American Experience (1988) s19e15 Episode Script

1
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On a warm morning in July 1804,
a boat is rowed across the
Hudson River to lower Manhattan.
In the boat lies
Alexander Hamilton.
He was a hero
of the American Revolution,
architect of the country's
financial system,
and under President Washington,
the most powerful man
in the United States.
Wounded and bleeding,
he is near death.
Gouverneur Morris is called upon
to give the funeral oration.
He is one
of Hamilton's closest friends.
He was vain, indiscreet,
and opinionated.
These things must be told
to give a full measure
of his character,
but I must do it
in such a manner
as not to give offense
to the mourners.
This is not going to be easy.
Morris the man who had penned
the words "We, the People"
Is having severe writer's block.
No founder had done more
to shape the character
of the country
than Alexander Hamilton,
yet no founder was
more controversial.
The first point
of his biography is
that he was
of illegitimate birth.
Well, I'll have to pass over
that one in some clever way.
I'll mention, of course,
his share in forming the
Constitution,
but then again,
there's his domestic life.
I have to say something
about his wife, but, um
then there's the small matter
of infidelity
that he foolishly published
to the world.
His administration
of the country's finances.
But many are still
very hostile to it.
I must somehow reconcile
all this.
Dueling.
In principle,
he was against dueling.
But he was killed in a duel.
Not only is this subject
impossible to write,
but I shall still have
to memorize it.
The corpse is already putrid,
and the funeral must take place
tomorrow.
The story of the life
of Alexander Hamilton is a story
that the most gifted novelist
could not have invented.
Too much of it would seem
implausible, in terms of
what happened to this man
in the space of 49 years.
I mean, it's just better
than any novel.
Hamilton's the only one
of the Founding Fathers
who was an outsider:
an orphan, an immigrant,
a scholarship boy,
a college dropout.
It's hard to explain Hamilton,
because what you're trying
to explain is genius.
How do you explain genius?
He's so capable,
so kind of self-consciously
brilliant in a way,
that he makes an amazing number
of enemies.
Hamilton, in many ways,
is a tragic figure,
because the love of honor
Which is the source of his
greatness, I would argue
Is completely consistent
with Greek tragedy.
Also, the source of his
downfall.
That bastard brat
of a Scottish peddler
His ambition, his restlessness,
and all his grandiose schemes
come, I'm convinced,
from a superabundance
of secretions
which he couldn't find
enough whores to absorb.
Alexander Hamilton was unique
among the Founding Fathers.
He was an outsider,
born in 1755
not in the American colonies
but on Nevis, a tiny tropical
island in the Caribbean.
He came into this world at the
very bottom of the social order.
He was a bastard,
illegitimate because his mother,
as a divorced woman, was not
legally married to his father.
As a bastard,
Hamilton was prohibited
from attending
a Christian school
and had no rights
of inheritance.
It's hard for us
to transport ourselves
back to a time
in the 18th century
when everything revolved
around birth
and breeding and pedigree.
I think that the illegitimacy
had the most profound effect
psychologically on Hamilton.
It was considered
the most dishonored state,
and I think that it produced
in Hamilton
a lifelong obsession with honor.
When Alexander is ten, his
family moves some hundred miles
to St. Croix, where hundreds of
plantations, worked by slaves,
produce sugar and coffee
for export.
Hamilton's father was descended
from Scottish nobility.
He had come to the West Indies
to make his fortune
in the sugar trade,
but he was never successful.
Soon after they arrive
on St. Croix,
James Hamilton abandons
the family.
Alexander will never see
his father again.
Everything went wrong
for Alexander Hamilton
in a very short time
around the age of 13.
His mother died of yellow fever.
His father had already left
two years before.
He then had no protector.
He had an uncle who tried
to save Alexander's estate,
small as it was.
But his mother's first husband
got everything.
He was then farmed out
to a first cousin
who committed suicide
a year later,
so it's like calamities
of biblical proportions descend
on this young man.
I think that these experiences
would have shattered
a lesser individual,
but all of these misfortunes
actually toughen
this spirit of self-reliance.
He realized that his great asset
was his intelligence,
which he would have to do
everything to develop.
The one thing Hamilton grasped
out of his mother's very
modest estate was the books.
His uncle said,
"You get the books."
And he pored over them,
and he pored over them.
He reads and reads and reads.
And above all,
he reads the stories
of the great statesmen
of ancient Greece and Rome
as they're revealed
in the works of Livy
and Plutarch and others.
And this is very important for
understanding his love of fame,
his love of honor.
Alexander's youthful imagination
is captured
by tales of conquering heroes
and of statesmen who built
the glorious Roman empire.
Hamilton was in love with fame,
there's no doubt about that,
but his understanding of fame is
totally different
from our understanding of fame.
To be famous now is
to be well-known
by everybody in the world
But that wasn't true
in the 18th century.
Fame was an achievement
that a man created
in the course of his life.
He had to do something
remarkable.
He had to found a country
or an empire.
On a tiny, remote island,
illegitimate and without family,
Alexander Hamilton seems
in an unlikely position
to achieve fame.
At the age of 14,
he is employed as a clerk
for the firm
of Beekman and Cruger,
an important American
trading company on St. Croix.
Hamilton as a teenager had
to become a master
of international currencies.
There was no one currency.
He had to know
the exchange rates:
Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish,
French, English, et cetera.
He had to be an evaluator,
an appraiser, a money changer.
A great deal about trade
in a very short time.
His employer gets sick,
and young Hamilton is left
in charge of the company.
And so he saved the business
by taking over for six months.
This little, skinny kid
was bossing around
surly, brutal ship captains
three times his age.
To Nicholas Cruger,
January 10, 1772.
Sir, the 101 barrels of
superfine flour
from Philadelphia have landed.
At 11 1/2 pieces-of-eight
a barrel,
but as there are
fewer delivered,
I will insist
on 12 for the rest.
As I am very hurried just now,
I beg you will accept
this brief account.
I remain, with the closest
attention to your interests,
dear sir Alexander Hamilton.
The buying and selling of slaves
to work the sugar cane fields is
a major part of business
in the West Indies.
Hamilton daily witnesses scenes
of incredible brutality.
He comes to see slavery not just
as appalling degradation,
but as a senseless waste
of human talent.
He feels that his own talents,
too, are being squandered
in this rigidly
hierarchical world.
He writes
to his friend Edward Stevens
To confess my weakness, Ned,
my ambition is so prevalent
that I disdain the
groveling conditions of a clerk
to which my fortune condemns me.
I would willingly risk my life,
though not my character,
to exalt my station.
My folly makes me ashamed,
yet Neddy,
we know
that such schemes can triumph
when the schemer is resolute.
Oh, how I wish there was a war!
What a remarkable statement.
You know, he's 14 years old,
and he does ultimately,
willingly sacrifice his life
but not his character
again and again and again.
By 1772, the teenager is
not only running
a major shipping company
but also writing articles
for the island's newspaper and
publishing poetry and sermons.
Influential people on the island
are struck
by his brilliance and ability.
They establish a fund
for the young prodigy.
Hamilton will go to the American
colonies to be educated.
I think that he felt
that fate had handed him
an opportunity
to reinvent himself
and to start life over.
But I don't think that
he ever fully left the world
of his childhood behind him.
He was poor,
he was illegitimate,
he was ashamed of all
of those things.
And even though he tried
so hard to escape,
on some level
he was always trapped back
in the darkness of that boyhood.
It is 1773.
18-year-old Hamilton arrives
in an America in turmoil.
The British government is
attempting to assert authority
over its American colonies.
Parliament is imposing new taxes
on Americans
without their consent.
In New York City,
Hamilton has enrolled
in King's College,
later to become
Columbia University.
Most New Yorkers are still loyal
to the Crown,
but Hamilton is swept up
by the Revolutionary cause.
He's not in New York
for a very long amount of time
before he clearly has decided
that he understands the anger
and the frustration
that's going on in the colonies,
he empathizes with it,
and in a very short amount
of time he's writing pamphlets.
In words which evoke the brutal
plantation society
from which he has just escaped,
Hamilton urges Americans to rise
up against British subjugation.
Man is either governed
by his own laws, freedom,
or the laws of another
Slavery.
Are you willing
to become slaves?
Will you give up your freedom,
your life and your property
without a single struggle?
No man has a right to rule
over his fellow creatures.
It is incontestable
that Americans are entitled
to freedom.
A prominent Loyalist clergyman
mocks Hamilton's ideas,
and the college student
counterattacks in a fury.
He always was a person
just said, "You're wrong, I'm
right; you're dumb, I'm smart."
He has this chip
on his shoulder.
Precisely because of his
background, his illegitimacy,
he's going to show the world
that he's not going to suffer
any disrespect from anyone,
especially given his talent,
which he knows he has,
and is not, um, he's not hiding
it under any bushels, either.
The British are preparing
an assault on New York.
Hamilton obtains a commission
to form an artillery company
with some fellow students.
Together with his men,
Hamilton seizes cannon and
rifles from a British armory.
He joins the revolution
at a very young age.
