Alexander Hamilton

by Ron Chernow

  During thirty-four years on the court, John Marshall, more than anyone else, perpetuated Hamilton’s vision of both vibrant markets and affirmative government. When he became chief justice, the Supreme Court met in the Capitol basement in a less-than-magisterial setting. Hamilton had always regarded the judiciary as the final fortress of liberty and the most vulnerable branch of government. John Marshall remedied that deficiency, and many of the great Supreme Court decisions he handed down were based on concepts articulated by Hamilton. In writing the decision in Marbury v. Madison (1803), Marshall established the principle of judicial review—the court’s authority to declare acts of Congress unconstitutional— drawing liberally on Hamilton’s Federalist number 78. His decision in the landmark case of McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) owed a great deal to the doctrine of implied powers spelled out by Hamilton in his 1791 opinion on the legality of a central bank.

  The scalding debate over repeal of the Judiciary Act prompted Hamilton to lambast Jefferson in a series of eighteen essays entitled “The Examination.” Reviving themes from The Federalist Papers, he explained why the judiciary was destined to be the weakest branch of government. It could “ordain nothing. Its functions are not active but deliberative....Its chief strength is in the veneration which it is able to inspire by the wisdom and rectitude of its judgments.”33 For Hamilton, Jefferson’s desire to overturn the Judiciary Act was an insidious first step toward destroying the Constitution: “Who is so blind as not to see that the right of the legislature to abolish the judges at pleasure destroys the independence of the judicial department and swallows it up in the impetuous vortex of legislative influence?”34 Without an independent judiciary, the Constitution was a worthless document. “Probably before these remarks shall be read,” he concluded, the “Constitution will be no more! It will be numbered among the numerous victims of democratic frenzy.”35 Despite the ink that Hamilton copiously expended and his warning before the New York bar that the law’s cancellation would trigger civil war, the Republicans managed to repeal the Judiciary Act in March 1802 without incident.

  The repeal and other Jeffersonian innovations had spurred Hamilton and his friends to found a new Federalist paper, the New-York Evening Post, now the oldest continuously active paper in America. Robert Troup complained at the time, “We have not a paper in the city on the federal side that is worth reading.”36 Newspaper editor Noah Webster had turned against Hamilton after the Adams pamphlet, depriving him of an outlet for his views. Marginalized but far from eliminated as a force in national affairs, Hamilton hoped the Post would chart a path for other Federalist newspapers and breathe life into a nearly moribund party. Of the ten thousand dollars of start-up capital, Hamilton likely contributed one thousand. Tradition has it that the decision to launch the Post was made in the mansion of merchant Archibald Gracie.

  For chief editor, Hamilton plucked one of his most colorful disciples, thirty-fiveyear-old William Coleman, an engaging man with a broad, florid face and a nimble wit. Born to an impecunious Boston family, Coleman had been serving in the Massachusetts House of Representatives when Hamilton toured New England in 1796 and Coleman fell promptly under his spell. He considered Hamilton “the greatest statesman beyond comparison of the age” and later dated his professional success from the time of their meeting.37 After moving to New York, Coleman practiced law with Aaron Burr, a decision he regretted and quickly reversed. Attracted to writers, he joined a literary society called the Friendly Club, where he mingled with Hamilton’s Federalist associates. Coleman was wrestling with financial problems when Hamilton got him the coveted clerkship of the circuit court, where he employed his shorthand skills to produce the comprehensive transcript of the Manhattan Well Tragedy case.

  William Coleman was such an unreconstructed Federalist that one Republican journalist crowned him “The Field Marshall of Federal Editors.”38 After Jefferson’s election, Coleman sent the new president a bombastic epistle, accusing him of pulling down the old temple of morality and religion and erecting in its place “a foul and filthy temple consecrated to atheism and lewdness.”39 He threw himself so wholly into Stephen Van Rensselaer’s gubernatorial campaign that a Republican paper predicted that this “seller of two-pence halfpenny pamphlets, this sycophantic messenger of Gen. Hamilton[,]...will at one time or another receive a due reward.”40 Coleman was a casualty of the back-to-back victories of Thomas Jefferson and George Clinton. After the governor’s nephew De Witt Clinton emerged as the reigning figure of the all-powerful Council of Appointments, he purged Federalist officeholders and ejected Coleman from his clerkship.

