God and Hamilton by Kevin Cloud

Author:Kevin Cloud
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: AuthorLoyalty
Published: 2018-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Forgiveness

In Philadelphia during the summer of 1791, an attractive twenty-three-year-old woman named Maria Reynolds approached Hamilton’s front door. She knocked and requested to speak privately with him about an important, personal matter. Although a stranger to Hamilton, he invited her inside. Hamilton recounted Maria telling him about her husband, James Reynolds, “who for a long time had treated her very cruelly, [and] that lately left her to live with another woman and in so destitute a condition that, though desirous of returning to her friends, she had not the means.”209

Hamilton, never one to turn down someone in need, offered assistance to Maria. He sent her home and promised to bring some money later that evening. When he arrived at her house, Maria led him inside and invited him into a bedroom. Rather than giving her the money and returning home to his wife, Hamilton gave into temptation, beginning an affair that would have disastrous consequences on his family, reputation, and political career.

Shortly after that fateful evening, Eliza and their children left town for a summer vacation in Albany with her parents. With his family out of town, the affair intensified. Hamilton met with Maria frequently that summer, with many of their meetings happening at Hamilton’s own house.

James Reynolds, after learning of the affair, demanded blackmail money for the wrongs Hamilton committed against him. Hamilton, terrified that Reynolds would expose him, paid him various sums throughout the affair. Shockingly, Reynolds encouraged Hamilton to continue the relationship, provided he continue to pay for his wife’s services. Hamilton’s decision to continue this affair under these circumstances offers one example of his gross lapses in judgment. Chernow calls Hamilton’s behavior “one of history’s most mystifying cases of bad judgment.”210

Three Republican legislators, including James Monroe, obtained information about Hamilton’s payments to James Reynolds. They accused Hamilton of speculation, of using his government position for personal profit, and threatened to bring the information to Washington. Hamilton confessed the affair and subsequent blackmail to his interrogators, who agreed to keep Hamilton’s secret—as his relationship with the Reynolds represented a personal, rather than a public, matter.

The affair remained a secret for almost five years, until a disreputable writer, James Callender, published a series of pamphlets, accusing Hamilton of speculation and the extramarital affair. Chernow writes, “Once Callender’s charges were published, Hamilton faced an agonizing predicament: should he ignore the accusations as beneath his dignity or openly rebut them?”211

Hamilton’s friends encouraged him to remain silent, suggesting the scandal and accusations would eventually lose steam. Hamilton, whom Chernow suggests was “incapable of a wise silence,” decided against their advice.212 Instead, Hamilton responded to Callender by publishing a pamphlet of his own, known as the Reynolds Pamphlet. In it, he proclaimed innocence in regard to the charge of speculation. He had always conducted his role as Secretary of the Treasury with the highest integrity. His real crime, which he fully confessed in intimate detail, was committing adultery with Maria Reynolds, and subsequently submitting to blackmail by her husband. Hamilton wrote,

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