The Essential Hamilton, page 33
1794
RESIGNING FROM OFFICE
To George Washington
Sir Philadelphia February 3. 1795
My particular acknowlegements are due for your very kind letter of yesterday. As often as I may recall the vexations I have endured, your approbation will be a great and precious consolation.
It was not without a struggle, that I yielded to the very urgent motives, which impelled me to relinquish a station, in which I could hope to be in any degree instrumental in promoting the success of an administration under your direction; a struggle which would have been far greater, had I supposed that the prospect of future usefulness was proportioned to the sacrifices to be made.
Whatsoever may be my destination hereafter, I entreat you to be persuaded (not the less for my having been sparing in professions) that I shall never cease to render a just tribute to those eminent and excellent qualities which have been already productive of so many blessings to your country—that you will always have my fervent wishes for your public and personal felicity, and that it will be my pride to cultivate a continuance of that esteem regard and friendship, of which you do me the honor to assure me. With true respect and affectionate attachment I have the honor to be
Sir Your obliged & obedt servt
A Hamilton
* Such was the advice given by Mr. Jefferson, when Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of France, to Congress, respecting the debt due to France. The precise terms are not recollected but the substance may be depended upon. The poor Hollanders were to be the victims.
August 4, 1792
† See Vatel Book III Chap. VI § 101.
‡ See Vatel Book III Chap VII § 113.
FEDERALIST LEADER AND ATTORNEY 1795–1804
Hamilton stepped out of the limelight when he resigned his cabinet post in 1795, but he remained in the game, acting as an unofficial advisor to Washington and drafting his Farewell Address (To George Washington, July 30, 1796). Eager to maintain his influence on national policy under Washington’s successor, Hamilton advised President John Adams’s cabinet behind the new President’s back—until Adams found out. The resulting clash helped to split the Federalists into two warring factions and severely damaged Hamilton’s political career.
The beginning of Hamilton’s end was the presidential election of 1800. Hoping to elect Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney as President over Adams, Hamilton savaged the incumbent Adams in a pamphlet. Attacking Adams’s character as well as his politics, Hamilton went too far once too often, leading many of his Federalist friends and followers to conclude that he lacked discretion and was thus an unfit leader.
Hamilton’s national political career was foundering, but he didn’t surrender quietly. When the election produced a tie between Republicans Burr and Jefferson—a Hamiltonian nightmare come true—he campaigned against Burr behind the scenes, though his efforts had little impact. His letters to Gouverneur Morris (December 26, 1800), John Rutledge Jr. (January 4, 1801), and James A. Bayard (January 16, 1801) show his profound distrust of his quondam friend and foe. Looking back on Jefferson’s victory in 1802, Hamilton tried to adapt Republican electoral strategies to aid the Federalists. In the same way that fervor for the French Revolution had fueled the Republicans, he reasoned, devotion to the Christian religion could fuel the Federalists (To James A. Bayard, April 1802).
Hamilton’s private life was also tumultuous during this period. His thriving law practice enabled him to build “The Grange,” a country home for his family in upper Manhattan, the only home that Hamilton—otherwise a lifelong renter—ever owned. But for the most part, Hamilton’s final years were a tangle of scandals and tragedies, as his flaws and excesses played themselves out. In 1796, when Republicans hinted that Hamilton had misused Treasury funds, he defended himself in what came to be known as the “Reynolds Pamphlet,” asserting that what looked like peculation was in fact a series of blackmail payments made to hush up his adulterous affair with Maria Reynolds in 1791–1792. Five years later, in 1801, Hamilton’s oldest son Philip died after fighting a duel defending his father’s name (To Benjamin Rush, March 29, 1802). Hamilton never fully recovered.
Not surprisingly, his letters in this period are dark and moody, a far cry from the fiery salvoes of his younger days. His “Memorandum on the Design for a Seal of the United States” (c. May 1796) shows the depth of his fears about the fate of the nation. Depicting a French Revolutionary “Colossus” with one foot on the European continent and the other hovering over North America, it is political panic put to paper. Hamilton wasn’t alone in his fears; the late 1790s was a period of intense partisanship and dire predictions. But true to character, he responded by breaking rules and crossing lines—or at least, he tried. Theodore Sedgwick didn’t listen when Hamilton suggested (February 2, 1799) raising and then marching an army on the Republican stronghold of Virginia to quash its resistance to the Alien and Sedition Acts. One year later, New York Governor John Jay likewise ignored Hamilton’s plea (May 7, 1800) to change the rules for choosing presidential electors in the middle of the election.
These troubled years also drew from Hamilton a series of unusually reflective letters, as he wrestled with the fall of the Federalists and the unraveling of his political career. When enemies snickered about his low origins, Hamilton defended himself by describing his early years in a letter to his friend William Jackson (August 26, 1800), his only extended discussion of his illegitimacy on paper.
