The Legacy of Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton
I'm gonna show you how great I am. This would have tiny shower. I just wanna say from the bottom of me heart, I'd like to take this chance to apologize to absolutely nobody.

One gentleman, whose name I never heard was an earnest friend of the people and descanted with much enthusiasm upon the glorious future, then opening upon this newborn nation, and predicted the perpetuity of our institutions from the purity and intelligence of the people, their freedom from interest or prejudice, their enlightened love of liberty, etcetera. Alexander Hamilton was among the guests, and his patience being somewhat exhausted, he replied with much emphasis, striking his hand upon the table. Your people, sir. Your people is a great beast. Hello and welcome to how to take over the world.

This is Ben Wilson, and the preceding passage was a quote from Theophilus Parsons. Every nation needs a founder. An obvious example is Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, or David Ben Gurion of Israel, or Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. But you also have less obvious examples. Charles de Gaulle is kind of the founder of modern France, for example.

Anyway, the founder of a nation needs to do two things. They need to have a vision and a brand, a cult of personality that people buy into. And America is unique in that it has two founders. Washington provided the cult of personality, and Alexander Hamilton is really the one who provided the vision. Okay, most of the time, those two things are tied up in a single person, like Lee Kuan Yew.

Again, great example, but in this case, it was split. And I think the fact that Washington provided that cult of personality obscures the fact that Hamilton is the one who provided the other half of that equation. He's the man with the vision for the nation. And in this episode, I want to discuss that vision that he had for America and the role he played in determining America's future. You know, it's really interesting because I think it's really misunderstood what role he played.

You're likely familiar with the play, Hamilton. And in it, Hamilton says about himself, I'm just like my country. I'm young, scrappy and hungry. He also says things like, immigrants, we get the job done. And it's just pretty funny to me that Alexander Hamilton was chosen as the avatar for a liberal reimagining of the american revolution because he was, imagine this, okay?

You get put in a time machine, you step out. It's the year 2200, and your guides talk to you. USA is still a thing. They're still Republicans, Democrats. And your guide says, oh, we made a musical about someone from the time that you were alive.

Come check it out. I think you'll love it. So you hop in your flying car, you go see the musical. You don't catch the title on your way in, but you sit in your seat waiting for it to start, and the democratic president of the United States is there. You look around, everyone is young and progressive, has blue hair.

It's clear that this is a cool play to be at if you are young, leftist in 2200. And then someone comes out and starts singing. And the first number teases who this mystery figure is that this musical is about the real estate king. The man with the brand got a head start. Millions from his old man.

An outsider, non politician with a plan took the escalator down and said, I'm your man. What's your name, man? Donald J. Trump. My name is Donald J.

Trump. You just look around like, hold on, what's happening here? And all these Democrats are going wild for Donald J. Trump. They can't get enough.

They're like, oh, yeah, this guy, man of the people. Love the little man. You know, I'm going to name my. I'm going to give my son the middle name Trump. Like, that is what is happening, essentially.

Like, if you went back to the year 1800, you asked Thomas Jefferson or James Madison, who is the foremost opponent of american democracy? They would say Alexander Hamilton. If you asked Alexander Hamilton in the year 1800, who is the foremost american opponent of democracy, he would say, me. In fact, there's a quote from Hamilton that lays out his position quite clearly. He says, it has been observed that a pure democracy, if we're practicable, would be the most perfect.

Government experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny. Their figure deformity. Okay, so in this episode, in part two, we will get into the real legacy of Alexander Hamilton, how he shaped the american nation, how he became the economic and institutional legacies that he left, as well as the intellectual ones.

And, of course, as always, we will dive into the strategies and tactics that he used to have such a massive impact on the nation. So let's get into it. This is the legacy of Alexander Hamilton.

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Okay, so when we left off, uh, the revolution has just ended. Hamilton rushes home to be with his wife and newborn son and starts a career as a successful lawyer. I actually love one quote from Hamilton that shows how he could be self deprecating about his chosen profession. He wrote to Lafayette that he was quite busy, quote, rocking the cradle and studying the art of fleecing my neighbors. During the revolution, he had been a pretty vocal critic of the Continental Congress and the articles of Confederation, which was the constitution that the US had been operating under.

One of the major problems with the articles of Confederation was the government's inability to levy taxes. This led to huge financial headaches for the emerging nation. There was just no money to pay for anything. And this meant that revolutionary soldiers wages were often years in arrears. They just hadn't been paid.

And the same was true of bondholders, those who had lent the government money to carry out the revolutionary war. So some officers of the Continental army get it in their minds that, hey, we are an army. We are the ones with the guns. Let's just march on Philadelphia and motivate Continental Congress to pay us the money that they owe us. This has come to be called the Newburgh conspiracy.

Newburgh is the name of the town where the officers were stationed. Now, the whole thing is shrouded in mystery. You know, it's kind of a nascent military coup. And so it was obviously extremely secretive. It's unclear to this day which members of the conspiracy favored an outright military junta, which ones just wanted to apply some pressure and how much support there really was for each position.

Hamilton was definitely involved, though, once again, it's hard to know exactly what his position was and how deep his involvement was. But we do have some letters, so I think we can form a pretty good idea. He wrote to Washington, the claims of the army, urged with moderation but with firmness, may operate on those weak minds which are influenced by their apprehensions more than their judgments. But the difficulty will be to keep a complaining and suffering army within the bounds of moderation. Okay, so he's basically saying, like, yes, maybe we can use this situation to apply some pressure, but there is going to be difficulty keeping the army in the bounds of moderation.

So he does definitely does not want an all out coup. Chernow writes, Hamilton still clung to the notion that a convincing bluff of armed force could help spur congressional action, but that was as far as he would venture, quote, as to any combination of force, he observed, it would only be productive of the horrors of a civil war, might end in the ruin of the country, and would certainly end in the ruin of the army. Okay, so he writes to Washington. He wants to apply some pressure, but doesn't want this to get out of control. So he tells Washington, hey, you need to come take control here.

And Washington does. He comes, he gives a speech, he calms down the army and convinces them to submit to civilian rule. And he lectures Hamilton along the way. He says, quote, the army is a dangerous instrument to play with. And he's right.

It's really playing with fire. It's it's. It's hard to carry out, uh, just a little bit of coup. Uh, those things have a way of getting out of control. And so it was good that Hamilton had the superior judgment of Washington in this incident.

Uh, you know, why would Hamilton be involved in this at all? I mean, on the one hand, he really believed that the bondholders and the soldiers of the continental army should be paid. And he was a Marshall man through and through. Nothing mattered to him as much as military glory. And he was the world's strongest advocate of a muscular united States with a strong military and strong financial capabilities.

On the other hand, he hated a mob. Uh, you know, you heard those quotes at the beginning about democracy. You know, he viewed democracy as mobocracy, and having an army be that democracy was not any better to him. Okay? So the idea of disorder really bothers him.

And so that's why he's trying to kind of split the middle here. Like, he really agrees with the ends but not with the means. But like I said, luckily, Washington kind of squashes this. And what happens instead is that Hamilton, along with James Madison, George Washington and a few others, but those were the most important ones call for a constitutional convention to revise the articles of Confederation to. To make this government work better.

And like I said, there. There were a few people calling for this constitutional convention. One, historian, Catherine Drinker Bowen, writes, among those who began early to work for reform, three names stand out. Washington, Madison, and Hamilton. And of the three, evidence points to Hamilton as the most potent single influence towards calling the convention of 87.

Okay, so Alexander Hamilton is the primary mover behind calling the constitutional convention. So all the states send delegates to this constitutional convention at first, again, to revise the articles of Confederation. But, you know, pretty quickly they say, look, this whole thing needs to be thrown out, and we need to start from the ground up and design a new government. Hamilton, throughout the entire process, uh, is, uh, advocate of a strong federal government. He says if these states are not united under a federal government, they will infallibly have wars with each other, and their divisions will subject them to all the mischiefs of foreign influence and intrigue.

Okay, so he's worried that if you don't really tie these states together into a single nation, if you leave it kind of how it is under the articles of Confederation, which is that these states are really separate political entities with just a coordinating mechanism in the articles Confederation. If you keep with that, eventually there's going to be conflict and war between the states. And when that conflict or war happens, outside actors are going to take advantage of the United States. So he's really trying to forge a strong, single nation with a strong central government. And as the debate goes on, a lot of viewpoints are put forward.

One plan is put forward called the Virginia plan, because it's proposed by James Madison with support from the other Virginia delegates. And that is what would eventually be adopted as the constitution of the United States that we know today. Hamilton likes the Virginia plan, but doesn't love it. And he thinks, you know, this is my one shot to propose what I really think would be the best form of government. And so he puts forward a plan for essentially a limited elective monarchy.

And, you know, it's hard to know exactly what he meant by this monarchy, because in some ways, the monarch is subject to oversight. So the Senate could recall him, and he only serves on good behavior. But he does, in his notes, make some notes that he thinks it should be hereditary and that the monarch should be above ordinary politics and not subject to law. So, like, it is a weird fusion of monarchy with some kind of democratic elements to check it. It is definitely a representative form of government.

It's a limited monarchy, but it is sort of a monarchy, and it's very quixotic. People kind of can't believe that Alexander Hamilton is coming to the constitutional convention and proposing a monarchy. And so, um, like, he goes on for hours. It is this marathon speech where he lays out exactly why he thinks this is the perfect form of government. Every feature and benefit.

