Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

  Once Washington left Hamilton in charge of one wing of the army, the imagination of the Republican press ran riot. The Whiskey Rebellion conjured up their favorite bogeyman of Hamilton as the Man on Horseback, the military-despotin-waiting. Now that Freneau’s paper had folded, the principal source of antiHamilton bile was Benjamin Franklin Bache, a grandson of Benjamin Franklin and editor of a newspaper soon known as the Aurora. As Hamilton rode the soggy, rutted roads of western Pennsylvania, Bache saw devilry in his leadership: “By some it is whispered that he is with the army without invitation and by many it is shrewdly suspected his conduct is a first step towards a deep laid scheme, not for the promotion of the country’s prosperity, but the advancement of his private interests.”36 Washington, unfazed, sent this screed to Hamilton, who replied that “it is long since I have learnt to hold popular opinion of no value.”37

  The military expedition met little overt resistance in the mutinous regions. Many delinquent distillers were rounded up, and others either surrendered or fled into the mountains. At times, the behavior of the rowdy, heavy-drinking soldiers was more worrisome than that of the whiskey rebels, and at least two innocent civilians were killed by militia. Washington set an important precedent by having these soldiers tried in civilian, not military, courts.

  Hamilton was appalled by his meetings with disaffected elements, which convinced him that revolutionary tendencies had to be extirpated root and branch. He wanted the culprits to lose their homes or even be deported—the beginning of a major shift in his tolerant views on immigration. “This business must not be skinned over,” he told Rufus King. “The political putrefaction of Pennsylvania is greater than I had any idea of.”38 He was especially disturbed by the involvement of elected officials in the uprising.

  Federal action in suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion left behind a trail of controversy. William Findley believed that Hamilton had welcomed this chance to prove the government’s power. He left a one-sided chronicle of events that gives a glimpse of Hamilton’s tough, prosecutorial tactics in interrogating prisoners. Hamilton was especially harsh toward those he deemed the leaders. In one case, he questioned a Major Powers about Albert Gallatin’s role at insurgent rallies. When Powers answered grudgingly, Hamilton advised him to take an hour to refresh his memory. Findley claims that Powers was flung into a room with other prisoners with a bayonet at his head. An hour later, with Hamilton “suddenly assuming all his terrors, [he] told Major Powers that he was surprised at him, that having the character of an honest man he would not tell the truth, asserting that he had already proofs sufficient of the truth of what he knew he could testify.”39 Powers was held in military custody for eight days, then released as innocent of all charges.

  Another suspect, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, was questioned by Hamilton, who struck him as courteous if severe. He “was willing to treat me with civility, but was embarrassed with a sense that, in a short time, I must probably stand in the predicament of a culprit and be in irons.”40 Hamilton asked Brackenridge bluntly if he had planned to overthrow the government, at which point the prisoner recounted his actions. Hamilton scribbled detailed notes during this two-day interrogation, then freed Brackenridge, saying he had been misrepresented. Hamilton’s behavior here would seem exemplary—the treasury secretary had taken two days to weigh a man’s innocence—but William Findley talked only of the “terrors” that Hamilton had “dispensed” to Brackenridge.41 Brackenridge himself believed that the show of force orchestrated by the federal government had made its use unnecessary, just as Hamilton had predicted.

  Findley told of his own interrogation at the hands of Hamilton, who believed that Findley had published thirteen anonymous newspaper pieces against him. According to Findley, Hamilton snapped at him “that he would never forgive me, because I had told or wrote lies about him.” Hamilton was irate that Findley and Gallatin, both elected representatives, had abetted the troublemakers: “He expressed much surprise and indignation at their reposing so much confidence in foreigners, that Gallatin and I were both foreigners and therefore not to be trusted.”42 Findley, who had been born in Ireland, found it scandalous that Hamilton of all people should object to his immigrant background: “I say for secretary Hamilton to object to such a man as a foreigner must be astonishing to those who have any knowledge of his own history.”43

