career, Hamilton accused him of “narrow views, a prejudiced and contracted disposition, a passionate and interested temper.”15 He questioned Clinton’s bravery as a brigadier general during the Revolution: “After diligent enquiry, I have not been able to learn that he was ever more than once in actual combat.”16 In one letter, Hamilton differentiated between two types drawn to revolutions: those sincerely interested in the public good and “restless and turbulent spirits,” such as Clinton, who sought to exploit unrest to become despots.17 Upping the stakes, Hamilton accused Clinton of having stolen from Philip Schuyler the first governor’s race, which was held during the Revolution, by forcing militiamen under his command to vote for him.

  In later “H. G.” letters, Hamilton occupied higher moral ground. He analyzed Clinton’s unremitting opposition to the Constitution and found it unpardonable that the governor had maintained a course “replete with danger to the peace and welfare of this state and of the Union.”18 Hamilton wanted New York to continue as the nation’s capital, as it had been since January 1785. He noted that Clinton had opposed it as the residence for Congress because he was afraid this would encourage dissolute behavior: “Every man of sense knows that the residence of Congress among us has been a considerable source of wealth to the state. And as to the idle tale of its promoting luxury and dissipation, I believe there has not been for a number of years past a period of greater frugality than that in which Congress have resided in this city.”19 More than just petty, power hungry, and stubborn, Clinton was cast by Hamilton as a boor devoid of good manners who had not even paid courtesy calls on the last two presidents of the Confederation Congress.

  The federalists were overjoyed by these resounding blasts. “Never was anything read with more avidity and with greater success,” wrote one Hamilton supporter.20 Said another: “Col. H[amilton] has taken a very active part in favour of Judges Yates, from which circumstance much is expected. I believe old Clinton the sinner will get ousted.”21 The old sinner did not rebut Hamilton with his own quill, preferring surrogates, and rejoinders soon glutted the press. In early March, one “Philopas” protested “the torrent of scurrility” from “H. G.” ’s pen, which “would make an inhabitant of Billingsgate blush.”22 Another writer said the real issue in the election was that “an obscure Plebeian”—Clinton—had dared to oppose “the boundless ambition of Patrician families”: the Schuylers.23 If Yates beat Clinton, he predicted, he would be thrust aside at the next election so that the “F[athe]r and the S[o]n” could divide the fishes and loaves—a transparent reference to Philip Schuyler and his son-in-law Hamilton.24 By making cutting personal remarks about Clinton, Hamilton had ensured that the retaliation would also be highly personal. That Hamilton could be so sensitive to criticisms of himself and so insensitive to the effect his words had on others was a central mystery of his psyche.

  The invective grew uglier in late March when someone writing under “William Tell” branded Hamilton a Machiavellian and tarred him as a power-mad politician puffed up “by an expecting band of sycophants, a train of ambitious relations, and a few rich men.” “William Tell” then leveled a charge against Hamilton more terrible than mere ambition: “Your private character is still worse than your public one and it will yet be exposed by your own works, for [you] will not be bound by the most solemn of all obligations!∗∗∗∗∗∗∗”25 The seven asterisks must have signified the word wedlock, meaning that Hamilton was being charged, for the first time in print, with adultery. As we shall see, there was a reason why this charge surfaced at this time.

  Like other founding fathers, Hamilton inhabited two diametrically opposed worlds. There was the Olympian sphere of constitutional debate and dignified discourse—the way many prefer to remember these stately figures—and the gutter world of personal sniping, furtive machinations, and tabloid-style press attacks. The contentious culture of these early years was both the apex and the nadir of American political expression. Such a contradictory environment was probably an inescapable part of the transition from the lofty idealism of Revolution to the gritty realities of quotidian politics. The heroes of 1776 and 1787 were bound to seem smaller and more hypocritical as they jockeyed for personal power and advantage in the new government.