  Hamilton and his partners set up Coleman in a brick house on Pine Street. When the newspaper’s first issue appeared on November 16, 1801, it sounded a patrician note, promising “to diffuse among the people correct information on all interesting subjects, to inculcate just principles in religion, morals, and politics, and to cultivate a taste for sound literature.”41 It made no bones about soliciting the backing of local merchants, announcing it would write about whatever relates to “that large and respectable class of our fellow-citizens.”42 While openly admitting its Federalist pedigree, it also noted that “we disapprove of that spirit of dogmatism which lays exclusive claim to infallibility and...believe that honest and virtuous men are to be found in each party.”43 The paper soon won plaudits for its legible print, high-quality paper, and lucid, trenchant writing. None other than James T. Callender bestowed kind words upon Hamilton’s publication: “This newspaper is, beyond all comparison, the most elegant piece of workmanship that we have seen either in Europe or America.”44

  The Post immediately became Hamilton’s newspaper of choice for assailing Jefferson, and all eighteen installments of “The Examination” appeared there under the name Lucius Crassus. Hamilton was no hands-off investor, and Coleman candidly described his pervasive influence on the paper: “Whenever anything occurs on which I feel the want of information, I state matters to him, sometimes in a note. He appoints a time when I may see him, usually a late hour in the evening. He always keeps himself minutely informed on all political matters. As soon as I see him, he begins in a deliberate manner to dictate and I to note down in shorthand. When he stops, my article is completed.”45 Coleman’s vignette confirms that Hamilton had a lawyer’s ability to organize long speeches in his head and often dictated his essays. Otherwise, the sheer abundance of his writing is hard to comprehend.

  In a macabre coincidence, the New-York Evening Post had its first major story on its hands just one week after its maiden issue: a duel involving Hamilton’s eldest son. With his high forehead, luminous eyes, and Roman nose, Philip Hamilton, nearly twenty, was exceedingly handsome. Smart and with a winning manner, he had followed a career path that replicated his father’s: he had graduated the year before from Columbia College with high honors, was a fine orator, and studied to be a lawyer. “Philip inherits his father’s talents,” Angelica Church told Eliza. “What flattering prospects for a mother! You are, my dear sister, very happy with such a husband and such promise in a son.”46 One of Eliza’s friends asked whimsically if she could notify the “renowned Philip” that she had heard he had “outstripped all his competitors in the race of knowledge” and daily gained “new victories by surpassing himself.”47

  Hamilton regarded Philip as the family’s “eldest and brightest hope” and was grooming him for major accomplishments.48 In Robert Troup’s opinion, Hamilton held “high expectations of his future greatness” and likely expected him to perpetuate his own work.49 Like Hamilton, Philip was partial to ornate rhetoric and once complained to his father that the Columbia president had made him strike this purple patch from a speech: “Americans, you have fought the battles of mankind, you have enkindled that sacred fire of freedom.”50 Like his father when he was younger, Philip had a wayward streak—Troup called him a “sad rake”—and drifted into escapades that required gentle paternal reprimands.51 Strict but loving, Hamilton had recently prepared a daily schedule for Phili
p that included reading, writing, church attendance, and recreation, governing all his waking moments from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Nevertheless, Hamilton showed some amused tolerance for his son’s antics, ending one letter to Eliza in October 1801 with the words, “I am anxious to hear from Philip. Naughty young man.”52

  Philip’s duel originated in a speech given by a committed young Republican lawyer, George I. Eacker, during a Fourth of July celebration that year. As principal draftsman of the Declaration of Independence, President Jefferson had a personal stake in whipping up patriotic fever on the holiday, and New York’s festivities were especially exuberant. Bells chimed, cannon belched thunder and smoke, and militia marched up Broadway to the Brick Church, where the Declaration was read aloud. Then Captain Eacker, in his late twenties, addressed the crowd with partisan gusto. Instead of blaming the XYZ Affair or French privateering for the Quasi-War with France, he blamed Britain and suggested that Hamilton’s army had been designed to cow Republicans. “To suppress all opposition by fear, a military establishment was expressly created under pretended apprehension of a foreign invasion,” he told the crowd.53 He credited Jefferson with chasing a Federalist aristocracy from the government and saving the Constitution. When the speech was published, Philip Hamilton pored indignantly over the references to his father.