  Public opinion applauded the way Washington balanced firmness and clemency in suppressing the Whiskey Rebellion. There had been very few deaths. Washington and Hamilton had brought new prestige to the government and shown how a democratic society could handle popular disorder without resort to despotic methods. Contrary to European wisdom, democracies did not necessarily degenerate into lawlessness. Hamilton wanted to make an example of some perpetrators, but Henry Lee issued an amnesty proclamation that exempted from prosecution all but about 150 prisoners alleged to have committed “atrocities.” Although two insurrectionists were accused of treason and convicted, Washington, with his usual magnanimity, pardoned them. Hamilton feared that this clemency would only encourage lawless elements.

  In a public postmortem on the rebellion, Washington blamed the DemocraticRepublican societies that had sprouted in the wake of Citizen Genêt’s arrival. This presidential message to Congress infuriated James Madison, who rated it “perhaps the greatest error” of Washington’s political career and further proof that he was the tool of Alexander Hamilton.44 “The game was to connect the democratic societies with the odium of insurrection—to connect the Republicans in Congress with those societies—[and] to put the President ostensibly at the head of the other party in opposition to both,” Madison fumed.45 He saw the Whiskey Rebellion as the prelude to the establishment of a standing army that would constrain American liberties. Like Madison, Jefferson regarded the uprising as another instance of Hamilton’s vainglorious desire to exercise power and of his fiendish control over Washington’s mind. Jefferson had never liked the “infernal” excise tax and had the temerity to label the episode “Hamilton’s insurrection.”46 Jefferson likened Washington to an aging “captain in his cabin” who dozed while “a rogue of a pilot has run them into an enemy’s port.”47

  Hamilton’s friend Timothy Pickering later observed that the excise tax remained “particularly odious to the whiskey drinkers” and that Jefferson’s pledge to repeal the tax did much to boost his popularity: “So it may be said, with undoubted truth, that the whiskey drinkers made Mr. Jefferson the President of the United States.”48

  Enough rancor toward Hamilton remained in western Pennsylvania that he required a special escort of six soldiers on horseback when he left Pittsburgh in late November. Tired and weather-beaten from almost two months on the road, he galloped toward Philadelphia with an urgent need to see Eliza, who still struggled with a difficult pregnancy and felt alone without him. Even Angelica Church in London knew about the strained situation. “During his absence I know, my love, that you have been very unhappy and I have often thought of you with more than common tenderness,” she wrote to Eliza.49 On November 24, Henry Knox told Hamilton of Eliza’s earnest prayers for his return: “It seems that she has had, or has been in danger of a miscarriage, which has much alarmed her.” The guardian angel of the Hamilton household, Edward Stevens, who seemed to appear at providential moments, now tended Eliza and reassured her that she was in no danger. Nevertheless, Knox informed Hamilton that she was “extremely desirous of your presence [and] in order to tranquilize her this note is transmitted by the President’s request.”50

  It turned out that Eliza did have a miscarriage, and Hamilton flagellated himself for this misfortune. “My dear Eliza has been lately very ill,” he wrote to Angelica Church in early December, sidestepping direct mention of the miscarriage. “Thank God, she is now quite recovered, except that she continues somewhat weak. My absence on a certain expedition was the cause....You will see, notwithstanding your disparagement of me, I am still of consequence to her.”51 Ever since the Maria Reynolds fiasco, Hamilton had tried to b
e attentive to his family, but the ceaseless demands of public life had often denied him the necessary time, and now his absence had yielded dreadful results.