Aware that he was swimming against the nation’s democratic tide, Hamilton half-jokingly began to call himself a “disappointed politician,” as he did in his letter to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney (December 29, 1802). That same year, he confessed a sad truth in a letter (February 29, 1802) to his friend Gouverneur Morris: “this American world was not made for me.”
A THREAT TO THE PUBLIC CREDIT
To Rufus King
My Dear King Kingston Feby. 21. 1795
The unnecessary capricious & abominable assassination of the National honor by the rejection of the propositions respecting the unsubscribed debt in the House of Representatives haunts me every step I take, and afflicts me more than I can express. To see the character of the Government and the country so sported with, exposed to so indelible a blot puts my heart to the Torture. Am I then more of an American than those who drew their first breath on American Ground? Or What is it that thus torments me at a circumstance so calmly viewed by almost every body else? Am I a fool—a Romantic quixot—Or is there a constitutional defect in the American Mind? Were it not for yourself and a few others, I could adopt the reveries of De Paux as substantial truths, and would say with him that there is something in our climate which belittles every Animal human or brute.
I conjure you, my friend, Make a vigorous stand for the honor of your Country. Rouse all the energies of your mind, and measure swords in the Senate with the great Slayer of public faith—the hacknied Veteran in the violation of public engagements. Prevent him if possible from triumphing a second time over the prostrate credit* and injured interests of his Country. Unmask his false and horrid hypothesis. Display the immense difference between an able statesman and the Man of subtilties. Root out the distempered and noisome weed which is attempted to be planted in our political garden—to choak and wither in its infancy the fair plant of public credit.
I disclose to you without reserve the state of my mind. It is discontented and gloomy in the extreme. I consider the cause of good government as having been put to an issue & the verdict against it.
Introduce I pray you into the Senate, when the bill comes up the clause which has been rejected freed from embarrassment by the bills of Credit bearing interest on the nominal value. Press its adoption in this the most unexceptionable shape & let the yeas & nays witness the result.
Among other reasons for this is my wish that the true friends of public credit may be distinguished from its enemies. The question is too great a one not to undergo a thorough examination before the Community. It would pain me not to be able to distinguish. Adieu.
God bless you A Hamilton
P.S. Do me the favour to revise carefully the course of the bill respecting the unsubscribed Debt & let me know the particulars. I wish to be able to judge more particularly of the under plot I suspect.
“PUBLIC FOOLS”
To Robert Troup
Albany April 13. 1795
I should want feeling & friendship were I not penetrated by the affectionate concern you so repeatedly manifest for my interest.
Without knowing the particulars of the plan to which you refer I ought not to decide finally against it. But I very much believe that it will not comport with my general system which is to avoid large or complicated speculations especially where foreigners are concerned.
Tis not my Dear Friend that I think there is any harm or even indelicacy in the thing—I am now in no situation that restrains me—But ’tis because I think there is at present a great crisis in the affairs of mankind which may in its consequences involve this country in a sense most affecting to every true friend to it—because concerns of the nature alluded to, though very harmless in the saints, who may even fatten themselves on the opportunities or if you please spoils of office, as well as profit by every good thing that is going—who may [ ] agents & tools of foreign Governments without hazarding their popularity yet those who are not of the regenerating tribe may not do the most unexceptionable things without its being thundered in their ears—without being denounced as speculators peculators British Agents &c. &c. Because there must be some public fools who sacrifice private to public interest at the certainty of ingratitude and obloquy—because my vanity whispers I ought to be one of those fools and ought to keep myself in a situation the best calculated to render service—because I dont want to be rich and if I cannot live in splendor in Town, with a moderate fortune moderately acquired, I can at least live in comfort in the country and I am content to do so.
The game to be played may be a most important one. It may be for nothing less than true liberty, property, order, religion and of course heads. I will try Troupe if possible to guard yours & mine.
You are good enough to offer to stand between me and ostensibility. I thank you with all my soul. You cannot doubt that I should have implicit confidence in you but it has been the rule of my life to do nothing for my own emolument undercover—what I would not promulge I would avoid. This may be too great refinement. I know it is pride. But this pride makes it part of my plan to appear truly what I am.
God bless you. Always Affectionately Yrs. A Hamilton
Memorandum on the Design for Seal of the United States
A Globe with Europe and part of Africa on one side—America on the other—the Atlantic Ocean between. The portion occupied by America to be larger than that occupied by Europe. A COLOSSUS to be placed on this Globe, with one foot on Europe, the other extending partly over the Atlantic towards America, having on his head a quintuple crown in his right hand an Iron-Sceptre projected but broken in the middle—in his left hand a Pileus reversed, the staff intwined by a snake with its head downward having the staff in its mouth and folding in its tail (as if in the act of strangling) a label with these words “Rights of Man.”
