By Ron Chernow

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“On April 24, a huge throng of patriots, some eight thousand strong, massed in front of City Hall. While radicals grew giddy with excitement, many terrified Tory merchants began to book passage for England. The next day, an anonymous handbill blamed Myles Cooper and four other “obnoxious gentlemen” for the patriotic deaths in Massachusetts and said the moment had passed for symbolic gestures, such as burning Tories in effigy. “”The injury you have done to your country cannot admit of reparation,’ these five Loyalists were warned. “Fly for your lives or anticipate your doom by becoming your own executioners.” This blatant death threat was signed, “Three Millions.” A defiant Myles Cooper stuck to his college post. 

“After a demonstration on the night of May 10, hundreds of protesters armed with clubs and heated by a heady brew of political rhetoric and strong drink descended on King’s College, react to inflict rough justice on Myles Cooper. Hercules Mulligan recalled that Cooper “was a Tory and an obnoxious man and the mob went to the college with the intention of tarring and feathering him or riding him upon a rail.” Nicholas Ogden, a King’s alumnus, saw the angry mob swarming toward the college and raced ahead to Cooper’s room, urging the president to scramble out a back window. Because Hamilton and Troup shared a room near Cooper’s quarters, Ogden also alerted them to the approaching mob. “Whereupon Hamilton instantly resolved to take his stand on the stairs [i.e., the outer stoop] in front of the Doctor’s apartment and there to detain the mob as long as he could by a harangue in order to gain the Doctor the more time for his escape,” Troup lare recorded.

After the mob knocked down the gate and surged toward the residence. Hamilton launched into an impassioned speech, telling the vociferous protesters that their conduct, instead of promoting their cause, would “disgrace and injure the glorious cause of liberty.” One account has the slightly deaf [Myles] Cooper poking his head from an upper-story window and observing Hamilton gesticulating on the stoop below. He mistakenly thought that his pupil was inciting the crowd instead of pacifying them and shouted, “Don’t mind what he says. He’s crazy!” Another account has Cooper shouting at the ruffians: “Don’t believe anything Hamilton says. He’s a little fool!”

(Chernow 2005, 64)

Because the style of eighteenth-century letters could be quite florid, even between men, one must tread gingerly in approaching this matter, especially since Lauren’s letters to Hamilton were warm but proper.

(Chernow 2005, 95)

Where revolutions, by their nature, resisted excess government power, the opposite situation could be equally hazardous. “As too much power leads to despotism, too little leads to anarchy, and both eventually to ruin of the people.”

(Chernow 2005, 158)

He believed that through self-control he could learn to control others. With his impervious aplomb, he was a better listener than talker.

(Chernow 2005, 192)

Today we cherish the two-party system as a cornerstone of American democracy. The founders, however, viewed parties, or “factions” as they termed them, as monarchical vestiges that had no legitimate place in a true republic. Hamilton dreaded parties as “the most fatal disease” of popular governments and hoped America could dispense with such groups.

The sudden emergence of parties set a slashing tone for politics in the 1790’s. Since politicians considered parties bad, they denied involvement in them, bristled at charges that they harbored partisan feelings, and were quick to perceive hypocrisy in others. And because parties were frightening new phenomena, they could be easily mistaken for evil conspiracies, lending a paranoid tinge to political discourse.

(Chernow 2005, 390,391-392)

“A struggle for liberty is in itself respectable and glorious,” he opined. “When conducted with magnanimity, justice, and humanity, it ought to command the admiration of every friend to human nature. But it is sullied by crimes and extravagances, it loses its respectability.”

He saw the chaos in France as a frightening portent of what could happen in America if the safeguards of order were stripped away by the love of liberty.

(Chernow 2005, 434)

Washington’s decision to forgo a third term was momentous. He wasn’t bound by term limits, and many Americans expected him to serve for life. He surrendered power in a world where leaders had always grabbed for more. Stepping down was the most majestic democratic response he could have flung at his Republican critics. Toward the end of his first term, he had asked James Madison to draft a farewell address and then stated it away when he decided on a second term. Now, in the spring of 1796, he unearthed that draft. As at the close of the American Revolution, Washington wanted to make a valedictory statement that would codify some enduring principles in American political life. To update Madison’s draft, he turned to Hamilton.

(Chernow 2005, 505)

Much of his life’s drama arose from the intense, often fitful, sometimes tormenting struggle to measure up to his own impossibly. high standards, and he never entirely made peace with his own craving for fame and recognition.

(Chernow 2005, 517)

The two Virginians shared a belief that emancipation should be postponed, with the freed slaves someday transplanted to Africa.

(Chernow 2005, 538)

It was a very characteristic moment for Hamilton: the instinctive sense of responsibility, the fear of violence and disorder, the mental lucidity and self-possession even in his greatest agony.

Despite the pain, Hamilton reacted to the situation with stoic fortitude and an impressive regard for others, worrying constantly about the plight of Eliza and the children.

(Chernow 2005, 705,706)

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References

Chernow, Ron. 2005. Alexander Hamilton. N.p.: Penguin Publishing Group.

ISBN 978-0-14-303475-9