He forms this artillery unit,
and by the way,
the oldest unit in the American
Army today is Hamilton's unit.
It's the First Battalion,
Fifth Field Artillery.
The only unit left over
from the Revolutionary War.
Hamilton is now dividing
his time
between drilling his troops
and pursuing his studies.
One night, a mob gathers outside
the gates of King's College.
They are looking
for Myles Cooper,
the pro-British head
of the college.
A fellow student describes
Hamilton's courageous stand
Dr. Cooper's a Tory
and an obnoxious man.
The mob breaks down the gates
of the college
and is gathering on the steps
with tar and feathers,
yelling,
"Prepare for your doom!"
Then I see an amazing scene.
A student comes out on the stoop
all by himself,
and begins arguing
with the crowd,
telling them they're disgracing
the cause of liberty.
I think for Hamilton,
order is the key to liberty.
He might say it's one thing
to rant about liberty
That's all very nice
and very pretty
But the fact of the matter is,
humankind,
they're not pretty creatures and
they don't do reasonable things.
So the only way
to ensure personal liberty is
to ensure order.
At the risk of his own life,
on the importance
of an honorable revolution.
He keeps them at bay long enough
for Cooper to climb
over the back fence
and escape with his life.
In many ways it's the most
revealing episode
in Hamilton's early life,
because to suddenly stand apart
from the mob
and be willing to defy
and criticize your own side
took an enormous amount
of courage.
But Hamilton was always very,
very clear
about what his principles were.
And he was not somebody who was
interested in compromising
on those principles.
While marching with the Army
I noticed a youth,
a mere stripling
Small, slender,
almost delicate in frame
Marching with a cocked hat
pulled down over his eyes.
He was apparently lost
in thought,
his hand resting on a cannon,
and every now
and then patting it
as if it were a favorite horse
or a pet plaything.
The youth is Hamilton.
It is the summer of 1776,
and the United States has just
declared its independence.
The war that Hamilton had wished
for as a boy has now begun
Now I must defend with my blood
the ideas supported by my pen.
My reason and conscience tell me
it is impossible to die
for a better
or more important cause.
The British invade Brooklyn.
General George Washington
suffers a humiliating defeat.
He is forced to abandon
New York City.
Hamilton and his artillery
company retreat
with Washington's Army.
In what is now Harlem,
they hold off the advancing
British.
The first time George Washington
sees Hamilton,
he's putting together
an earthwork.
While the rest of the
Continental Army is crying,
weeping over what happened
in Brooklyn,
Hamilton is organizing
and getting things together.
That evening, Washington
actually invites him
to dine with him in his tent
and speaks with him.
Washington saw
this brilliant young man,
smart beyond his years,
courageous.
Hamilton became,
very early in the Revolution,
Washington's adopted son.
The general invites Hamilton
to join his headquarters' staff
as an aide-de-camp.
Washington chooses him
to be part of what Washington
calls his "family."
He gathers around him young men
of promise and, and of talent.
And Hamilton gets picked.
What could be more wonderful
than to be brought
into George Washington's family?
Washington had all sorts
of brave soldiers
and even some experienced
officers.
But what he didn't have was
anybody
who could write as copiously
as Hamilton could.
Washington's best writing
and correspondence is
not Washington at all;
it's Alexander Hamilton,
from the time he's 21 years old.
18th-century armies
rarely fight in winter.
For the officers, at least,
it is a time for socializing.
As a valued member
of Washington's inner circle,
young Colonel Hamilton is primed
for conquests
of a nonmilitary nature.
He's not tall
Five foot seven inches
Slender, but with an erect
military bearing.
He's always dressed
in the height of fashion,
with bold colors and lace and
ruffles and a well-turned leg.
He certainly knows how to set
the female heart fluttering.
He's not exactly handsome.
His eyes are a deep azure,
eminently beautiful,
not the slightest trace
of hardness or severity
They beam with intelligence
and understanding.
Women really did find
the intensity
in Hamilton very charming.
He was also extremely
good-looking,
which no doubt even
in the 18th century helped.
There is a kind
of piercing tension to him
that I think not just women,
but many men, found appealing.
Hamilton's a person who liked
to conquer all situations.
And if he was in a room of men
he'd want to win every argument,
and if he's in a room
of women and men,
he wants to win every woman,
as well.
And I think he likes to just be
the guy who wins, you know,
the best, the first,
the top of the heap.
In fact,
there's a wonderful story
that, uh, there was a tomcat
at Washington's headquarters
and, uh, this tomcat was always
out, "meoooow,"
having a good time
during the night.
And, uh, Mrs. Washington
nicknamed the tomcat Hamilton.
When it comes to finding a wife,
Hamilton is only half joking
as he writes to a friend a list
of his exact specifications.
She must be young,
good looking, shapely
I'm very insistent
on a good shape.
Sensible, well-bred,
but not someone
who puts on airs.
Chaste and tender.
As for money, well,
it seems to be
an essential ingredient
to happiness in this world,
and as I don't have any now
and am not likely
to get much of my own,
I hope my wife will bring
at least enough
to take care
of her own luxuries.
It doesn't matter
what her politics are
I have arguments enough
to convert her to my views.
He fell in love
with Betsy Schuyler, of Albany.
There was no question about it.
The other aides were soon
writing
that "Hamilton is a gone man."
I received your letter today.
I can't tell you
what ecstasy I felt
as I cast my eyes
over the sweet effusion
of tenderness it contains.
I love you too much.
I would this moment give
the world
to be near you
only to kiss your sweet hand.
He was taking
a rather bold step,
because she was the daughter
of one of the richest men
Her father,
General Philip Schuyler,
had a big estate
in Albany and was a very,
very important figure
in the politics of New York.
And Hamilton had no money
whatsoever,
and no pedigree, no nothing.
And it was remarkable
that Hamilton was able
to impress Schuyler,
who was not, incidentally,
an easy man to impress.
Tell me,
my pretty damsel.
On sober thought, do you really
relish the pleasure
of being a poor man's wife?
What will happen when you see
your old acquaintances tripping
along in elegance and splendor?
Will you learn to think homespun
cloth preferable to brocade?
If you cannot,
you should correct the mistake
before we begin to act
in that tragedy
of the unhappy couple.
Hamilton refused
ever to take any money
He wanted to earn his own way,
because he didn't want people
to be able to dismiss
what he did
as just the largesse of
this rich man from New York.
When they get married,
instead of people saying,
"Oh, boy, did Alexander Hamilton
luck out,"
they say, "This is
a wonderful match
Her wealth and social status
and his genius."
this is a match made in heaven,
because he deserves
to get the last piece
that he needs
Her wealth
And she deserves to get
this dashing young man.
None of Elizabeth's letters
to Hamilton have survived.
But we do know
that their affection
was mutual.
She will stand by her husband
through exceptionally
trying times
and staunchly guard his memory
long after his death.
The war drags on.
Hamilton is frustrated
in his role as aide-de-camp.
He sees himself as
a groveling clerk,
just as in St. Croix.
He has this great,
pressing anxiety to get out
on the battlefield
and prove himself glorious,
honorable, a leader of men.
And without that,
he will not be able to,
as he puts it in that first
letter, exalt his station.
Hamilton pleads with Washington
for active duty.
But the general refuses
to let him go.
Hamilton is just too valuable.
The Army is desperate
for the most basic of supplies.
In Washington's name,
Hamilton is
barraging Congress
with requests for boots,
blankets and food.
Congress' response
is to hold debates
and form committees.
This makes him crazy.
Even in this dire moment,
Congress can't act
in a coordinated
and a centralized manner?
There's something
seriously wrong here.
So the war is
a concrete lesson in
what to him feels like
the humiliation of a weak
and powerless
national government.
In a plaintive cry to a friend,
Hamilton links his own fate
to the fate of his adopted land.
I'm a stranger to this country.
My talent and integrity
are unrewarded.
Our countrymen have
all the folly of an ass
and all the passiveness
of sheep.
They're determined
not to be free.
I hate Congress,
I hate the Army,
I hate the world.
I hate myself.
Hamilton resigns as aide-de-camp
and threatens to resign
from the Army.
Washington finally relents.
In 1781, he gives Hamilton
command of a battalion
and a chance to lead his men
in a major campaign.
The object: Yorktown, Virginia.
This is the moment
Hamilton has been waiting for.
Before the battle,
Hamilton engages in
a reckless show of bravado.
To prove himself that he goes
a little over the edge,
and he deliberately
drills his men in full sight
that the enemy says, "Well,
this must be a trick, right?
"Because no one would actually
"be so stupid as to drill
his men in front of us
without there being
a trap of some kind."
Although we're clearly in their
sights, they don't fire at us.
I can think of no other reason
that they don't kill us all
except maybe they're
too astonished.
Although I esteem
Colonel Hamilton as one of
the finest officers
in the American Army,
I must beg to be excused in
thinking that at this moment
he's risking all our lives,
including his own,
for no good reason.
The Battle of Yorktown
begins at night,
with the taking of the redoubts,
the outer defenses of
the British fortifications.
Hamilton pushes his way
to the front.
