Jefferson and Hamilton

by John Ferling

  43. Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (reprint, New York, 1960), 151–52; TJ to Madison, August 30, 1823, Ford, WTJ 10: 267–69; “Jefferson’s ‘original Rough draught’ of the Declaration of Independence,” PTJ 1:423–28, and the editorial note on the evolution of the text, ibid., 1:413–17; “John Adams’ Copy of the Declaration of Independence, [ante June 28, 1776], PJA 4:341–51. See also Julian Boyd, The Declaration of Independence: The Evolution of the Text as Shown in Facsimiles of Various Drafts by Its Author (Washington, D.C., 1943).

  44. JA to Pickering, August 6, 1822, WJA 2:514n; John Ferling, John Adams: A Life (reprint, New York, 2010), 148; TJ to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825, Lipscomb and Bergh, WTJ 7:407.

  45. Maier, American Scripture, 124–28. The draft of Virginia’s Declaration of Rights can be found in Peter Force, ed., American Archives, 4th series (Washington, D.C., 1837–46), 6:1537.

  46. David Freeman Hawke, A Transaction of Free Men: The Birth and Course of the Declaration of Independence (New York, 1964), 207–8; John Hazleton, The Declaration of Independence: Its History (New York, 1906), 242; 156–57, 258–81; Maier, American Scripture, 157–59; Elbridge Gerry to Joseph Trumbull, July 8, 1776, LDC 4:406; JA to Samuel Chase, July 9, 1776, PJA 4:372; AA to JA, July 21, 1776, Butterfield, Adams Family Correspondence, 2:56; GW, General Orders, July 9, 1776, PGWR 5:246; ibid., 5:247n; GW to John Hancock, July 10, 1776, ibid., 5:258; Lt. Col. Thomas Seymour to Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, July 11, 1776, Peter Force, ed., American Archives 5th series (Washington, D.C., 1847–1853), 1:205; Col. Thomas Hartley to Gen. Gates, July 28, 1776, ibid., 1:630.

  47. Jay Fliegelman, Declaring Independence: Jefferson, Natural Language, and the Culture of Performance (Stanford, Cal., 1993), 4–28. The quotation can be found on page 10.

  48. Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York, 2010), 36–39. The quotation can be found on page 37.

  49. JA to Archibald Bulloch, July 1, 1776, PJA 4:352.

  50. For Dickinson’s speech, see John Dickinson’s Notes for a Speech in Congress, [July 1, 1776], LDC 4:351–58, 356n.

  51. On JA’s speech, see Ferling, Independence, 324.

  52. Maier, American Scripture, 235–41; Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas (reprint, New York, 1960), 160–71; Ferling, Independence, 318–41; TJ to Lee, July 8, 1776, PTJ 1:456. For a good, short essay on the Declaration, see Robert G. Parkinson, “The Declaration of Independence,” in Cogliano, A Companion to Thomas Jefferson, 44–59.

  CHAPTER 3: “IS MY COUNTRY THE BETTER FOR MY HAVING LIVED”: MAKING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION

  1. Hancock to TJ, September 30, 1776, PTJ 1:523–24; Lee to TJ, September 27, November 3, 1776, ibid., 1:522–23, 590; TJ to Hancock, October 11, 1776, ibid., 1:524; TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1151; John Ferling, Setting the World Ablaze: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and the American Revolution (New York, 2000), 151; JMB 1:425–37, 447.

  2. Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson (New York, 2010), 51.

  3. [TJ], A Summary View of the Rights of British America (Williamsburg, Va., 1774), 122, 123, 124, 127.

  4. TJ exaggerated the similarities between colonies and mother country. See Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), 115–18.

  5. The foregoing paragraphs draw largely on TJ to Samuel Kercheval, July 12, 1816, Ford, WTJ 12:4; TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1139–40; TJ to JA, October 28, 1813, AJL 2:388.

  6. Gordon S. Wood, The American Revolution: A History (New York, 2003), 91–93. The TJ quotation can be found in Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1955), 128.

