Alexander Hamilton's Capital Compromise

The Wall Street Journal ^ | July 5, 2008 | FERGUS M. BORDEWICH

[Pharmboy]

Last month, workmen jacked up a 206-year-old yellow clapboard house, levered it onto a set of remote-controlled dollies, and trundled it two blocks to a new site in St. Nicholas Park, overlooking East Harlem in New York City. The Grange, as it is called, was the home of Alexander Hamilton, best known as co-author of the Federalist papers and America's first secretary of the Treasury.

But this founding father also had an extraordinary role in the infant nation's attempt to come to grips with the curse of slavery. Born in the West Indies, Hamilton was one of the most ardent abolitionists of his generation. Rare among white men of his time, he grasped the basic psychology of racism and rejected the notion of black inferiority. "The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks," he wrote to fellow founding father John Jay during the Revolutionary War, "makes us fancy many things that are founded in neither reason nor experience."

He even proposed recruiting slaves to fight in return for their freedom. Arming them, he said, would "secure their fidelity, animate their courage and I believe have a good influence upon those who remain [in slavery], by opening a door to their emancipation." Hamilton was a driving force behind the New York Manumission Society, and in 1785 issued a then-radical proposal for gradual emancipation. When he took office as secretary of the Treasury in 1789, the United States of America was in financial crisis. The federal government and the states together owed a staggering $79 million, or more than $2 trillion in present-day money, with an annual interest bill of $4.5 million – triple the foreseeable national income. Hamilton came up with an audacious plan to consolidate the states' debts, and to create a system of credit for the

[Pharmboy]

I had never heard this twist on slavery and the capital in DC (please click through the link and read the whole piece and you'll get what I'm referring to).

[Pharmboy]

Hamilton

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Hope you all had a great Fourth! We had a wet one in the NYC area...

[Pharmboy]

While Hamilton is mainly remembered as the first SecTreas and co-author of the Federalist Papers, I wanted to remind all that he was a brave soldier during the RevWar having started the NY Artillery Regiment (the only unit from the RevWar which still survives today), become the main aide-de-camp of General Washington, fought in numerous battles (including Brooklyn and Trenton) and was given the honor by The General of leading the advancement at Yorktown at the most dangerous position.

[ken21]

ironically,

the potomac is fraught with

new tribalisms

of all races.

very little rationalism.

[aculeus]

Thanks for posting an interesting article.

In the following paragraph the author assumes way too much: that southern politicians would have voluntarily walked away from slavery if only they could have witnessed free black communities.

Had the capital been rooted in the free soil of Pennsylvania, Northerners rather than pro-slavery Southerners would have filled the ranks of government service. Southern congressmen would have witnessed the success of Pennsylvania's policy of emancipation, easing the nation toward a peaceful solution of its most divisive issue.

I'm sure more than a few of them actually traveled to the north from time to time and anything they observed there unfortunately didn't make a dent in their determination to keep slavery.

[Sprite518]

I disagree with the author's view that Hamilton betrayed the enslaved by negotiating a deal. I think it was a difficult decision at best.

Let's think about the stakes. If Hamilton had pushed for a Capital in Pennsylvania, then the Southern States would have succeed. Primarily because they would have felt under represented. Furthermore, even if the financial bill could have been passed in the North. It would weaken the North because they would have been a lot deeper in debt and not able to have as much capital without the South. Thus, weaking the North and making them vulnerable to the South. Finally, the South would still have slavery if this happen. However, by moving it to DC Hamilton was able to get the financial bill passed. Plus The South did not feel underrepresented in the Nation's capital. This combo preserved the Union. Hamilton's radical society could do exactly as the wanted. A slow emancipation of the slaves over time. Granted it eventually led to a war between the States 70 years later. Although that 70 years allowed the North to build an economy so it could sustain a war against the South. The way I see it Hamilton did not betray the enslaved. He just took his best option. If Hamilton would have made Pennsylvania the Nation's capital. Then I am sure that Slavery would not have been over in 1865. By compromising he was able to get the

[andyandval]

Is the picture of the Federal Hall down by Wall St.?

[Pharmboy]

My thoughts on this are much closer to yours than they are to the author’s. Good comment...

[Pharmboy]

No--Washington is in front of Federal Hall; sorry to admit it, but I do not know where this statue sits. I pulled it from here, The Alexander Hamilton Institute.

Hope you and yours had a great Fourth in the North Country!

[Libertarianize the GOP]

Putting the Nations Capital in Philadelphia would have led to a split in Nation long before 1860, probably in the very early nineteenth century. The result would have been two or maybe more countries occupying what is now the United States and wars between them like plagued Europe. The South absent pressure from the North would likely have been able to maintain slavery for much longer.

[andyandval]

Of course...I should've Googled.

Fascinating article though, as usual, Pharmboy.

Happy 4th to you too!

[SunkenCiv]

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[NucSubs]

Veritas.

[Pharmboy]

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Good comment, friend...

[RushLake]

The left and its shills, the public educaton aristocracy, have done everything in their power to turn the actual “nobility” of the founders on slavery and so much else into a mockery. Even so called conservative white commentators misquote the reason for the 3/5th compromise in order to be politically correct in the presence of africanhyphenamericans.

[metesky]

Agreed. Without this compromise the Union would have fallen apart before it even got it's "sea legs".

Most people forget that this was a government never seen before, The Grand Experiment.

Hamilton was many things, but first and foremost, he was a genius.

The funny part to me at least, is that the more I read about the first decades of the Republic, the more I realize what a sleazy dirtbag Jefferson was.

[Pharmboy]

When I lived in Manhattan, I was a member of the NYC Revolutionary War Roundtable, a group that met once/month or so and discussed all things RevWar. One of our speakers was a Professor Freeman from Yale (history prof--I forgot her first name) who always liked Jefferson and had just finished a book about TJ's notebooks during his White House years. It seems TJ would write down snippets of dinner conversation on scraps of paper and fill books with them.

At the finish of her research, she could not stomach him. A liar and gossip-monger of the first order. I always describe him as the country's first limousine liberal.

[Ditto]

In the following paragraph the author assumes way too much: that southern politicians would have voluntarily walked away from slavery if only they could have witnessed free black communities.

From the Revolution until the advent of 'King Cotton' following the War of 1812, quite a few Southern planters did 'voluntarily' walk away from slavery, freed their slaves, and sought ways to end the institution in their states. They too understood that slavery was a blight on the nation and contrary to our ideals.

Sadly, the importance of cotton as a cash crop and the resulting boom in demand for slaves ended the abolitionist movement in the South.

In the end, economics, not reason, rule the lives of men.

[Ditto]

At the finish of her research, she could not stomach him. A liar and gossip-monger of the first order.

I saw a David McCullough interview where he said he had started out to research a biography on Jefferson and kept running into John (and Abigale) Adams and decided that Adams was the far more interesting and significant subject.

[SunkenCiv]

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