Alexander Hamilton (79 page)

For all its brilliance, the zeal of Hamilton’s letter must have heightened Washington’s worries about the schism in his administration. In late August, he sent Hamilton a melancholy reply, pleading for mutual tolerance between him and Jefferson. Aware of the accusations they were trading in the press, Washington regretted these “wounding suspicions” and “irritating charges” and asked for “healing measures” to restore harmony.
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The president feared that, if the acrimony continued, the union itself might dissolve.

This full-length portrait of Alexander Hamilton as treasury secretary in 1792 shows his trim physique and debonair style. Ensnared in controversy, Hamilton asked the artist, John Trumbull, to omit any allusions to his political life.

This 1768 portrait of Myles Cooper, an Anglican minister and second president of King’s College, reflects the massive self-confidence of this unrepentant Tory.
Hamilton helped save him from a patriotic mob in the early days of the Revolution.

In the eighteenth century, King’s College (later Columbia) was situated in lower Manhattan and enjoyed a bucolic Hudson River vista.

George Washington at Princeton. This splendid Charles Willson Peale portrait conveys the graceful panache of the Revolutionary War general, so unlike the later stiffness of his presidential demeanor.

During the Revolution, Hamilton formed a gallant trio with the marquis de Lafayette, pictured below in military uniform in the early days of the French Revolution, and John Laurens. The Laurens miniature

was probably a gift for Martha Manning, whom Laurens impregnated and then married during his prewar legal studies in London.

Prompted by her husband, Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton visited a debtors’ prison to pose for this portrait by the insolvent artist Ralph Earl. Despite her elaborate hairdo, Earl captured Eliza’s lively, direct, and unpretentious nature.

Major General Philip Schuyler, a highly status-conscious man, embraced Hamilton as his
son-in-law despite the latter’s murky, illegitimate boyhood.

Angelica Church—bright, witty, and fashionable— captivated her brother-in-law Hamilton no less than she did Thomas Jefferson and other political notables of the day.

The elegant Schuyler mansion in Albany, the Pastures, was one of the few places where the high-strung, work-obsessed Hamilton allowed himself to relax.

This 1792 portrait of James Madison, painted a few years after his collaboration with Hamilton on
The Federalist,
testifies to his tough, combative nature as he tried to foil Hamilton’s financial system in the House of Representatives.