United States

Images of Hamilton: Update- Trumbull Portrait Now on Display in NYC

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I had blogged earlier about John Trumbull’s iconic portrait of Hamilton, and about plans to house the painting for public display at Crystal Bridges Art Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.  This week, the portrait was formally unveiled at the Met, so all the NYC Hamiltonians can go take a look at the full-length portrait in person!

John Trumbull, "Portrait of Alexander Hamilton," 1792, gift from Credit Suisse to Crystal Bridges and Metropolitan Museum

According to the Met’s press release:

An iconic life-size portrait by the celebrated Revolutionary-era painter John Trumbull of Alexander Hamilton, then Secretary of the Treasury under President George Washington, is now on view in The American Wing of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  This is the painting’s first showing at the Metropolitan since it was donated, earlier this year, by the global wealth manager and investment bank Credit Suisse to both the Metropolitan Museum in New York and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. At the Metropolitan, the work—which is considered the greatest known portrait of Hamilton and one of the finest civic portraits from the Federal period—is on display in Gallery 755, “Faces of the Young Republic,” of the New Galleries for American Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts among portraits of other great heroes of the post-Revolutionary period.

Images of Hamilton: William Rimmer Statue in Boston

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Visitors to Boston may have noticed a unique Hamilton statute on Commonwealth Avenue, between Arlington Street and Berkeley Street.  The statue, erected in 1865 was the first to appear on Commonwealth Avenue.  According to the iWalked Boston audio tour guide, the it is also the only stone structure on the Commonwealth Avenue Mall.  The statue was funded by Thomas Lee and designed by Dr. William Rimmer, who had a fascinating background as a physician and a sculptor.

Public Art Boston offers this description of the statue:

This sculpture by William Rimmer shows Hamilton with cloth draped over his Colonial-era outfit. The heavy folds of drapery bring to mind depictions of Greek and Roman leaders in ancient statuary. Through this anachronistic touch, Rimmer evoked the first democratic-style governments in ancient Greece, thereby emphasizing Hamilton’s formative role in the newly emerging American democracy. Interestingly, Rimmer was a physician before devoting himself to art. He did not use a model to create the statue, but instead employed his unique knowledge of human anatomy to chisel Hamilton’s body from a block of granite. Due to Rimmer’s unusual technique, this sculpture is particularly fragile and difficult to maintain.

 

Rimmer’s design was extremely controversial during his time, and

Massachusetts: A Guide to Its Places and People states:

“Rimmer had a theory, ahead of his time, of working impressionistically without models.  Though contemporary criticism was violently averse, the statue was admired by Hamilton’s own family for its graceful and somewhat aloof pose, characteristic of its subject.”

An 1895 issue of the New England Magazine describing Boston’s statues states:

“A curious work is the granite statue of Alexander Hamilton by Dr. William Rimmer, in Commonwealth Avenue.  It stands on a high and massive granite pedestal; and it was given to the city in 1865 by Thomas Lee, who also gave the Esther Monument.  There is little or no modeling, except about the head, and the appearance of the figure suggests a snow image which is partially melted.”

Take a look for yourself the next time you’re in Boston!

Images of Hamilton: Hamilton Statue in Central Park

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If you’ve visited Central Park, you may have come across a very handsome statue of Alexander Hamilton.  The statue is located between 82nd and 83rd streets on the East Side of the park.  The statue was donated by Hamilton’s son, John C. Hamilton to the park in 1880.  The Hamilton statue was sculpted by Carl H. Conrads, an American sculptor best known for his work commemorating the Civil War.  Conrads served in the Union Army during the Civil War and designed statues that you can find in West Point and San Francisco.

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The 1880 statue actually replaces an earlier Hamilton statue that was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1835 and had stood on the floor of the original New York Stock Exchange building.  According to Inside the Apple: A Streetwise History of New York City:

“A valiant attempt was made to rescue a 15-foot statue of Alexander Hamilton from the floor of the exchange, but just as the statute reached the doorway, the roof collapsed, destroying it.  The statue, by Robert Ball Hughes, was the first marble statue created in the United States and had been installed only eight months earlier.  Though it took 45 years, the statue was ultimately replaced by Hamilton’s youngest son, John C. Hamilton, and it stands in Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  This statue in the park is remarkable in that it is made entirely of granite– not the easiest stone to carve–and it has long been thought that John C. Hamilton commissioned the work out of this durable stone so that no matter what calamities might befall Central Park his father’s statute would endure.”

