Hamilton vs. Jefferson

Kyle Chattleton: This is Mountaintop History, a podcast telling the story of Monticello and all who lived in labor. My name is Kyle Chattleton. The musical Hamilton has shown a bright theater spotlight on America's first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, as well as his debates and disagreements with Thomas Jefferson.

When visitors travel to Monticello today, they're often surprised to find a bust of Hamilton in Jefferson's house. So why exactly is Hamilton on display? in his political foe's home. Who was Hamilton? And what was his story? To get an answer to these questions, I met with Holly Haliniewski. Of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

Holly Haliniewski: So Alexander Hamilton, he's born in the 1750s in the British West Indies all, and he lives most of his young life on the island of St. Croix. His father's a Scottish traitor. His mother's the daughter of a French doctor, and his parents are not married when Hamilton's born. So you know when Hamilton's about 10, his father abandons the family, and it's not even long after that that his mother dies.

But Hamilton was very smart, he was ambitious, and he was an incredible writer. When a hurricane devastated the British West Indies, Hamilton wrote a letter describing the experience of the horrible hurricane and the destruction, and that letter got published. Local people were so moved by what Hamilton had written that they actually took up a collection of money to send him to school in British North American colonies.

So he is gonna go to school and get an education. He arrives in the British colonies in the 1770s, and that's right as the tensions that lead to the Revolutionary War are really mounting. Uh, he's studying at King's College, and he gets involved with colonial protests against Britain. Hamilton defends the Boston Tea Party, he writes influential pamphlets, and even drilled with a volunteer militia.

So when the Revolutionary War broke out, Hamilton led an artillery company in the Continental Army. He fought in the battles of Trenton, Princeton, Kips Bay, White Plains. So eventually, Hamilton gets the attention of the army's commander in chief, that's General George Washington, and Washington invites Hamilton to join the military staff.

And Hamilton does this for years for Washington. But ultimately, Hamilton wants to make a name for himself, and he thinks that the only way he can do that is by proving himself on the battlefield. So when Hamilton is given a field command for the Battle of Yorktown, he nails it. The Battle of Yorktown ends up being the last major land battle of the war, and eventually, it leads to the surrender of the British General Charles Cornwallis.

So now, people really know Hamilton's name, and his political career starts. He's a New York delegate, he attends the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, And he campaigns really passionately for the Constitution. He joins James Madison and John Jay, and writes what we know as the Federalist Papers.

This is a series of 85 essays defending the Constitution, and Hamilton writes the majority of them. When George Washington became the very first president of the United States, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury. And that's where Hamilton pushed for a national bank, and a strong federal government.

And he certainly met with opposition there.

Kyle Chattleton: In fact, Hamilton found himself at odds with another member of Washington's cabinet. Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State. These two individuals regularly disagreed on issues covering both foreign and domestic policies.

Holly Haliniewski: Yeah, there's definitely tons of tension.

Hamilton and Jefferson, they're really on opposite sides of the spectrum politically. So much so, um, it's their opposing views and their fights and disagreements that eventually lead to a two party system in politics. Back in their time, uh, the two parties became the Federalists, again that's Hamilton, and the Republicans, or the Democratic Republicans, and that's Jefferson.

But in Washington's cabinet, with Jefferson as Secretary of State, and Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury, they fight right away. They fight about the size. scope, the reach of the federal government, and what that should look like in the new nation. Jefferson and Hamilton fought about state debt, they fought about foreign policy, and they fought about the creation of a national bank.

Kyle Chattleton: But there is a major twist in this rivalry. The fact that Hamilton would use his political weight To help get Jefferson elected president.

Holly Haliniewski: So let's fast forward a little bit. The presidential election of 1800, uh, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr end up in an electoral tie. So some Federalists, the people from Hamilton Zone party, they wanna give the election to Aaron Burr, but Hamilton thought Jefferson was better suited to be president.

When push came to shove, Hamilton still endorsed Thomas Jefferson to be the President of the United States, and he did it because he thought Jefferson would be the best for the job. Hamilton said this, Mr. Jefferson, though too revolutionary in his notions, is yet a lover of liberty. Mr. Burr loves nothing but himself.

They do come from completely different walks of And professionally, and politically, even personally, they were really opposites in almost every way. And as history gets told, it is their differences and that narrative of them as enemies and rivals that really seems to rise up and get the most attention.

But something that I think gets lost in translation a little bit is that for all their deep rooted disagreements, they still had this level of respect for each other. They were political rivals. They were from opposite political parties. But, like I said before, when push comes to shove, Hamilton endorses Jefferson as president.

And after Hamilton dies Jefferson actually displays a bust of Hamilton here at Monticello, right here in the entrance hall. And when Jefferson displayed the bust of Hamilton, he displayed it right across from a bust of himself. So it appears that they're staring at each other from across the room. And while it is very true, but Jefferson's grandson claimed, Jefferson said that display would keep Hamilton and Jefferson Opposed in death as in life.

Uh, it's also probably true that a little too much attention gets paid to that fact, rather than to the fact that two men who disagreed so much could actually leave those differences behind and put the priorities of their own country and their own fellow citizens first. Jefferson believed in rigorous debate.

He believed that opposing viewpoints should be heard and that folks should really go toe to toe about stuff. But it would only be through passionate debate that the best of all ideas could be heard, and eventually lead to the compromises that were necessary to benefit the country on the whole. And let's be honest, if you really hated somebody that much, and they were your sworn enemy, would you really put a picture of them right there in your house?

Kyle Chattleton: This has been another edition of Mountaintop History, a collaboration between WTJU and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Mountaintop History is also supported by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. To learn more and to plan your next visit, go to Monticello. org.