by Ron Chernow
... For Hamilton, the triumph over Jefferson was a bittersweet victory that he scarcely had time to savor. He was besieged by enemies, worried about his health, and felt unappreciated by the public. In a letter to Angelica Church, Hamilton, nearly thirtynine, struck again a world-weary note: “But how oddly are all things arranged in this sublunary scene. I am just where I do not wish to be. I know how I could be much happier, but circumstances enchain me.”26 In another letter, he said, “Believe me, I am heartily tired of my situation and wait only the opportunity of quitting it with honor and without decisive prejudice to the public affairs.”27
The Republicans had captured majorities in the Congress that convened in December 1793 and that would render a final verdict over Hamilton’s conduct as treasury secretary. He had already told Washington that he would stay in office only as long as it took to clear his name. In mid-December 1793, in a rare political spectacle, Hamilton asked House Speaker Muhlenberg to resume the Giles inquiry. While he had been exonerated by the first Giles investigation, the examination had been rushed by the short deadline, and Hamilton wanted to erase any last doubts about his probity. Whatever private melancholy he poured out to Angelica Church, he sounded buoyantly combative when he told Muhlenberg of the probe, “the more comprehensive it is, the more agreeable it will be to me.”28
The Republicans were happy to oblige him. Even before Giles got down to business, Senator Albert Gallatin of Pennsylvania submitted resolutions asking for a comprehensive account of Treasury operations. He demanded reams of paper from Hamilton, ranging from a full statement of foreign and domestic debt to an itemized list of revenues. This oppressive investigation was scrapped when the foreignborn Gallatin lost his Senate seat after charges were made that he had not met the nine-year citizenship requirement. Hamilton, meanwhile, chafed at the dilatory tactics of Giles, who did not revive the Treasury inquiry until late February, even as Hamilton made threatening noises that he would resign.
Hamilton was being badgered from all sides. He was still deluged with questionable petitions, often marred by fraud or missing paperwork, from people claiming compensation for services provided during the Revolution. He felt so harassed by accusations of negligence from the Senate that on February 22 he complained to Vice President Adams in an anguished letter. Hamilton alluded to burdensome petitions, the disruptions of the yellow-fever epidemic, and eternal congressional studies of his conduct. As a conscientious public servant, he felt he should be spared petty censure over his handling of the petitions: “I will only add that the consciousness of devoting myself to the public service, to the utmost extent of my faculties and to the injury of my health, is a tranquillizing consolation of which I cannot be deprived by any supposition to the contrary.”29 Nine days later, Hamilton delivered to Congress his decisions on no fewer than thirty complex petitions for wartime compensation.
On February 24, the House assembled a select committee with sweeping powers to investigate the Treasury Department. Reflecting the new composition of Congress, the bulk of the committee was Republican. The members drew up an exhausting schedule to drain any energy Hamilton had left. Until their work was complete, they planned to meet every Tuesday and Thursday evening and Saturday morning. For three months, the committee stuck to this punitive schedule, and Hamilton testified at about half the sessions. Besides providing extensive official information, he had to disclose all of his private accounts with the Bank of the United States and the Bank of New York, as Republicans tried to prove that Hamilton had exploited his office to extort credits from the two banks.
