Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part column series by Tom Wright, a regular contributor to El Rito Media, commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary.
“Our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
Such are the last words and pledge of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They knew the ruthlessness of the British King George and his officers. Losing the Revolution meant losing all, yet their desire for a free confederacy of colonies, which would become the United States of America, was worth the risk and what would become an 18-year struggle for victory. Not all colonists agreed. There were differences from the beginning. A war of independence would be risky and costly and some colonists preferred remaining under British authority. For the fifty-six men who signed, their future would be sealed. George Washington was not a signer. He was in the field raising the Continental Army.
The separatist movement began in 1765. The debate over independence continued eleven years until the Declaration of Independence was signed, on July 4, 1776. Combat had begun on April 19, 1775, and would continue until September 3, 1783.
This country has experienced much in the 250 years of its existence. From colonial times to present day, there have been true statesmen, scoundrels and scandals. Men have risen and faltered, but our way of government has survived. Any resemblance between current times and the activities described in here is intended. Human nature has not changed. Our shared American history recounts our nation’s origins and ascent along with our human frailties.
In 1755 or 1757 – history isn’t sure – an illegitimate son was born in the West Indies, the product of an extramarital affair between Scottish trader James Hamilton and Rachel Faucette Lavien. When Alexander Hamilton was born his mother had left her husband, who had her jailed for adultery. Nine years later, Alexander’s father deserted the family; his mother died when he was eleven. Given a job at a trading company, young Alexander Hamilton impressed the adults who helped raise him and they raised money to send him to New York to attend King’s College. While there, he wrote papers favoring the revolutionary cause. In 1775, Hamilton became a commissioned officer in the Continental Army and fought at Princeton and Trenton. In 1777, Hamilton became General Washington’s aide-de-camp, serving until he and the general had a falling-out. Hamilton took a leave of absence from military service to marry Elizabeth Schuyler, the daughter of a wealthy New York family. He had risen from poverty to influential social status.
In 1781, with supplies short, over 5000 colonial soldiers had died and 15,000 captured. One of Washington’s senior officers, Benedict Arnold, had betrayed him and there was a mutiny by soldiers who had not been paid.
Tempers were short. Several months after his falling-out with Washington, Hamilton was assigned to a field command, in the French Division of Marquis de Lafayette. Moving from the Hudson Valley to Yorktown, Virginia, they engaged forces commanded by British General Charles Cornwallis, forcing him to surrender on October 19. This became the last major land battle of the Revolution, elevating Lafayette and the 25-year-old Hamilton to hero status.
After the war, Hamilton passed the New York bar and began a private law practice in New York City. In 1787, he was appointed a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. The Articles of Confederation were to be amended and a constitution drafted. Hamilton was a Federalist, believing in strong central control over states’ rights and earned criticism from delegates who feared creating a monarchy. Hamilton saw the need for a constitution which would give a congress the power to tax, raise an army, form a federal judiciary, control interstate commerce, establish a national bank and a national currency. This put him at odds with Thomas Jefferson and the anti-Federalists. James Madison wanted a Bill of Rights to a constitution. Hamilton felt one unnecessary.
Between 1787 and 1788, Hamilton, Madison and John Jay published 85 essays, known as the Federalist Papers, describing their ideas for a constitution. When the Constitution was finally ratified, Washington would become president, Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury and Jay would become the first Chief Justice. Madison was credited as the father of the Constitution and would become our fourth president.
As Treasury Secretary, Hamilton established a national mint which produced gold and silver coinage, recognized and began repaying the war debt through tariffs on imports and a whiskey tax, established the foundation for a national economy, including public credit authorized by Congress. Import tariffs were to protect American manufacturers, which raised prices for consumers and a whiskey rebellion ensued. Hamilton’s ideas were not always well received, by the public and other Founding Fathers. Although Jefferson, Washington and other states’ rights devotees had their differences with Hamilton, all considered him virtuously devoted to America.