  Hamilton now believed that his great opportunities lay behind him. On December 1, 1794, the day he returned to Philadelphia, he told Washington that he would surrender his Treasury post in late January. One wonders whether Eliza’s miscarriage affected this snap decision. With her selfless love for Hamilton, she didn’t care for the blood sport that passed for politics and was disgusted by the unceasing attacks on her husband. It pained her to see the scant appreciation for his sacrifices. Angelica Church wrote to Eliza with mixed emotions when she heard of Hamilton’s rumored resignation, “The country will lose one of her best friends and you, my dear Eliza, will be the only person to whom this change can be either necessary or agreeable. I am inclined to believe that it is your influence [that] induces him to withdraw from public life.”52 Church knew Hamilton’s fun-loving side and agreed that Hamilton needed a respite from politics, telling Eliza that “when you and I are with him, he shall not talk politics to us. A little of his agreeable nonsense will do us more good.”53

  The news of Hamilton’s departure was a watershed for Washington, who had made him the master builder of the new government. When John Marshall later read through Washington’s correspondence for his authorized biography, he expressed “astonishment at the proportion of it” from Hamilton’s pen.54 In acknowledging Hamilton’s resignation, Washington penned one of his loftiest tributes.

  In every relation which you have borne to me, I have found that my confidence in your talents, exertions, and integrity has been well placed. I the more freely render this testimony of my approbation, because I speak from opportunities of information w[hi]ch cannot deceive me and which furnish satisfactory proof of your title to public regard. My most earnest wishes for your happiness will attend you in retirement.55

  The letter shows why Washington tended to discount the Jeffersonian invective against Hamilton. Both as general and president, Washington had numberless chances to observe Hamilton and had seen only competence, dedication, and integrity. In yet another tribute to Hamilton, Washington replaced him with his deputy at Treasury, Oliver Wolcott, Jr.

  Hamilton was eager to leave office with an unscarred reputation and immediately informed House Speaker Muhlenberg of his planned resignation. He wanted to give the select investigating committee time to pursue any last-minute inquiries so that nobody would ever intimate that he had ducked questions. It was not Hamilton’s style to fade away quietly, and he mustered the strength for one last voluminous report on government finance, which he submitted to the House on January 19, 1795. He wanted to chart a wide-ranging course for the future. Washington had recently asked Congress for plans to retire the public debt and “prevent that progressive accumulation of debt which must ultimately endanger all government.”56 Congress had debated piecemeal proposals instead of a comprehensive plan. For a long time, Hamilton had chafed at the distorted perception that he invariably viewed a public debt as a public blessing; in many circumstances, he knew, a public debt could be a public curse. “The debt of France brought about her revolution,” he wrote. “Financial embarrassments led to those steps which led to the overthrow of the government and to all the terrible scenes which have followed.”57 Despite such disclaimers, Hamilton could not shake the pernicious stereotype that he always favored a large public debt. Jefferson told a friend about the public debt, “The only difference ...between the two parties is that the republican one wish it could be paid tomorrow and the fiscal [Federalist] party wish it to be perpetual, because they find in it an engine for corrupting the legislator.”58

  Debt was a legitimate concern, with an astounding 55 percent of federal expenditures being siphoned off to service it. Hamilton’s parting shot to Congress, his Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit, called the bluff of Republican opponents and laid out a program for extinguishing the public debt within thirty years. He wanted new taxes passed and old ones made permanent, and he showed painstakingly that he had striven to reduce debt as speedily as possible. He could not resist tweaking the whiskey insurgents by pointing out that any surplus produced by the excise tax on liquor was explicitly pledged to reducing public debt.

  Hamilton’s proposals were rolled into a bill passed by Congress within little more than a month of his departure as treasury secretary. He was bothered by amendments proposed by Aaron Burr and others that he thought violated the spirit of his scheme. He told Rufus King that he was “haunted” by the action and railed against this “abominable assassination of the national honor.”59 He wondered why he cared so desperately about the fate of his adopted country and others seemingly so little.