The select committee, finding it hard to fix blame on Hamilton, fell back on the one charge that Giles had made stick: that he had exercised too much discretion in shifting government funds between the United States and Europe. When the committee asked Hamilton to cite his authority for transferring money abroad to the Bank of the United States, he cited both “verbal authority” and a letter from the president. The committee, suspecting a bluff, demanded proof, and Hamilton asked Washington for a letter to back up his assertions. Washington obliged Hamilton with a mealymouthed letter that was so bland—“from my general recollection of the course of proceedings, I do not doubt that it was substantially as you have stated it”—as to undercut Hamilton’s position.30 His enemies guffawed. “The letter from the P[resident] is inexpressibly mortifying to his [Hamilton’s] friends,” Madison wrote to Jefferson, “and marks his situation to be precisely what you always described it to be.”31
As delicately as possible, a crestfallen Hamilton advised Washington that his letter might seem a lukewarm endorsement to cynics. He worried that “false and insidious men” would use it to “infuse doubts and distrusts very injurious to me.”32 In fact, Washington was beginning to balk at Hamilton’s requests to transfer money in ways not tightly tied to specific legislative acts. Whether he thought the Jeffersonian arguments had merit or merely popular backing, Washington subtly distanced himself from Hamilton, insisting that he segregate funds from different sources. Once again, he proved that he was not a rubber stamp for Hamilton’s policies. At the same time, he hardly wished to repudiate his treasury secretary and promised to help out with Congress. In the end, the select committee found no wrongdoing in the way Hamilton had used European loans for domestic purposes.
In its final report in late May, the Republican-dominated committee could not deliver the comeuppance it had craved. Instead, it confessed that all the charges lodged against Hamilton were completely baseless, as the treasury secretary had insisted all along. And what of the endless Jeffersonian insinuations that Hamilton had used public office to extract private credits? The report concluded that it appears “that the Secretary of the Treasury never has, either directly or indirectly, for himself or any other person, procured any discount or credit, from either of the said banks [Bank of New York and Bank of the United States] upon the basis of any public monies which, at any time, have been deposited therein under his direction.”33 The vindication was so resounding that Hamilton withdrew his long-standing resignation, and his cabinet position grew more impregnable than ever. Nevertheless, it frustrated him that after this exhaustive investigation his opponents still rehashed the stale charges of misconduct. He had learned a lesson about propaganda in politics and mused wearily that “no character, however upright, is a match for constantly reiterated attacks, however false.” If a charge was made often enough, people assumed in the end “that a person so often accused cannot be entirely innocent.”34
Once again, the best clue to Hamilton’s mood comes from his confiding letters to Angelica Church, who still felt trapped in England by her husband’s position in Parliament. In one letter, Hamilton offered Church a whimsical but rueful meditation on the nature of public office. This previously overlooked letter is contained in the papers of Hamilton’s son James, who tore off and crossed out other portions, making one wonder whether it contained evidence of the long-rumored affair between Hamilton and his sister-in-law. Hamilton observed:
Truly this trade of a statesman is but a sorry thing. It plagues a man more than enough and, when it obliges him to sacrifice his own pleasure, it is very far from fitting him the better to please other people....I speak from experience. You will ask why I do not quit this disagreeable trade. How can I? What is to become of my fame and glory[?] How will the world go on without me? I am sometimes told very gravely it could not and one ought not, you know, to be very difficult of faith about what is much to our advantage. Besides, you would lose the pleasure of speaking of your brother[-in-law as] “The Chancellor of the Exchequer” if I am to give up the trade....There is no fear that the minister will spoil the man. I find by experience that the man is every day getting the upper hand of the minister.35
TWENTY-FIVE
SEAS OF BLOOD
After Jefferson left the cabinet, Washington did not conduct a purge of Republicans. On the contrary, the unity-minded president turned to the foremost congressional Republican, James Madison, as hi
s first choice as
secretary of state. Only when Madison rejected the job did Washington hand it to Attorney General Edmund Randolph, who was succeeded in his post by William Bradford of Philadelphia. This sequence of events did not stop Jefferson and Madison from complaining that Washington was a captive of crafty, manipulative Federalists.
Jefferson’s presence lingered in Congress through Madison. On the eve of his departure, Jefferson submitted a bulky report to the House on European trade policies toward America. He laid out a litany of charges—from unfair dominance of transatlantic shipping to the banning of American boats from the British West Indies—to buttress his claim that England discriminated against American trade. Based on this evidence, Jefferson advocated commercial reprisals against Britain coupled, not surprisingly, with expanded trade relations with France.