And Hamilton finally
had this moment
that he had craved
since boyhood.
He led the first infantry charge
at Yorktown
under the glare
of these exploding shells.
Again, it shows how courageous,
almost crazy Hamilton was
in terms of this derring-do.
That this rather slight
and bookish guy is suddenly
this daredevil
on the battlefield.
Hamilton is the first to breach
the British defenses.
He was absolutely fearless.
He got down in the ditch,
and the Germans,
who were defending the redoubt
were firing
right into their faces,
and he climbed up
on the shoulders of his men
and got up on the parapet
and was dueling with them
sword to sword.
It was a tremendous show,
you know,
and there's
no question about it.
He emerged from this
Battle of Yorktown
with probably more fame than
anyone else except Washington.
The Battle of Yorktown
is the culminating victory
of the American Revolution.
Beloved Betsey,
my duty and my honor obliged me
to take a step in which I put
your happiness in peril.
I commanded an attack on
one of the enemy's redoubts.
You'll read all about it
in the newspapers.
I carried it off in an instant.
There will be, I assure you,
nothing more of this kind.
And in two days,
I will set off for Albany.
May heaven bring us
speedily together,
and let us nevermore
be separated.
With peace on the way,
Hamilton has returned to Albany
and rejoined his wife
and firstborn son Philip.
I am becoming acquainted
with the character
of our little stranger.
He's truly a fine young
gentleman with the most
agreeable conversation
and manners I ever knew.
Alas, he stands rather awkwardly
and his legs do not have the
delicate slimness of his father.
Some have remarked on his method
of waving his arms
when he talks,
showing all the signs
that he will someday be
a great orator.
Hamilton determines
to become a lawyer
A course of study that usually
takes three years.
Hamilton does it in six months.
He moves his family to
a new home in New York City.
The address: 57 Wall Street.
He soon becomes one of
the most successful
of the city's 35 lawyers.
But Hamilton has his eye
on a larger stage.
He wants to be a statesman
of the highest order.
Coming out of Roman
and Greek history,
he wants to be
a creator of a state,
and that is what's moving him,
I think, driving him.
Hamilton was interested
in honor, both for himself
Honor being reputation both
for himself and for the country.
And the two were linked, and he
was going to achieve his honor
if the country
achieved its honor.
As the last soldiers
head for home
in the early 1780s,
few people are thinking about
the honor of the nation.
The United States is
bankrupt and disunified.
It's not even clear whether the
states are to be truly united
or revert to a loose collection
of largely independent
governments.
It was as if you made
this revolution,
and you hadn't thought about
what would happen the next day
after the revolution was over.
And all the, uh enthusiasm
sort of began to fritter away
as different states
began to argue with one another
over who controlled this land
and who controlled
the Chesapeake Bay.
"And you can't ship
your goods into my state
because your money
isn't the same as my money."
And quibbling
and fighting and rivalry,
the way it had been before.
And so people like Hamilton
actually think,
"Well, wait, did we
did we win the war?
"Are we going to now
sort of inch our way back
into sort of useless,
humiliating powerlessness?"
And, you know, "Are we
ultimately going to just
turn on each other
and end up being nothing?"
At the end of the war,
Hamilton is almost alone
in his determination to change
the direction of the country.
George Washington has returned
to private life
and is running his plantation
in Virginia.
John Adams and Benjamin Franklin
are in Europe,
elder statesmen in the country's
Foreign Service.
Of all the country's principal
founders, Hamilton is by far
the youngest,
and the only founder without
a deep attachment
to one particular state.
Having come from
the Caribbean, he had
no sense of the kind of loyalty
that, say, Jefferson had
to Virginia or even John Adams
had to Massachusetts,
which they called
their countries.
When they talked about
"my country,"
Jefferson meant Virginia.
He tended to think in terms
of the United States.
Hamilton is elected a member
of the Confederation Congress,
the weak governing body
set up by the states
during the Revolution.
Our job is to make
independence work,
but what a terrible
situation we're in.
The country has
galloping consumption;
the case is getting desperate.
I've a powerful remedy
for this problem:
strong government.
But if not taken quickly,
the patient will die.
Hamilton is really, remarkably,
one of the first
and certainly the most
persistent person
calling for
a stronger government,
a more organized, centralized,
national government
of some kind.
He's really sort of out there
in a way that's just
really noticeable.
Hamilton forms
an ambitious plan
To completely transform
this loose collection of states
into a true republic,
one with a powerful
central government.
It will be a battle
that he will wage
for the next six years
of his life.
Very quickly, he begins
to develop a strategy.
He starts orchestrating a series
of little meetings
of states to talk about
trade negotiations.
And he drafts this
Annapolis report
that makes it sound as if
there's this groundswell
of interest in producing
a 13-state meeting,
and it should go beyond
trade negotiations.
"We've discovered
there are other issues
that we might want
to talk over."
And it's his strategy
that really is the thread
that builds to the
Constitutional Convention.
As a general marches
at the head of his troops,
so wise political leaders
march at the head of affairs.
They don't wait for events,
but know what actions to take.
The actions they take
will produce the events.
In May 1787, Hamilton joins
the other 54 delegates
in Philadelphia.
After four months
of intensive debate,
the result is
a four-page document,
the United States Constitution.
The Constitution proposes
a radical shift in power:
from the individual states
to a strong central government
and a president
with real authority.
But the writing
of the Constitution
is only the first step
in Hamilton's battle.
Nine of the 13 states
must ratify
before the Constitution
can become law.
Up and down the country
there is fierce opposition.
The anti-Federalists, or those
opposed to the Constitution,
are frightened
of the very things
that the patriots in the 1760s
had been frightened of.
3,000 miles away, now they're
re-imposing on themselves
this powerful government
with a kind of an elected king,
and we can see
the presidency is a
you know, enormously
powerful office.
They were frightened of all
that, because this was
a violation of everything the
revolution had been about.
Hamilton launches
into a major campaign
to fight the anti-Federalists
and persuade the country
to ratify the Constitution.
Together with James Madison
and John Jay,
he conceives and writes a series
of brilliant articles
that will come to be called
The Federalist Papers.
The main question is
whether societies of men
are really capable
of establishing good government
from reflection and choice,
or whether they are forever
destined to depend
for their political
constitutions
on accident and force.
In the first Federalist Paper,
Hamilton accepts
that he's going to try
and break down the Constitution
for all Americans,
and to argue
and to debate and to fight
until every single
question is answered.
He's going to prove,
once and for all, that
the Constitution is the best
form of government we can adopt.
Is the president too strong?
What's the role
of the judiciary?
Why should we have a senate?
It's kind of high-level
propaganda,
opposing the anti-Federalist
objections to the Constitution.
The Federalist Papers
are published in newspapers,
one or two a week
over the next seven months.
Laws are a dead letter,
without courts
to expound and define
their true meaning
and operation.
Some of those things
are first drafts.
Some of those things are things
that, as he's finishing them,
the printer is there
waiting to take them away
because they need to get
into that day's newspaper.
Why has government been
instituted at all?
Because the passions
of men will not conform
to the dictates
of reason and justice
without constraint.
The Federalist Papers
have become
the classic gloss
on the U.S. Constitution,
cited about 300 times
over the last two centuries
by the Supreme Court,
more than any
other document.
The Federalist Papers have
almost acquired the authority
of the Constitution itself.
They're cited so frequently.
Over the next year, the states,
one by one,
ratify the Constitution.
And most powerful states,
overwhelmingly opposes it.
But New York City
supports it, and elects
Hamilton to lead its delegation
to the ratifying convention.
We have several
things in our favor.
Everyone loves Washington,
and he supports it.
All the commercial interests
are on our side.
They want a government
which can regulate trade.
On the other side are all those
inferior men with very
superior positions
They're afraid of losing their
power to a national government,
where, of course,
they don't stand
a chance of getting elected.
Hamilton is determined to fight
the anti-Federalist majority
at the convention,
and to prevail at all costs.
He was really sort of the bull
in the China shop.
I think one of his
greatest difficulties
was that time
and time again he proved
he was smarter
than other people,
and so he could not understand
why they didn't shut up
and listen to him.
He had very little training
in the art of politics
as a young man.
I mean, think about
all of these men
of the revolutionary generation.
Their fathers were
in the Colonial Legislature,
their grandfathers were.
Politics was talked about
at the dinner table.
You heard mistakes
that people made.
You learned finesse.
Hamilton never had that.
On this and every other occasion
I will counter directly,
without detour,
any obstacle
that stands in my way.
What Alexander Hamilton
lacks in political finesse,
he makes up for in his
brilliance as a debater.
At the Convention,
he makes long,
lawyerly speeches,
defending the new Constitution
clause by clause.
Sometimes overbearing,
sometimes condescending,
he makes it easy
for anti-Federalists
to cast him as an elitist.
You men of learning,
you lawyers,
will take control of this
federal government.
Ordinary people with good sense
will never be able
to get elected.
And after you grab
all the power and the money,
you'll swallow up
all us little folk.
This will be a government
run by and for a tyrannical
aristocracy.
And whom would you have
representing us in government?
Not the rich, not the wise,
not the learned?
