Aaron Burr

The Other Hamilton Duel: Philip Hamilton and George Eacker

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While Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr’s 1804 duel is notorious in history and pop culture, a lesser-known deadly duel occurred three years earlier between Hamilton’s oldest son, Philip, and George Eacker, a critic of Hamilton and supporter of Burr.

Hamilton took great pride in his son’s academic achievements.  He wrote to him regularly while Philip was studying at boarding school, and created a rigorous set of rules to govern Philip’s study schedule.  In 1797, when Philip was a young teenager, he contracted a deadly illness and Hamilton reportedly “administered every dose of medicine” to his son during his recovery.

The close relationship between father and son may have contributed to Philip’s eagerness to defend his father’s name.  Eacker, a 27-year-old lawyer, had made a speech in July accusing Alexander Hamilton of being willing to overthrow Thomas Jefferson’s presidency by force.  In the speech, Eacker accused Hamilton of misusing his position as Inspector General during the Adams administration to intimidate his political enemies.  On November 20, 19-year-old Philip and his friend Richard Price confronted Eacker about the speech when the three men were at a social event. After Eacker insulted them, the boys challenged Eacker to a duel.  Dueling was already illegal in New York, so the men planned to meet in New Jersey.  Eacker and Richard Price took the field first at Weehawken, on November 22. They exchanged shots, but no one was injured; according to convention, honor was satisfied.  The next day, Philip faced Eacker and fell to a ball from Eacker’s smoothbore dueling pistol.  He died the next day.  The death caused a massive strain on the Hamilton family and led to the nervous breakdown of Hamilton’s daughter Angelica.

Robert Troup observed about Hamilton after Philip’s death in a December 5, 1801 letter to Rufus King:

Never did I see a man so completely overwhelmed with grief as Hamilton had been.  The scene I was present at, when Mrs. Hamilton came to see her son on his deathbed (he died about a mile out of the city) and when she met her husband and son in one room, beggars all description!  Young Hamilton was very promising in genius and acquirements, and Hamilton formed high expectations of his future greatness!”

Alexander Hamilton was killed three years later, on the same dueling grounds in Weehawken and with the same dueling pistols.

 

The Election of 1800: Hamilton’s Role

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Michael Austin has written an interesting story for History News Network on the presidential election of 1800.  Austin draws parallels between the current state of partisan politics and the bitter rivalries that emerged during the presidential contest between incumbent John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

During that election, Hamilton and other high Federalists painted Jefferson and the Republicans as morally depraved atheists and fiery anti-government radicals who planned to set up guillotines on the banks of the Potomac and fill the new capital with blood. Republicans, on the other hand, portrayed Federalists as crypto-monarchists and usurpers of the Constitution. They pointed to the recent Alien and Sedition Acts as proof that Federalists would roll back the Bill of Rights at every available opportunity until they could declare Hamilton president-for-life and, from there, King of America.

And it got worse. Both Jeffersonians and Hamiltonians savaged the incumbent president, John Adams, a moderate Federalist who never quite managed to make either side happy. Hamiltonians worked as hard to throw the election to the other Federalist candidate, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, as Republicans did to elect their hero Jefferson.

The unintended circulation of the Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States was considered a major factor in Adams’s defeat.  If you haven’t read the letter before- I highly recommend it- full text available from Open Library. 

In the letter, Hamilton begins with this premise: “Not denying to Mr. Adams patriotism and integrity, and even talents of a certain kind, I should be deficient in candour, were I to conceal the conviction, that he does not possess the talents adapted to the administration of government, and that there are great and intrinsic defects in his character, which unfit him for the office of chief magistrate.”

He describes Adams’s miliary plans during the Revolution and how these plans would have contributed to the defeat of the Continental Army.  For example, Adams “was represented to be of the number of those” who favored shorter troop enlistment rather than Washington’s policy of having soldiers enlist for the term of the war.  Hamilton also criticized Adams for ignoring the advice of his cabinet.  He accused Adams of rash decisionmaking, particularly when related to the quasi-war with France and drew a comparison between Adams and “the modest and sage Washington,” who “consulted much, pondered much, resolved slowly, resolved surely.”  Hamilton showcased instances of Adams’s uncertainty and found him to be “so much at variance with himself, as well as with sound policy, that we are driven to seek a solution for it in some system of concession to his political enemies.”  The purpose of Hamilton’s letter was to draw support from within the Federalist Party towards Charles Pinckney, a Southern Federalist.  However, after Adams won the Federalist nomination, the letter was circulated throughout the country by the Jeffersonians.  Hamilton’s reasoned and damning attack on Adams played a part in the contentious election.  Although Hamilton could have adopted the party line and backed Adams, he took the opposite course, understanding that he would lose the support of half his party in future races.  For better and for worse, Hamilton was a man of convictions and of impulse.

