King is on his way for Boston where you may chance see him, and hear from himself his sentiments—
God bless you
AH
T Sedgwick Esqr
It’s a strange letter to dash off in haste to an old friend, and all the more so considering the harsh destiny awaiting him in the morning. It’s almost breezy, as if Hamilton has refused to acknowledge the gravity of the occasion. Under the circumstance, it is peculiar that he doesn’t mention the duel, or Burr, a man Sedgwick knew well.
Instead, Hamilton offers up a kind of political sermon. It was not the first time he had expressed these sentiments, but it was the first time that he had put them so starkly, as if, on the eve of his “interview,” Hamilton was finally answering Burr’s snarling question to him: What do you find so despicable about me?
In this note, Hamilton doesn’t get on Burr for the usual reasons, that he is ambitious, self-serving, unscrupulous. But rather he reaches for larger perils that he associates with Burr but that transcend him, making him a greater peril still. The claim against democracy is the more problematic. It is at the very least unseemly for a founder of America to inveigh against democracy. But, in context, the charge may be as much against Burr’s version of democracy as it is against democracy itself. There is no question that Hamilton has a prejudice for a government of the elite—one that would include Sedgwick and, of course, Hamilton himself. But it is certainly possible that Hamilton was embittered by Burr’s ability to manipulate popular sentiment for his own ends, and suspected that such manipulation would be even more pervasive, or “virulent,” if the country was divided into smaller bits. Hamilton was gratified to fight off Burr’s last assault on elective office, but he must have found it galling that, in his campaigns, the aristocrat had the popular touch, not the immigrant. If Burr could pass himself off as a man of the people, anyone could represent himself as anything, unconstrained by truth or principle. Hamilton detested that, and feared it.
Hamilton’s concern for the union was hardly misplaced, as Burr had flirted with that northern conspiracy and would soon direct a far more threatening western one. And that, in turn, may have inspired the southern one that nearly ended the entire American enterprise. As the country expanded to fulfill its manifest destiny, it was prone to breakings off by the disaffected; any significant split threatened to undo Hamilton’s fiscal union, which underlay the political one. If Hamilton’s laments about democracy referred to Burr’s history, his fears about “dismembrement” alluded to Burr’s future. And correctly, as it turned out.
It is impossible to say whether these ideas impelled Hamilton to take on Burr—to stop him either by killing him or being killed by him—or whether they were simply a proclamation to the world of his political values, which he might have written at any time. If the former seems a bit too melodramatic, the latter seems a little loose. But either way, they were Hamilton’s last words on the subject, and Sedgwick never replied. For the sender was no longer here.
Alexander Hamilton’s last letter, written on the night of July 10, 1804, to Theodore Sedgwick in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Despite the occasion, the penmanship is as elegant as ever, and the thinking as clear.
1
In 1795, well into George Washington’s administration, Rembrandt Peale depicted a president worn by the cares of war and government, to say nothing of his famously troublesome teeth. Little wonder Washington initially wished to limit his presidential tenure to two years.
2
Thomas Jefferson is shown here in 1791, when he was tangling with Hamilton as the other great power in Washington’s cabinet. When Hamilton emerged the clear winner, Jefferson retreated into temporary retirement.
3
In this portrait done long after the fact, the boyish Hamilton idles in full military dress during the New Jersey campaign, appearing very much the “mere stripling” that one observer called him.
4
An idealized portrait of Hamilton, whose features were actually more rounded. As in virtually all of his portraits, his eyes do not meet the viewer but gaze out heroically into the distance, as if into the future. After this painting was completed, he would live only a few months more.
5
Painted by Gilbert Stuart when Burr was in his late thirties, this portrait shows Burr’s seductive side, as his luminous eyes emerge from the darkness.
6
Done in stark profile, seemingly indifferent to the viewer, Burr is a year into his vice presidency at forty-six, already a pariah in the Jefferson administration, and two years from the duel. His portraitist John Vanderlyn was a recipient of Burr’s patronage at Richmond Hill and would later be Burr’s sole support when, in his European exile, the former vice president arrived destitute in Paris.
7
At thirty, the aristocratic Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton—Betsey to her husband—appears in all her finery. Yet she still retains a humble affect in this portrait, done in a debtors’ prison as a favor to the bankrupt Ralph Earl.
8
This John Vanderlyn portrait of Burr’s daughter, Theodosia, in 1802 conveys all her brilliance and mystery. Left-facing to her father’s right-facing portrait, it was meant as a companion piece. Burr much preferred it to the one done by Gilbert Stuart several years before. That one, he said, made her look “like a love-sick milkmaid.”
9
Believers throughout the colonies must have been awed by the penetrating gaze of Burr’s grandfather, the near divinity Rev. Jonathan Edwards.
10
This vision of Burr’s lush Richmond Hill estate gives it a jungle aspect that is fitting for a place so thick with intrigue.
11
Hamilton’s the Grange in present-day Harlem was well removed from the bustling city. Named for the Scottish castle he’d always claimed for his lineage, it evokes the plantation style of Nevis and Saint Croix, the islands of his childhood.