Would you go to some
ditch by the highway
and pick up the thieves,
the poor,
Yes, we need an aristocracy
to be running our government.
An aristocracy of intelligence,
integrity and experience.
He really is a master
in this convention
of winning people over,
beating people down,
wearing people out, stalling,
and finally issuing a few
well-placed threats
that turn the convention
Which should have voted no
Into a yes convention.
The Constitution becomes
the law of the land.
New York City celebrates
its most steadfast supporter.
This, I think, is one of the few
moments when he's
popularly acknowledged
in his entire career.
Nobody walks around going,
"Yay, Bank of the United States.
Great idea."
But the ratification, he really
is recognized for that.
It's kind of ironic.
It took an outsider
to unite the United States.
That's one reason why Hamilton
is the indispensable
Founding Father,
along with President Washington.
With his brilliance and sheer
force of personality,
Hamilton has won this battle.
But he has also
made many enemies.
The smartest person in the room
is always admired,
but seldom liked, you know?
Always respected,
but often feared.
A new scene opens.
The object now is to make
our independence work.
To do this,
we must secure our union
on solid foundations.
It's a job for Hercules,
for we must level
mountains of prejudice.
We fought side by side to make
America free.
Let us, hand in hand,
struggle now to make her happy.
New York City, April 30, 1789.
George Washington takes
the oath of office
as the country's first president
under the new Constitution.
Hamilton sees
that the United States
has the potential to become
a great and powerful nation.
For years, he's been reading
books about government
and economic theory,
and he has plans
for totally reshaping
the American economy.
Many people regard Hamilton
as an arrogant young upstart.
But he is esteemed and trusted
by George Washington.
By some, Hamilton is considered
an ambitious man,
and therefore dangerous.
That he's ambitious,
I'll readily grant you,
but his ambition
is an admirable one.
The kind which prompts
a man to excel
at everything he attempts.
Washington gave
Hamilton credibility.
People will do
what Hamilton wants
because Washington says
you can trust him.
If there's no Washington,
they will not trust Hamilton.
Hamilton and Washington
almost perfectly mesh
and complement each other.
Washington was intelligent,
but not an intellectual.
He was not
an original policy thinker.
With Washington and Hamilton,
we have the union of the
greatest politician of the day
with the greatest policymaker
of the day.
Washington knows
that he will need
the country's top men
as his advisors.
He appoints Thomas Jefferson,
former minister to France,
as Secretary of State.
Hamilton, one of the few
people in the country
with a broad national view
of commerce and finance,
is made
Secretary of the Treasury.
I'm sure he couldn't
get there fast enough
to sort of sit down and begin.
On the other hand,
what's confronting him?
You know, there's a lack
of order, there's chaos,
there's not good records.
Nobody quite knows
what's going on.
So it actually,
for many people, I think,
would have been a remarkably
terrifying thing to walk into.
I think for him, it was like
a little Hamiltonian paradise.
And I'm going to order it."
You know, "This is wonderful."
Hamilton faces
an enormous challenge.
The United States,
pure and simple,
was bankrupt.
We were flat broke.
We hadn't paid a dime
in years on this immense debt
that we had amassed
both at home and abroad
to pay
for the Revolutionary War.
We owed money to our own army.
We owed money to the officers
of the army,
many of whom had spent
their entire fortunes
equipping and taking
care of the regiments
that they had put together.
We owed little old ladies
who had given over supplies
and horses to the army
and gotten a piece
of paper that said,
"We'll pay you for this."
We couldn't pay them.
So there was no confidence
in the government.
There was no confidence
in the economy.
And so we were in a serious
and no one was certain
how to get out of it.
It would have been easy enough
and almost predictable
for a revolutionary government
to repudiate that debt.
But Hamilton felt that
unless the debt was paid off,
the United States
would never be able
to borrow money again,
and that this would weaken
it as a great power.
Hamilton had developed
this theory
that unless you could establish
the credit of the state,
you could never have
a mighty country.
Public credit
is earned by good faith.
States, like individuals,
which live up to
their obligations are respected
and trusted;
those that don't are not
trusted.
Hamilton sees the debt
not as a problem
but as an opportunity.
He develops an audacious plan.
He determines not only
to pay off all the debt
incurred by the federal
government during the war,
but also to take on
the even larger debts
incurred by the 13 states.
The plan is called Assumption.
Hamilton made a decision
as the first Treasury Secretary
that seems a bit bizarre.
He actually wanted
the federal government
to take over,
to assume all of the debt
from the states.
Now, what government official
actually wants to take
an enormous amount of debt
and then add to that
an even greater debt?
Hamilton had a political
agenda behind it.
Most of the states' debt
is held by wealthy
and powerful men.
Hamilton needs these
leaders of society
to support the new
federal government.
He felt that
if the federal government
assumed the debt from the states
that all of the creditors
would feel that they had
a direct financial stake
in the survival of the still
shaky new federal government,
because that became
the government
that was going to pay them off.
A national debt,
if it's not excessive,
will be a national blessing.
It will be the powerful cement
of our Union.
Leaders of the state governments
immediately see
what Hamilton is up to.
He is attempting to bind
the states' creditors
to the federal government
with hoops of gold.
A public debt is a public curse.
The state leaders block
the assumption bill in Congress,
and it appears
to have no chance of passing.
And Hamilton really despairs
and thinks to himself
and says at the time,
"If this collapses,
I might as well just go home,
"because this is it.
"If we can't take over
these local debts,
then it's like a vote
of no confidence in me."
This is the first symptom
of a spirit
that must either be killed
or it will kill
the Constitution.
In 1790,
New York City is
a very small place,
and Hamilton and Secretary
of State Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson has a more pressing
concern than assumption:
the location
of the nation's capital,
presently situated
in New York City.
He is eager to move the seat of
government far from the foul air
of the country's
commercial center.
New York City is a sewer,
containing all the depravities
of human nature,
a world apart from small towns
and the countryside
where crime is scarcely heard
of, breaches of order are rare,
and society, if not refined,
is rational, moral,
and affectionate.
The countryside that Jefferson
and his allies favor
for the nation's new capital
would be a nice piece
of empty land
on the banks of the Potomac,
not far from their plantations
in Virginia.
Hamilton wants to keep
the capital where it is.
He is so closely connected
with New York City
that his enemies call it
"Hamiltonopolis."
One day, the two neighbors
cross paths on the street.
They agree to meet for dinner at
Jefferson's house on Maiden Lane
to talk out their differences.
Jefferson invites
a key congressman
and fellow Virginian,
James Madison.
The result is
one of the most famous meals
in American history:
the Dinner Table Compromise.
Hamilton seizes on the capital
as a bargaining chip.
If the Virginians will support
federal assumption of the debt,
he will agree
to moving the capital south.
He knows this deal
will not endear him
to his fellow New Yorkers.
I think this goes back again
to Hamilton the outsider.
He isn't from New York,
he's a West Indian,
and so he's willing to sacrifice
state and local interests
for the broader national
purpose, a strong United States.
If that meant sacrificing New
York, he'd do it, and he did it.
With assumption,
Hamilton lays the foundation
for the credit
of the United States,
the ability to borrow
at home and abroad.
In time, this will bring
about the prosperity
that allows the democratic
experiment to flourish.
Jefferson thinks that by gaining
the capital for the south,
he has won a major victory,
but soon the larger implications
of assumption will become
evident, and he will begin
to view his colleague
with profound distrust.
In the summer of 1791,
Alexander Hamilton is
36 years old.
He is at a pinnacle of success.
He proposed a lot of really big
and grand ideas,
and they were beginning
to be accepted and supported,
but he never was someone
who felt that he could sit back
and rest on his laurels
in any way.
Always, that it could be taken
away at a second's notice.
Alexander and Elizabeth
have moved to Philadelphia,
where Congress
is temporarily meeting.
They now have five children
and an extremely close
and affectionate marriage.
But that summer, Elizabeth
and the children are vacationing
at her father's home in Albany,
and Hamilton is left alone
in Philadelphia.
One afternoon, his work
is interrupted
with a knock at the door.
It is a beautiful woman
in distress.
She said she was from New York
and she knew Hamilton was,
and she needed a way
to get home to her family.
Her husband had abandoned her,
she didn't have any money.
Was there anything
that he could do to help her?
So he went around that night
with a bank draft
to her boardinghouse.
The draft would be worth
about $400 today.
Went up the back stairs,
not the front.
Knocked on her door.
She ushered him into her bedroom
and pretty quickly made it plain
that there were other ways
that she could repay him
for his generosity.
And he kept going back
for 13 months,
and she kept repaying him
for 13 months.
Come to me.
I know it's late, but any time
between now and midnight,
I'll be waiting.
Until I see you,
my breast will be the seat
of pain and woe.
Adieu, my dear friend.
From your unhappy Maria,
whose greatest fault
is loving you.
Maria Reynolds and her husband
James have set up this seduction
in order to blackmail Hamilton.
Congressmen get wind of letters
Hamilton has written
to Reynolds, referring
to large sums of money.