Mock Politics produced a humorous set of Jefferson v. Adams attack ads:

In an interesting post-script to the election, Hamilton eventually persuaded fellow Federalists to choose Jefferson over Aaron Burr.  Smithsonian Magazine has a great piece explaining the deadlock- because of the system in place, Congress had to decide between Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr.  Many Federalists saw Jefferson as the ultimate enemy and were pushing for a Burr presidency.  Hamilton stated:

Mr. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty and will be desirous of something like orderly Government.–Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself-Thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement–and will be content with nothing short of permanent power in his own hands.–No compact, that he should make with any passion in his breast except Ambition, could be relied upon by himself.–How then should we be able to rely upon our agreement with him? Mr. Jefferson I suspect will not dare much. Mr. Burr will Dare every thing in the sanguine hope of affecting every thing.

(Visual from Digital History)

Hamilton Is No David Petraeus

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The intense publicity surrounding David Petraeus and his high-profile affair and resignation has led to comparisons between the Petraeus-Bradwell affair and Hamilton’s high profile affair with Maria Reynolds.  Articles include One Sex Scandal In American History That Tops The Petraeus Affair and Before David Petraeus, There Was Alexander Hamilton’s “Beauty in Distress”.  The New York Times also mentions Hamilton today in the article With Digital Trail, an End to the Hushed Affair.

The above sources lay out the sensational details of the affair: Hamilton became involved with Maria Reynolds in 1791, when she came to his home in Philadelphia and claimed that she was destitute and had been abandoned and abused by her husband.  Hamilton and Reynolds became involved immediately.  Maria’s husband, James Reynolds knew about the affair (and may have even pushed Maria to seduce Hamilton) and sought money from Hamilton.  James Reynolds was arrested for financial crimes and accused Hamilton of entering into monetary relationships with Reynolds for personal gain and abusing his position.  Reynolds accused Hamilton of being deeply concerned in speculation and frequently advancing money to Reynolds for these purposes.  The information came into the hands of Congressman Frederick A. Muhlenberg, who shared it with Senator James Monroe and Congressman Abraham Venable.  These three men confronted Hamilton in December 1792, and Hamilton immediately disclosed the affair and showed them letters from Reynolds in order to clear himself of the corruption charges.  The exchange concluded with the understanding that the three men would keep silent about the details of the affair.  The three men also gave a copy of the initial documents with information from Reynolds that was discredited by Hamilton to John Beckley, clerk of the  House of Representatives.  In 1793, Reynolds divorced her husband and Aaron Burr served as her divorce lawyer.  In 1795, Hamilton resigned as Treasury Secretary, where he had been making only $3,500 a year, and resumed private practice in New York, making around $11,000 a year.  In 1797, Beckley was fired as Clerk of the House and he turned over his copy of the documents to infamous Republican journalist James T. Callender.  Callender, without making any further investigation about truth of the claims, immediately published Beckley’s documents.  Scandal erupted and corruption accusations swirled.  Hamilton believed that his political enemy Monroe, who Washington had just recalled from his position as ambassador to France, was behind the documents being released.  The two men came to the brink of a duel, and Aaron Burr, Monroe’s would-be second, helped negotiate between the two parties and averted the duel.  In August 1797, Hamilton published a pamphlet with all of his correspondence with Reynolds, deciding that admitting to a sordid affair would be better than the stain of the public corruption allegations.  

When the pamphlet was published, Hamilton’s allies were shocked:

When the work appeared, Hamilton’s friends were appalled. “What shall we say …” Webster wrote, “of a man who has borne some of the highest civil and military employments, who could deliberately … publish a history of his private intrigues, degrade himself in the estimation of all good men, and scandalize a family, to clear himself of charges which no man believed. …” General Henry Knox wrote to General David Cobb, “Myself and most of his other friends conceive this confession humiliating in the extreme, and such a text as will serve his enemies.”

While the details of the affair are indeed scandalous, the most revealing and important part of the story is Hamilton’s response to it.  His decision is a perfect example of what makes him such an interesting and complex historical figure.  Hamilton was flawed and succeptible to temptation in his personal life, but he was doggedly honest in his professional life.  He ignored the personal consequences of admitting to the affair and made a full confession, something that few political figures of any period would do.  To Hamilton, even the unsubstantiated stirrings of corruption were unacceptable. 

Unlike David Petraeus and the countless other politicians involved in modern sex scandals, Hamilton did not make a public revelation out of necessity, but out of his sense of honor.  Even though Hamilton was no longer in office when news of the affair broke, he placed the sanctity of the position over his private interests and his own reputation.  If Hamilton had listened to his friends or had a modern day spin doctor, he would have allowed the rumors to live instead of feeding the fire with a full, dramatic revelation.  For better and for worse, Hamilton was a person who followed his own mind and lived by his own unbendable code with regard to his political life, even when his personal life fell short of that code. 

For a full account of the Reynolds affair, see The Notorious Affair of Mrs. Reynolds, a 1973 American Heritage article.