The $10 Founding Father: Alexander Hamilton Lives

In this episode,  we look at the life of a founding father whose name might be ringing in your ears...Alexander Hamiton!

In our first interlude, we meet a teenage, business-savvy Alexander, and see how he runs an international shipping empire. 

Next, Mark walks us through Hamilton's fascinating and turbulent life. Mark touches on Alexander's soul-crushing struggles as a boy, his friendship with George Washington, and his vision for a strong American financial empire. We then cover the country's first political sex scandal, and of course, his deadly duel with Aaron Burr.

In our What If? scenario, Mark envisions a world in which Burr shoots the air, not Alexander.  With a new lease on life, Hamilton manages to take down Thomas Jefferson, and become the 4th president of the United States. He uses his political skills to grow the country's territory, elevate its currency, and become an international military power.

In our final interlude, we attend the first-ever state dinner. First Lady Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton dishes up a great meal, and some crucial information to President Hamilton that will reshape American history.

Don't miss your shot to listen to this great episode!

Transcript

Introduction
Hello, my name is Mark Bouffard. Welcome to What If World History?

Like you, I share a passion for civilizations, cultures, and stories of the past. This show looks at the epic events that sewed the fabric of our history and sculpted the world we now know. And it imagines: What If they happened a little bit differently?

Would it change the outcome? What might the “new history” look like?

I invite you to explore the possibilities with me.

Before we begin, I’d like to take a quick minute to ask you to drop a review on the podcast in whatever app you are listening. You can also follow What if World History? on Facebook and LinkedIn. We are @spin_history on Twitter, and hypothetical history on Instagram.

If this is your first time listening, we will explore events as they happened in our history, then we will envision an alternative timeline and show how it will shape a new future. Along the way, we will put you in the shoes of some of the key players through a series of Diaries.

Let’s take a trip.

Our episode today is:
The $10 Founding Father: Alexander Hamilton Lives
In this episode we will look at the turbulent life of Alexander Hamilton, the legend you may be familiar with from the hit musical. You should know upfront I will not be rapping this episode in iambic pentameter. Instead, we will ponder a history in which Aaron Burr fires his dueling pistol into the air and saves the life of the next American president. And as a result, America builds its manufacturing and military prowess and becomes a dominant player on the international stage.

The Little Taskmaster
Alexander Hamilton
St.Croix, Dutch West Indies
January 15, 1772

As a pale, skinny teenager who stood at five feet, seven inches, Alexander Hamilton was not an imposing figure. But what he lacked in stature, he more than made up for in confidence and acuity.

And it would take a good deal of confidence for this diminutive teenager to berate the salty, grizzled captain who stood before him. William Newton, the captain of the Thunderbolt, had just unloaded the cargo that belonged to his employer, Beekman and Cruger, an import-export house and shipowner.

The captain had not taken pains in the transport and care of his cargo, 250 mules that would be crucial to the sugar harvest, and thus the entire economy of the island. As a result, the emaciated, forlorn mules would have to pasture for several months to recover.

So thorough was the verbal beatdown, that the captain agreed to forgo a significant portion of his delivery fee to make amends to the precocious teen. Happy with the profit he secured and the standard he had set for his employees, Hamilton walked back to the office through the bustling wharf streets.

A heavy, oppressive heat hung among the salmon- and teal-colored houses, dusty wooden warehouses, and smoky dark taverns. The crowded streets were a cacophony of noise and teamed with horse-drawn supply wagons, staggering inebriated sailors, and bustling, burly workers. The silken and bespoke gentry of the city did not often take to the streets until well after dark and the passing of the afternoon heat.

Hamilton did not have time to take in the sites of the city nor talk to the people. He was running an international shipping business that required him to know dozens of changing currency values, the needs of 300 sugar plantations, the tide schedule, and the location of ships at sea and port in America, England, and the Caribbean.

With no formal education and mostly self-led development, he demonstrated brilliance and multi-faceted understanding that defied his young age. His boss was recovering from a serious illness 1500 miles away in New York and left the day-to-day running of his empire to Alexander, his clerk.

Hamilton loved making money and getting the best of his pecuniary adversaries, but today his considerable energy was focused on intelligence that had the potential to earn him a significant windfall, and thus change his destiny.