12
Gilbert Stuart captures the Machiavellian side of Constitution author, fourth president, and perpetual Hamilton antagonist James Madison. The forceful concentration suggests a man about to strike.
13
The lofty head set against a sunset glow implies a heroic view of James Monroe that Hamilton did not share. He agreed with Burr on one thing: that the future president was a total bore.
14
John Adams’s attitude toward Hamilton moved from admiration to burning hatred. But in this physionotrace, all the rage among the political set, the cantankerous second president seems to be turning away from such irritations.
15
After losing the epic presidential election of 1800, the Federalists feared that Jefferson would abolish the Constitution. Here a Federalist eagle keeps the treacherous Republican from burning the sacred parchment as God looks on.
16
The highly unreliable Burr coconspirator General James Wilkinson was the highest-ranking officer in the nation, and his resplendent uniform reveals he was very proud of that fact.
17
Harman Blennerhassett was Burr’s primary backer in his quixotic campaign to seize half of America for his private empire. To go by this miniature, the dainty, effete Blennerhassett seems destined to be taken advantage of.
18
This cartoon provides satiric commentary on the two-man brawl between a cane-wielding Roger Griswold, Federalist, and fire-tongs-swinging Matthew Lyon, Republican, on the floor of the House of Representatives. A matter of honor and politics, the fracas prefigured the duel at Weehawken.
19
James Van Dyck in 1834 captured the wry detachment of Burr in his final years, when his passion for adventure was finally spent and he could be amused by the world and no longer try to possess it.
20
Hamilton’s grave outside Trinity Church. When his coffin was brought there by carriage thro
ugh the streets of lower Manhattan, thousands of mourners from every class trailed behind, and every shop in the city was closed in tribute.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to claim that I retraced every footstep of my duelists, buried myself in their musty archives, and, as my manuscript inched along, solicited editorial comments from countless historians and celebrities, all close friends. But in fact I worked on this book almost entirely alone in my third-floor office in Brooklyn’s Park Slope. As it happened, this was where Washington’s callow soldiers—led by Hamilton and Burr among others—fled the onrushing redcoats in the first battle of the revolution. I took a lesson from that and let that distant period of the nation’s founding come to me. Since generations of scholars had scrutinized the Federalist period, I quickly divined I was better off trying to make sense of the mountains of existing material than hunting for more scraps that had not yet been gathered. Besides, most of the original documents were almost instantly available to me by means of the two great boons to modern historians: Amazon Prime and the Internet. In a twinkling, I could surround myself, virtually speaking, with practically all of the known papers of Hamilton and Burr—an astonishing twenty-seven volumes of letters for Hamilton, although just four for Burr (who lost many more at sea, and to the fire courtesy of his prissy executor, Matthew L. Davis)—as well as those of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, and many others, all of them perfectly transcribed with brilliant annotations. I also pulled down from the metaphorical shelves any number of rare books from the period—Catherine Schuyler’s chatty memoir, a biography of Hamilton’s friend James Kent, an early history of Albany—that Google had extracted from the dusty corners of eminent libraries, scanned, and delivered to my screen, gratis.
Of the hundreds of more recent books I consulted, I need to pay tribute to the authors of two. First to the unparalleled Ron Chernow for his comprehensive biography of Hamilton, which is a wonder of research and writing, and then to Milton Lomask for his two-volume life of Burr from a generation ago that is still the gold standard account of that complicated figure—readable, compelling, and accurate.
But of all the books from the period, the one I found most illuminating was not a work of fact, but of fiction. I speak of Gore Vidal’s Burr. Snide, skeptical, scoffing, it did more to evoke the humanity of our all-too-revered Founders than a library of factual accounts. Vidal traffics gaily in the flaws of these eminences, showing the petty, tyrannical, jealous, and duplicitous interior that lies below the glossy surface of the standard waxworks version. Paradoxically, their flaws revealed their virtues, as the struggles of their lives became more evident. No one wants an unblemished hero, in any case. Vidal inspired me to consider Hamilton and Burr as if I’d heard them gripe about money or squabble with their wives, or smelled their cologne. Since each got under the skin of the other, I imagined a parallel biography, showing their tightening trajectories, would reveal features that would otherwise be concealed, and provide a truer account than if I’d placed either man up on a pedestal alone. To the extent that I have succeeded I have Vidal to thank.
I’ve come to view history as the journalism of another time, and as such would like to reach back a few years to thank my editors at GQ, chiefly its late editor in chief Art Cooper, and my longtime editor Marty Beiser, who taught me more about fresh, vigorous writing than I ever learned anywhere else. While it may seem to be a desecration to the hallowed tradition of historiography, I often thought of this book as an immensely long GQ piece. But I’d also like to thank the various biographers I have come to know—I don’t want to name any for fear of leaving others out—for opening the door for me to the past and showing me how to enter into it through detailed research and careful writing. Properly considered, the past is never over.