Meanwhile, everyone is just kind of tuned out. Like, what are you talking about? We're not going to have a limited monarchy. We just overthrew the British who have a limited monarchy. And so actually, it's funny, because the next speaker is James Madison.

He just doesn't address it. Like, Hamilton has gone on for hours proposing this plan, and he goes, okay, moving on back to the Virginia plan. And everyone keeps going on about their business. This would prove to be a thorn in Hamilton's side. There was strict secrecy in the constitutional convention.

No one was supposed to say what anyone else had said, right? Because they wanted the freedom to debate what they really believed without it being leaked and people criticizing or critiquing specific plans. It was supposed to be this open air where you could brainstorm and talk about anything. But, of course, if you do something like propose monarchy, that's going to get out, and it did. And so this is something that would kind of haunt him for the rest of his career, is that other people would say, you know, you're just a crypto monarchist, like you don't believe in, in the system of government at all.

I should know. Here's what Chernow writes about it. He says, even here, in his most extreme statement, he called for a chief executive subject to ultimate legislative control. However atrociously misguided the idea was, it fell short of proposing a real monarchy, in which a king has permanent, autonomous hereditary powers that supersede those of all other branches of government. Okay?

But by even attaching his name to the brand of monarchy, which was toxic in the United States at the time, it was a bad idea. One thing that it does do, though, is there's something called the New Jersey plan, and that is the weakest version that's proposed, that that's kind of not that different from the articles of Confederation. So there's the New Jersey plan. Then there's the Virginia plan proposed by Madison, and that is much stronger than the articles of Confederation, but not as strong as Hamilton's plan. And then you have Hamilton's plan.

What Hamilton's plan ends up doing is making the Virginia plan seem more reasonable. A lot of people that had been gravitating towards the New Jersey plan, say, oh, okay, well, when you put it like that, you know, the Virginia plan actually seems moderate and seems like the middle option, the most moderate thing. And so I don't think that was his intention was to, you know, push forward the Virginia plan, but that's the effect that ends up happening. So the Virginia plan is adopted and is recommended by constitutional Congress. And even though it isn't the plan that Hamilton had espoused, he really supports it.

You know, he called together this convention, and he believed that, hey, we're going to debate, we're going to talk. We're going to see what we all think is the best plan, and then whatever we propose, we're going to stick to and we're all going to promote. And so he does. He goes out on the road, and he really supports and advocates for this new constitution, which I think is a testament to not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. You know, he did not think this was a perfect constitution.

He thought it was too democratic, and it didn't give enough authority to the central government, but he thought it was much better than what they had, that it was good enough to build the nation on. And so he really supports it. And I think that's a lesson. Do not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's take a quick break to talk about Henson shaving.

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Okay, so Hamilton is going to go to bat for this new constitution. And one of the big problem areas, actually, was his home state of New York. It was a big state, a lot of power, big port in the city of New York. And so they weren't crazy about giving up a lot of this power to submit themselves to the federal government. And so Hamilton has some work to do in convincing people.

And so he dreams up this series of essays called the Federalist Papers. This will be a point by point explanation of in defense of the Constitution. And so he recruits a few other participants, John Jay and James Madison, to help him write this. And Madison makes some pretty significant contributions. John Jay actually never gets around to writing that much, and Hamilton ends up writing 51 of the 85 essays that go into the federalist papers.

So he writes most of them. And the federalist papers are just magnificent. And it's both a literary and political masterpiece. I. So to get personal here, when I went to college, I was an english major.

I flirted with majoring in history. I might have changed my major to history for a little bit. And then I took a course in constitutional law, and all we did was read and study the federalist papers, and I fell in love. I just, you know, it's a political treatise. It's almost a page turner.

It's written in such a compelling style, especially the essays written by Hamilton. And I was just obsessed. I was like, this is amazing. And so I ended up changing my major to political science. So, you know, I decided what I studied in college based on these papers, the federalist papers.

Hamilton has this amazing ability to be both topical and timeless at the same time to address the issues of the day, because ultimately, this was, like, kind of journalistic, right? He's writing on a specific issue that was pertinent at that period of time. He's working towards an actual event, the passing of the constitution. But he brings his writing back to the core principles that resonate across generations. And so it's timeless at the same time.

And so it's amazing that it can serve the dual purpose of being very timely and very pertinent to people who are thinking, oh, should I vote to pass the Constitution? And also, you know, I can read them in 2009, whatever it was, and still think that it's amazing writing. And it's interesting. He, you know, I talked about this in the first episode that he accomplishes, like, ten times as much as a normal person. So he writes these on a tight deadline because this stuff has to be voted on.

He writes all these 53 essays in less than a year, I think, in a few months. And so it's worth diving into, how does he do this? How does he write so quickly and so well? Contemporary William Sullivan left this account. He said, one who knew his habits of study said of him that when, and he's speaking of Hamilton, when he had a serious object to accomplish, his practice was to reflect on it previously.

And when he had gone through this labor, he retired to sleep without regard to the hour of the night. And having slept six or 7 hours, he rose and having taken strong coffee, seated himself at his table, where he would remain six, seven, or 8 hours. And the product of his rapid pen required little correction for the press. Okay, so I think that's a very interesting strategy. Think, sleep and write.

People talk a lot in that thinking phase. They would see him walking around muttering to himself. He would kind of speak in a very soft voice, and he would do that for hours until he really had his thoughts clear. And then he would sit down to write, and he write it all at once with very, very few corrections. He didn't do a lot of revisions or a lot of drafts.

So I think that's a very interesting approach. The federalist papers were extremely influential at the time. They helped convince a lot of people that the Constitution was a good idea, and they've been very influential since then. The federalist papers have been cited more times by the supreme Court than any other document or any other ruling, any. Anything, including the Constitution itself.

That's how influential they have been in determining what federal law would look like for the next 200 years. So it's difficult to overstate the importance to american government of the federalist papers. One of the reasons is the Constitution is not long and is not detailed. And so in interpreting it, you can take it a lot of different ways. And so to have this much longer document the federalist papers, that explains the thoughts of Hamilton and Madison and Jay, these people who helped to form the constitution, is really helpful in saying, okay, well, this is kind of what we're supposed to do with this.

So Hamilton writes the federalist papers, but it's not just heavy, you know, heady academic work that he's doing. He also, in New York, is on the ground at their constitutional convention, where they bring in all these legislators to vote on. Okay, are we going to pass this constitution? Uh, nine states agree pretty quickly to pass the constitution, but you have some pretty big holdouts, including New York and Virginia. And so Hamilton does some masterful manipulation of procedures.

He inserts a rule, uh, in the proceedings of this convention that every clause of the Constitution has to be debated clause by clause. So this is smart, because, number one, it makes him the expert. No one could compete with him if you're just talking about the constitution as a whole. Okay, Hamilton, you got your opinion? I've got my opinion.

You think it's a good idea? I think it's a bad idea. But if we're talking clause by clause, whether this is a good idea or a bad idea, well, Hamilton is the expert on the Constitution. I'm not an expert, and so it's tough for me to argue with Hamilton in that context. The other thing it does is slow down the proceedings.

This is going to take a long time to debate clause by clause, every clause in the Constitution. And what this does is give more states a chance to pass the constitution, you know, with nine states having passed it. Okay, that's some momentum. But, hey, we're New York. Maybe we could hold out.

But once it's 1011, and then eventually it's twelve states, everyone passes it before New York, then the momentum is so overwhelming. Okay, do we really want to be the people on the outside here? Do we want to be the people who don't pass the Constitution? And. And now we have to think about, all right, like, are we going to rebel against everyone else?

Are we going to try and go our own way? That's pretty audacious to think about. And so by slowing it down and letting the other states pass the constitution, that builds the pressure to pass the constitution. And so eventually does. I mean, it's a very near run thing.

It's very close. The final vote is 30 to 27 in favor of the constitution. And one of the people who changed their votes at the last minute gives credit to Alexander Hamilton and says, a certain gentleman has put forward some pretty persuasive arguments that have allowed me to vote for the constitution. The thing that everyone is worried about when people don't want to pass the constitution, it's because they think that the central government is too strong, especially the executive. So they're looking at this office of the president of the United States, and they're saying, you know, that's a.

That's a pretty powerful president, and that's scary to us because we just had this bad experience with the king of England, and we don't like anything that even remotely looks like a king. And this president, he's like a strong executive. You know, he has all these powers. He controls the army. He seems like a king to me.

And so to me, this is an example of. There is such a thing as learning a lesson, too. Well, right? Something bad happens, and then you overcorrect. Everyone was scarred by their experience under british rule, and anything that even remotely resembled a king was suspect in the eyes of many Americans.

And Hamilton's point was, guys, I hate to break it to you, but the british system, it works pretty well. Like, it enabled this tiny island with no natural resources to become the most powerful nation on earth. Okay, what we need here are small tweaks to make sure you don't have, you know, some tyranny like you had under british rule, but, like, we do not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. This system of government clearly works very well. And so having something that kind of resembles the british system is not a bad thing.

Okay, so I think that's a good lesson. Don't over correct. If you get critiqued or criticized, and it really hits home. Okay, yes, that is probably a shortcoming that you need to address, but you have to be careful not to learn the lesson too much. Don't obsess over it.