The original statue is pictured here, in an image from the New York Public Library.

On November 22, 1880 Chauncey Mitchell Depew made a public address to commemorate the unveiling of the statue at Central Park.  Some excerpts are below:

“Precocious intellects in all ages of the world have flashed with meteoric splendor; and for a brief space amazed mankind; but he only whose full equipped mind knew no youth and never failed in the full maturity of its powers was Alexander Hamilton. ”

….

“…Hamilton, at eighteen, was hailed by the whole country as the peer of the Adamses and of Jay.  But when the multitude, smarting under wrongs and fired by the eloquence of their champion, sought riotous vengeance upon their enemies, he stayed the angry mob while the President of his College escaped, and offered to lead in defence of property and the majesty of the law.  Popular passion never swayed his judgment; personal ambition, or the applause of the hour, never moved or deterred him.”

…

“Hamilton forged the links and welded the chain which binds the Union.  He saw the dangers of Secession, and pointed out the remedy against it in the implied powers of the Constitution.”

…

“Upon the boundless sea of experiment without chart of compass, he invented both.  He smote the sources of revenue with such skill and power, that from the barren rocks flowed the streams which filled the Treasury and the Sinking Fund, and the exhausted land was fertilized by its own productiveness.  Out of chaos he developed perfected schemes which have stood every strain and met every emergency in our national life.”

For the full text of Depew’s remarks, see here.

Hamilton’s Legacy

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Today, July 12, 2013 marks the 209th anniversary of Alexander Hamilton’s death at age 47.  Hamilton died at a significantly younger age than his fellow political luminaries: Jefferson survived until age 83, Madison lived to 85, Adams to 90, and Burr to 80.  However, in his 47 years, he fundamentally shaped America’s political and financial foundations.  Hamilton rose from obscurity in Nevis and, without a formal education or financial backing, became an influential revolutionary thinker, a military hero, Washington’s most influential aide, the driving force of the Federalist Papers and the push for the Constitution, the architect of America’s financial future as the first Secretary of Treasury, and so much more.

The inscription at Hamilton’s grave site says it well:

The patriot of incorruptible integrity.

The soldier of approved valour.

The statesman of consummate wisdom.

Whose talents and virtues will be admired by grateful posterity long after this marble shall have mouldered into dust.

I also love this excerpt from the Eulogy on General Alexander Hamilton by the citizens of Boston written by Harrison G. Otis:

But in the man whose loss we deplore, the interval between manhood and death was so uniformly filled by a display of the energies of his mighty mind, that this world has scarcely paused to enquire into the story of his infant or puerile years.  He was a planet, the dawn of which was not perceived; which rose with full splendor, and emitted a constant stream of glorious light, until the hour of its sudden and portentous eclipse.

If you’re in New York, come join the series of exciting events throughout NYC today to commemorate Hamilton’s passing.  If you’re not in the city, check out the live stream of Thomas Fleming’s author talk at Trinity Church here.

The Bank of New York and the Museum of American Finance

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The Bank of New York was the first bank in New York City, founded by Alexander Hamilton and opened on June 9, 1784.  Hamilton was the chief architect of the new bank.  Hamilton wrote the constitution of the bank and was one of the original 13 directors.  He also made the decision that the bank should be based on specie (gold and silver) rather than land.  Hamilton’s constitution was used as the “model upon which all the bank charters granted in New York were framed prior to 1825.”  Hamilton’s voting structure restricted the power of larger shareholders, rather than a one share-one vote scheme.

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In Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation, John Chester Miller described Hamilton’s attachment to the Bank he founded:

Hamilton’s concern for the welfare of the Bank of New York cannot be left out of account.  He might have said of the institution that although it was a small bank, there were those who loved it.

