Founding Brothers (40 page)

19.
Hamilton to Burr, 20 June 1804, ibid., 247–249.

20.
Burr to Hamilton, 21, 22 June 1804, ibid., 249–250, 255.

21.
Burr to Van Ness, 25 June 1804; “Instructions to Van Ness,” 22–23 June 1804; Van Ness to Pendleton, 26 June 1804, ibid., 256–269.

22.
Burr to Van Ness, 25 June 1804, ibid., 265.

23.
Pendleton to Van Ness, 26 June 1804, ibid., 270–271.

24.
Burr to Van Ness, 26 June 1804; Van Ness to Pendleton, 27 June 1804, ibid., 266–267, 272–273. The Randolph quotation is in Syrett and Cooke, eds.,
Interview at Weehawken,
171.

25.
Burr’s “Instructions to Van Ness,” 26 June 1804; Van Ness to Pendleton, 27 June 1804, ibid., 266–267, 272–273.

26.
Mary-Jo Kline, ed.,
Political Correspondence and Public Papers of Aaron Burr
2 vols. (Princeton, 1983), vol. 2, 876–883, for the editorial note on Burr and the duel; see also Parton,
The Life and Times of Aaron Burr,
352–353, for Burr’s state of mind on the eve of the duel.

27.
Douglass Adair, “What Was Hamilton’s ‘Favorite Song’?”
WMQ
12 (April 1955): 298–307, for Trumbull’s observation and the song Hamilton probably sang.

28.
Editorial notes in Syrett, vol. 26, 292–293; Hamilton to James A. Hamilton, June 1804, ibid., 281–282.

29.
Ibid., 279–281.

30.
Ibid., 280.

31.
Anthony Merry to Lord Harroby, 6 August 1804, Kline, ed.,
Burr Papers,
vol. 2, 891–893.

32.
Ayers,
Vengeance and Justice,
8–15, 275; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, “Andrew Jackson’s Honor,”
JER
17 (1997): 7–8; Kenneth S. Greenberg, “The Nose, the Lie, and the Duel in the Antebellum South,”
AHR
95 (1990): 57–74.

33.
Henry Adams,
History of the United States of America During the Administrations of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison,
2 vols. (New York, 1986), vol. 1, 429–430.

34.
This summary of the political rivalry draws on multiple sources, but the most succinct synthesis is in Syrett, vol. 26, 238–239.

35.
Syrett and Cooke, eds.,
Interview at Weehawken,
16–17.

36.
Hamilton to Oliver Wolcott, Jr., 16 December 1800, Syrett, vol. 25, 257–258.

37.
The most favorable interpretation on Burr’s behavior during the presidential drama of 1801 is Lomask,
Aaron Burr,
vol. 2, 268–295, and it does not find Burr innocent so much as conclude that he was not guilty.

38.
The best brief character portrait of Burr, simultaneously fair but critical, is Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic,
1787
–
1800
(New York, 1993), 743–746.

39.
Adams,
History,
vol. 1, 409–430; see also Henry Adams, ed.,
Documents Relating to New England Federalism,
1800
–
1815
(Boston, 1905), 46–63, 107–330, 338–365.

40.
Hamilton to Theodore Sedgwick, 10 July 1804, Syrett, vol. 26, 309; see also the editor’s extensive notes in ibid., 310.

41.
The best book on the inherent tenuousness of American politics in this era is James Roger Sharp,
American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis
(New Haven, 1993).

42.
The case mentioned here was
People v. Croswell,
argued in February of 1804, in which Hamilton defended the editor of a small country newspaper, appropriately named
The Wasp,
for publishing libelous statements against Adams, Jefferson, and Washington. Hamilton argued that, despite lower court rulings against the principle, truth was a legitimate defense against libel. He lost the case, but the New York legislature enacted a new libel law the following year incorporating Hamilton’s language. See the account in Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton,
359.

43.
The seminal essay on the volatile character of politics in the early republic is John R. Howe, Jr., “Republican Thought and the Political Violence of the 1790s,”
American Quarterly
19 (Spring 1967): 148–165. The theme is also a thread in the authoritative history of the political culture, Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism,
especially 3–50.

44.
On Burr’s negligible political prospects, see Lomask,
Aaron Burr,
vol. 1, 302; on Hamilton’s, see Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton,
238. See Adams, ed.,
Documents,
167, for the quotation by John Quincy Adams. The Holmes quotation is from Leonard Levy, ed.,
American Constitutional Law: Historical Essays
(New York, 1966), 57.