Just make the necessary change and move on. Anyway, the constitution passes. It's a near run thing. But, of course, nothing generates enthusiasm like winning. So even though it's very controversial, as soon as the constitution passes, the opposition kind of melts away, and the public gives way to public celebrations.

In New York, Hamilton is celebrated as the hero of the day. Some people even suggest renaming New York City in his honor. Flags are flown with his image on them, and a ship is pulled down Broadway in a big parade that has been rechristened the federal ship Hamilton. Now, the big heroes of the day are Hamilton in New York, Madison in Virginia, and also George Washington. And in fact, I don't think the Constitution would have passed as written if it weren't for Washington, because everyone had him in mind as the first president.

And as I mentioned, everyone was kind of skeptical of this strong executive, but that's kind of softened by, well, we're pretty sure the first executive is gonna be George Washington. And everyone trusts him. Everyone knows he's not power hungry. His character is above reproach, and he was universally beloved. So he was the only person with the public trust to wield this new public office without fear that he would become a king or abuse this power of the presidency.

So Hamilton is one of the many people who writes to George Washington asking him to run for first president of the United States. Of course, we know George Washington accepts, and he wins the election and becomes the first president of the United States of America. As he steps in to office, it's difficult to stress just how uncertain everything was at this point. The constitution was like instructions for a painting. Okay, imagine that you pick up a piece of paper, and it says, okay, paint a woman sitting down wearing a dress, and there's some scenery behind her.

There's a river, some trees, and some mountains. There are billions of ways that you could actually paint that painting. Is the woman facing towards you? Is she facing away from you, looking at the scenery? Is it a profile of the woman?

Are there a lot of trees? Is it a forest? Or is there, just, like, a couple trees? Is she in a grove? Is the river a big rushing river?

Or is it a little stream that's going by, like, the Constitution tells you almost nothing about how to actually run the government. To give one example, the Constitution sets limits on the power of the federal government. They can only make laws in certain domains, like the creation of a military, a postal service, taxation, regulating interstate commerce, stuff like that. Okay, so what happens if Congress passes a law that is unconstitutional? Well, there are vague hints that the judiciary should decide what is and is not constitutional, but there are no processes to do that.

The processor system just has to be invented. And it's, you know, during Washington's administration that this is going to be invented. You know, another question. There's a president, but basically no other instructions about the executive branch of government. What should it look like?

How should it be structured? Are there departments? If so, what are they? How many employees? Who do they report to?

I mean, here's what the constitution says it has a number of clauses stipulating how the president will be chosen and who can serve and how he will be paid. But here are the actual instructions for what the president of the United States actually does. Okay, I am about to read for you the full instructions of the office of the President of the United States. Quote. This is quoting from the Constitution.

The president shall be commander in chief of the army and Navy of the United States and of the militia of the several states. When called into the actual service of the United States. He may require the opinion in writing of the principal officer in each of the executive departments upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices. And he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties provided.

Two thirds of the senators present concur, and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law. He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress information of the state of the Union and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient. He may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think properly. He shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers. He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the offices of the United States.

Okay, so there it is. That's it. I just told you everything. So you get some ambassadors, you get some foreign relations. You get a little bit about his relationship to Congress and what he should do towards them.

You get the state of the union. What you don't get is the explicit mention of taxation of tax collectors. You don't have any supervision over industrial policy, over economic policy, like all the things that the president does today. None of that is in there. And for George Washington, he's a terrific leader, but he just does not have the organizational mind to create this government out of nothing.

And so one of the first people that he calls on is Alexander Hamilton. He actually, at first asks someone else to be treasury secretary, and the guy says, no, the man you're looking for is Alexander Hamilton. And Washington says, Hamilton, finance secretary. You know, you get the idea that George Washington had him in mind to serve in the administration, but probably in the military or some other capacity. They had never discussed finances.

He didn't know that Hamilton had done all of this research into financial and monetary policy. And this guy Morris is his name? Oh, yeah, I've talked to Hamilton. He knows more than anyone about this stuff. Hamilton's the guy you want.

And so Washington brings him on as treasury secretary. But that is kind of misleading. Like, yes, he sets up the treasury, sets up the finances of the United States, but it is Hamilton who, as I mentioned, is really going to be the visionary, the mastermind behind the entire american government. True. Now quotes another historian who writes, Hamilton was an administrative genius who assumed an influence in Washington's cabinet, which is unmatched in the annals of the american cabinet system.

Okay, we've never had a guy like Hamilton. He was essentially the shadow president. Washington asked for his opinion on everything, and he took his opinion on almost everything. So Hamilton gets in there, he's got carte blanche, and the first thing he does is beef up the taxation system. This is going to be the most unpopular measure that he undertakes.

So best to undertake it right after the election, while George Washington is at the peak of his popularity. And what goes into a taxation system? It involves tax collectors, inspectors, a coast guard to clamp down on smuggling and make sure people actually, you know, come to port, pay their taxes and duties, as well as a system of public works like lighthouses, to make american ports an attractive place to come and do business. So Hamilton organizes all this. He's an extremely detailed oriented person, and he carries out this new system with perfection.

Chernow writes, Hamilton's appetite for information was bottomless to his port wardens. He made minute inquiries about their lighthouses, beacons, and buoys. He asked customs collectors for ship manifest so he could ascertain the exact quantity and nature of cargo being exported. The whole statistical basis of government took shape under his command. Okay, I like that.

The whole statistical basis for government took shape under his command. He's the one who says, we need to know everything. We need a quantitative measurement of everything that's happening in the government. He also undertakes two other important measures, the creation of a national bank and the assumption of state debt. Assumption of state debt was the most controversial of these matters, and Hamilton thought it was essential.

A number of states had issued debt to fund the revolutionary war, and Hamilton wanted to nationalize it, take on all the state debts, and convert it into us debt. Now, this was controversial for a few reasons. One was that the idea of a national debt at all was controversial. You know, again, people viewed the british system with the bank of England. Um, and they saw that, hey, this bank of England that funds the british navy, the british army, like this is a source of tyranny.

So many people wanted no national debt at all. And then many states, especially southern states, had almost completely paid off their debt already. So they're saying, okay, you essentially want us, through taxes, to help pay off the debts of Massachusetts and New York and some of these northern states. Like, this is. It's like an anti socialism argument, right?

Like, why should we pay for the financial mismanagement of other states? Now, Hamilton's rebuttal would be, yeah, you paid off more of your debt, but part of that is because you did less fighting in the Revolutionary War. The North was the main theater of war, and as a consequence, they raised more troops, more material. So Hamilton and his backers say, yeah, we should help pay the debts of these states who did more to win the revolutionary war for all of us. All of us have our independence now.

So Hamilton goes on a high pressure lobbying campaign to see this plan of assumption and a national bank passed in Congress. He has many enemies, especially southerners, and especially James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton and Madison had just collaborated on the constitution and the federalist papers, but now they have this big falling out over this plan for. For a bank and the assumption of state debt. There's a famous incident in 1790 where Hamilton says, okay, Jefferson, Madison, like, we have to work something out.

And so he invites them to a dinner and says, come on, guys, let's. Let's come to a deal. And they come to a compromise. The actual capital of the United States was still in the air for the moment. He was in New York, uh, but it was viewed as a provisional capital.

No decision had been made on where the permanent capital would be. And there was debate about whether it should be in New York or Philadelphia or maybe somewhere in New Jersey or somewhere in the south. And Hamilton says, if you guys pass this assumption plan and a national bank, then I will give you the capital. We'll put it somewhere in the south. We'll put it in Virginia.

And Jefferson and Madison agree. This is called the compromise of 1790. It's sometimes referred to as the dinner table bargain because they just hash it out over this dinner. And it is Hamilton at his best. He had this amazing ability to see what really mattered most, even when it sometimes appeared less significant than others perceived.

You know, here, the national capital is going to bring immediate benefits. Right? The national capital comes to Virginia, all of a sudden you have this big economic boom because you're going to have all these government employees, and they're going to buy land. And so you have an increase in land prices, and they're going to need businesses to supply them with food and materials. And if the decisions are being made close to home, maybe that's going to advantage you a little bit.

Like, the benefits are immediate. However, in the long run, this assumption of state debt and this creation of a bank is going to tie all of the states together. It's going to create a kind of irrevocable basis for this federal government that can't be undone. And so, yeah, they get the capital, but Hamilton gets the full vision for what the federal government will become. He gets to create that.

And so it seems like a compromise, but it's actually totally lopsided in Hamilton's favor. Madison and Jefferson kind of think, well, we can always, you know, repeal this stuff later. But it turns out you can't. Um, once the stuff gets implemented, it has a way of hanging around. So, you know, this ability of Alexander Hamilton to see what is actually the most significant issue and attack that issue reminds me a lot of Alexander the Great.

You know, famously, at the battle of Gaga Mila, he's outnumbered, he's out positioned, he's in horrible circumstances. And the battle starts, and he realizes that he's losing. But he says, I don't need to defeat the persian army. I just need to defeat the persian king, Darius. So at the decisive moment of the battle, he takes his elite cavalry and makes a direct attack on Darius himself and his royal bodyguard.

And Darius, who's in personal danger, turns and flees. And his army, which is winning at the time, sees their king retreating, running away. And even though they're winning, this freaks them out, and they turn and run as well. So both Alexanders had this ability to ignore everything except for the crux, the most important issue, and focus on that and win by focusing on that most important thing. And, look, he was right.