  For the remainder of the gubernatorial campaign, Hamilton issued open letters to the electorate, and at Clinton campaign rallies his essays were hurled under the table as marks of contempt. In shaping his final appeal to voters, Hamilton said that Clinton’s most effective tactic was to single out the rich for abuse, and he warned that republicans scapegoated the rich to their detriment: “There is no stronger sign of combinations unfriendly to the general good than when the partisans of those in power raise an indiscriminate cry against men of property.”26

  The argument did not persuade voters: Governor Clinton solidly defeated Judge Yates. This vicious election left a trail of wounded feelings, removing any chance of a rapprochement between Hamilton and Clinton. New York remained a bitterly divided state, ripe for political manipulation. The wily Clinton knew that he had to shore up his base, so in September he offered the state attorney-general job to Aaron Burr, whom he neither liked nor trusted. For the first time, Hamilton felt betrayed by Burr, who had campaigned for Yates. The political genius of Aaron Burr was to lie in figuring out endless ways to profit from the partisan wrangling in his home state. For three years, he had engaged in little political activity. Now his dormant ambition was beginning to awaken.

  The new government was launched with all due pageantry and fanfare. On April 16, 1789, George Washington departed from Mount Vernon on an eight-day journey to New York that blossomed into a national celebration. Cannon saluted the presidentelect as he approached each town. He passed under many triumphal arches and crossed a bridge in Trenton covered with flower petals strewn by thirteen young maidens cooing greetings. If this sometimes seemed like a royal procession, appearances could be misleading. Washington had fallen into debt and had to borrow heavily at exorbitant interest rates to make the trip. When he reached Elizabethtown, New Jersey, he boarded a sumptuous barge that transported him across the Hudson River to New York City. Shaded by a red canopy and tossed by brisk breezes, the barge was towed by thirteen pilots. At the foot of Wall Street, Governor Clinton and Mayor Duane welcomed the president-elect before masses of cheering people. Church bells chimed, ships in the harbor ran up their colors, and cannon fired a thirteen-gun salute before Washington made his way to his new residence, a three-story brick building at 10 Cherry Street. That night, with candles aglow in windows across the city, Governor Clinton hosted a state dinner for Washington. Hamilton smarted over the deference shown to the governor, but Washington wished to convey that he would be the leader of all the people.

  Selected as temporary home of the new federal government, New York had devoted considerable expense to preparations. Hoping to become the permanent capital, the city had invested in some necessary improvements. The Common Council hired Major Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the French architect and engineer who was to later design Washington, D.C., to renovate City Hall at the corner of Broad and Wall. He transformed it into the elegant, neoclassical Federal Hall, surmounted by a glass cupola. Some money for the alterations came from local citizens and some from Hamilton’s Bank of New York. When the new Congress first met there in early April, the flag from the “Federal Ship Hamilton” waved over the building, which had a depiction of an American eagle embedded in its facade.

  On April 30, George Washington rose early, sprinkled powder on his hair, and prepared for his great day. At noon, accompanied by a legislative escort, he rode to Federal Hall in a fancy yellow carriage to take the oath of office. Ten thousand ecstatic New Yorkers squeezed into the surrounding streets to observe the historic moment. Hamilton, who had done as much as anyone to bring it about, looked on distantly from the balcony of his Wall Str
eet home. From the outset, the fifty-sevenyear-old Washington was determined to strike a happy medium between regal dignity and republican austerity. Resplendent with a ceremonial sword at his side, he also wore a plain brown suit of American broadcloth woven at a mill in Hartford. A special message for Hamilton’s future was encoded in this outfit: that America should encourage manufactures, especially textiles, an industry dominated by Great Britain. Washington hoped it would soon “be unfashionable for a gentleman to appear” in any dress that was not of American origin.27

  The strapping Virginian took the oath on the second-story balcony, flanked by columns against a backdrop of gold stars on a blue background. With John Adams standing beside him, Washington was sworn in by Chancellor Robert R. Livingston and then kissed the Bible brought on a crimson cushion. The moment was joyous but not flawless. When Washington read a brief inaugural address, probably drafted by James Madison, to Congress in the Senate chamber, he kept his left hand in one pocket and turned pages with the other, making an awkward impression. His nervous mumbling was scarcely audible. One observer said wryly of America’s hero, Washington was more “agitated and embarrassed than ever he was by the leveled cannon or pointed musket.”28 Afterward, the first president and his entourage marched up Broadway to pray at St. Paul’s Chapel, near where Hamilton had attended King’s College.