James Reynolds is
a known criminal,
and the congressmen suspect
the Treasury Secretary
of corruption.
On a cold December morning,
a three-man delegation from
Congress meets with Hamilton
to make
these serious accusations.
And they actually,
in a sense, do the decent thing.
They don't just publicize this.
They go to him in person
and they say,
"We're going to give you
a chance to explain this,
but explain this."
To prove his innocence,
Hamilton pulls out his love
letters from Maria and insists
that his visitors read them.
"those little slips of paper in
which I'm paying money, those
"I'm not doing anything
with government funds.
'cause I'm sleeping
with his wife."
And then he presents them with
all sorts of evidence
to show them that honestly,
it's all about adultery.
It's not
about public funds at all.
And apparently,
the three gentlemen are,
on the one hand very embarrassed
and on the other hand,
they agree, "Okay, you know,
we're sorry, we misunderstood.
We'll just keep this all
between us."
I wasn't entirely a dupe
in this plot,
but her act succeeded
in keeping me uncertain.
In the end, my feelings
No, no, it was my vanity
Led me to believe
that she truly loved me.
I've paid a high price for my
folly and can never think back
on it without disgust
and self-condemnation.
This will not be the end
of the Maria Reynolds affair.
Hamilton's growing power
and influence are engendering
a growing number
of political enemies.
They are ready
to exploit his every weakness.
Hamilton didn't have
that judgment
that matched the great intellect
and the great ability,
and it's like the flaw
of a figure
in a Greek tragedy
who's headed for a great fall
and doesn't see it coming.
And then, as in a Greek tragedy,
you sort of look back
and you feel
that this was bound to happen,
that this is somehow
the logical culmination
of certain flaws
in his personality.
In 1791,
President George Washington
embarks on a three-month tour to
assess the effect on the country
of his government's policies.
I have just completed my visit
to the Southern states and
was able to see with my own eyes
the situation of the country.
Tranquility reigns
among the people,
and the new government is
popular.
Our public credit stands on
a ground which three years ago
only a madman
would have thought possible.
The United States now enjoys
a scene of prosperity
and tranquility where every man
may sit under his own vine
with none to molest him
or make him afraid.
George Washington knows that
much of this prosperity is due
to the economic policies
of Alexander Hamilton.
With Washington's backing,
Hamilton now seems
to be single-handedly running
most of the federal government.
Secretary of State
Thomas Jefferson has fewer
than a dozen employees,
and Vice President John Adams
has no power
in Washington's administration.
Hamilton controls the Customs
Service, the Coast Guard,
and appoints
a vast network of men
to collect import duties
and taxes.
Washington is allowing, indeed
encouraging, Hamilton
to function as something
more like a prime minister.
So that when you say to people
that Hamilton was
the first Treasury Secretary,
it doesn't quite capture
the magnitude of his power
or why Hamilton was
so controversial.
The controversy began
with the assumption of the debt,
which has vastly expanded the
power of the federal government.
For Hamilton, though,
this was just the beginning.
He sees America
as an undeveloped land
with enormous potential.
He sets out
to reshape the country,
to transform it into one
that can hold its head high
among the great nations
of the world.
In a very short time, he puts
a series of monumental proposals
before Congress: instituting a
national currency the dollar;
establishing a National Bank
The forerunner
of the Federal Reserve.
Hamilton's vision spurs
the growth of the stock market,
the engine of the country's
future prosperity.
He then proposes
the radical idea
that the government
get directly involved
in the development
of large-scale industry.
To his detractors,
Hamilton seems unstoppable.
The very markers
of Hamilton's success
The fact that
he's proposing things,
one at a time,
and they're being enacted
Ironically enough,
those are the very things
Because people like Jefferson
begin to see a pattern,
that Hamilton
in some way or another is trying
to create a monarchy.
Yes, I disapprove of his actions
as Secretary of the Treasury.
With his bank
and funding system,
he is recreating here
the rottenness
and corruption of England.
I have now become convinced
of several facts.
Mr. Jefferson is at the head
of a faction hostile to me
and my administration.
He attacks the funding
of the debt, the bank.
I know that he has instituted
a whispering campaign
bent on subverting my projects.
Hamilton is convinced
that the United States must
develop industry and commerce
if it is ever
to become a great nation.
Jefferson has a very different
vision for the country.
He wants America
to remain primarily rural
Independent farmers
working the land
with little interference
from government.
Jefferson and his allies
see Hamilton's powerful
central government
as a potent threat
to individual liberty.
They wanted
a different kind of country.
See, they don't want
a bureaucracy.
They don't want a standing army.
They don't want any
of the attributes
They don't want any
of the things
that Hamilton wants
for the United States.
Urbanization, industrialization,
finance capital.
They don't want this.
They want agriculture,
independent farmers.
Jefferson, you know,
believes that
the only honest profit is made
by the man who tills the soil.
And everything that Hamilton
wanted must have seemed
The two most powerful men
in Washington's cabinet
have become locked
in bitter combat.
It's the fanatical politics
waged by Jefferson
that threaten
to disturb the tranquility
and order of our government.
He is the real enemy
of Republicanism.
I am not the enemy
of the Republic.
I am not part
of that debased squadron
plotting to change our Republic
back into a monarchy.
Whose stock dealers
have corrupted Congress.
I now consider it my duty
to lift the curtain
and show the world
that it is he who is determined
to destroy the credit and honor
of the nation.
I will not have my reputation
slandered
by a man whose history
From the moment that history
stooped to notice him
Is a fabric of machinations
against the liberty
of this country,
a country
which not only received him
as a penniless immigrant
and gave him food,
but now heaps honors
on his head.
There must be some harmony
in my cabinet.
Differences of opinion
are unavoidable, of course,
and to a certain extent,
they may even be a good thing,
but can't we discuss
these differences
without each of you attacking
the motives of the other?
You are both men of discernment,
tried patriots,
and yet, without more charity
for each other's views,
I cannot manage the reins
of government,
and we shall, inevitably,
be torn asunder.
I don't see how the union
of the states can be preserved.
It's so hard for us
to be in that moment,
and to say to ourselves,
this is a government
that many people thought
would never make it.
They sincerely don't know
if it's going to persist,
and that's part of why
this ends up being a period
of such passion
and anxiety and fear,
and in many cases, dirty,
nasty politics.
I mean, if you feel that
you know the right thing to do,
and you're sitting
across from someone
who is doing the exact opposite
of what you think is
the right thing to do,
how can you not
as a good citizen
and a good leader
and a good American,
stand up and try to crush
that person for your country?
Jefferson and his allies focus
all of their energies
on opposing Hamilton
and his plans.
They band together in a loose
political alliance,
calling themselves
"Republicans."
Hamilton and supporters
of Washington's administration
are called "Federalists."
This split is the first sign
of what will become America's
two-party system.
The men who believed
that they were the continuation
of the Constitutional Convention
called themselves Federalists.
The opposition party
Mr. Jefferson's party
They take on the name
the Republican Party,
which is very confusing,
because, in fact,
the Republican Party
of Thomas Jefferson
has nothing to do
with the Republican Party
of today.
The battle
between the parties spills out
onto the streets.
In this new political culture,
the opinions of ordinary people
are increasing in importance.
Their passions are inflamed
by the appearance
of highly partisan newspapers,
each side out
to damn the opposition.
The alarming progress
of robbery, bribery,
oppression and injustice
in this country
can all be traced
to Colonel Alexander Hamilton.
This monarchist toad-eater
has defrauded the public
with his corrupt maze of banking
and stock speculation.
Both Hamilton and Jefferson
hire journalists
and pay them to attack the ideas
of their opponents.
Mr. Jefferson's press propagates
nothing but lies and liars,
like a swamp breeds maggots
and mosquitoes.
With unrestrained ferocity,
these party organs attack
not only the policies,
but the very character
and reputation
of their opponents.
There were all sorts of nasty
insinuations
about Hamilton's illegitimacy.
There were occasionally
insinuations
that he was actually,
you know, part black.
I mean, there was insinuations
about almost everything.
The favorite tactic
in the newspapers was
during an election to announce
that the other candidate,
the opposing candidate,
had died,
and it took a while
to disprove something like that,
because the mail is slow.
How do you prove
that someone's alive?
This was really the golden age
of literary
and political assassination,
and so that a lot
of our own founders
ended up really not just
disliking each other,
but hating each other.
There was a time when gentlemen
of different politics
could separate the business
of government
from that of society.
The rational debate
among gentlemen anticipated
by the founders has turned
into a boisterous free-for-all.
Butchers, bakers and even
common laborers now feel
they can have a say in politics.
I think for the founders
originally,
the public was quite
a narrow group of-of men,
uh, men like themselves.
The growth of the press
was just enormous.
The public had expanded,
The founders are sensing
a shaking beneath their feet,
that their own revolution
is having
democratic consequences
that they hadn't
quite anticipated.
Their fears are amplified
by cataclysmic events
across the ocean.
In 1793, Louis XVI is executed.
Many Americans rejoice.
Jefferson and the Republicans
take up the French cause
and organize celebrations
in the streets.
Another revolution is
overthrowing a king,
and the people are taking
control of their government.