  7. Peterson, TJ, 45.

  8. TJ to JA, October 28, 1813, AJL 2:391. TJ’s “more good sense” quotation can be found in Peterson, TJ, 14.

  9. TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1121.

  10. TJ to JA, October 28, 1813, AJL 2:389.

  11. TJ, Third Draft by Jefferson of a Constitution, [before June 13, 1776], PTJ 1:362; TJ to JA, October 28, 1813, AJL 2:389.

  12. TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1144–46.

  13. TJ to Wythe, November 1, 1778, PTJ 1:230.

  14. TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, 144–45; TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1140, 1144–47; TJ, Bill Nos. 64–76, PTJ 2:492–522, 505–6n; John Selby, The Revolution in Virginia (Charlottesville, Va., 1980), 160; Bernstein, TJ, 38–40.

  15. TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, 137–43.

  16. Ibid., 137–38. See also Paul Finkelman, “Jefferson and Slavery: ‘Treason Against the Hopes of the World,’ ” in Peter S. Onuf, ed., Jeffersonian Legacies (Charlottesville, Va., 1993), 196.

  17. Jefferson’s Draft of a Constitution for Virginia, [1783], PTJ 6:298 and the editorial note on pages 278–84. See also TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1149–50; John Chester Miller, The Wolf by the Ears: Thomas Jefferson and Slavery (New York, 1977), 20–21; Robert McColley, Slavery and Jeffersonian Virginia (Urbana, Ill., 1973), 2–3, 72, 115–16, 120, 132–35, 143–59.

  18. TJ, Bill Nos. 51, 53, PTJ 2:2:470–72, 475–76.

  19. Holly Brewer, “Entailing Aristocracy in Colonial Virginia: ‘Ancient Feudal Restraints’ and Revolutionary Reform,” William and Mary Quarterly 54 (1997): 307–46. The quotes can be found on page 341.

  20. TJ, Bill No. 20, PTJ 2:391–93, 393n.

  21. Quoted in Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 145.

  22. TJ, Bill No. 82, PTJ 2:545–47. The quotation can be found on page 548. See also, ibid., 2:547–53n.

  23. TJ to JM, December 16, 1786, PTJ 10:603–4; TJ to Wythe, August 13, 1786, ibid., 10:244; Merrill D. Peterson, “Jefferson and Religious Freedom,” Atlantic Monthly 272 (December 1994): 113–24; Burstein and Isenberg, Madison and Jefferson, 56.

  24. TJ, Bills Nos. 79, 80, 81, PTJ 2:526–45; TJ to Edward Carrington, January 16, 1787, ibid., 11:49; TJ to Wythe, August 13, 1786, ibid., 10:244; TJ, Notes on the State of Virginia, 146–49; TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1149, 1150; TJ to JA, October 28, 1813, AJL 2:389; Garrett Ward Shelton, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson (Baltimore, 1991), 65.

  25. JA to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776, Lyman H. Butterfield et al., eds., Adams Family Correspondence (Cambridge, Mass., 1963–), 2:28; JA to Richard Cranch, August 2, 1776, ibid., 2:74; TJ to Benjamin Franklin, August 13, 1777, PTJ 2:26.

  26. TJ to Nelson, May 16, 1776, PTJ 1:292.

  27. Wood, The American Revolution, 65–70.

  28. Quoted in Selby, Revolution in Virginia, 116.

  29. TJ, “Jefferson’s Services to His Country,” [1800?], Padover, CTJ, 1288.

  30. Pauline Maier, American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence (New York, 1997), 175–208.

  31. TJ, Autobiography, in Padover, CTJ, 1140, 1150.

  32. TJ to Fleming, July 1, 1776, PTJ 1:412.

  33. TJ to Page, August 5, 1776, PTJ 1:486.

  34. Lee to TJ, August 25, 1777, PTJ 2:29.

  35. Fawn M. Brodie, Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York, 1974), 152–53, 159; Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (New York, 2008), 129–30, 132; On Martha Jefferson’s health, see Virginia Scharff, The Women Jefferson Loved (New York, 2010), 118–20. Sharff depicts Martha as fighting for her life during these difficult pregnancies.