On January 3, 1794, Madison introduced seven congressional resolutions that converted Jefferson’s brief into a tough anti-British trade policy. Ten days later, Federalist William Loughton Smith rebutted him in an eloquent speech of fifteen thousand words that adroitly picked apart Madison’s arguments. Smith suggested that it would be suicidal for America to disrupt relations with the country that accounted for most of its trade. As soon as Jefferson scanned Smith’s speech, he knew his old bête noire had struck again. “I am at no loss to ascribe Smith’s speech to its true father,” he told Madison. “Every letter of it is Hamilton’s, except the introduction.”1 Jefferson had guessed shrewdly: Hamilton either drafted Smith’s speech or provided the information.
Responding to Madison’s attempts to solidify relations with France, Hamilton lashed back in his time-tested manner. Under the disguise of “Americanus,” he published two fervid newspaper essays about the horrors of the French Revolution. He condemned apologists for “the horrid and disgusting scenes” being enacted in France and branded Marat and Robespierre “assassins still reeking with the blood of murdered fellow citizens.” Long before Napoleon came on the scene, he predicted that after “wading through seas of blood ...France may find herself at length the slave of some victorious...Caesar.”2
Unfortunately for Hamilton, even as he touted England as a law-abiding ally, the British evinced a bullying arrogance and stupidity toward America that surpassed the most acrid Jeffersonian caricatures. England refused to acknowledge the traditional doctrine “free ships make free goods”—i.e., that neutral vessels had a right to carry all cargo save munitions and enter the ports of belligerent countries. On November 6, 1793, William Pitt’s ministry had decreed that British ships could intercept neutral vessels hauling produce to or from the French West Indies. Without further ado, the British fleet captured more than 250 American merchant ships, impounding more than half of them as war prizes. Britain also boarded American vessels at sea and dragged off sailors, claiming they were British seamen who had deserted. These high-handed actions kicked up such a ruckus in America that, for the first time since the Revolution, the prospect of a new war against Great Britain seemed a genuine possibility.
The Federalists felt shocked, betrayed, and embittered. “The English are absolute madmen,” sputtered an indignant Fisher Ames. “Order in this country is endangered by their hostility no less than by French friendship.”3 When Hamilton heard about British depredations, he did not behave like a pawn of British interests. Rather, he drew up for Washington contingency plans to raise a twenty-thousandman army to defend coastal cities and impose a partial trade embargo. “The pains taken to preserve peace,” he told Washington, “include a proportional responsibility that equal pains be taken to be prepared for war.”4 Once again, Hamilton and Washington agreed that the executive branch should take the lead in a national emergency.
While continuing to meet with his dogged congressional investigators, the sorely taxed treasury secretary instructed customs collectors to fortify ports for a possible invasion, while Federalists presented plans to Congress for a provisional army. As word spread that the omnipresent Hamilton might supervise this new force, Republicans discerned another insidious power play. “You will understand the game behind the curtain too well not to perceive the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government,” Madison told Jefferson.5 Madison and other Republicans opposed Federalist plans to form an army and increase taxes for national defense. When Federalists suggested that it was high time America had its own navy to combat the plunder of American shipping by Barbary pirates, Madison suggested, in all seriousness, that the United States hire the Portuguese navy instead.