Upon a base, supported by fifteen columns, erected on the Continent of America, to be placed the Genius of America, represented by Pallas—a female figure with a firm composed countenance, in an attitude of defiance, cloathed in armour with a golden breast plate, a spear in her right hand and an Ægis or shield in her left, decorated with the scales of Justice instead of the Medusa’s head—her helmet incircled with wreaths of Olive—her spear striking upon the Sceptre of the Colussus and breaking it obliquely over her head a radiated Crown or Glory.
EXPLANATION
The Globe is an antient symbol of universal Dominion. This, with the Colossus alluding to the Directory, will denote the project of acquiring it—the position of one leg of the colussus will signify the attempt to extend it to America. The Columns will represent the American States. Pallas, as the Genius of America will denote, that though loving Peace (of which the Olive wreath is the emblem) yet guided by Wisdom, or an enlightened sense of her own rights and interests, she is determined to exert and does successfully exert her valour, in breaking the sceptre of the Tyrant. The Glory is the usual type of Providential interposition.
It would improve it if it did not render it too complicated to represent the Ocean in Tempest & Neptune striking with his Trident the projected leg of the Colussus.
But perhaps instead of all this it may suffice to have the figure of Pallas on horse back the harp placed on the Columns these on a small mount—her spear breaking a Sceptre projected by a Herculean Arm.
c. May 1796
A DRAFT OF THE FAREWELL ADDRESS
To George Washington
Sir New York July 30. 1796
I have the pleasure to send you herewith a certain draft which I have endeavoured to make as perfect as my time and engagements would permit. It has been my object to render this act importantly and lastingly useful, and avoiding all just cause of present exception, to embrace such reflections and sentiments as will wear well, progress in approbation with time, & redound to future reputation. How far I have succeeded you will judge.
I have begun the second part of the task—the digesting the supplementary remarks to the first address which in a fortnight I hope also to send you—yet I confess the more I have considered the matter the less eligible this plan has appeared to me. There seems to me to be a certain awkwardness in the thing—and it seems to imply that there is a doubt whether the assurance without the evidence would be believed. Besides that I think that there are some ideas which will not wear well in the former address, & I do not see how any part can be omitted, if it is to be given as the thing formerly prepared. Nevertheless when you have both before you you can better judge.
If you should incline to take the draft now sent—and after perusing and noting any thing that you wish changed & will send it to me I will with pleasure shape it as you desire. This may also put it in my power to improve the expression & perhaps in some instances condense.
I rejoice that certain clouds have not lately thickened & that there is a prospect of a brighter horison.
With affectionate & respectful attachment I have the honor to be
Sir Yr. Very Obed Serv A Hamilton
The period for a new election of a Citizen to administer the Executive Gov of the U States being not very distant and the time actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person who is to be cloathed with that important trust for another term, it appears to me proper, and especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprize you of the resolution I have formed to decline being considered among the number of those out of whom a choice is to be made.
I beg you nevertheless to be assured that the resolution, which I announce, has not been taken without a strict regard to all the considerations attached to the relation which as a dutiful Citizen I bear to my Country; and that in withdrawing the tender of my service, which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no diminution of zeal for its future interest nor by any deficiency of grateful respect for its past kindness, but by a full conviction that such a step is compatible with both.
The acceptance of and continuance hitherto in the office to which your suffrages have twice called me has been a uniform sacrifice of private inclination to the opinion of public duty coinciding with what appeared to be your wishes. I had constantly hoped that it would have been much earlier in my power consistently with motives which I was not at liberty to disregard to return to that retirement from which those motives had reluctantly drawn me.
The strength of my desire to withdraw previous to the last election had even led to the preparation of an address to declare it to you—but deliberate reflection on the very critical and perplexed posture of our affairs with foreign nations and the unanimous advice of men of every way intitled to my confidence obliged me to abandon the idea.
I rejoice that the state of your national Concerns external as well as internal no longer renders the pursuit of my inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and that whatever partiality any portion of You may still retain for my services, they, under the existing circumstances of our Country, will not disapprove the resolution I have formed.
The impressions under which I first accepted the arduous trust of chief Magistrate of the U States were explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust I can only say that I have with pure intentions contributed towards the organisation and administration of the Government the best exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not unconscious at the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications for the station, experience in my own eyes and perhaps still more in those of others has not diminished in me the diffidence of myself—and every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome to me. Satisfied that if any circumstances have given a peculiar value to my services they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that while inclination and prudence urge me to recede from the political scene patriotism does not forbid it—May I also have that of perceiving in my retreat that the involuntary errors which I have probably committed have been the causes of no serious or lasting mischief to my Country and thus be spared the anguish of regrets which would disturb the repose of my retreat and embitter the remnant of my life! I may then expect to realize without alloy the purest enjoyment of partaking, in the midst of my fellow citizens of the benign influence of good laws under a free Government; the ultimate object of all my wishes and to which I look as the happy reward I hope of our mutual cares labours and dangers.