  Both Alexander and Eliza attended the first inaugural ball on May 7. Eliza was well placed to be a social ornament of the new regime and later looked back fondly on those days.

  As I was younger than [Martha Washington] I mingled more in the gaieties of the day. I was at the inauguration ball—the most brilliant of them all— which was given early in May at the Assembly Rooms on Broadway above Wall Street. It was attended by the President and Vice President, the cabinet officers, a majority of the members of the Congress, the French and Spanish Ministers, and military and civic officers, with their wives and daughters. Mrs. Washington had not yet arrived in New York from Mount Vernon and did not until three weeks later. On that occasion, every woman who attended the ball was presented with a fan prepared in Paris, with ivory frame, and when opened displayed a likeness of Washington in profile.29

  As a close friend of Philip Schuyler and Hamilton, Washington enjoyed a warm rapport with Eliza and danced with her at the inaugural ball. Like Alexander, she was cordial with Washington but not too familiar, and she noted that even on the dance floor he never entirely relaxed or stopped being president. Present at many balls with Washington, she later described how “he would always choose a partner and walk through the figures correctly, but he never danced. His favorite was the minuet, a graceful dance, suited to his dignity and gravity.”30 This tallies with one observer’s comment that Washington seldom laughed and that even when encircled by young belles his countenance “never softened nor changed its habitual gravity.”31

  Everything about Washington’s administration assumed heightened importance, since he was setting precedents and establishing the tone of government. No sooner was he sworn in than questions of protocol provoked hairsplitting debates. How should a president be addressed? Should he receive visitors? Since many antifederalists were convinced that Hamilton and his circle meditated a monarchy, they followed such debates avidly for signs of incipient treachery. Though Hamilton opposed noble titles, he wondered what would substitute for courtly forms to inspire reverence for law. Other founders labored under a similar apprehension. In May 1789, Ben Franklin told Benjamin Rush, “We have been guarding against an evil that old states are most liable to, excess of power in the rulers. But our present danger seems to be defect of obedience in the subjects.”32

  The new vice president, John Adams, adopted an especially princely style that outraged republicans, and he was even mocked by Washington for his “ostentatious imitation [and] mimicry of royalty.”33 The Adamses rented the enchanting mansion known as Richmond Hill, which had splendid Hudson River views and was later home to Aaron Burr. Each morning, John Adams climbed into a costly coach, driven by a liveried servant, then presided over the Senate in a powdered wig. (He was often accompanied by his second son, Charles, just down from Harvard. Still unaware that Hamilton had worked to pare his electoral votes, Adams asked in July if Charles could study law with him; Hamilton accepted this flattering request.) In May, when a Senate committee took up the explosive issue of titles, Adams suggested that Washington be addressed as “His Highness, the President of the United States of America and Protector of their Liberties.”34 Adams provided fodder for contemporary wags and was promptly dubbed “His Rotundity” or the “Duke of Braintree.” Adams wanted only to inspire respect for the new government, but his concern for decorum bred a belief in suspicious minds that he sought a hereditary monarch, with himself as king and son John Quincy groomed as his dauphin. In a slap at the Senate, the House of Representatives decided that the chief executive was to be referred to simply as “George Washington, President of the United States,” and the Senate then concurred.

  In early May, Washington asked Hamilton for his reflections on presidential etiquette. Like Adams, Hamilton thought the dignity of the office essential and recommended that Washington receive visitors at weekly “levees” but not stay longer than a half hour and never return visits. He thought private dinners with legislators and other officials should be limited to six or eight visitors and that the president should not linger at the table. In a revealing suggestion, he also advised Washington to be available to senators but not congressmen. Clearly, Hamilton wanted a president invested with a touch of grandeur and buffered from popular pressure.