You know, Ronald Reagan joked that a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth. All respect to Brian Johnson, who disagrees, but it's true that these government bureaus, they have all this bureaucratic inertia. They're very hard to undo once they've been enacted. And when Thomas Jefferson eventually becomes president eight years later, you know, he has this intention of undoing all of Hamilton's work. He's gonna get in there and just press undo.

But what actually happens is he gets in the presidency and he looks at all the revenue that's coming in from this national bank and all the stuff that he can fund with it, and he's like, yeah, I kind of need this. And actually, after him, Madison becomes president. And Madison is like, no, no, no, I'm a committed ideologue. I am going to repeal the charter of the, of the us bank. And so he lets it expire.

The bank goes away within a matter of months. Madison is like, man, I can't fund anything. I need that bank. And so he recharters the, the, the national bank. So Hamilton, this is a genius plan that allows him to shape the future of the federal government in a real and lasting way.

Passing this stuff has a number of effects. One is an economic boom. When you have the nation put on sound economic footing, you have this great economic upswing. But it also, at the same time, and Hamilton should have foreseen this, creates a lot of resentment, especially in the south, because these new treasuries, these new bonds sold by this national bank, are only sold in New York. Okay, so if you're a southerner, like, okay, yeah, maybe if you're a wealthy southerner, you're going to sail up from, you know, whatever, Georgia and come buy us bonds.

But probably not. The overwhelming majority of these bonds are sold to New Yorkers and beyond. New Yorkers, northerners, right? You might come down from Boston. That's a much easier trip than, from, uh, than from Georgia.

But southerners are essentially frozen out of this bonanza of financial speculation that comes with this new national bank. So that's a tactical error by Hamilton. By having said that, the reason that there is such strong opposition to this bank is not these small tactical errors, but it's because people like Jefferson and Madison oppose not only a national bank, but the idea of banks in general. Okay, it's kind of hard to imagine in the year 2024, but they want no banks. They just don't think they're necessary to a functioning economy.

And they thought they were cesspools of corruption, which, you know, fact checked. True. But, I mean, in the long run, yes, a modern economy needs banks to function. And Hamilton was dragging the country into modernity, kicking and screaming in the case of people like Madison and Jefferson. And so Chernow points out that it basically falls to Hamilton to single handedly create a blossoming market economy.

Here's what he writes. Quote, Hamilton did not create America's market economy so much as foster the cultural and legal setting in which it flourished. A capitalist society requires certain preconditions. Among other things, it must establish a rule of law through enforceable contracts, respect private property, create a trustworthy bureaucracy to arbitrate legal disputes, and offer patents and other protections to promote invention. The abysmal failure of the articles of confederation to provide such an atmosphere was one of Hamilton's principal motives for promoting the Constitution.

It is known, he wrote, that the relaxed conduct of the state governments in regards to property and credit was one of the most serious diseases under which the body public labored prior to the adoption of our present constitution and was a natural material cause of the state of public opinion, which led to its adoption. Okay, so Hamilton is creating the conditions under which a market economy can flourish. Now, one concern that Washington has with all of this is, is any of it even constitutional? The constitution does not specifically authorize the creation of a central bank to issue debt on behalf of the government. And so he asks Jefferson, is this constitutional?

And Jefferson writes him a letter saying, no, it's not, and giving reasons why it's not. And then he asks Hamilton, who writes a 40 page, 15,000 word defense of the funding scheme. Okay, he's in a great position to do this because not only was he the nation's and perhaps the world's foremost expert on central banking, he was also the greatest living scholar on constitutional law, having written most of the federalist papers. And the crux of his argument lies with what is called the implied powers doctrine, which takes use of the necessary and proper clause. Okay, so this clause is a clause in the constitution that says the government shall have power, quote, to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers and all other powers vested by the constitution in the government of the United States or in any department or office thereof.

Okay, so it's really just kind of like a technical point that, yes, like, you can do anything necessary and proper to carrying out the powers vested in you in the government. And so Hamilton says, yes, the constitution does not authorize the creation of the central bank, but a central bank is necessary to the execution of all other governmental powers because it allows us to raise the funds to carry them out. So it's a revolutionary interpretation, one that would influence constitutional law up to the present day. And if I'm putting on my constitutional lawyer hat, I'm a real expert here. I took a whopping three classes on constitutional law in undergrad.

To me, though, from what I can see, this argument is pretty thin. Like, you can argue almost anything is necessary and proper. Who's to say what is necessary and proper to the carrying out of constitutional authority? It basically removes all checks on what authority is constitutionally delegated to the federal government. And this is not just my idea.

Henry Cabot Lodge was an american senator in the late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, great statesman. And he wrote that the implied powers enunciated by Hamilton was the most formidable weapon in the armory of the Constitution, capable of conferring on the federal government powers of almost any extent. The Supreme Court took up this idea of the implied powers doctrine. John Marshall, famous Supreme Court justice, was like a big devotee, a big admirer of Hamilton, and he just takes this and runs with it implied powers doctrine. And in my mind, this is when the government ceases to be Madison's creation, even though he's the one who actually wrote the Constitution and becomes Hamilton's government.

Madison is known as the father of the Constitution, but he's just not. Hamilton is. Madison wrote some words on some paper, yes, but that's not what a constitution is. A real constitution is how the government operates. And it was Hamilton who determined that by his work as treasury secretary and by his work in creating this implied powers doctrine.

In the show Game of Thrones in the first season, there's this succession crisis. The king dies, and his good friend Ned Stark is on one side, and the deceased king's wife and young son are on the other side who is going to take over for this deceased King and Ned Stark. Lord Stark had gone and seen the king right before he passed away and got him to sign a paper saying that Lord Stark should be the lord and protector of the realm after I die. Okay? He signs this on his deathbed.

And so there's this big crisis in. In the throne room, and Ned Stark marches in and says, no, I'm in charge here. And he holds up this paper, and he has someone open it and read it. And it says, you know, signed by King Robert Baratheon, Ned Starch. I'll be the lord and protector after I pass.

And then the queen, who's on the other side, says, can I see that? And then she rips it up and she says, is this meant to be your shield, Lord Stark? A piece of paper? And then she tells the guards to arrest him. And I think it's a really interesting point.

Right? Like, paper is not what determines what actually happens in the battle between action and paper. Action always wins. And that is what Hamilton is essentially doing here. He is the Cersei Lannister of early America.

He's saying, nice paper, Madison. Actually, we can do anything that we can argue is necessary and proper for the government to carry out its duties. And that is almost anything. And so it's my government now. That is why historians write things like, quote, Hamilton's works.

And words have been more consequential than those of any other american in shaping the constitution under which we live. And I agree, Hamilton shaped the constitution even more than the guy who wrote the constitution. Okay, so that is how Hamilton shapes the federal government under Washington. He does a lot of other things, too. Uh, one of the big ones is that you have your first minor rebellion in response to some of Hamilton's taxes.

It's called the whiskey rebellion. And Washington and Hamilton go and personally lead federal troops in response to this rebellion. It's an overwhelming response. Some might say it was overkill, but it was an important move to show just how powerful this government was. This is not negotiable.

You pay your taxes. We're in charge here. He also does a lot in foreign affairs. Like, Hamilton is the treasury secretary, but he has his fingers in every branch of government, and he shapes everything that happens, especially in the first four years of Washington's presidency. Now, at the same time, he's selling the seeds of his own defeat.

During his tenure as treasury secretary, there's a very famous incident that would do more than anything else to ruin Hamilton's career. A woman named Maria Reynolds. It's spelled Maria, but apparently it's pronounced Mariah. Actually, Mariah Reynolds comes to Hamilton and gives him this sob story about her abusive husband. She says, you know, he had abused her and then left her in the lurch with no money to travel home, so she's just stuck.

And Hamilton always had a soft spot for orphans and destitute women because of his childhood. And so he's moved by this plea and he says, hey, you know, I'll see what I can do. I'll meet you later. So he goes over to her house later that night with some money, and she says, come on in, and accepts the money and then makes it clear that she is very thankful for his support. And, you know, would you like me to make it up to you, sir?

However I can. You're my hero, mister. Alexander Hamilton, so, you know, you can paint the picture in your head. And Hamilton begins an affair with Mariah Reynolds that would run on for months. Well, it's not too long until her husband shows up at Hamilton's office and he says, I know about this affair.

And he blackmails Hamilton, and Hamilton pays him hush money. Now, Hamilton was always conflicted about whether Mariah Reynolds actually liked him, and it just came to blackmail later or whether this was a scheme from the beginning to extort him. I kind of think it was a scheme from the beginning. She and her husband were these very shady characters. Anyway, the whole thing is convoluted.

But basically everyone suspects Hamilton of some sort of corruption, in part because of the Reynolds affair, because there are these irregular payments coming out of his account. Like, people can tell, um, there's something shady going on here. And then the other thing to consider is that the temptation for financial double dealing as treasury secretary would have been enormous. The pay was very low, and he has insider knowledge of tons of stuff that was likely to move markets. It would have been really easy to make a fortune dealing in government bonds or to just instruct someone else to deal in government bonds and make a fortune on his behalf.

But Hamilton was absolutely above reproach. He never gave out secrets to his friends. He never owned any government bonds, never made any trades on his own account while he was treasury secretary. This government was his creation, his baby, and he wanted to make sure that it was a sterling success. And so his behavior was always perfect in that regard.