By the time Hamilton became Treasury Secretary, he instructed the bank cashier to sell his stocks, despite losing significant profits as the Bank’s stock rose dramatically.  Hamilton felt that the political consequences of having a stake in a bank would compromise his position and eschewed the profitable stocks in favor of maintaining his political reputation.

Currently, the Bank of New York building is home to the Museum of American Finance.  Summer is a great time for museum hopping in NYC and the museum is offering a Groupon deal for 50% off admission!  The museum is located at 48 Wall Street and is open to the public on Tuesday – Saturday, from 10 am – 4 pm..  If you go, make sure to check out the Hamilton Room, focusing specifically on Hamilton’s legacy.

Alexander Hamilton Room
Picture from http://www.moaf.org/exhibits/hamilton/index

Also note, MOAF is hosting a Hamilton vs. Jefferson Debate next Thursday, July 11th from 5:30-7 pm, as part of the Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society’s Celebrate Hamilton 2013 events.  The description of the event from the event flyer is below:

National Hamilton Scholar Dr. William G. Chrystal will become Alexander Hamilton for the evening to both entertain and educate attendees in a “debate” with Thomas Jefferson. After the presentation, a Q&A session will be held, followed by a reception.
Register to attend the debate here.  I’ll be there!

Prescience on National Security

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In the Federalist No. 8, Hamilton stated:

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. Even the ardent love of liberty will, after a time, give way to its dictates. The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.

Federalist No. 8 was written in the context of warning against hostilities between the states, but Hamilton makes a compelling, highly relevant point about what people in society are willing to give up in order to protect our security in times of danger.  I have been thinking about Hamilton’s statement a lot in the context of the Edward Snowden/NSA domestic spying story.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a detailed guide to how the NSA Domestic Spying programs works.  Under the program, the Government can monitor every American’s call history and internet activity without a warrant.  Different aspects of the program are continuing to come to light, but Hamilton’s observations on the effect of a state of alarm on the value of liberty remain extremely prescient.

The Founders Online Project from the National Archives

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The National Archives has released the beta version of The Founders Online.  This site provides the public with open access to the correspondence and other writings of six major Founders: Hamilton, Wasington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison.  The collection includes over 6,000 Alexander Hamilton documents and will be an important resource for anyone interested in the Founding period.  Although some of the material has already been digitized, this is the first time that they are all available in one place and accessible to the public at no charge.

The Founders Online project was originally proposed to Congress in April 2008 by Allen Weinstein, the Archivist of the United States, as a response to Public Law 110-161- Division D- Financial Services and General Government and Appropriations Acts, 2008, Title V, which stated:

The Appropriations Committees are concerned about the lengthy amount of time currently required to complete the publication of the Founding Fathers historical papers projects.  These projects began in the 1960s and are expected to continue two or more decades until completion. Mindful of the technologies and tools currently available, the Committees believe the Archivist should accelerate the process for delivering the papers of the Founding Fathers to the American people. Therefore, the Archivist is directed, as Chairman of the NHPRC, to develop a comprehensive plan for the online electronic publication, within a reasonable timeframe, of the papers of the Founding Fathers and to submit this plan to the Committees on Appropriations no later than 90 days after the enactment of this Act.

Weinstein’s report to the Appropriations Committee laid out the initial plan to provide open, free access to the fully annotated Founding Era papers.  In the report, Weinstein stated:

The plan discussed here would, over several years, help accelerate digitization and online access to 1) copies of all the available original source documents, 2) transcriptions of those documents as they become available, and 3) the existing print volumes that contain annotated and edited transcripts of the documents. In addition, as further volumes are completed, these authoritative editions would then replace the raw transcriptions. This collection would be a kind of work-in-progress that students, scholars, and the general public could use through the Internet.

The Hamilton papers included in the Founders Online are the Papers of Alexander Hamilton published by Harold C. Styrett as part of a Columbia University project that lasted from 1955-1987.