In his digestion of his small family library, he had learned that low pressure and high tides predicted gales and hurricanes. His daily barometric pressure readings showed a significant drop and a higher than average tide meant a hurricane was imminent.

Hamilton quickly gathered up paperwork from the warehouse office and made the rounds to the suppliers and customers in the close network of businesspeople. In a few short hours, he sold many of the waterfront stock in his care, often at a discount, but secured cash and credit, which would soon be in short supply.

A few hours later a fierce hurricane battered the small seaside town, drove a 15-foot wall of water deep into the streets, and bashed many of the ships onto the cliffs that surrounded the town. Many of his fellow merchants lost most of their assets, but Hamilton had removed that liability from Beekman and Cruger’s books, and thus ensured they would have no catastrophic losses. And with the cash and credit he secured, he turned the import business into one of the town’s de facto banks.

By the time his boss returned from New York, Hamilton had transformed the tragedy of the hurricane into a fortune. Less than a year ago, he was penniless and destitute, now his commission on the profit will enable Hamilton to attend King’s College in New York, and fulfill a promise to his childhood friend, who was studying pre-med there.

And with this shift in destiny, Alexander Hamilton will forge a path that will reshape American history and international commerce.

Part 1: Horror on the Shores of Paradise
Many of the founders and leaders of the United States were gentrified landowners and wealthy merchants whose positions in politics and government were solidified at their births. But those who would exert the most influence were common men molded from the clay of hardship, who truly understood how the world works and how to improve life for all of the young country’s citizens.

Alexander Hamilton was one of these men, who rose from humble, even tragic, conditions to craft the foundation of the new American republic. He was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis on January 11, 1755.

In Washington and Hamilton, Tony Williams writes: Hamilton’s early life was one of constant struggle and represented the more difficult side of life in the West Indies. At one point his mother, Rachel Levine, took up with the Scotsman James Hamilton, a ne’er-do-well with big aspirations and no reasonable hope of achieving them. In 1765, James Hamilton moved his growing family to St. Croix and then abandoned them. Alexander left with his mother and brother, never saw his father after the age of ten.

The island of St. Croix was an idyllic, windswept Dutch colony with sandy beaches, a reef-sheltered cove, and verdant soil that supported a thriving trading and sugar plantation economy.

His mother made ends meet by running a small supply store from their small waterfront home. After a few years of scraping by, both Alexander and his mother contracted yellow fever. After a week of blistering suffering, she died and Alexander barely survived. Her few belongings did not go to either of her sons, instead, they were claimed by her first husband, who by Dutch law was the still rightful owner of her property.

Now homeless and destitute, his brother James was apprenticed as a carpenter, and he became a clerk for one of his mother’s suppliers, Beekman and Cruger.

Williams details: Alexander Hamilton was fortunate to find a home quickly in Beekman & Cruger, which was well situated to trade in the Atlantic network. He worked hard at the firm and quickly picked up essential knowledge in management, bookkeeping, currency exchange, and oceangoing trade. He also learned about the mercantilist policies of the European nations, which attempted to monopolize the trade from their colonies in order to keep the money flowing out to other empires.

In 1771, Cruger became ill and sailed to New York for five months to recover and entrusted the sixteen-year-old Hamilton with the management of his firm. His precocious protege went into action, directing the firm as if it were his own. Besides taking liberties ordering clients, customers, and employees around, Hamilton also assumed considerable responsibility for inspecting cargoes, haggling over costs, turning merchandise into profit, navigating trade regulations, and ensuring that everyone lived up to his high standards.

Hamilton also daily witnessed the stark horror of the Atlantic trade networks--slavery. It was an indelible memory that would forever turn him against the horrors of human trafficking. In St. Croix, sugar was such a valuable crop that the planters believed it was generally a better investment to work slaves to death than to provide for their well-being. Even though thousands arrived every year, the slave populations remained fairly stagnant because so many died.

His brilliance was soon noticed by the local Presbyterian Reverend Hugh Knox, who took up a collection from the local merchants to send him off to school in the United States. In addition to funding, Knox provided eloquent letters of recommendation that would open doors and establish credibility within the New York and New Jersey patrician societies.