CHAPTER TWO: THE DINNER

1.
See Boyd, vol. 17, 205–207, for Jefferson’s version of the dinner. Three scholarly articles capture the interpretive issues at stake: Jacob E. Cooke, “The Compromise of 1790,”
WMQ
27 (1970): 523–545; Kenneth Bowling, “Dinner at Jefferson’s: A Note on Jacob E. Cooke’s ‘The Compromise of 1790,’ ”
WMQ
28 (1971): 629–648; Norman K. Risjord, “The Compromise of 1790: New Evidence on the Dinner Table Bargain,”
WMQ
33 (1976): 309–314.

2.
New York Journal,
27 July 1790, quoted in Boyd, vol. 17, 182.

3.
Jefferson to James Monroe, 20 June 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 536–538. See also Monroe to Jefferson, 3 July 1790, ibid., 596–597.

4.
Boyd, vol. 17, 207.

5.
On Madison as a seminal political thinker, see Lance Banning,
The Sacred Fire of Liberty: James Madison and the Founding of the Federal Republic
(Ithaca, N.Y., 1995); Drew McCoy,
The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and the Republican Legacy
(Cambridge, 1989); and Marvin Meyers, ed.,
The Mind of the Founder: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison
(Hanover, N.H., 1981).

6.
For the most thorough yet succinct account of Madison’s career in the 1780s, see the introductory essays for his correspondence with Jefferson during those years in Smith, vol. 1, 204–661.

7.
The standard Madison biography is Irving Brant,
James Madison,
6 vols. (Indianapolis, 1941–1961). See also Ralph Ketcham,
James Madison: A Biography
(New York, 1971), and Jack N. Rakove,
James Madison and the Creation of the American Republic
(Glenview, Ill., 1990). The quotation is from Madison to Jared Sparks, 1 June 1831, Gaillard Hunt, ed.,
The Writings of James Madison,
10 vols. (New York, 1890–1910), vol. 9, 460.

8.
The quotation is from McCoy,
The Last of the Fathers,
xiii.

9.
Adrienne Koch,
Jefferson and Madison: The Great Collaboration
(New York, 1950). The quote from John Quincy Adams is in Smith, vol. 1, 2.

10.
Hamilton to Madison, 12 October 1789, Rutland, vol. 12, 434–435; for Jefferson’s views of the Constitution during the Paris years, see Joseph J. Ellis,
American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson
(New York, 1997), 97–105.

11.
The authoritative work on Jefferson’s generational argument is Herbert E. Sloan,
Principle and Interest: Thomas Jefferson and the Problem of Debt
(New York, 1995).

12.
The best secondary account of Madison’s conversion is Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic,
1787
–
1800
(New York, 1993), 77–92.

13.
Report Relative to a Provision for the Support of Public Credit,
in Syrett, vol. 6, 52–168, which includes a helpful editorial note on the chief features of Hamilton’s plan.

14.
See Madison’s speech in the House on 11 February 1790, in Rutland, vol. 13, 34–39; see also Madison to Jefferson, 24 January 1790, ibid., 3–4. Benjamin Rush to Madison, 18 February 1790, ibid., 45–47.

15.
Ibid., 36–37, 47–56, 58–59.

16.
Ibid., 60–62, 65–66, 81–82, 163–174, for Madison’s major speeches in the House against assumption.

17.
Madison to Jefferson, 8 March 1790; Madison to Edmund Randolph, 21 March 1790; Madison to Henry Lee, 13 April 1790, ibid., 95, 110, 147–148.

18.
Lee to Madison, 4 March, 3 April 1790, ibid., 87–91, 136–137.

19.
Madison to Edmund Pendleton, 2 May 1790; George Nicholas to Madison, 3 May 1790; Edward Carrington to Madison, 7 April 1790, ibid., 184–185, 187, 142.

20.
Madison to Jefferson, 17 April 1790, ibid., 151.

21.
This personality sketch of Hamilton represents my own interpretive distillation from the multiple biographies. The insecurity theme is a central feature of Jacob Ernest Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton: A Biography
(New York, 1979), v–vi.

22.
The hoofprints from several herds of historians and biographers have trampled this ground. Of all the biographers, I found Forrest McDonald,
Alexander Hamilton
(New York, 1979), 117–188, the most provocatively original on these themes and Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton,
73–84, the most reliably sound. The background to the
Report on the Public Credit
is discussed succinctly and sensibly in the editorial note in Syrett, vol. 6, 51–65.