They have been awakened
by our revolution.
They feel their strength,
their lights are spreading.
How can our people embrace
the most cruel, bloody,
and violent event
that ever stained the annals
of mankind?
It is a monster born with teeth!
The French Revolution
widens the gulf
pointing to a deep-seated
difference in their attitude
towards popular politics.
The Republicans present
themselves
as the party of the common man.
Jeffersonian Republicans
understood the power
of public opinion,
and Jefferson has his utter
faith in the people,
and that's simply not true
of Hamilton.
Men may be reasoning animals,
but they are rarely reasonable.
They are frequently governed
by impulse and passion.
This truth is well understood
by our adversaries
who use it to their benefit.
Hamilton has always been fearful
of mobs and anarchy.
Now, he is appalled by the fact
that Republican politicians
are stirring up the passions
of the population.
He sees them as demagogues
Men who will do anything
to grab power.
Jefferson, in his mind,
is a demagogue.
Jefferson will say
whatever he has to say
so that the public
will be happy with him.
That's corrupt,
that's inappropriate,
You don't try to appeal
to the public.
You do what you feel is right,
and if the public
doesn't like you,
they vote you
and your friends out of office,
And that's the Hamiltonian view
of how things should operate.
I see it as my duty
to show things as they are,
not as they ought to be.
I always speak the plain,
naked truth.
If men won't listen,
that's their own fault,
and they'll have to live
with the consequences.
Hamilton believes as fervently
as Jefferson
in the ideals
of representative government,
but he has contempt for the game
of popular politics.
In the coming years,
Hamilton will be cast
as an elitist,
while Jefferson,
born into the Virginia gentry,
will become the man
of the people.
I think one of the ironies
of-of Hamilton's
duel with Jefferson,
his struggle for power,
was the fact
that here was Jefferson,
owner of 100 or 200 slaves
that are living
on his plantation,
getting wealthy
on their unsalaried labor,
and he became the man
of the people.
And Hamilton,
working for a living,
like the average American,
has been painted
as the patron of the rich
and so forth.
And, uh, it's-it's
and this is one of the cruelest
ironies in many ways.
Hamilton, in a way,
is the quintessential American.
He's a self-made man.
He's a guy who comes here
as an immigrant
with very little, and he,
through luck and brain power,
builds this huge reputation
for himself.
Hamilton believes
that if you work hard,
you should rise to the top
without any regard
for your aristocratic
backgrounds.
Hamilton wants
to transform the United States
into a true meritocracy.
A country where men of talent
and ability
Men like himself can prosper.
All the values that
we honor, maybe
in the breach, about,
it's not who your parents were,
or where you came from,
or how you started out,
but what you can do,
this was, I think,
very much Hamilton's credo
for himself, and I think,
really for his country.
He was interested in
what would be good
for the nation,
including the working classes,
There are strong minds
in every walk of life
that will overcome
the disadvantages
and will command tribute due
to their merit.
It is 1796.
Hamilton has returned
to New York City.
Both Hamilton and Jefferson
have left Washington's cabinet.
Jefferson has his eye
on the presidency,
and Hamilton will continue
to influence public affairs
as a private citizen.
He has become frustrated
seeing his proposals stalled
in a hostile Congress.
In truth, my work in government
has fewer and fewer attractions
for me.
I am increasingly
finding my projects blocked
by those with a jealousy
of power,
and by the peculiar
democratical forces
operating in Republics.
As for gratifying a love
for fame
Hamilton, with a growing family,
has another pressing reason
to retire from public life.
I have resumed the practice
of law.
To place the nation's finances
on good footing,
I must now take care
of my own finances,
which need my care not a little.
Hamilton is, in fact,
deeply in debt.
He never used his position in
the Treasury to make one cent,
while others around him were
making millions,
speculating in the stocks
and bonds that he made possible.
Even as one of New York's most
sought after lawyers,
Hamilton remains
in financial difficulty.
In his practice,
he refuses large fees
if he doesn't believe
in the justice of a case.
If a client is in the right
but has no money,
he takes the case for free.
Yet he isn't rich.
I know that for a fact,
because he often has
to borrow money from me
to take care of family needs.
Nevertheless, he always insists
on fair compensation
and no more.
His eldest son Philip is
somewhat bemused
by his father's unbending
principles.
His fellow lawyers joke that
he'd refuse to pick up money
even if it was lying
at his feet.
He, of course, loved all
of his children.
But I think he had particularly
bright hopes
for the oldest son,
which was Philip.
There's something a little
rakish about him,
when you see the image of him
from the time.
Hamilton is grooming Philip
for a future in politics.
Even in family affairs,
Hamilton is ever the
micromanaging administrator.
From the first of April
till the first of October,
Philip is to rise
no later than 6:00.
From the time he is dressed
until breakfast at 9:00,
he is to read the law.
At 9:00, he is to go
to the office until dinnertime.
After dinner, he reads law
at home till 5:00.
From this hour till 7:00,
he may dispose of his time
as he pleases.
My father has
a soldier's temperament.
When we're walking
around the land,
his step always seems
to fall naturally
into the cadence
of a military drill.
At night he reads us
Roman history,
translating the Latin
as he goes along.
When he comes
to the battle scenes,
he reads them
with such emphasis and fervor
that we all think that Julius
Caesar is in the room with us.
Hamilton and his wife
will eventually have eight
children together.
He is making plans to buy land
in what is now Harlem,
where he will build a large
country house
for Elizabeth and the family.
He will call it the Grange,
after his father's ancestral
home in Scotland.
But Hamilton still misses being
at the center of power.
Gardening
is the usual refuge
of a disappointed politician.
So, here I am wearing
my cultivator hat.
He didn't cope well
with time on his hands.
He would not have been very good
at retiring gracefully,
or of giving up power
gracefully.
In fact, Hamilton never retires
from public life.
He is advising members
of the cabinet
and writing speeches
for Washington.
He organizes charities
in New York
and has become a leader
of a movement advocating rights
Hamilton co-founds
the first antislavery society
in New York,
the Manumission Society.
He's arguably the most
consistent abolitionist
among the founders,
and it's kind of a thread
that runs consistently
throughout his entire life.
I think his opposition
to slavery is
of a piece with his general
belief in meritocracy.
He says, slavery keeps men
who might make major
contributions to our society,
prevents them from doing that
and so it's inefficient.
It doesn't let people who have
talent use their talents well.
The disadvantages
of slavery are obvious.
The institution relaxes
the sinews of industry,
clips the wings of commerce
and introduces
into society misery
and indigence of every shape.
Hamilton has been out
of the cabinet for two years,
and there have been big changes
in the federal government.
Has been elected the second
President of the United States
and Washington has gone
into retirement at Mount Vernon.
Even out of office,
Hamilton is regarded
as the leader of the party,
and he sees that the Federalists
are facing a crisis.
The Republicans are becoming
more powerful in Congress,
and his old rival,
Thomas Jefferson,
is gaining in popularity.
Hamilton is determined
to oppose him.
The game we're playing is
a most important one.
Jefferson wants to be president.
We're fighting for nothing less
than true liberty, stability,
and of course, heads.
And I intend to do everything
possible
not to get mine chopped off.
For their part,
Jefferson and the Republicans
are watching Hamilton warily.
They fear his continuing power
in the Federalist Party
and see him as a possible
presidential candidate.
Hamilton stands
for everything they hate.
They determine to crush
his future political ambitions.
They hold a series
of incriminating letters
detailing his past affair
with Maria Reynolds.
Republicans leak these papers
to a muckraking journalist
in their pay.
We now come
to a part of my work
More delicate perhaps
than any other
Where we will see
this great master of morality,
though himself the father
of a family,
confessing that
he had an illicit union
with another man's wife.
I feel I must expose these
papers to the world.
Not a word has been altered.
It is a classic smear campaign.
While his political enemies know
very well
that Hamilton was only paying
blackmail money
to Maria Reynolds' husband,
that Hamilton was speculating
with money from the Treasury.
I trust I shall always be able
to bear newspaper scurrility
when they accuse me
of errors of judgment;
but when they so unfairly attack
my integrity,
I cannot control my indignation.
Hamilton makes
a reckless decision.
In order to refute the charges
that he stole money
from the Treasury,
he publishes a pamphlet
explaining
that he was blackmailed.
To prove his case,
he feels it necessary
to describe every sordid detail
of the affair
and publishes the passionate
letters he received from Maria.
I am alone and shall be alone
until Wednesday.
What have I done
that you should thus neglect me?
My dear friend,
how shall I plead enough?
Let me see you,
and unbosom myself to you.
The intercourse
with Mrs. Reynolds continued
with all the appearances
of her having a violent
attachment to me.
It made it extremely difficult
for me to disentangle myself.
He tells us,
"I've been grossly charged
with being a speculator,
whereas I'm only an adulterer."
Many leaders of the Federalist
Party are saying,
"Is that how you're going
to defend your honor?!"
You can imagine
how much this hurt his wife.
The point is,
Hamilton considered
his public honor more important
than his private honor.
Hamilton's attempt
to justify himself backfires.