So when there starts to be some scuttlebutt about Hamilton and secret payments, he is investigated for corruption. These payments that are going to James Reynolds for hush money. People assume that they are. And so there are some legislators assigned to be government investigators. Three people, including James Monroe, future president of the United States.

So they come to Hamilton's house to confront him about these charges. And Hamilton immediately begins to tell them the story of what happened. And he produces documents, and he's going into details. And these three legislators are, like, cool, we believe you. Please don't tell us anything more.

And Hamilton, who has this just shocking lack of discretion, he has this, like, autistic need to say the full truth all the time, insists on giving them all the dirty details. It's a funny scene. These investigators are, like, clearly extremely uncomfortable as he's telling them, like, detailed descriptions of his liaisons with this woman. But they go home satisfied that. That Hamilton is not actually corrupt, but that he has just been kind of hoodwinked and blackmailed by this guy.

But Monroe, one of the investigators, asks for the documents in order to make copies, to have to prove that what has actually happened here. And it turns out to be a big mistake by Hamilton to allow, you know, any papers to leave his site, because, as it would happen, the papers end up leaking. So in 1797, after Hamilton was finished as treasury secretary, some of the documents are published in a newspaper. Monroe probably didn't intentionally leak them, but through his carelessness, they fell into the hands of some of Hamilton's enemies. And the story isn't entirely clear.

You know, there's just some papers, and there are still allegations that, you know, James Reynolds wasn't just blackmailing him, but that he was using him for some sort of financial malfeasance. And so Hamilton makes one of the biggest mistakes of his career. He writes and publishes something now known as the Reynolds pamphlet. It's a 95 page explanation of what had happened. And by the way, the full name of the pamphlet gives you an idea of Hamilton's verbosity.

The full name is observations on certain documents contained in number five and six of history of the United States for the year 1796, in which the charge of speculation against Alexander Hamilton, late secretary of the treasury, is fully refuted. Okay, he was not known for his brevity, Alexander Hamilton, but he writes this 95 page once again. He almost, like, had this need for catharsis, this need to get it off his chest, to say everything that had happened. I think it was like eating at him, this secrecy. And so, um, in this 95 page pamphlet, he gives all, once again, all the dirty details, describes all the liaisons.

And so this pamphlet that Hamilton himself writes makes him a laughingstock. To paraphrase the diplomat talleyrand, it was worse than a crime. It was a blunder. I think a good comparison is with Thomas Jefferson. So Thomas Jefferson eventually becomes president.

He had a slave named Sally Hemings, and he probably had sexual relations with her. She had a few children, and Thomas Jefferson was probably the father of at least one of them. And there were rumors about this. And then during Jefferson's presidency, the story was finally published in a newspaper that Jefferson is the father of this. This half black child with a slave of his.

And Jefferson just refused to comment and let the story kind of die. Like, it was still out there. It was a rumor, but it couldn't totally be confirmed. And so, you know what? The Republicans still support him.

The federalists still oppose him. You know, who cares? And that is exactly what Hamilton should have done. Like, he should have just not commented and kind of let the story die on its own. Honestly, any strategy would have been better than what Hamilton decided to do, which was blow up the story as big as possible, give as many details as possible.

Like, it's just. It was an insane response, and it was a blunder. And it's probably the reason why Hamilton never decided to run for president even before it came out. He knew that others knew, and it was likely to be used against him if he ever ran for president. So it's kind of like this sword of Damocles hanging over him the entire time, for his entire political life.

And the other thing that makes this kind of more dangerous to him is the fact that it's at this time that political parties are first coming into existence. So George Washington ran without a political party. Initially, there was a thought that they weren't necessary and they were not desirable. They were called factions, and factionalism was seen as very deleterious for a republican form of government. Okay, you don't want people disagreeing on all this stuff and having all these strong interests and opposing each other.

But, I mean, realistically, political parties were probably inevitable. And as fate would have it, they basically arise in response to Alexander Hamilton. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison start to organize what would become the Democratic Republican Party. And they were known as Republicans for short. And in response, Alexander Hamilton organizes the federalist party.

Republicans were in favor of a small federal government, stronger state governments. They favored agrarian interests, opposed banks, opposed the standing army, and wanted lower taxes, just to name some of the key issues. They were more democratic in nature and more ideologically leftist. They came to sympathize with the French Revolution. Okay, and their opponents would call them Jacobins.

Right? They thought they were just french revolutionaries in disguise, whereas the federalists favored a stronger central government. They favored industrial and commercial interests, favored a strong banking system and a standing army. They wanted higher taxes to fund all of this. And they were seen as more aristocratic in their disposition.

They abhorred the French Revolution when it came and identified more with England, both as an example of how to do things and as a trading partner. Now, as you may have noticed, I said that Jefferson led the republican party and Hamilton led the federalist party, which is a problem because they're both serving in the same administration under George Washington. There were these intense, drawn out fights between the two. They just argued all the time. They're constantly on the opposite sides of every issue.

Washington usually sided with Hamilton, though not always. And increasingly, especially after his reelection in 1792. Washington comes to be seen as a federalist. He won't say he's a federalist. He says he's nonpartisan.

But the Republicans increasingly hate Washington, and. And everyone thinks that he is a federalist. And all his policies, frankly, are federalist. And part of this is that, like Hamilton, he had this skepticism of democracy, of common people. You know, he believed that you needed intelligent, enlightened people to be in charge and to manage things.

Okay? And so, as I mentioned, like, a lot of this is seen through the lens of the French Revolution, which breaks out in 1789, during Washington's term in office. And this was not just remote for the United States, it was personal. It was on their doorstep. Because when the French Revolution breaks out, and especially when the terror comes and they're executing all these people, then you have a ton of refugees fleeing France to wherever they could go.

Number of them go to England, number of them go to various places in Germany, and a number elected to come to the United States of America. You know, especially because America was seen as, like, a beacon of republican hope. So when the terror happens, you especially have a lot of moderate revolutionaries, like moderate liberals who had initially gone with the revolution, but then they weren't extreme enough for Robespierre. Those are the kind of people oftentimes who flee to the United States of America. As the senior ranking official who spoke French more or less natively, and as someone who sympathized with those who opposed the excesses of the French Revolution, Hamilton took on a role as the sort of unofficial ambassador to exiled Frenchmen.

He frequently hosted dinners of prominent french exiles. He helped them set up communities and social functions and find their feet when they came to America. And it was in this capacity that he had the opportunity to intimately get to know the french diplomat Talleyrand. And they frequently shared dinners together. They attended events, they discussed the news of the day, they became friends.

And then, of course, when Napoleon came to power, Talleyrand was able to go back to France, where he served as Napoleon's head diplomat. So when in the first episode, I said that Talleyrand thought that the only person who topped Napoleon as the greatest man of the epic was Hamilton. This is someone who knew what he was talking about. He was very close friends with Hamilton, got to see him work, and he was a close associate of Napoleon's as well, and got to see him work, and he thought that Hamilton was even greater than Napoleon. Okay, so, you know, you have Jefferson who says the French Revolution is great, and when they start chopping off heads, he's like, well, yeah, what did you think revolution meant?

Good vibes. You know, if you want to make an omelet, you gotta crack some eggs. And then you got Hamilton, who always feared public disorder, feared the mob, and he is just aghast. He can't believe um, that anyone would support this french revolution. And so they are just increasingly at each other's throats.

And so eventually it's like, all right, this situation can't go on. And Hamilton has kind of accomplished most of the things that he thinks he needs to. And so Jefferson and Hamilton both depart from the Washington administration during his second term. Early on in Washington's second term, I like Washington's response to Hamilton's resignation letter, because I think it shows you how much respect he had for him. He wrote, in every relation which you have borne to me, I have found that my confidence in your talents, exertions, and integrity has been well placed.

I more freely render this testimony of my approbation because I speak from opportunities of information which cannot deceive me and which furnish satisfactory proof of your title to public. Regardless, my most earnest wishes for your happiness will attend you in retirement. Okay, so Washington, a little ambivalent about Jefferson, who has been increasingly publicly criticizing Washington, although doing it anonymously and organizing opposition to him, even as he's serving in his administration. But he has no ambivalence towards Hamilton. Like, he just really loves and respects him and appreciates what he's done for the administration, and he has done a fantastic job.

I also like Ron Chernow's summary of Hamilton's years as treasury secretary, and I think this passage helps hit home just how much he accomplished and how important he was to the formation of the government of the United States. Chernow writes, whatever his disappointments, Hamilton, 40, must have left Philadelphia with an immense feeling of accomplishment. The whiskey rebellion had been suppressed, the country's finances flourished, and the investigation into his affairs had ended with a ring exoneration. He had prevailed in almost every major program he had sponsored, whether the bank assumption, funding the public debt, the tax system, the customs service, or the Coast Guard. Despite years of complaints and bitter smears, John Quincy Adams later stated that his financial system operated like enchantment for the restoration of public credit.

Bankrupt. When Hamilton took office, the United States now enjoyed a credit rating equal to that of any european nation. He had laid the groundwork for both liberal democracy and capitalism and helped to transform the role of the president from passive administrator to active policymaker, creating the institutional scaffolding for America's future emergence as a great power. He had demonstrated the creative uses of government and helped to weld the states irreversibly into one nation. He had also defended Washington's administration more brilliantly than anyone else, articulating its constitutional underpinnings and enunciating key tenets of foreign policy.