  Probably by chance, Philip spotted Eacker at the Park Theater in Manhattan on Friday evening, November 20, 1801. The two young men scarcely knew each other. The theater was presenting a comedy entitled The West-Indian when the son of America’s most celebrated West Indian, along with a friend named Price, barged into a box where Eacker was enjoying the show with a male companion and two young ladies. The two interlopers began taunting Eacker about his Fourth of July oration. At first he tried to ignore them, but the growing commotion drew stares from the audience. Eacker asked the two men to step into the lobby. As they did so, Eacker muttered, “It is too abominable to be publicly insulted by a set of rascals.” Philip Hamilton and Price retorted, “Who do you call damn’d rascals?”54 Rascal was a loaded word and often the prelude to a duel. When Eacker grabbed Philip by the collar, the antagonists nearly came to blows. They retired to a tavern, where Eacker reiterated that he considered them both rascals. As he left to return to the play, Eacker said, “I expect to hear from you.” Philip and Price blurted out in chorus, “You shall.”55 Events then moved swiftly. By the time Eacker left the theater, he had a letter from Price challenging him to a duel, and he accepted the offer.

  That same night, Philip Hamilton consulted his friend David S. Jones, a young lawyer and former private secretary to Governor Jay. Jones decided to take no further steps until he had conferred with John Barker Church, the Schuyler family authority on dueling. Church advised the young men that Eacker’s insulting behavior demanded a response. On the other hand, he noted that Philip, having given first offense, should try to resolve his differences amicably with Eacker. That Sunday afternoon, Eacker and Price fought a hastily arranged duel in New Jersey. They exchanged four shots without injury and declared the matter closed. Afterward, John Church and David Jones tried to negotiate a truce for Philip Hamilton with Eacker’s second. Among other things, they feared the political ramifications of a bloody encounter between Alexander Hamilton’s son and a young Jeffersonian. Since Eacker blamed Philip Hamilton more than Price for the theater incident, he would not retract the word rascal even if Philip apologized for his rudeness. The negotiations foundered, and the two sides agreed to duel at 3:00 p.m. the following afternoon at Paulus Hook, New Jersey (today Jersey City). The dueling ground was located on a sandbar that was attached to the mainland only at low tide, affording privacy to the antagonists.

  Where was Alexander Hamilton in all this? The New-York Evening Post coverage shielded his involvement and conveyed the impression that Philip arranged the duel before his unsuspecting father knew what was afoot. In fact, Hamilton knew all about it but hovered in the background while applauding his brother-in-law’s efforts to stave off bloodshed. Hamilton was trapped in a dilemma that later plagued him with Burr. He believed in rebuking insults to one’s integrity and abiding by the gentlemanly code of honor, but he grew increasingly critical of dueling as he returned to the religious fervor of his youth. During the mustering of his army, he had even issued a circular to his men to curb the practice. Hamilton’s feelings were further complicated by the knowledge that his son was blameworthy and wished to make amends.

  Grappling with these contradictory feelings, Hamilton devised a compromise response that previewed his own duel with Burr. He thought that Philip should throw away his shot on the field of honor, a maneuver that French duelists styled a delope. The idea was that the duelist refused to fire first or wasted his shot by firing in the air. If his opponent then shot to kill him, honorable men would regard it as murder. One of Philip’s former classmates, Henry Dawson, confirmed this: “On Monday before the time appointed for the meeting...General Hamilton heard of it and commanded his son when on the ground to reserve his fire till after Mr E[acker] had shot and then to discharge his pistol in the air.”56 Of course, there was no guarantee that one’s opponent would not shoot to kill.