He has inflicted more damage
to himself
than 50 of the best writers
in America.
Colonel Hamilton
doesn't seem capable
of cooling his iron
in his own trough.
Jefferson and Madison couldn't
believe their eyes.
It was the most, one of the most
self-destructive things
they ever saw anybody do,
and they just rubbed
their hands,
and then they really
more or less realized
Hamilton was finished,
he never could be president now.
But after this whole thing
somewhat subsided,
what did Hamilton receive
in the mail,
but a very beautiful silver bowl
from Washington.
Washington was no longer
president now.
He was telling Hamilton,
"You're still my man."
Not for any intrinsic value,
but as a token of my sincere
regard and friendship for you,
please accept this gift.
Mrs. Washington joins me
in my best wishes
to Mrs. Hamilton and the family.
With every sentiment
of the highest regard,
I remain your sincere friend.
If Washington were not around,
Hamilton would have been
in big trouble.
That Washington is there
and willing to vouch for him
that allows Hamilton to get away
with what he gets away with.
Even at the time, someone calls
Washington Hamilton's dishcloth.
You know, he wipes up the messes
around him.
In the days to come,
Hamilton will need Washington's
support more than ever.
Hamilton is convinced that
there are two things necessary
if the United States is ever
to become a great nation
The establishment of a strong
economy, which he has achieved,
and the building
of a powerful military.
He believes that only with a
regular army can America survive
in a hostile world.
Events overseas give him
a chance
to realize this objective.
By 1799, the French Army,
led by Napoleon,
has invaded Egypt and Syria.
Hamilton fears that the French
are now contemplating conquests
in the New World.
Many people thought
that the French were going
to invade
and turn us into another one
of the French republics
that they were creating
all over Europe.
The still very popular
ex-President George Washington
is appointed Commander in Chief,
and he insists
that Hamilton be made a general
and put in charge
of raising a large army.
One formidable obstacle blocking
Hamilton's dreams
the current President of
the United States, John Adams.
He's cramming Hamilton
down my throat.
I'm compelled to appoint
the most restless, impatient,
artful, unprincipled intriguer
in the United States
to be Commander of the Army.
The relationship
between Alexander Hamilton
and, uh, and John Adams had a
slightly pathological quality.
Adams, who was
considerably senior
to Hamilton, had been
completely excluded
from the inner policy circle of
the Washington administration.
So Adams has to suffer the sight
of this young, strutting upstart
running the federal government.
Adams makes it clear
that he loathes Hamilton,
and that he fully intends
to make peace with France.
In a fury, Hamilton demands
a meeting with the President.
I'm in a good humor
and receive him civilly.
He repeats over and over again
how there's no use making
a treaty with France,
and how we should form
an alliance with England.
His eloquence and his vehemence
wrought the little man up
to such a degree of heat
and effervescence
I thought he was going
to have a fit.
I tell him calmly
that I disagree with just about
everything that he's saying.
He is obviously completely
ignorant about France,
England and everywhere else.
Never in my life did I hear
a man talk more like a fool.
I shall take no more notice
of his puppyhood.
Adams wants to get rid
of the army at all costs.
In this time of crisis,
Hamilton suffers another blow:
George Washington
dies at Mount Vernon.
He was my aegis,
my shield, my armor,
essential to everything
I have accomplished.
No one feels this loss
more than I.
My heart is filled with gloom.
When Washington died,
Hamilton made the revealing
statement that Washington was
an aegis that is, a shield
Most essential.
Here, Hamilton is saying
that he needed
a political patron
and protector,
and that was George Washington.
So Hamilton went from being
the most powerful figure
in Washington's first two terms
to suddenly being
this outcast under John Adams.
Adams signs a peace treaty
with France
and forces Hamilton
to demobilize the army.
Adams then spreads rumors
to party insiders
that Hamilton is a secret ally
of the British,
a traitor to his country,
and worse.
He is an underhanded
intriguer, a man devoid
of any moral principles
a bastard
and a foreigner
a Creole.
The man's even madder
than I thought.
He's proud.
He's extraordinarily proud.
And if you want to destroy
Hamilton, the way to do so
is attack his reputation.
That's the Achilles heel.
So he's angry with Adams
for a stupid policy,
but he's equally angry
with Adams for saying
that he's this leader
of a British faction
and a threat
to American liberty.
Hamilton decides: I'm not
going to take it anymore.
I'm going to take this guy down.
It is 1800.
John Adams is up for reelection.
Hamilton is determined
to stop him
and promote another
Federalist candidate.
His weapon: a vicious
50-page pamphlet
directed against
the leader of his own party.
I was among the many people
who admired Mr. Adams
for his role in the first stages
of the Revolution.
I saw him as a man of
boldness and patriotism.
But watching his actions
as president,
I began to lose respect
for his intellectual abilities.
I began to question
the solidity of his mind.
All of his experience
as a writer
and his skills as a lawyer
are now put to the task
of destroying
the president's reputation.
He has a disgusting egotism,
vanity without bounds,
an uncontrolled jealousy,
which colors his every
eccentric judgment.
His ill humors have
divided and distracted
the supporters
of the government.
Once he's no longer under
Washington's guidance,
Hamilton's judgment becomes
increasingly erratic,
and he kind of becomes
his own worst enemy.
The pamphlet was written for the
benefit of Federalist insiders,
but even Hamilton's
closest allies are astounded.
It's one of your best
performances,
General Hamilton,
and more unfortunate
for the cause of the Federalists
than anything ever written.
You know, it's not
the first time
that Hamilton has done
something stupid in print.
You know, it's not
the first time
But by this point, he's building
up a happy little reputation
for himself as the man
without discretion,
the guy who doesn't know
when to shut up,
the guy who keeps
getting his friends,
his political allies,
in trouble.
And that in itself is sort of
tragic to hear his friends
come to a point where
even they are saying,
"You know, we just
can't do this anymore.
He's just out of control."
I don't know what the effect
will be on President Adams,
but I do know
that the effect of it
on Hamilton's character
is extremely unfortunate.
It is now general opinion
that he's radically deficient
in discretion.
In brief
unfit to head the party.
The infighting between
Hamilton and John Adams
has devastating
long-term consequences.
Federalists pounce
on Federalists
and brothers taunt brothers,
spitting at each other
like roasted apples.
Now split in two,
the Federalist Party
will never hold
national power again.
Hamilton, because he so
detested Adams personally
He destroyed his own party,
the Federalist Party,
which he had done
so much to set up.
In the race for
the presidency in 1800,
only two men end up
with a chance of winning,
and they are both
from the Republican Party.
One is Hamilton's hated enemy:
Thomas Jefferson himself.
The other is a genial,
politically savvy
New York lawyer.
His name is Aaron Burr.
The rule of my life
is to make business
a pleasure
and pleasure my business.
Aaron Burr was born into
an American aristocracy.
His father was president
of Princeton University
and a pillar of
New England society.
Hamilton and Burr
know each other very well.
They are both involved
in national politics,
but hold very different views
about the role
of a political leader.
While Hamilton considers
public service a sacred trust,
Aaron Burr has other motives
for trying to get elected.
Compared to the drudgery
of the law,
the life of a politician is
honorable, fun
and very profitable.
Burr has become a contender
for the presidency.
Hamilton now has to make
an agonizing decision.
Jefferson or Burr?
If there be a man in the world
I ought to hate,
But Burr has absolutely
no morals, private or public.
He listens to nothing
but his own ambition.
He ends up in this moment
in 1800 where,
what are his options?
Well, it's either Burr
or Jefferson for president?!
I mean, that's like the ultimate
Hamiltonian nightmare.
He sees both men
not as statesmen,
but as contemptible politicians,
pandering to the populace
by telling voters
what they want to hear.
Hamilton must now choose
the lesser of two evils.
Jefferson has a tincture
of fanaticism, it's true.
He is much too earnest
in his democracy,
crafty, not too scrupulous
in politics,
and he's not very mindful
of the truth.
In short,
he's a contemptible hypocrite.
But but
he's as likely as any man
I know to compromise.
Even though he disagreed
totally with Jefferson,
Jefferson at least was
interested in trying to do
something that would be good
for the United States.
Burr Burr was in it for Burr.
Here's a telling incident.
When I headed the Treasury,
he criticized me
for not using my power
to alter the government
for my own advantage.
I told him I could never do
such a thing in good conscience.
"Conscience?" Burr replied.
"Great souls do not
worry themselves
with little details."
Can you imagine such a man
holding the power
of the presidency?
The vote among
the electors is a tie
and is sent to the House
of Representatives,
where again there is a tie.
Hamilton urges one congressman
to switch his vote.
The tie is broken.
The third president
of the United States.
The Republicans are now firmly
in control of the government.
Populist politics,
which Hamilton so hates,
seems to be
the order of the day.
In his mind, the country
which he has fought for
most of his life
is headed towards disaster.
No army, no navy,
no national defense,
as little government
as possible.
Not just his life coming apart,
but what is his future?
In some ways,
he really was a person
who found his identity
in making a contribution.
He wasn't interested
in great wealth.