We look in vain for a man who in an equal space of time, has produced such direct and lasting effects upon our institutions in history. Henry Cabot Lodge was to contend. Okay, well, when Hamilton leaves the Washington administration, he resumes life as a lawyer. And it's worth delving a little bit into his legal career. We're gonna have to wind back the clock a little bit, because he was also a private lawyer in between the end of the Revolutionary War and the beginning of his time in the Washington administration.

So, winding back the clock after the warm, he completes a three year legal education in nine months. You didn't have to go to law school, but you had to study a set curriculum, and students often compiled their notes into a notebook that covered their thoughts and takeaways on the entire body of law. Hamilton's notes, called practical proceedings, cover 137 pages and were used as a textbook by many New York law students for decades. And again, he did this in just nine months. He's an excellent attorney.

He works himself into a passion as he is speaking, which I think is a very effective way to speak. If you start in a passion, you know, you just start at full steam, then that can sound discordant and jarring to a listener who is not as passionate as you are. But if you build up to it, if you slowly gain steam and enthusiasm as you make better and better points, until finally, at the end, you're just fired with passion, then the listener comes along that journey with you. They feel that same passion that you do. So it's a very effective tactic that he uses.

You may have also noticed that a lot of people talk about his eyes when they describe Hamilton. We heard that in the first episode and in the context of being a lawyer, many people mentioned his stare, that he would stare unblinkingly, very intensely at the jury or at whoever he was examining. And I think this is interesting. It reminds me, of course, of Steve Jobs. Many people mentioned how he would just stare at you when he was talking to you.

This is something that Grigori Rasputin also was famous for. It was a big part of his mystique. Anyways, this might be the biggest hack to charisma, is to just lock in on people when you talk to them and fix them with a gaze. And Hamilton was known for doing that as well. If he had a weakness as a lawyer, it was the same as everything else in his life.

He was a win bag. He could just go on for too long. One contemporary wrote, I used to tell him that he was not content with knocking his opponent in the head, but that he persisted until he had banished every little insect that buzzed around his ears. As a lawyer, he quickly becomes friends, kind of frenemies, with Aaron Burr, another hotshot lawyer. They would travel the circuit together, taking cases.

Sometimes they would work together on the same case, on the same side, but more often they worked against each other. But even though they represented clients on different sides of the same case, they still had a sense of professionalism and would go out for drinks or grab dinner together afterwards. Both Burr and Hamilton confirmed that in nonpolitical matters, they tended to get along quite well. And one reason that he needed to go back to work as a lawyer after the Washington administration was because he wasn't making much money in the Treasury Department. His family was growing, and he needed the income.

So he's often working with big commercial cases in New York City for major enterprises where there's a fat legal fee involved. He's essentially working in big law now. Just because he had a thriving legal practice, that doesn't mean that he's completely done with politics and government. He continues to advise Washington, who frequently writes to him asking for his advice and policy recommendations. One of the things that he masterminds is something called the J treaty.

There were a number of disagreements between America and Great Britain since the end of the Revolutionary War. Britain was capturing american sailors and pressing them into service in the british military. Often these were dual citizens, people who had been english and had immigrated to America. And in the eyes of Great Britain, they're like, no, you still owe military service. Additionally, Britain still had not evacuated some of the forts that they had promised to.

Britain thought that America wasn't paying up on some of their commercial debts that were owed. There were disputes over the placement of the border between the US and Canada and the property rights of british loyalists who had had their property seized since the revolution and onerous burdens that had been placed on american trade in the Caribbean. So there are all these various legal and trade disputes. So John Jay is sent by Washington to Great Britain to negotiate a treaty with instructions from Hamilton on what the treaty should look like. Probably Hamilton himself should have been sent, and he was considered.

But he was such a partisan figure that Jay, who was brilliant but less capable than Hamilton, went in his place. You know, by this time, the republican party, led by Jefferson, like their entire platform, is opposition to Hamilton. He is the boogeyman. He is the Donald Trump of his time. Okay, not obviously.

Trump and Hamilton are very different. Very, very different. People, in terms of their approach to life and their intellect, they're very different. But I'm just saying that they are similar in this one narrow, regardless that they are the person that everyone reacts to, that politics kind of revolves around at this time, Jefferson and american leftists, they just hated him. And there were daily attacks in their newspapers on Hamilton.

They accused him of colluding with Great Britain, the same way that Trump was accused of colluding with Russia. He was the defining personality. He's constantly accused of monarchism. They say that he wants to end the revolution and republican government, that he's betrayed everything that the american revolution stood for. And so it was probably a good call by Washington not to send Hamilton this very divisive figure, to go negotiate this treaty.

The Jay treaty, regardless, is, on one hand, a huge success, and on the other, deeply unpopular. The reason that it was unpopular is that Great Britain had the greatest navy on earth. America could not compete with them, and so Britain could, in many ways, dictate terms. You know, maybe you're thinking, well, wait, we just had the Revolutionary War. I thought America had shown that they could compete with Great Britain, and they had shown in the Revolutionary War that, yeah, England couldn't occupy the United States and hold it against Americans wills, but in a more limited war, Britain could have absolutely devastated american commerce and ruined us economically.

And so when the treaty comes back and Britain doesn't fully promise to stop impressing american sailors and won't fully allow the US to trade with France, it looks bad. We didn't get everything that we wanted, but it is a huge success because it avoids war and it gets America a pretty good trade deal with a nation that was still, by far, their biggest trade partner. And this is one of those rare moments in history where you get to see the counterfactual, because when Thomas Jefferson becomes president, he allows the jay treaty to lapse and he pursues a bellicose attitude toward Great Britain. So he basically just undoes everything that is done with the Jay treaty, as does his successor, James Madison, who is kind of a protege of Thomas Jefferson's. And this leads to the War of 1812, where Britain is able to maintain an effective blockade of the US, slap around american troops in Canada, and even march into Washington and burn down the new american capital.

It's a pointless and costly conflict that gains America nothing. And it's exactly what would have happened, you know, 15 years earlier if the Jay treaty had never been passed. So, again, it's fairly unpopular because it looks like the Washington administration is just kowtowing to England, especially with Republicans who regard it as tantamount to treason. But it's actually a very effective treaty, and Hamilton is just barely able to see it ratified in the Senate, and it becomes law. So that is a governmental accomplishment of Hamilton, that he is the one who masterminds it.

He's the one who pushes it through, even though he's officially not in office anymore. When Washington steps down from the presidency after two terms, eight years, he is succeeded by his vice president, John Adams. Adams is a very interesting person. He was absolutely brilliant, but at the same time, he was incredibly vain and suspicious and just very prickly, very difficult to deal with. And his relationship with Hamilton was always fraught.

And then towards the end of the Washington administration, it really sours. It goes south. And so Adams tries to freeze Hamilton out of his administration. He doesn't want any Hamilton influence in the Adams administration, but he makes a big mistake. He keeps all of Washington's department heads not realizing that they are all Hamilton loyalists.

And so even when Hamilton is out of power, he's still kind of in power, still pulling the strings behind the scenes. John Adams was not a very good manager. And so in absence of strong leadership, his secretaries are looking for someone to give them a strong vision and strong direction and what they should do. And so they're often just going behind his back and back, channeling with Hamilton and carrying out his orders. The Adams administration brings us one of the most interesting moments of Hamilton's career, because there is something that happens that almost changes everything.

And I mean everything. So during the Adams administration, there is something called the quasi war, and this is an undeclared naval war between France and the US. Okay, I think I talked about this in the Washington episode, but basically, the United States had taken out significant loans from France to fund the revolutionary war. Well, when the French Revolution happens, the US stops paying back their loans, and the French say, what are you doing? This is dishonest.

You owe us all this money. And the US says, we didn't have an agreement with the Republic of France. We had an agreement with the king of France. And by the way, you just chopped his head off. So, like, we don't owe you anything.

In fact, like, you're enemies with the guy that we owed this money to. And so there's this disagreement, right? That America thinks that their agreement was with the king of France. France says, no, it was just with France, the government of France. And you owe us this money.

And so France responds by. By seizing american merchant ships and so then America responds by firing back. And before you know it, you have an undeclared quasi war going on between France and America where you have these ships firing at each other. Now, it is in the midst of this quasi war that the Adams administration passes the alien and seditions acts, which increased restrictions on becoming an american citizen, in part because you had all these Irish at this time, immigrating into the US. And they were catholic, they tended to side with the French, and they tended to have radical republican views.

And so they kind of want to block these people from becoming us citizens and being able to vote and lending more support to the republicans. So that is the alien part and then the sedition part. It cracked down on a bunch of different forms of speech that were critical of the government. And so, you know, what you have at this time period is it's essentially America's first red scare. Okay?

Not many people know that the first red scare was actually in the 1790s. Obviously, the term communism hadn't been invented. Karl Marx wasn't on the scene yet. But the French Revolution was essentially a proto communist revolution, complete with militant atheism, the upending of social norms, radical taxation. And it had the ideological pull in the same way that communism did in the 20th century.

And Adams and Hamilton and these guys are anti communists in the same way that someone like McCarthy was. And they take many of the same actions in order to try and stamp it out. Jefferson and Madison and the Republicans were, of course, sympathetic to this line of revolutionary thought. In fact, Hamilton wrote that he thought that if France tried to invade the US, that Jefferson and the republican party would form a fifth column to support them. So it's in this hyper partisan context and in the context of this quasi war, the Adams decides that America needs to prepare for war.