  At the duel, Philip Hamilton heeded his father’s advice and did not raise his pistol at the command to fire. Eacker followed suit, and for a minute the two young men stared dumbly at each other. Finally, Eacker lifted his pistol, and Philip did likewise. Eacker then shot Philip above the right hip, the bullet slashing through his body and lodging in his left arm. In what might have been a spasmodic, involuntary discharge, Philip fired his pistol before he slumped to the ground. Both sides agreed that Philip’s dignity and poise had been exemplary. “His manner on the ground was calm and composed beyond expression,” the Post reported. “The idea of his own danger seemed to be lost in anticipation of the satisfaction which he might receive from the final triumph of his generous moderation.”57 The wounded young man was rushed back across the river to Manhattan. Henry Dawson wrote that he was “rowed with the greatest rapidity to this shore where he was landed near the state prison. All the physicians in town were called for and the news spread like a conflagration.”58

  Once Alexander Hamilton learned that negotiations had foundered, he raced to the home of Dr. David Hosack to inform him that his professional services might be needed. Hosack later recalled that Hamilton “was so much overcome by his anxiety that he fainted and remained some time in my family before he was sufficiently recovered to proceed.”59 In fact, Hosack already knew about the duel and had hurried to the home of John and Angelica Church, where Philip had been brought. When Hamilton afterward arrived, he gazed at his son’s ashen face and tested his pulse. Then, Hosack related, “he instantly turned from the bed and, taking me by the hand, which he grasped with all the agony of grief, he exclaimed in a tone and manner that can never be effaced from my memory, ‘Doctor, I despair.’ ”60 Then came the horror-struck Eliza, three months pregnant with their eighth child. A month earlier, when she had gotten sick, Hamilton had feared another miscarriage. “The scene I was present at when Mrs. Hamilton came to see her son on his deathbed . . . and when she met her husband and son in one room beggars all description!” said Robert Troup.61

  Alexander and Eliza clung to their groaning son through a dreadful night. Henry Dawson recorded this wrenching tableau: “On a bed without curtains lay poor Phil, pale and languid, his rolling, distorted eyeballs darting forth the flashes of delirium. On one side of him on the same bed lay his agonized father, on the other his distracted mother, around [him] his numerous relatives and friends weeping and fixed in sorrow.”62 After professing faith in Christ, Philip Hamilton died at five in the morning, some fourteen hours after receiving the mortal wound. He was buried on a rainy day, with an enormous throng of mourners in attendance. As he approached the grave, the faltering Hamilton had to be propped up by friends. By all accounts, he behaved bravely in the face of calamity. “His conduct was extraordinary during this trial,” Angelica Church wrote.6
3 For a long time, Eliza was inconsolable. Despite the feared miscarriage, her eighth and final child was born at the Grange on June 2, 1802, and christened Philip in memory of his deceased brother. (Often he was called “Little Phil.”) Philip Schuyler expressed the entire family’s hopes when he wrote to Eliza, “May the loss of one be compensated by another Philip.”64

  The aftermath of the duel had eerie parallels to Hamilton’s later confrontation with Burr. Philip’s partisans told of his noble but ultimately suicidal resolution not to fire first, and they cursed the rival who had failed to respond in kind. Even the debate over whether Philip had discharged his weapon deliberately or in a spasm of pain was recapitulated later. Since Philip had been killed after withholding his fire for the sake of honor, Hamilton’s reaction to his son’s death tells us how he might have appraised his own fatal encounter. Many contemporaries believed that Hamilton collaborated with William Coleman on the New-York Evening Post articles about the duel, casting Eacker as the aggressor. These sanitized articles did not mention that Philip and Price had invaded Eacker’s box, and they claimed that the two young men had teased Eacker in a spirit of “levity.”65 The episode was depoliticized, with the Post making no mention that the crux of the dispute was Eacker’s Fourth of July oration about Hamilton. The paper further suggested that, if Eacker had been as conciliatory as Philip during the negotiations, the duel might never have occurred. The strongest blast directed at Eacker was that he had “murdered” Philip Hamilton by firing at someone who had no intention of firing back. This offended Eacker’s friends, who pointed out that Philip had agreed to the duel, had come armed, and had pointed his gun at Eacker.