  Washington generally took Hamilton’s advice, holding levees on Tuesday afternoons that proved exercises in tedium. Even at the best of times, Washington was not a blithe presence, and the strict reception rules hardened him into a waxwork. He materialized in a black velvet coat, yellow gloves, and black satin breeches, with a dress sword hanging in a scabbard. Then he circulated among guests with glacial slowness, bowing but not shaking hands, exchanging pleasantries with each. Guests must have stifled yawns and fought off drowsiness. Bewigged footmen stood by at lavish dinners that couldn’t have been fun either. “The president seemed to bear in his countenance a settled aspect of melancholy,” Senator William Maclay of Pennsylvania wrote of one occasion. “No cheering ray of convivial sunshine broke through the cloudy gloom of settled seriousness. At every interval of eating and drinking, he played on the table with a fork and knife, like a drumstick.”35 Both as a matter of temperament and policy, Washington was taciturn, once advising his adopted grandson, “It is best to be silent, for there is nothing more certain than that it is at all times more easy to make enemies than friends.”36 Such a circumspect president formed a striking contrast with the loquacious Hamilton.

  Washington tried to be neither too lofty nor too casual and, according to Abigail Adams, succeeded admirably that spring: “He is polite with dignity, affable without formality, distant without haughtiness, grave without austerity, modest, wise, and good.”37 Still, antifederalists spied royal trappings galore, small but menacing concessions that portended a monarchy. When Washington rode out on public occasions, through unpaved streets teeming with wandering pigs, he often traveled in a buff-colored coach with two liveried postilions to guide him. The coach was pulled by six white horses that had been rubbed with lustrous white paste; their coats were brushed till they veritably gleamed in the dark. At the same time, to certify his republican credentials, Washington took daily walks at two o’clock each afternoon. To modern eyes, the most incongruous fact of all was that Washington had seven slaves shipped up from Mount Vernon to assist his white household servants.

  There might have been less hand-wringing over social distinctions had it not been for an obvious and widening gap between the rich and poor in New York. After years of wartime austerity, local merchants flaunted their wealth. Brissot de Warville observed, “If there is a town on the American continent where the English luxury displays its follies, it is Ne
w York....In the dress of the women, you will see the most brilliant silks, gauzes, hats, and borrowed hair. Equipages are rare but they are elegant.”38 Men of social distinction strode about in velvet coats and ruffled shirts, aping European nobility. For republicans afraid that the country would slip back into aristocratic ways, such foppery smacked of Old World decadence. They worried that if the capital stayed in New York, American innocence would be undone by urban hedonism. Many legislators led confined, threadbare lives and did not partake of the extravagance. Ralph Izard complained that the poorly paid senators were forced into “boardinghouses, lodged in holes and corners, associated with improper company, and conversed improperly so as to lower their dignity and character”—a situation that could only have heightened their resentment toward New York.39

  Hamilton kept vigilant watch on the new Congress, aware that its early decisions were to affect profoundly American finance and the evolving structure of the executive and judiciary branches. Although scheduled to start in early March, the House and Senate took more than a month to muster quorums. In a significant piece of symbolism, the House met on the ground floor of Federal Hall and provided open galleries for visitors. At the inaugural session on April 1, 1789, Hamilton milled about among the onlookers. James Kent recalled, “Col. Hamilton remarked to me that as nothing was to be done the first day, such impatient crowds were evidence of the powerful principle of curiosity.”40 Meanwhile, the secretive Senate met upstairs in a chamber without a spectator section. For the first five years, senators conducted their business behind closed doors.

  The Constitution had kept a tactful silence about the executive departments of government and made no mention of a cabinet. For months after his inauguration, George Washington was the executive branch. The administration was still a nebulous concept, not a tangible reality. Madison lamented, “We are in a wilderness without a single footstep to guide us.”41 The financial state of the new government was especially precarious. The United States had already suspended interest payments on much of its foreign and domestic debt, and American bonds continued to trade at steep discounts on European exchanges, suggesting little faith in the new government’s ability to repay them. If this situation persisted, the government would have to pay extortionate interest rates to appease jittery creditors.