Intellectual warrior

Hamilton's political, personal adventures come to life in biography

Duane Davis, Special To The News

Friday, April 30, 2004

When it comes to Alexander Hamilton, most of us recall that his face is on a $10 bill and that Aaron Burr shot and killed him in a duel back in a time when men sported powdered wigs, fancy frock coats and tight britches.

Others, the suck-ups who actually read the history class assignments, may also dredge up vague recollections of Hamilton having fought in the Revolutionary War, his participation with James Madison in the writing of the Federalist Papers which helped pave the way for the U.S. Constitution, and his subsequent appointment by President Washington as our first Treasury Secretary.

Now Ron Chernow, a National Book Award winner for The House of Morgan, and the author of Titan, a well-received book on John D. Rockefeller, fills in the gaps of our knowledge with a solid, energetic and engaging biography.

Chernow's story in some ways resembles an adventure tale written by Robert Louis Stevenson, a kind of Treasure Island set in the early days of our Republic: the rise of an illegitimate child born in hardscrabble poverty on an obscure island in the Caribbean in 1755, who, while still in his teens, arrives in New York in 1773 and, by dint of remarkable intelligence and self-reliance begins educating himself; a man who soon finds himself in the thick of political controversy because of his skill at advocacy journalism, known at that time as pamphleteering.

Though only 19 years old, Hamilton's knowledge, combined with his skill in the art of "elegant insults," made it clear, writes Chernow, "that he had found his calling as a fearless, swashbuckling intellectual warrior who excelled in bare-knuckled controversy."

The extent to which Hamilton practiced this art is nothing short of astounding. Hamilton's collected writings fill 32 volumes totalling some 22,000 pages - and he died when he was only 49!

But this scarcely scratches the surface of Hamilton's tumultuous, crowded life. Moving from pamphleteering in support of the colonial revolutionaries to officer in the Revolutionary Army, Hamilton demonstrated not only an ability and willingness to command troops but also displayed such administrative and organizational talents that he soon found himself on Gen. Washington's staff.

There, Chernow writes, he "evolved from private secretary to something akin to chief of staff . . . He rode with the general in combat, cantered off on diplomatic missions, dealt with bullheaded generals, sorted through intelligence, interrogated deserters and negotiated prisoner exchanges."

Yet, still in his 20s and desperate for a combat command, Hamilton chafed at this duty that kept him from the front lines. Worthy of a book itself is the story of how he turned a quarrel with Gen. Washington into a field command at the decisive battle at Yorktown - where he became a "certified hero" of the Revolution.

Even so, the war ended with Hamilton's greatest accomplishments still to come. During and after the Revolution, the original colonies were held together by the Articles of Confederation, a weak agreement that allowed too much authority to individual states and very little to a central government.

Hamilton was not alone in seeing the dangers of such a compact, but he was one of the clearest, most forceful writers on the matter.

Having conceived of the Federalist Papers as a series of newspaper pieces that would argue for the strong central government that would be established by the proposed Constitution, Hamilton proceeded to write 51 of those 85 essays.

There is, perhaps, no finer example of American political writing than that contained in these essays. His contributions, as both theorist and as administrator during his tenure as Washington's Treasury Secretary, cannot be overstated:

"In contriving the smoothly running machinery of a modern nation-state - including a budget system, a funded debt, a tax system, a central bank, a customs service and a coast guard - and justifying them in some of America's most influential state papers, (Hamilton) set a high-water mark for administrative competence that has never been equaled."

It is ironic, then, that not only did Hamilton set this high standard of public service, but he was involved in what may have been our new nation's first political sex scandal. Suspected by James Monroe and others of using Treasury monies for private speculations, Hamilton had to confess to Monroe that the money was his own and that the payments he had made were to keep the husband of a woman he was having an affair with quiet. Worse, the man insisted that Hamilton continue the affair while paying the extortion money!

Given what Chernow calls Hamilton's "querulous and fatally combative" disposition, it was perhaps inevitable that his long-standing and bitter rivalry with fellow politician Aaron Burr would boil over into violence.

In a time when dueling was a common way to settle disputes of honor, Hamilton's inability or unwillingness to rein in his vituperative tongue provoked Burr into the challenge that eventually led to Hamilton's death in July 1804.

Yet what this reader is left with at the end of this book is not shock at the scandalous life and death of just another politician, but admiration for the fierce, passionate exchange of ideas and sentiment engaged in by men like Hamilton and Jefferson and Madison.

To be fair, Chernow is not without fault as a biographer. The first chapter of the book begins not with the birth of our hero more than 2 ½ centuries ago, but with the birth one million years ago of the island on which Hamilton was born. Chernow seems incapable of leaving out anything he has dug up in his research. Thus, we are treated to thumbnail biographies not only of the essential players, but also of all-too-many walk-ons as well.

And while it is amusing enough near the beginning to be told that a 4,000-pound lead statue of King George III of England was melted down and made into "42,088 musket bullets" to be used against the Crown's own troops, by the end of the volume's 700-plus pages, one wearily realizes that the charm of such tidbits has worn off.

Still, these are minor complaints against a book that does such a fine job, not only of bringing Alexander Hamilton to full and varied life but of providing the reader, as well, with a richly textured picture of the America that was emerging from the blood and turmoil of the Revolutionary War.

This book reminds us of what political debate at its very best can be.

Duane Davis is a freelance writer living in Littleton.