The Founders Online has plans to keep expanding the papers available to the public.  The website states:

In its initial phase, Founders Online contains nearly 120,000 fully searchable documents. Soon we will be adding more documents drawn from the print editions and additional transcriptions of documents. As work continues on each of the ongoing publishing projects, newly annotated and edited records will be added. When it is complete, Founders Online will include approximately 175,000 documents in this living monument to America’s Founding Era.

 

 

Hamilton’s Views on Race and Slavery: Jay’s Treaty and the Camillus Letters

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One of the most unpopular positions that Hamilton took in his political career was his outspoken defense of the Jay Treaty. The provisions of the treaty were made public in the spring of 1795, and chaos erupted in response.   Jeffersonians took up the cry: “Damn John Jay! Damn every one that won’t damn John Jay!  Damn every one that won’t put lights in his windows and sit up all night damning John Jay!!!”

Hamilton risked his popularity, and even his safety to defend Jay’s Treaty.  He was the sole voice to publicly support the treaty amidst a flood of negative sentiment.  In fact, a mob attempted to stone Hamilton at a public meeting in New York for his defense of the treaty.

One specific aspect of Hamilton’s Camillus letters deals with the issue of slavery and natural law.  During the Revolution, the British had issued Lord Dunmore’s proclamation, offering freedom to slaves who left their masters and joined the British army.  According to Michael D. Chan, the actions of the British “infuriated southern slaveholders, especially because many of them were groaning under the weight of debts owed to British citizens.”  These Southerners insisted that any treaty with Britain include a provision for either returning the slaves or compensating the slaveowners for their loss.

File:Jay's-treaty.jpg

However, as Colleen A. Sheehan states: “The Jay Treaty provided for neither restoration of nor compensation for the slaves carried away.  This was a bitter pill for many Americans not only because of financial loss, but because of how the matter had been handled by the British from the state.”

Hamilton addressed the issue in his Camillus letters as follows:

  • IV.—The stipulation relates to “negroes or other property of the American inhabitants”; putting negroes on the same footing with any other article. The characteristic of the subject of the stipulation being property of American inhabitants, whatever had lost that character could not be the object of the stipulation. But the negroes in question, by the laws of war, had lost that character; they were therefore not within the stipulation.Why did not the United States demand the surrender of captured vessels, and of all other movables, which had fallen into the hands of the enemy? The answer is, because common sense would have revolted against such a construction. No one could believe that an indefinite surrender of all the spoils or booty of a seven-years’ war was ever intended to be stipulated; and yet the demand for a horse, or an ox, or a piece of furniture, would have been as completely within the terms “negroes and other property,” as a negro; consequently, the reasoning which proves that one is not included, excludes the other.The silence of the United States as to every other article is therefore a virtual abandonment of that sense of the stipulation which requires the surrender of negroes.
  • V.—In the interpretation of treaties, things odious or immoral are not to be presumed. The abandonment of negroes, who had been induced to quit their masters on the faith of official proclamation, promising them liberty, to fall again under the yoke of their masters, and into slavery, is as odious and immoral a thing as can be conceived. It is odious, not only as it imposes an act of perfidy on one of the contracting parties, but as it tends to bring back to servitude men once made free. The general interests of humanity conspire with the obligation which Great Britain had contracted towards the negroes, to repel this construction of the treaty, if another can be found.

Hamilton’s response to the issue of the British freeing of slaves during the war was nothing short of radical.   Using the framework of the laws of war, Hamilton put forth salient and controversial points relating to the morality of slavery.  Hamilton challenged the idea that freed slaves could be properly grouped with other types of “property” referred to in the treaty.  Additionally, Hamilton called the idea of returning freed slaves to slavery “odious” and “immoral,” despite the fact that slavery was prevalent throughout the Union.

Hamilton’s fearless defense of a treaty he believed in, even at the height of its unpopularity, demonstrates to me Hamilton’s commitment to stand for something, no matter what the personal or political cost.

Read the full Camillus letters here.

Hamilton’s Lighthouses

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As Secretary of Treasury, Hamilton worked diligently to create a network of federally funded lighthouses throughout the country.  Hamilton was the first head of the Lighthouse Services.