  36. TJ to Lee, April 21, 1779, PTJ 2:255; TJ to William Phillips, [April ?, 1779], ibid., 2:261; TJ to Henry, March 27, 1779, ibid., 2:237–44.

  37. TJ to Lee, August 30, 1778, PTJ 2:210–11; Edmund Pendleton to TJ, May 11, 1779, ibid., 2:266.

  38. The “never to be forgotten” quote is in Gordon S. Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different (New York, 2006), 127.

  39. AH to ESH, October 2, 1780, PAH 2:449.

  40. GW to John Hancock, July 12, 1776, PGWR 5:284, 285n.

  41. John C. Hamilton, The Life of Alexander Hamilton (New York, 1840),
1:54.

  42. GW to Hancock, November 30, 1776, PGWR 7:233.

  43. Quoted in Hamilton, The Life of Alexander Hamilton, 1:57.

  44. Quoted in Mitchell, AH, 1:96.

  45. GW to Hancock, November 27, December 1, 16, 1776, PGWR 7:223, 245, 352.

  46. On Washington’s artillery, and the ratio of artillery to infantry for the engagement at Trenton, see David Hackett Fischer, Washington’s Crossing (New York, 2004), 223–25.

  47. PGWR 7:458–59n.

  48. The quotes are in William M. Dwyer, The Day Is Ours! November 1776– January 1777: An Inside View of the Battles of Trenton and Princeton (New York, 1983), 320; Robert Beale, Memoirs, in Dennis P. Ryan, ed., A Salute to Courage: The American Revolution as Seen Through Wartime Writings of Officers of the Continental Army and Navy (New York, 1979), 57; PGWR 7:526n.

  49. Dwyer, The Day Is Ours!, 315–20; North Callahan, “Henry Knox: American Artillerist,” in George A. Billias, ed., George Washington’s Generals (New York, 1964), 247–48.

  50. Quoted in Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 321.

  51. The narrative of the campaign of 1776 draws on John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York, 2007), 120–86; and Fischer, Washington’s Crossing, 94–345.

  52. Edward J. Tatum, ed., The American Journal of Ambrose Serle (New York, 1969), 158; GW to Hancock, January 5, 1777, PGWR 7:523.

  53. AH to the Convention of the Representative of the State of New-York, March 6, 1777, PAH 1:200.

  54. PGWR 8:117n.

  55. AH to GW, July 29[– August 1], 1798, PAH 22:37.

  56. See John Ferling, The Ascent of George Washington: The Hidden Political Genius of an American Icon (New York, 2009), 104–23.

  57. GW, General Orders, March 1, 1777, PGWR 8:468.

  58. Arthur S. Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men: The 32 Aides-de-Camp Who Helped Win American Independence (Mechanicsburg, Pa., 2003), 5, 15, 99–100.

  59. Quoted in Brookhiser, AH, 29.

  60. Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 7–14. Washington’s “Pen-men” remark can be found on page 8.

  61. GW to JA, September 25, 1798, PGW: Ret. Ser. 3:41–42. On GW’s handling of disappointing aides, see Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 28.

  62. Howard C. Rice Jr., ed., Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781 and 1782 by the Marquis de Chastellux (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963), 1:344.

  63. The quotations can be found in Flexner, Young Hamilton, 148–49.

  64. Quoted in Lefkowitz, George Washington’s Indispensable Men, 193.

  65. Ferling Almost a Miracle, 187–93, 242–43, 245–51.

  66. PAH 1:326–27n.

  67. AH to John Hancock, September 18, 1777, PAH 1:326.

  68. “The Diary of Robert Morton,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1 (1877): 3–4.

  69. GW to AH, September 21, 22, 1777, PAH 1:330–31, 332–33; AH to Hancock, September 22, 1777, ibid., 1:331–32; AH to William Livingston, September 22, 1777, ibid., 1:334; AH to Lt. Col. Anthony Walton White, September 23, 1777, ibid., 1:334–35.

  70. Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 253–56.

  71. GW to AH, October 30, 1777, PAH 1:347–48.

  72. AH to Horatio Gates, November 5, 13, 1777, PAH 1:351–53, 362–63; AH to GW, November 6, 10, 12, 15, 1777, ibid., 1:353–55, 357–60, 360–62, 363–64.