Beyond that, I’d like to pause a moment to remember my late friend Steve Richardson, who read this book in manuscript before he died and whose enthusiasm for it still stuns me. Thanks, also, to Lisa Dietrich, whose early rapturous comments on the book could not have been more welcome. The learned Steven Ellstrom, M.D., was very generous in explaining the various illnesses and injuries of my historical characters in modern terms. Jonathan Blackman, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, penetrated for me some of the mysteries of the transition from English law to an American one after the revolution. And Peter Dunning, general manager of the terrific Golden Rock Inn on Hamilton’s Nevis, where I went solely for research, was a wonderful host and guide. On Saint Croix, Robert White of the Alexander Hamilton Society showed me around the island, taking me to Hamilton’s mother’s lonesome grave site at the Grange, among many other places.
I’ll always be grateful to my agent, Dan Conaway at Writers House, for believing in this project from the beginning, and to my editor at Penguin, Charlie Conrad, for quickly getting behind it, seeing its possibilities, and making them manifest in the present volume. His assistant, Pieta Pemberton, has been wonderfully able in helping to make it all happen. I have been greatly aided by my photo researcher, Carol Poticny, who has done yeoman’s work to collect all the images that are here so beautifully displayed.
As ever, my daughters, Sara and Josie, have been lovely, constant supports in my writing life as in my non-writing life; as he rounds past one, my tiny grandson, Logan, is growing into the role of charmer-in-chief; and my fairly new stepchildren, Darya and Alex, are adorable presences, bringing cheerful voices and pattering feet to the house where I work upstairs. Overarching all is my wife, Rana Foroohar, about whom I would say what Aaron Burr said of his adored wife Theodosia—that she is “the best woman and finest lady I have ever known.”
NOTES
I WELCOME SCHOLARLY ATTENTION, of course, but I have assumed that this book will be read primarily by the public. So I have not filled the notes with the chapter-and-verse references of academe, allowing intrepid scholars to track each fact and quotation back to its source, but instead sought to provide guides for readers who might want to know where to turn for further reading. In the Google era, of course, most information, especially material pertaining to the Founding Fathers, can be traced without scholarly citations anyway. Google offers free scans of entire books from the period; they are in the public domain because they were published before 1923.
What follows is what Google cannot offer: an accounting and appraisal of the sources from which I drew this book. I have cited them usually by author and title, but the full citation can be found in the bibliography. All of these sources were helpful, some invaluable, and I hope that readers will draw as much instruction and delight from them as I have.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Hamilton’s letter to Theodore Sedgwick from July 10, 1804, is posted on the website of the Massachusetts Historical Society, appearing as a yellowed photographic image, and in transcript. See: masshist.org/database/207.
INTRODUCTION: THE FATAL DINNER
The letters leading up to the duel have been widely republished, but I relied on the wide-ranging compendium of William Coleman—the editor of Hamilton’s Evening Post—that he titled A Collection of the Facts and Documents Relative to the Death of Major-General Alexander Hamilton; it also includes material on the run-up, the national reaction to the tragedy, and the arrangements for the stately funeral procession in New York. The quote from Burr about the malignant Federalists comes from the Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete, edited by his longtime associate Matthew L. Davis, a book hereafter referred to as Davis. For more on John Tayler, see The History of the City of Albany, New York, from the Discovery of the Great River in 1524, by Verrazzano, to the Present Time, by Arthur James Weise, which well describes the Albany of 1804 as well. The quotes relating Hamilton’s increasingly severe attitude toward Burr can be found, like so many Hamilton quotations, in many places on the Internet, but most reliably in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton, edited by Harold C. Syrett, hereafter referred to as PAH.
PART ONE:
THE ROOTS OF THE HATR
ED
1: IN THE HANDS OF AN ANGRY GOD
The best single source on Burr’s religious antecedents is the monumental biography Jonathan Edwards: A Life, by George M. Marsden, a book whose detailed scholarship is a marvel in the often-cloudy prerevolutionary era. Marsden well illuminates the entry of Aaron Burr Sr. into the Edwards lineage, and with him, of course, Aaron Burr Jr. Edwards’s famous “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” preached at Enfield, Connecticut, on July 8, 1741, can be found all over the Internet. It was James Parton, the early biographer of Burr, who noticed “lofty style” being widely commented on. For background on the early years of Princeton, see History of the College of New Jersey: From Its Origin in 1746 to the Commencement of 1854, by John Mclean, a later president of the college. Milton Lomask, in the first volume of his two volumes on Burr, supplies the essential overview, and, as the single best source for all things Burr, reappears frequently in these notes. The quotations from Esther Burr are from Davis, but Lomask records her letters to Sally Prince about her “Mr. Burr.” Marsden relates the fear of slaughter. The letters of Esther’s that are not in Schachner or Lomask can be found in The Works of President Edwards. For a line or two about the inoculation attributed to Cotton Mather, see The Puritan Tradition in America, 1620–1730, edited by Alden T. Vaughan. Elizabeth Fenn’s Pox Americana has the gruesome details of death by smallpox; Marsden supplies the deathbed account of Rev. Edwards.
War of Two : Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Duel That Stunned the Nation (9780698193901) Page 46