In 1791, the incumbent Federalist senator from New York was Phillip Schuyler, Hamilton’s father-in-law. Aaron Burr, a Democrat-Republican candidate, won the election. Hamilton had publicly opposed Burr and there began bad blood between them. Hamilton would resign from public office in December, 1794, but his public life was not over.
In the election of 1796, Vice President John Adams was running for president, but Hamilton thought him to be too unstable for the office. Hamilton tried unsuccessfully to sway Federalists into voting for Thomas Pinckney, but it didn’t work and Adams became President and Jefferson, Vice President. More partisan bad blood resulted.
In 1797, journalist James Callender produced a recap of the 1796 election, which included revelation of an extramarital affair that began in 1791 between Hamilton and a 23-year-old Maria Reynolds. What began as Reynold’s story of spousal abuse and a need for $30 to find safe harbor, ended in a $1,300 blackmail scheme orchestrated by Reynolds and her husband. In an effort to clear his name, Hamilton published an account of the affair, claiming his integrity had remained constant while he was in office. To support his claim, he requested James Monroe to issue a public statement. Monroe refused. Tempers flared and Hamilton and Monroe reached the point of a duel before Aaron Burr intervened to arrange a settlement.
From July 18, 1798, to June 15, 1800, Hamilton served as Inspector General of the Army. Washington encouraged President Adams to promote Hamilton to the rank of Major General, which made him second in command of the Army. In 1793, the Congress had suspended repayment of the war debt owed to France and the First French Republic under Napoleon Bonaparte. That led to French privateers attacking and confiscating England-bound U.S. ships and their goods. An undeclared war began. Hamilton pressed Congress to raise a tax to fund rebuilding an army and navy. President Adams preferred negotiations over all-out war, but found opposition within his Cabinet. Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and Secretary of War James McHenry sided with Hamilton and were fired by Adams to avert a war.
In the election of 1800, Hamilton worked to defeat both Thomas Jefferson, the Democratic-Republican candidate, as well as his own party’s President Adams. After all of Hamilton’s political manipulations, Jefferson and Aaron Burr were tied, both with 73 electoral votes, throwing the decision to a vote in the House of Representatives. After 35 tie votes, Hamilton, still a power in the Federalist Party, endorsed Jefferson as being “the lesser of two evils.” Jefferson became president and Burr vice president.
As a result of Hamilton’s vicious campaigning against Burr, ill feelings festered. Jefferson saw Burr as an opportunist and began receiving reports of Burr forming a conspiracy to establish a Spanish colony in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Jefferson indicated Burr would not be his choice for vice president in the 1804 election. Burr decided to run for governor of New York against the Jeffersonian-Republican candidate and appealed to the Federalist party for support. Hamilton again rose in opposition and Burr was defeated. After the election, letters Hamilton wrote in opposition to political leaders were published. Burr felt his honor had been challenged and in that day, a visit to the field of honor was the settlement method of gentlemen. On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton met on the field of honor in Weehawken, New Jersey. In that duel, 49-year-old Hamilton was mortally wounded and died the following day. He told the attending Rev. John Mason, “I am a sinner. I look to His mercy.” In 1781, Hamilton’s oldest son had also died in a duel, defending his father against Burr supporters. This is cited by historians as the reason Hamilton refused to aim his shot at Burr, known among duelers as a delope, which is intended to end the duel. It is said he had counseled his son to do the same.
As a footnote: After Vice President Burr served his one term he was accused of a conspiracy to establish a Spanish Territory within the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson won a second term and had Burr arrested for treason in 1807. Due to the vagueness of the treason law, Burr was acquitted. During Burr’s first marriage, he had a relationship with his East Indian house servant and fathered two children with her. It was widely reported by a New York journalist that Burr frequently availed the services of prostitutes. Out of popularity, he exiled himself to England but returned to the U.S. to die penniless.
Tom Wright is a Santa Fe columnist and El Rito Media investor.