  73. AH to GW, November 12, 15, 1777, PAH 1:360, 363.

  74. GW to William Buchanan, February 7, 1778, PGW:R 13:465; AH to George Clinton, February 13, 1778, PAH 1:426; Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 274–82. For the Paine and Lafayette quotes, see Ferling, page 276.

  75. Thomas Fleming, Washington’s Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge (New York, 2005), 33; Nathanael Greene to GW, January 1, 1778, PGWR 13:99.

  CHAPTER 4: “IF WE ARE SAVED, FRANCE AND SPAIN MUST SAVE US”: THE FORGE OF WAR

  Malone, TJ, 1:301–69; Peterson, TJ, 166–240; Chernow, AH, 126–66; McDonald, AH, 17–43; Mitchell, AH, 1:143–221.

  1. AH to Elias Boudinot, July 5, 1778, PAH 1:510.

  2. Quoted in Flexner, Young Hamilton, 231.

  3. Proceedings of a General Court-Martial for the Trial of Major General Charles Lee, July 13, 1778, PAH 1:520–21; ibid., 23:547n. The Lee quotation can be found in William S. Stryker, The Battle of Monmouth, ed. William Starr Myers (reprint, Port Washington, N.Y., 1970), 199.

  4. AH to Boudinot, July 5, 1778, PAH 1:510–11.

  5. James Craig to GW, January 6, 1778, PGWR 13:160–61; Patrick Henry to GW, February 20, 1778, ibid., 13:609; John Ferling, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (New York, 2007), 282–86. On Lee’s 1776 comments about GW’s inability, see PGWR 7:237–38n.

  6. AH to George Clinton, February 13, 1778, PAH 1:428.

  7. Charles Lee to Joseph Reed, November 24, 1776, in Lee Papers, Collections of the New-York Historical Society for the Year 1871, … 1872, … 1873, … 1874 (New York, 1872–1875), 2:305–6; Nathanael Greene to Griffin Greene, May 25, 1778, in Richard K. Showman et al., eds., The Papers of Nathanael Greene (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1976–2005), 2:406; Elias Boudinot, “Exchange of Major-General Charles Lee,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 15 (1891): 32–33.

  8. AH to Lord Stirling, July 14, 1778, PAH 1:522; AH to Boudinot, July 5, 26, 1778, ibid., 1:510, 528.

  9. Proceedings of a General Court-Martial for the Trial of Major General Charles Lee, July 13, 1778, PAH 1:520–21; AH to Boudinot, July 26, 1778, ibid., 1:528; AH to Stirling, July 14, 1778, ibid., 1:522.

  10. Lee to Gouverneur Morris, July 3, 1778, Lee Papers, 2:457; Lee to Reed, July 22, 1778, ibid., 2:479; Lee to the President of Congress, April 22, 1780, ibid., 3:424; Lee to Greene, September 12, 1782, ibid., 4:35; “General Lee’s Vindication to the Public,” Pennsylvania Packet, December 3, 1778, ibid., 3:255–65; [Charles Lee], “A Short History of the Treatment of Major General Conway …,” Pennsylvania Packet, December 3, 1778, ibid., 3:265–69; [Charles Lee], “Some Queries, Political and Military, Humbly Offered to the Consideration of the Public,” Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, July 6, 1779, ibid., 3:341–45.

  11. AH to John Laurens, April 1779, PAH 2:35.

  12. Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 328; Holly A. Mayer, Belonging to the Army: Camp Followers and Community During the American Revolution (Columbia, S.C., 1996), 147–49.

  13. AH to Catherine Livingston, April 11, May [?], 1777, PAH 1:225–27, 258–60; ibid., 2:262n, 521n.

  14. AH to Laurens, April 1779, PAH 2:37–38.

  15. AH to Laurens, April [?], September 11, 1779, January 8, March 30, 1780, PAH 2:35, 165, 255, 304.

  16. AH to ESH, June– October [?], July 2–4, 20, August [?] and 31, September 3, 6, October 2, 13, 27, 1780, PAH 2:350, 351, 361, 388, 399, 419, 423, 449, 474, 493; AH to Laurens, June 30, 1780, ibid., 2:348.