  To see the character of the government and the country so sported with, exposed to so indelible a blot, puts my heart to the torture. Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American ground? Or what is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost everybody else? Am I a fool, a romantic Quixote, or is there a constitutional defect in the American mind? Were it not for yourself and a few others, I . . . would say . . . there is something in our climate which belittles every animal, human or brute....I disclose to you without reserve the state of my mind. It is discontented and gloomy in the extreme. I consider the cause of good government as having been put to an issue and the verdict against it.60

  In this melodramatic letter, Hamilton again gave way to despair about the American prospect. No longer constrained by the decorum of public life, he drew on this deep well of anger more often. There was a radical alienation inside Hamilton, a harrowing sense that he remained, on some level, a rootless outsider in America. In the end, Congress enacted Hamilton’s bill largely intact, rejecting the amendments proposed by Burr. Hamilton’s response had been disproportionate to the threat and showed a depressive streak, a chronic tendency to magnify problems. For a man so involved in public life, he was curiously unable to develop a selfprotective shell.

  Whatever his disappointments, Hamilton, forty, must have left Philadelphia with an immense feeling of accomplishment. The Whiskey Rebellion had been suppressed, the country’s finances flourished, and the investigation into his affairs had ended with a ringing exoneration. He had prevailed in almost every major program he had sponsored—whether the bank, assumption, funding the public debt, the tax system, the Customs Service, or the Coast Guard—despite years of complaints and bitter smears. John Quincy Adams later stated that his financial system “operated like enchantment for the restoration of public credit.”61 Bankrupt when Hamilton took office, the United States now enjoyed a credit rating equal to that of any European nation. He had laid the groundwork for both liberal democracy and capitalism and helped to transform the role of the president from passive administrator to active policy maker, creating the institutional scaffolding for America’s future emergence as a great power. He had demonstrated the creative uses of government and helped to weld the states irreversibly into one nation. He had also defended Washington’s administration more brilliantly than anyone else, articulating its constitutional underpinnings and enunciating key tenets of foreign policy. “We look in vain for a man who, in an equal space of time, has produced such direct and lasting effects upon our institutions and history,” Henry Cabot Lodge was to contend.62 Hamilton’s achievements were never matched because he was present at the government’s inception, when he could draw freely on a blank slate. If Washington was the father of the country and Madison the father of the Constitution, then Alexander Hamilton was surely the father of the American government.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SUGAR PLUMS AND TOYS

  After Hamilton and his family left Philadelphia in mid-February 1795, they rented lodgings in New York City for several days before proceeding to the Schuyler residence in Albany for a long-overdue rest. Hamilton

  found it hard to retrieve his privacy. He was lionized by New York’s merc
hant community, which treated him to a hero’s homecoming. In late February, the Chamber of Commerce feted him at a huge dinner attended by two hundred people, “the rooms not being large enough to accommodate more,” one newspaper noted.1 It was a merry, boisterous affair, with toasts offered impartially to both commerce and agriculture. Hamilton received nine cheers, compared to three apiece for Washington and Adams. With New York about to overtake Philadelphia and Boston as America’s main seaport, Hamilton was saluted as the patron saint of local prosperity. In his toast, Hamilton paid homage to local businessmen: “The merchants of New York: may they never cease to have honor for their commander, skill for their pilot, and success for their port.”2 Two weeks later, Mayor Richard Varick awarded Hamilton the freedom of the city—a form of honorary citizenship. In the manner of many immigrants who found thriving new identities in New York City, Hamilton had developed a special feeling for his adopted home. “Among the precious testimonies I have received of the approbation of my immediate fellow citizens,” he told Varick, “none is more acceptable or more flattering to me than that which I now acknowledge.”3

  After Hamilton left the government, the English artist James Sharples did a sensitive pastel of him in profile that shows that, despite his tireless exertions in Philadelphia and the lethal broadsides hurled by the Jeffersonians, he still exuded good humor. Sharples captured an alert man with keenly observant eyes and an amused air of high spirits. He has a pointed chin, a long, slightly irregular nose, and a receding hairline. Whatever the underlying depths of despair, Hamilton was still very much in his prime and able to project a long career ahead of him.