23.
For Hamilton’s arguments against “discrimination,” see Syrett, vol. 6, 70–78, and the editorial documentation provided in ibid., 58–59.

24.
Ibid., 70, 80–82.

25.
The quotation about “mending fences” is from Cooke,
Alexander Hamilton,
94. The interpretation offered here and in the succeeding paragraphs draws on all the standard sources. The two most influential secondary accounts, again as I see it, are Jacob E. Cooke, ed.,
The Reports of Alexander Hamilton,
vii–xxiii, and Elkins and McKitrick,
The Age of Federalism,
93–136. The latter includes a discussion of Hamilton’s capacity for “projection,” by which the authors mean the tendency to foresee or forecast economic trends. I am suggesting here that the vision Hamilton “projected” was very much a projection of his own distinctive character.

26.
Madison to Lee, 13 April 1790, Rutland, vol. 22, 147–148.

27.
Hamilton to Lee, 1 December 1789, Syrett, vi, i; Hamilton to William Duer, 4–7 April 1790, ibid., 346–347, for the resignation and editorial note on Duer’s unquestionable thievery. The best modern estimate is that he swindled the federal government for personal profits that totaled about $300,000.

28.
The best recent study of the economic predicament of Virginia’s elite is Bruce A. Ragsdale,
A Planter’s Republic: The Search for Economic Independence in Revolutionary Virginia
(Madison, 1994). Older but still useful studies include T. H. Breen,
Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the American Revolution
(Princeton, 1985), and Norman Risjord,
Chesapeake Politics,
1781
–
1800
(New York, 1978), 84–123. On Jefferson’s economic situation and its psychological implications, see Sloan,
Principle and Interest,
86–124.

29.
On Jefferson’s condition during the spring, see Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, 9 May 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 416. On Washington’s health, see Jefferson to Randolph, 16 May 1790; Jefferson to William Short, 27 May 1790, ibid., 429, 444. Jefferson’s primary focus was his
Report on Weights and Measures,
ibid., 602–675.

30.
For Jefferson’s Paris years, see Dumas Malone,
Jefferson and His Time,
6 vols. (Boston, 1948–1981), vol. 2, and Ellis,
American Sphinx,
64–117. The quotation is from Jefferson to Francis Hopkinson, 13 March 1789, Boyd, vol. 14, 650.

31.
Pauline Maier,
American Scripture: Making the Declaration of Independence
(New York, 1997), 154–208.

32.
Jefferson to Randolph, 18 April 1790; Jefferson to Lee, 26 April 1790; Jefferson to Randolph, 30 May 1790; Jefferson to George Mason, 13 June 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 351, 385–386, 449, 493.

33.
Kenneth Bowling,
The Creation of Washington, D.C.: The Idea and Location of the American Capital
(Fairfax, Va., 1991), x–xi, 148.

34.
Ibid., 129–138, 161–181.

35.
Madison to Pendleton, 20 June 1790, Rutland, vol. 13, 252–253; Richard Peters to Jefferson, 20 June 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 539.

36.
Rutland, vol. 12, 369–370, 396, 416–417, for Madison’s speeches in the House.

37.
Bowling,
The Creation of Washington,
190–191. Though it appeared too late to shape my interpretation, I much admire C. M. Harris’s “Washington’s Gamble, L’Enfant’s Dream: Politics, Design, and the Founding of the National Capital,”
WMQ
56 (July 1999): 527–564.

38.
Ibid., 106–126, 164–166.

39.
Madison to Pendleton, 20 June 1790, Rutland, vol. 13, 252–253.

40.
Risjord, “The Compromise of 1790,” 309; Bowling,
The Creation of Washington,
179–185; editorial note in Rutland, vol. 13, 243–246.

41.
Cooke, “The Compromise of 1790,” 523–545, emphasizes the absence of a direct link between the two issues—assumption and residence. His interpretation attributes the bargain to multiple meetings conducted prior to the dinner at Jefferson’s. My view is that the latter session sealed the deal by completing the negotiations on Virginia’s debt. Without linkage with the residency issue, however, neither Jefferson nor Madison would have concurred.

42.
Jefferson to George Gilmer, 27 June, 25 July 1790, Boyd, vol. 16, 269, 575. The standard account of the state and federal debt question is E. James Ferguson,
The Power of the Purse: A History of American Public Finance
(Chapel Hill, 1961). For a few relatively minor revisions, see William G. Anderson,
Price of Liberty: The Public Debt of the American Revolution
(Charlottesville, 1983).