He really wanted to do something
for the country that he came to.
I mean, to give back to America.
And after 1800,
nobody wanted him to.
Mine is an odd destiny.
Perhaps no man in
the United States has sacrificed
or done more for the present
Constitution than myself.
And, contrary to
all my expectations,
I still have to work
to prop up its frail
and worthless fabric.
For my reward,
I have a few murmurs
from its friends and loud curses
from its enemies.
The best thing I can do
is withdraw from the scene.
Every day proves to me
more and more
that this American world
is not made for me.
Hamilton
he was a great statesman
and a terrible politician.
He could not make himself speak
what he thought was untrue.
He was too honest, too candid.
People could provoke him
by attacking his honor
in such a way that he became
extraordinarily
self-destructive.
Hamilton, in many ways,
is a tragic figure,
which is the source of his
greatness, I would argue
Is completely consistent
with Greek tragedy,
also the source of his downfall.
Hamilton may be
out of political power,
but he refuses
to give up the fight.
Now age 46, he co-founds
an opposition newspaper,
the New York Evening Post,
and he passionately defends
Federalist editors in court
when they are attacked
by the Republican
administration.
He also has great hopes
for the political career
of his eldest son Philip.
Hamilton invested a lot
of hope in this son,
really thought that
he saw a grand
and glorious future for Philip.
It is not to be.
In 1801, Philip Hamilton
gets into a heated
and very public argument
with an arrogant
Republican politician.
The argument degenerates
into insults,
and Philip is challenged
to a duel.
Duels, affairs of honor,
in this time period
are very ritualized.
And, of course, they need to be
because they're
potentially deadly,
and because
everything is at stake.
If your honor is at stake,
that's pretty much
the entire game.
So apparently,
Philip went to his father
and described what had happened
and sort of asks
his father for advice.
"Now what happens, Dad?
What do I do?"
And Hamilton says,
"Look, we've envisioned
"this great political
career for you.
"You might be president someday.
"But you know, if you
turn down the challenge,
"you'll be considered a coward,
and your political career
will be over,
you'll be a social outcast."
Well, son follows dad's advice.
On the bed lay poor Phil, pale,
his rolling eyes darting
in flashes of delirium.
On one side of him,
his agonized father;
on the other side,
his distracted mother.
At the funeral, Hamilton,
half collapsing,
had to be supported.
Down into the grave
went all his hopes.
It's just crushing to Hamilton.
His friends talked about how
it was stamped on his face,
the tragedy of that duel
and of Philip's death,
that he never recovered from it,
but you can actually see that
in the portraits of him
that are painted at that time.
They didn't create
the 18th century
gentleman's code of conduct;
they inherited it.
It was there
before they got there.
They had to conform to it,
or they would become
social pariahs.
That said um
you don't see Jefferson
fighting duels.
And you don't see Franklin
fighting duels.
It is two and a half years
after Philip's death.
Word reaches Hamilton
that Aaron Burr
is running for the office
of governor of New York.
Once again,
Hamilton has a cause.
He launches into
a campaign against Burr.
At a meeting of Federalists,
General Hamilton makes a speech
declaring that he looks on
Mr. Burr as a dangerous man,
not to be trusted with
the reins of government.
Hamilton attacks Burr in writing
and at political gatherings
around the state.
Burr has many political enemies,
but he focuses on Hamilton.
For years, he's lent his name
to base slanders,
which I have passed over.
The only result
of my forbearance
has been a repetition of injury.
I can only conclude
that Hamilton has a settled
and implacable malevolence
towards me.
Well
these things must have an end.
Burr demands that Hamilton
retract his latest insults
or face him
on the field of honor.
There's a delicate dance
that's played around duels.
You do the dance, you find
a way to make apologies
without sounding like
you made an apology.
Everyone's honor is satisfied,
and it ends.
You may perceive, sir,
the necessity of a prompt
and unqualified acknowledgement
or denial.
I cannot, without impropriety,
make the avowal or disavowal
which you seem
to think necessary.
Hamilton tries to dance
with Burr.
He comes as close to
a full retraction
as he could,
under the circumstances.
Burr won't accept it.
This indicates to me that Burr
really wanted to fight.
I have known for a long time
that my life
must inevitably
be exposed to that man.
The duel cannot be avoided.
My ability to be useful
in public affairs
depends on how men of character
regard me.
All consideration of
what men of the world
call "honor" impresses on me
a necessity
to answer this challenge.
This honor became
such an obsession with him
that even though he had done
such extraordinary things
in the world
and had tried so hard to escape
from that world of his boyhood,
on some level, he never did
and was still fighting
that battle.
You know, I think that he
doesn't realize that
the war is over,
you know, and that he won
and that he established
this life.
I think on some level,
he still is trapped
back in the darkness
of his own past.
Early morning, July 11, 1804.
The duel will take place
across the Hudson River,
in Weehawken, New Jersey.
This letter,
my very dear Eliza,
will be delivered to you
only after my death.
If it had been possible for me
to have avoided the interview,
my love for you
and my precious children
would have been motive enough.
I needn't tell you my pain,
not only at leaving you,
but in exposing you
to the anguish
I know you will feel.
I cannot dwell on this topic,
or it will unman me.
Fly to the bosom of your God
and be comforted.
I shall cherish the hope of
meeting you in a better world.
Adieu, best of wives
and best of women.
Embrace all my darling
children for me.
We marked out the ten paces.
I read the final instructions.
Burr and the General
took their positions,
and we handed them the pistols.
The General raised and lowered
his gun a few times
and then said to Burr,
"I beg your pardon, sir,
for delaying you."
And then he put on
his spectacles.
He had previously told me
that he intended to satisfy both
his religious principles
and his honor by not firing.
But there was no way for
Colonel Burr to know that.
I was called to him
half-sitting on the ground,
supported in the arms
of Mr. Pendleton.
The barge men aided us in
conveying him into the boat.
He knew right away.
"This is a mortal wound,
Doctor," he said,
The ball had passed through
the liver and the diaphragm.
Hamilton survives for
31 agonizing hours.
He dies on July 12, 1804.
He is 49 years old.
New York City prepares
for the largest funeral
in its history.
There was a tremendous
outpouring
of grief and emotion.
The funeral cortege went on
for hours.
I think, literally,
every person in the city
was lining the streets,
looking out of windows,
standing on roofs.
It was said that
every woman, in particular,
was crying at the time
of Hamilton's death.
Gouverneur Morris, with four
of General Hamilton's sons
at his side, rose to speak.
I struggle
with a bursting heart to portray
that heroic spirit
which has now departed.
Fellow citizens,
you know how well
he performed his duties,
how he never sacrificed
his principles
to court your favor
or gain your adulation.
You have seen him
contending against you
and protecting
your dearest interests,
in spite of yourselves.
Because of this,
you now enjoy the benefits
resulting from the firm energy
of his work.
Remember this testimony
to the memory of
my departed friend.
I charge you to protect
his good name.
It is all he has left.
It is all these poor children
will inherit
from their father.
No one, at the time,
fully appreciated
Hamilton's enormous legacy.
But because of
his visionary thinking,
America had
the highest credit rating
of any country in the world.
When France gave Jefferson
the opportunity
to purchase
the Louisiana Territory
and double the area
of the United States,
money and credit were
readily available.
In the 19th century,
first came the canals,
then the railroads,
then heavy industry
and the huge cities,
the boom in technology
and a greater prosperity than
the world had ever seen
All built on bonds and banks,
Hamilton's world.
In the coming years,
a grateful people
celebrate the men
who created the country.
In the nation's capital,
they build large monuments
to Washington and Jefferson,
but none to Hamilton.
That he is not acknowledged,
I think, has a lot to do
talk about liberty, he doesn't
talk about the republic.
There's not a lot of that.
He's really much more about
creating policies
and institutions.
And I don't think
we like to memorialize
people who do practical things.
I think the things
that Hamilton did
don't fit well on monuments.
Hamilton is about
the beginnings of systems,
you know.
He's someone who sees,
has a vision
and knows how to put it
into effect.
The beginnings of
a national government
Something that
we take for granted
The beginnings of something
orderly and powerful
and national, something
that sometimes we like
and sometimes we don't
like so much.
But either way,
it's not the sort of person
that we stand up and cheer for.
Hamilton focused on one thing.
He devoted his whole life
to one thing,
and that was creating
the United States.
Whether it's financial,
whether it's constitutional,
whether it's the Army,
you name it, it's Hamilton's.
He doesn't need a monument.
We live in Hamilton's monument.
This United States,
this is Hamilton's monument.
And when we talk about
the American dream,
we're talking about
Hamilton's dream.
Hamilton's grave is behind
Trinity Church
It is steps away from the site
of the Treasury Office,
where he first laid out his
blueprint for America's future
as a strong, united,
self-reliant nation.
Around the corner is Wall Street
and the Stock Exchange,
that mighty financial engine
that he helped create.
Throughout his life, this orphan
immigrant from the West Indies
felt that he never
really belonged,
that this American world
was not made for him.
This was only partly true.
Alexander Hamilton did belong.
He belonged to the future.
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