An army is raised, Washington is put in charge of it, and Washington says, hey, I'm only going to take this position if Hamilton can be my number two. And by the way, I'm old now. I don't plan on doing a whole lot. So really, Hamilton is going to be in charge of this defensive army to protect us from France. And Adam says, no way.

I hate that guy. I hate Hamilton. But he basically gets overridden. Washington says, sorry is the only way I'm taking this position. Everyone knows that Washington has to lead the army.

And so finally, Adams has to throw his hands up and say, fine, you know, have it your way. And so Hamilton gets put in charge of this new, expanding american army. Now the revolutionary wars are going on in Europe, France doesn't exactly have the flexibility to launch a transatlantic invasion of the United States. So what is this army going to do? And Hamilton draws up a plan.

He wants to invade french owned Louisiana and then invade spanish controlled Florida. Spain was allied with France at the time and then launch an invasion of South America, starting with Venezuela. These plans were drawn up without presidential authority or approval, and I think Hamilton was serious about them. He had this unbelievable ambition for military glory, and that hadn't been completely sated by the revolutionary War. And if he had done this, you know, Louisiana would not have been a problem, Florida would not have been a problem.

South America, like, okay, that's stretching it. Could the US really have funded an invasion of South America? I don't know, but if anyone could have pulled it off, it would have been Hamilton. And if he had pulled this off, if he had returned from South America at the back of a victorious army with an entire continent of profitable colonies that he had personally won at his back, you know, what would Hamilton have done? I still don't think, in the end, he would have launched a coup.

He cared too much about the United States, the Constitution, this government that he had really built with his own hands. I think that this was the accomplishment that he was most proud of, and I think in the final conclusion, he wouldn't have dismantled it. But also, I mean, I don't know, why else do you plan military adventures without presidential approval? I mean, if anyone was capable of pulling off a coup and, you know, running America by military dictatorship, it was Hamilton. So, I know this is not typically how we think of Hamilton, but I think there is a chance that Hamilton could have become the American Napoleon and reigned officially as president, but with more or less monarchical powers.

And if that had happened, I think he either would have flamed out like Napoleon, you know, embroiled the US in so many wars that he eventually just lost everything. Or he would have made the US a world power by, like, 1830, with significant colonies all over the world, especially the Americas, and challenged Great Britain for world supremacy with basically nothing in between. Like, either he would have flamed out or he would have made America a great world empire 100 years before it did eventually happen. So, you know, I'm a little torn on this. Obviously, I'm glad things turned out the way they did and that we have a democratic republic and the US is great.

Love, love american history as it happened. But I don't know, there is something kind of attractive that it would have just been interesting to see what Hamilton really could have done with a great army at his back and with kind of despotic powers. I really think he would have pushed America forward. At what cost, of course, is the question. But it's just, it's interesting to consider, as it happened, Adams negotiated a peace treaty with France which completely undercut the need for an army.

And then President Adams disbands this new army at the first possible moment, destroying any possibility of carrying out any of this. And this peace treaty that Adams signs was controversial in and of itself with the federalists. They opposed it for much the same reason that the Republicans opposed the J treaty. Their domestic partisanship had an international bentley. And so peace with France was peace with the hated Jacobins.

It's like, you know, you're compromising with the commies. So anyway, similar to the J treaty, it is actually a good move for the United States. It brings peace, it brings economic prosperity, even though it's not popular with one of the parties, you know, it was the right move. And Adams didn't do himself any favors in passing it. He went about it in a very weird way.

He didn't consult anyone else. He kind of quixotically sends this secret delegation to France and negotiates a peace treaty in secret. And so it's a good decision to do this peace treaty, but it's carried out in a suboptimal way. And this has political implications for Adams down the line as he is alienating his federalist base. Hamilton actually struggled with depression throughout his life.

He would have these violent mood swings and really go into a deep funk. And this was a moment of deep depression for him. After this peace treaty is signed, Washington has just died. His political influence had, in a matter of just a few years, gone from the most powerful man in the nation to very little influence. And, you know, this is at the same time that the Reynolds affair is becoming public.

And now his dreams of military glory are dashed forever. As well as Adams dismantles this army. So it is in this funk that Hamilton makes the third great mistake of his career. The first was his speech at the constitutional convention espousing some form of monarchy that came back to bite him. The second great mistake was the Reynolds pamphlet.

And the third is this anti Adams pamphlet that Hamilton writes. It's written as a private document meant to be circulated among powerful federalist politicians. And it's supposed to serve as an argument for why Adams should be kicked off the ticket for president in 1800 and replaced with a friend of his named Charles Pinckney. It's a total character assassination. He gets stories and quotes from current and former government officials.

He airs all the dirty laundry of the Adams administration. He talks about his temper, his vanity, his lack of communication, his poor leadership. Hamilton brings up his own personal grievances, which makes this just seem petty and absurdly. He ends it by offering a tepid endorsement of Adams. He just totally destroys his character and then says, but of course, we can't have Jefferson so vote for him.

I guess if we can't have Pinckney. Now, this, again is supposed to be a private letter, but of course this letter leaks. Like, obviously it's so predictable that this is going to get out. And so Hamilton has gifted the Republicans a full repudiation of Adams by the founder of the federalist party just weeks before the election for president. It totally fails in its stated goal of getting the federalists to nominate Pinckney and only succeeds in damaging Adams on the eve of an election.

And so Adams has kind of alienated himself from federalists. Well, now Hamilton is also alienating himself from the federalist party because, you know, he's. He's attacking the leader of the party and destroying their chances. I get the impression that none of this would have happened if Washington was still alive. The monarchy speech happened when he wasn't working for Washington.

The Reynolds pamphlet was written after he left the Washington administration. And this anti Adams screed was written after Washington's death. It is true that Hamilton was the greater genius of the two, but Washington had the better judgment and a more even keel. And so I just think if Washington had still been around and he had gotten an early look at this paper, he would have said, hamilton, you cannot write this. You got to put this away.

Like, this is idiotic. What are you thinking? And he just had great judgment. And that always balanced out Hamilton. They truly made each other better.

And Hamilton really lost his way without Washington. Now, the federalists were in trouble even before Hamilton wrote this. And most historians agree that Adams probably would have lost anyway. But this really sealed it. And so the 1800 election totally wipes out the federalists, not just at the presidential level, but in local elections as well.

They would never have another president in the White House again. The Republicans were totally ascendant, and the federalists are just kind of now a permanent minority party. They have no real share in the power structure of the United States. Part of this was that some of their policies were unpopular, you know, again, they were kind of elitist. And part of it was structural changes figured out by Aaron Burr in New York.

So early on in the United States, voting rights were limited to white, land owning males. Well, that heavily favors the federalists, who were the party of the upper middle class and the merchant class. Well, Aaron Burr runs a very effective campaign in New York. He completely turns over the state and wins it for Republicans. And one of the ways that he does this is finding a loophole that poorer farmers could pool their land ownings to help them all qualify to vote.

And so he uses this loophole to greatly expand the electorate, especially among poor german immigrants, of which there were a lot in those days. That was the first wave of mass immigration. The United States was Germans and. And to a lesser extent, Irish. And so this is a strategy that has a long history in the United States.

Can't convince voters. Go find new ones. Aaron Burr is really a pioneer in that regard. Well, Burr does such a good job that Thomas Jefferson feels compelled to add him to the ticket. This is the man who won New York for the federalists, just a huge, huge feat.

So he's on the ticket, and the federalists are repudiated so thoroughly that on election day, the vote count is actually tied, but not with John Adams, but between the two Republicans, Jefferson and Burr. So it's a little confusing. But in those days, if you ran for vice president, you did that by running for president and then getting the second most votes. That was who became vice president back then. So, with the vote tied, it goes to the House of Representatives.

They vote on it. Actually, there's a tie in the House, too, and no one can break this deadlock. Now, the plan for the Republicans the entire time is for Jefferson to be president and Burr to be vice president. But Burr is seen as the more moderate of the two. He'd kind of drifted between the federalists and the Republicans.

So there are a lot of federalists who are tempted to throw the election to Burr. And Burr sees this, and he actually starts campaigning a little bit. He's like, yeah, that wouldn't be the worst thing. You know, just, I know I was supposed to be vice president, but, uh, if you guys want to vote for me, I could become president. I'd be better than Jefferson, don't you think?

Federalists. And so it looks like this really might happen. The Federalists might throw the election to burr, but Hamilton comes riding in and says, do not do this. He writes to a leading federalist congressman and says, quote, as taber, there is nothing in his favor. His private character is not defended by his most partial friends.

He is bankrupt beyond redemption, except by the plunder. Of his country. His public principles have no other spring or aim than his own aggrandizement. If he can, he will certainly disturb our institutions to secure to himself permanent power and with it, wealth. He is truly the Cataline of America.

Okay, so this is just like a blistering indictment. It's an insult on his character, and it's kind of crazy, right? Because, I mean, at least, you know, Burr didn't have any principles, but that means he could be swayed. But in the end, Hamilton preferred a man in Jefferson whose values he desperately opposed to a man with no values at all. And add to that that, yes, he radically opposes republicanism.

