Alexandra’s Reviews > Alexander Hamilton > Status Update

He said of them that ‘it has very properly been ranked not among the least of the advantages which compensate for the evils they produce that they serve to bring to light talents and virtues which might otherwise have languished in obscurity or only shot forth a few scattered and wandering rays.’ Who could doubt that the comment had an autobiographical ring?”

“The American Revolution transformed Hamilton from an insecure outsider to a consummate insider who was married to the daughter of General Schuyler and stood on easy terms with the leaders of the Continental Army. In a eulogy that he later delivered for General Nathanael Greene, Hamilton talked about the personal opportunities that accompany revolutions. …

… These disappointments only buttressed his belief in meritocracy, not aristocracy, as the best system for government appointments.”

“Earlier in the year, when Laurens had tried to secure Hamilton a post as secretary to the American minister in France, Hamilton had analyzed his own rejection thus: ‘I am a stranger in this country. I have no property here, no connections. If I have talents and integrity ... these are justly deemed very spurious titles in these enlightened days.’ …

“Having felt scapegoated for the fall of Fort Ticonderoga, Schuyler urged Hamilton to respond emphatically to personal attacks. ‘A man’s character ought not to be sported with,’ he once wrote, ‘and he that suffers stains to lay on it with impunity really deserves none nor will he long enjoy one.’ Such a man was not likely to curb Hamilton’s predilection for feuds and duels.” Is this the right strat?

Hamilton was 25 (purportedly) and Eliza 23 when they got married.

… Hamilton spiked the plan with a cogent objection, telling Washington that if Clinton was taken prisoner ‘it would be our misfortune, since the British government could not find another commander so incompetent to send in his place.’”

“If anything, he was even less dazzled by General Clinton. One day, Henry Lee broached to Washington an ingenious plan for kidnapping Clinton, who was quartered in a house on Broadway in New York. He had a large garden out back, overlooking the Hudson River, where he napped in a small pavilion each afternoon. Lee wanted to sneak men across the Hudson at low tide and snatch Clinton as he dozed. …

In private, no one railed more against the preferential treatment of French aristocrats than Hamilton, who was later so freely branded an ‘aristocrat’ by rivals. At the same time, he saw that an aristocratic class could contain progressive members and that republican wisdom wasn’t a monopoly held by mechanics and tradesmen.”

“It was the bane of Hamilton’s service that he had to draft numerous letters to Congress, requesting promotions for undeserving Frenchmen. If Congress spurned these requests, then he had to apply balm to the wounded suitors through oily compliments. Hamilton once told John Jay that he wrote these letters to shield Washington from the invariable resentment of rejected Frenchmen.