Bent upon postponing war with Britain, influential Federalists gathered at the lodgings of Senator Rufus King. They agreed that Washington should send a special envoy to England and proposed Hamilton, who thought he was a splendid choice. As usual, the mere mention of his name sent Federalists into shivers of ecstasy: “Who but Hamilton would perfectly satisfy all our wishes?” asked Ames.6 At first, Washington leaned toward Hamilton and grew resentful when Edmund Randolph interposed objections. Randolph thought Hamilton had been too vocal in criticizing France to enjoy credibility as an objective negotiator with Britain. Republicans joined this chorus of dissent and talked as if Washington were about to deputize the devil himself. Representative John Nicholas, brother-in-law of Senator James Monroe, told the president apropos of Hamilton that “more than half [of] America have determined it to be unsafe to trust power in the hands of this person....Did it never occur to you that the divisions of America might be ended by the sacrifice of this one man?”7 Jefferson detected yet another cabal to place “the aristocracy of this country under the patronage” of the British government, not to mention a convenient way to send Hamilton abroad and protect him “from the disgrace and public execrations which sooner or later must fall on the man.”8 In the end, Washington concluded that Hamilton lacked “the general confidence of the country” and wisely opted for a less partisan figure.9
On April 14, Hamilton composed a long, plaintive letter to Washington and removed himself from consideration for the post. Madison said that Hamilton was crushed and informed Jefferson that he had been turned down “to his great mortification.”10 Yet Hamilton must have known he would be a divisive choice. He also had reasons for staying close to home: he feared that, without him, Washington might submit to Republican influence; he was still committed to vindicating his reputation before the congressional investigating committee; and he wanted to deal with ominous protests now gathering force in western Pennsylvania against the excise tax he had imposed on liquor.
In his letter to Washington, Hamilton made some statements on foreign policy of lasting significance, especially the idea of war as a last resort. He said that he belonged to the camp that wanted “to preserve peace at all costs, consistent with national honor,” resorting to war only if attempts at reparations failed. He warned that Republicans wanted to poison relations with Britain, foster amity with France, and cancel debts owed to England. The British would then retaliate by blocking commodity exports to America, causing a catastrophic drop in customs duties. This would “bring the Treasury to an absolute stoppage of payment[,]...an event which would cut up credit by the roots.”11 Hamilton has often been extolled as the exponent of a rational foreign policy based on cool calculations of national selfinterest. But his April 14 letter expressed his unswerving conviction that nations, transported by strong emotion, often miscalculate their interests: “Wars oftener proceed from angry and perverse passions than from cool calculations of interest.”12 War with Britain might unleash violent popular fantasies and set in motion “turbulent passions” that would lead to extremism on the French model, pushing America to “the threshold of disorganization and anarchy.”13 Like so many Hamilton polemics, the letter was a hot-blooded defense of a cool-eyed policy.
When he took himself out of the running for envoy, Hamilton recommended John Jay as the perfect substitute—“the only man in whose qualifications for success there would be thorough confidence and him whom alone it wo
uld be advisable to send.”14 As the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, Jay lacked Hamilton’s conspicuous liabilities as a party head. Hamilton had always admired Jay, but with reservations. He once said of Jay that “he was a man of profound sagacity and pure integrity, yet he was of a suspicious temper.”15 In contrast to Hamilton’s colorful exuberance, Jay often dressed in black, tended to be taciturn, and could be aloof, though Philip Schuyler once said that he numbered Jay among the few men for whom he had an affection approaching love.
Jay consented to undertake the mission to England without resigning as chief justice. Republicans found him more palatable than Hamilton but far from a neutral choice. In their eyes, he was another Federalist smitten with England. Nevertheless, the Senate approved him. To offset Jay’s appointment, Washington decided to choose a Republican to succeed Gouverneur Morris as American minister to France and settled on James Monroe. Aaron Burr and some Republican colleagues suspected that Hamilton had induced Washington to veto Burr; for Burr, this was another of many times that Hamilton spiked his aspirations for office. But Washington continued to distrust Burr as a devious, prodigal man and needed no prodding from Hamilton.
If Hamilton could not go to London, he would engage in freelance diplomacy at home. Even before Jay was confirmed by the Senate, Hamilton met twice with the imperious George Hammond, Britain’s minister to the United States. Once again, those who saw Hamilton as toadying to Britain would have been surprised by how vehemently he laced into Hammond. Hammond told superiors back in London that the treasury secretary “entered into a pretty copious recital of the injuries which the commerce of this country had suffered from British cruisers and into a defense of the consequent claim which the American citizens had on their government to vindicate their rights.”16 Hamilton wanted compensation for American vessels captured in the British West Indies, and Hammond was taken aback by the “degree of heat” Hamilton showed.17