He opposes Jefferson, but he intuited correctly, as it turned out, that the presidency would have a moderating effect on Jefferson. So there are a lot of people who preach radical doctrines until they get into power, and then they feel the weight of that responsibility, and then they act more moderately. And Jefferson was one of those, you know, the Jefferson presidency, definitely a mixed record. But he wasn't terrible. He certainly wasn't as bad as you would have believed if you analyzed his political statements from the 1790s when he was saying that the French Revolution was a great thing.

And if some heads get chopped off, then, hey, you know, that's what you got to do. He didn't govern anything like that, thankfully. And part of the reason also that Hamilton tries to throw the election to Jefferson is that he was able to get some federalists to talk to him and they secure some promises from Jefferson in exchange for getting him the federalist vote. So he promised not to mess with the Navy or the public credit system, and he would actually go back on a number of those promises. And he said, I never actually promised anything.

These were just discussions anyway. These discussions are enough to sway the federalists, and they vote for Jefferson and make him president over Burr. And so if. If Hamilton had been depressed during the Adams presidency, especially the end of the Adams presidency, now it gets even worse. I mean, at least he was a federalist, and there was a federalist president, like, now he's got nothing.

His political power is lower than it's ever been. He wrote to a friend, quote, mine is an odd destiny, perhaps no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present constitution than myself. And contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know from the very beginning, I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmur of its friends no less than the curses of its foes for my rewards. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene?

Every day proves to me more and more that this american world was not made for me. And I actually agree. Like, uh, the american president, Woodrow Wilson commented that Alexander Hamilton was indisputably a great man, but perhaps not a very good american. And that strikes me as true in some way. He was a man fitted for autocratic rule and military adventure.

He did not suffer fools easily, and he did not take well to discussion and democratic politics. And what we see here is, is the end result of that, and things would only get worse from there. It's during this time that Hamilton's oldest and brightest son, Philip Hamilton, has a run in with another young man, escalates into a feud, and then into a duel, and 19 year old Philip Hamilton is shot and dies. This death of his son sends Hamilton into a really deep depression. And like I mentioned, he had had bouts of depression before, but you wouldn't know it from looking at his output.

He was always able to power through them and to stay productive, even when internally, you know, he was suffering from deep depression. But now, for the first time, he finds himself in such deep despair over the loss of his son that he really sinks into it and slows down. He becomes much more religious at this time, spends more of his time in study and prayer. He never was able to bring himself to fully turn himself over to a particular congregation. He was never a regular churchgoer, but he becomes very personally devout and spends a lot of time in religious study.

Of course, like, even in depressed semi retirement, this means he's only accomplishing about twice as much as you or me, instead of ten times as much. He still writes in the newspapers. He takes on one of the most prominent court cases in the history of the United States that was very influential to the current day. He's found some new institutions. He's still doing stuff, but it's a much slower pace and a much different person and a kind of more sober person than he was before.

Now Burr is kind of now Persona non grata. He's had these blistering attacks from Hamilton, who has told all the federalists, do not, under any circumstances, trust Burr. But he's also burned his bridges with the Republicans by trying to subvert Jefferson and become president. So he is a man without a home. And in the 1804 election, he is kicked off the ticket, and Jefferson is now running with a new vice president.

He had come so close to the very top of political power, just a few votes away. And then through the actions of Hamilton, he had lost it all. And so Burr tries to have some sort of comeback. He tries to run for governor of New York, and the Federalists are such a spent force at this point that they don't even try to recruit a candidate for governor of New York. And so Burr runs as a Republican, hoping to unite the Federalists with the more moderate Republicans.

And sure, like that sounds like a winning coalition. The problem is, once again, Hamilton launches a full broadside against him. Just rakes him over the coals in the federalist press and tells all of his friends, do not support Burr. He's a horrible person. Now, as we've said, Hamilton did not have the influence that he used to.

He's no longer the big party leader that he used to, and he's probably not the reason that Burr lost the election. But Burr was still smarting from Hamilton's intervention four years earlier, which may have actually been decisive and cost him the presidency. And this just adds insult to injury. He's campaigning so hard against him in a race that he's not likely to win anyway. And so it's at this point, when Hamilton is campaigning against Burr for governor of New York, that his animosity hardens into true hatred.

He just loathes Hamilton, hates everything about him. Can barely bring himself to say his name, so he seizes on a pretext, something Hamilton has supposedly said about him at a private dinner that was picked up and published in a newspaper, and he challenges Hamilton to a duel. Because Hamilton was more religious at this point in his life, he was philosophically opposed to dueling, but he also, in the back of his mind, still had some vague aspirations of a political comeback. And any hope of a comeback rested on his reputation as a war hero. And he thought that charges of cowardice would doom his political career forever.

Like that removes kind of the shine of being a war hero. Very jealous of his reputation as someone who was brave and someone who was a gentleman. And so even though he's opposed in principle to dueling, he agrees to the duel with Aaron Burr. He doesn't tell his family to spare them the mental anguish of anticipation. And there are a couple of weeks of negotiation to see if their friends kind of come to them and like, can't we work this out peacefully?

And actually, at first, it's Hamilton who's very intransigent, who's like, I won't apologize for the things I said. I won't retract them. Eventually, Hamilton kind of relents and is like, oh, well, let's find a way here. But by that time, Burr is so upset that he won't relent, and he says, no, no, no. There's no peace to be found here.

This duel is going to happen. I find the events of the night before very touching. The Hamiltons were always taking in orphans. So Hamilton had this very special affinity for orphans because of his own childhood. And an orphan boy who was living with them asks Hamilton to read to him before bed the night before the duel.

And this orphan falls asleep on him, and Hamilton sleeps the whole night with this orphan in his arms. Perhaps, I think here at the end of his life, his mind went back to the beginning of his life. In the morning, he was picked up by a friend and taken to Manhattan, where he boarded a boat to cross the Hudson river to a small patch of land. As a sop to his conscience, he had determined not to fire at Burr. He would conspicuously throw away his shot, hopefully opening up an avenue for Burr to do the same.

He believed that Burr wouldn't shoot to kill. After all, Burr still had political aspirations, and Hamilton believed correctly as it turned out, that to kill a defenseless man who had just thrown away his shot would be political suicide. And so, on the morning of July 11, 1804, Burr and Hamilton observed all the rituals of a duel. They chose their pistols. They each stood ten paces apart.

The signal was given for them to begin. Hamilton raised his gun and fired it into the air well above Burr's head. Burr then took aim at Hamilton's abdomen and fired. The bullet ripped through his liver and diaphragm before shattering one of his vertebrae. Hamilton was immediately paralyzed from the waist down and began to experience massive internal bleeding.

He almost died in the boat as it crossed the Hudson river. But the doctor managed to revive him. He lingered for another 30 hours, enough time for him to say a tearful goodbye to his wife and his children and some close friends before dying on July 12, 1804. The public grief in New York was immense. The city had never seen anything like it, even when Washington had died, you know, he had been a less controversial public figure, but he also wasn't a man in the prime of his life with seven young children.

And so there's this massive funeral attended by everyone in New York. And for 30 days, New Yorkers wore black bands on their arms to mourn the passing of Hamilton. Hamilton was correct that this completely ruined burrs political career. He had no future, and he kind of scratched out a living on the frontier of America, crafting up these kind of harebrained schemes to invade Mexico and make himself emperor that never came to anything. And the end of the story is just.

It's so unsatisfying to me. I hate to talk about it or even think about it. To see a genius, a mind like Hamilton, snuffed out so insensibly. It's just. Anyway, let's move on.

What are our takeaways from the life, the great life of Alexander Hamilton? I'll go more into it. I'll give a full rundown of the playbook, the Hamilton Playbook, in the next episode. But for now, the first is this idea of monarchy. Great things are only brought into being by a single, unified vision.

Every corporation is a monarchy. It has one CEO. And America needed just a touch of monarchy, especially at its inception, to give it that vision and that direction. And so I think every endeavor needs that strength of vision, and I think Hamilton was correct in that regard. The second takeaway is Hamilton's work style.

I don't know that it works for everyone, but I think it's definitely worth experimenting with that idea of think, think, think, think until it's fully formed in your head, then sleep on it, and then write out your thoughts fully formed. The third takeaway is to read and study broadly. Hamilton was able to be so successful because he could pull in so much knowledge from so many different domains, from law and journalism, military science, history, literature, poetry, medicine, monetary policy, manufacturing, trade, finance. He was one of those people who was both broad and deep in his knowledge. My fourth takeaway is to have a vision that is bigger than yourself.

Aaron Burr didn't. And even though he lived on that July 11 day, nothing he did outlived him. Whereas Hamilton was able to give birth to something that bears his imprint up to the current day. And then lastly, I'll just mention that we should learn from his weaknesses, too. And so, you know, that lack of discretion did him in a number of times.

And it's difficult because I think his lack of discretion was the flip side of just the endless torrent of productivity that came out of his mind. But he should have been more discreet. And knowing when to stay silent is an art of its own. Okay, this was a long episode, but, man, I just really love Hamilton, and his contributions were so vast, and I have him to thank for this wonderful country that I call my home. So I hope you enjoyed this very long part two on the life of Alexander Hamilton.

That does it. Until next time, thank you for listening to how to take over the world.

The Legacy of Alexander Hamilton

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1. The Visionary's Blueprint

2. Hamilton vs. Democracy

3. The Realpolitik of Revolution

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