According to the National Park Service, “on August 7, 1789, President George Washington signed the ninth act of the United States Congress which provided that the states turn over their lighthouses, including those under construction and those proposed, to the central government. In creating the U.S. Lighthouse Establishment, aids to navigation became the responsibility of the Secretary of the Treasury.”

Once the law was passed, Hamilton began the task of placing each existing lighthouse under federal control.  Hamilton also saw the Lighthouse Services as something properly in the domain of his Treasury Department.  He “urged Congress to dispense with dues levied on passing ships, believing the move would encourage commerce and that the Treasury Department could handle the financial responsibility of navigational aids entirely on its own.”

Cape Henry in Virginia was the first new lighthouse built from federal government funds through Hamilton’s program.  In March 1791, the Government signed a contract with John McComb to build and equip a lighthouse for $17,500.  Once the structure was completed, Hamilton and Washington personally handled many of the minute details of selecting light keepers and funding repairs.   Ron Chernow characterizes the process of building lighthouses as “an administrative routine that stifled the two men with maddening minutiae.”  The first lighthouse keeper selected by Washington, William Lewis, was a former soldier in Washington’s army and was hired in October 1792.

The lighthouse below, at Cape Hatteras in North Carolina, was built on a spot that Hamilton passed as a 17-year old on his first journey from the West Indies to New York.  Reportedly, the ship carrying Hamilton, the Thunderbolt, caught fire and nearly sank a few miles away from the cape.  In 1794, Hamilton, who dubbed Diamond Shoals, the “Graveyard of the Atlantic,” recommended establishing a lighthouse on the Hatteras Sand Banks to Congress.  On July 10, 1797, Congress authorized $44,000 for constructing a lighthouse at Cape Hatteras.

During the early years of the American Republic, Hamilton’s work with the Coast Guard and the Lighthouse Services both facilitated commerce and strengthened the power of the federal government.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse

 

 

Hamilton’s “Hypomanic Edge?”

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I recently came across a 2005 business psychology book by John D. Gartner entitled The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot Of) Success in America.

Gartner states:

Hypomania is a mild form of mania, often found in the relatives of manic depressives. Hypomanics are brimming with infectious energy, irrational confidence, and really big ideas. They think, talk, move, and make decisions quickly. Anyone who slows them down with questions “just doesn’t get it.” Hypomanics are not crazy, but “normal” is not the first word that comes to mind when describing them. Hypomanics live on the edge, betweeen normal and abnormal.

The Harvard Mental Health Newsletter states:

The formal DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for hypomania require at least three of the following symptoms for at least four days: inflated self-esteem or grandiosity; decreased need for sleep; increased talkativeness; racing thoughts or ideas; marked distractibility; agitation or increased activity; excessive participation in activities that are pleasurable but invite personal or fiscal harm (shopping sprees, sexual indiscretions, impulsive business investments, and the like).

Gartner’s theory is that “America has an extraordinarily high number of hypomanics,” and that a majority of successful entrepreneurs and innovators have hypomanic characteristics. Gartner also states that hypomania creates a situation in which:

“the drives that motivate behavior surge to a screaming pitch, making the urgency of action irresistible. There isn’t a minute to waste– this is going to be huge– just do it! This pressure to act creates overachievers, but it also leads to impulsive behavior…”

Hamilton is featured prominently in the book as Gartner attempts to analyze Hamilton’s life “through the eyes of a clinician.” Gartner’s theory is that “Hamilton was bipolar, but more important, that if he hadn’t been, he couldn’t have led the charge to launch a nation. Hamilton’s hypomania was an essential ingredient in his accomplishments.” Gartner finds examples of hypomanic behavior throughout Hamilton’s career: his willingness to lead his troops into dangerous battle, his relentless energy in pushing forward the Constitution, and his vision for the Department of Treasury. Gartner states that Hamilton’s grandiose vision was transferred to his “radical and unswerving vision” of America. Gartner points to Hamilton’s unstoppable energy and ability to work on very little sleep for long, intense periods as symptomatic of hypomania.

Gartner has an interesting take, but I don’t fully buy the idea of applying a psychiatric diagnosis to any individual without any firsthand observation.

The first chapter of the book is available here, via the New York Times.