  17. AH to ESH, June– October, 1780, PAH 2:350.

  18. Thomas K. McGraw, The Founders and Finance: How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy (Cambridge, Mass., 2012), 47, 66; Richard B. Morris, The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789 (New York, 1987), 34–37. The quotation from Congress’s Circular Letter to the states can be found in Morris, page 35.

  19. GW to John Augustine Washington, May 12, 1779, PGWR 20:462; McGraw, The Founders and Finance, 65.

  20. Richard Buel Jr., In Irons: Britain’s Naval Supremacy and American Revolutionary Economy (New Haven, Conn., 1998), 129–32; Richard Buel Jr., Dear Liberty: Connecticut’s Mobilization for the Revolutionary War (Middletown, Conn., 1980), 103, 171; E. James Ferguson, The Power of the Purse: A History of Public Finance, 1776–1790 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1961), 32, 35–39, 44–47, 126; GW to the President of Congress, July 9, 1779, WW 15:391–92; GW to Marquis de Lafayette, September 30, 1779, ibid., 16:372; GW to John Armstrong, May 18, 1779, PGWR 20:517–19.

  21. AH, Publius Letters, nos. 1–3, October 16, 26, November 16, 1778, PAH 1:562–63, 567–70, 580�
�82.

  22. GW to George Mason, March 27, 1779, PGWR 19:627–28; GW to Burwell Bassett, April 22, 1779, ibid., 20:161; GW to Gouverneur Morris, May 8, 1779, ibid., 20:384–86; GW to William Fitzhugh, April 10, 1779, ibid., 20:30–31; GW to Lund Washington, May 29, 1779, ibid., 20:688–89.

  23. AH to George Clinton, February 13, 1778, PAH 1:425; AH to Laurens, September 11, 1779, ibid., 2:167.

  24. AH, Pay Book of the State Company of Artillery, [1777], PAH 1:373–411; McGraw, The Founders and Finance, 61–62.

  25. AH to Laurens, May 22, September 11, 1779, PAH 2:53, 166–67; AH to James Duane, September 14, 1779, ibid., 2:173.

  26. AH to Laurens, May 22, 1779, March 30, 1780, PAH 2:53, 303.

  27. AH to Laurens, March 30, June 30, 1780, PAH 2:303, 347; AH to Duane, May 14, 1780, ibid., 2:321.

  28. AH to Laurens, June 30, 1780, PAH 2:347; AH to ESH, September 25, 1780, ibid., 2:441; AH to Isaac Sears, October 12, 1780, ibid., 2:473.

  29. For Hamilton’s proposed remedies, see AH to [?], [December 1779– March 1780], PAH 2:234–51; AH to Duane, September 3, 1780, ibid., 2:400–18; AH to Sears, October 12, 1780, ibid., 2:472–73; AH to Robert Morris, April 30, 1781, ibid., 2:604–35. The quotations can be found on pages 401, 402, 406, and 605.

  30. AH to Laurens, September 12, 1780, PAH 2:427.

  31. GW to John Sullivan, February 4, 1781, WW 21:181, 180–81n; Jack N. Rakove, The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress (Baltimore, 1979), 282–83, 302.

  32. Joyce Lee Malcolm, “Slavery in Massachusetts and the American Revolution,” Journal of the Historical Society 10 (2010): 429–34.

  33. AH to John Jay, March 14, 1779, PAH 2:17–19. See also Ferling, Almost a Miracle, 65, 113, 341–42.

  34. Henry Laurens to GW, March 16, 1779, PGWR 19:503; GW to Laurens, March 20, 1779, ibid., 19:542; ibid., 504–5n.

  35. JA to TJ, May 26, 1777, PJA 5:204.

  36. Lee to TJ, May 3, 1779, PTJ 2:263; Pendleton to TJ, May 11, 1779, ibid., 2:266; Fleming to TJ, May 10, 11, 22, 1779, ibid., 2:264, 265, 267–69.

  37. Lee to TJ, May 3, 1779, PTJ 2:262.