Ron Chernow in Alexander Hamilton writes: He never needed to worry about leading a tedious uneventful life. When his ship caught fire during his three-week voyage to North America, crew members scrambled down ropes to the sea and scooped up seawater in buckets, extinguishing the blaze with some difficulty. The charred vessel managed to finish the trip.

In 1772 Hamilton arrived in Boston and then New York City, where he boarded a room from Hercules Mulligan, a haberdasher who was the brother of a trader Hamilton had worked with. Hercules would be influential in expanding Hamilton’s initial circle of friends, including introducing him to the Sons of Liberty, a group that was fervently anti-crown. After considering Princeton, Hamilton enrolled at King’s College, which was decidedly pro-English, but he flourished there.

Chernow writes: Hamilton displayed an unusual capacity for impressing older, influential men, and he gained his social footing with surpassing speed, crossing over an invisible divide into a privileged, patrician world in a way that would have been impossible in St. Croix. Thanks to the letters of Hugh Knox, he had instant access to men at the pinnacle of colonial society.

His intelligence, energy, enthusiasm, and wit obliterated any trace of the suffering, loss, and hardship he had so abundantly endured. And people just like to have him around.

Part 2: The Fight of A Lifetime
In 1775, after the first engagement of American troops with the British at Lexington and Concord, Hamilton and other King's College students joined a New York volunteer militia company called the Corsicans, later renamed as the Hearts of Oak.

He drilled with the company, before classes, in the graveyard of nearby St. Paul's Chapel. Hamilton also poured over books on military history and tactics and was soon recommended to lead the group. Under fire from HMS Asia, he led a successful raid for British cannons in the Battery, the capture of which resulted in the Hearts of Oak becoming an artillery company for the remainder of the Revolutionary War.

Through his connections with influential New York patriots, Hamilton raised the New York Provincial Company of Artillery of 60 men in 1776 and was elected captain. The company took part in action around New York City, notably at the Battle of White Plains. At the Battle of Trenton, it was stationed at the high point of town and kept the Hessians pinned in their barracks. Their cover fire was recognized as a key role in one of Washington’s first military victories.

The Revolutionary War would provide the historic occasion for George Washington and Alexander Hamilton to become national figures and forge a fruitful collaboration in the cause for liberty and self-government.

In many of his maneuvers, retreats, and flanks, Washington noticed it was the fearless and brilliant Hamilton, and his well-disciplined artillery company, that provided covering fire. And it was obvious, even from a distance, of his prodigious talents in leadership and organization.

In Washington and Hamilton, Tony Williams writes: Washington desperately needed someone with Hamilton’s skills and talents on his staff. He wanted to delegate certain tasks that would free him up to concentrate on finding a winning strategy. He needed staff officers who could find the necessary supplies to fit his army for operations and simultaneously respect the civil authority of Congress and the states.

But as Hamilton soon discovered, Washington was demanding, and at times hot-tempered, taskmaster who expected loyalty, industry, and perseverance from his staff officers. Hamilton, for his part, fit Washington’s needs perfectly. His administrative genius contributed to the greater organization in the army, and his keen mind and uncanny ability to articulate ideas quickly and persuasively made him one of Washington’s most trusted officers.

They worked together for many hours daily in close quarters. They ate their meals together and slept under the same roof, sharing fleeting moments of respite or joy. They also pored over maps, discussed upcoming battles, and made decisions that determined the fate of young men under Washington’s command. The two were so close that the general referred to Hamilton as “my boy.” For the sphinx-like Washington, this was considered effusive praise.

When at last, the revolutionaries proved victorious, it was Hamilton, in a series of letters, who cajoled the retired planter, Washington, to come out of retirement and serve as the first President of the United States. 

It can’t be understated that Washington really, really wanted to retire to his land holdings and live out his remaining years in peace. It was Hamilton’s direct influence, and flowery persuasion, that pulled Washington back into leadership, and forever changed the office of the presidency.

Part 3: Honor the Debt, Don’t Deny It
Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were on completely opposite ends of the political spectrum, but when they were engineering the three branches of government, both had George Washington in mind as the first president. His deferment to state’s rights, respect for equal branches of government, and his ability to meet challenges head-on framed their view of the powers and execution of the office.

Upon election, Washington created the president’s cabinet, and his first appointee was Alexander Hamilton, aged thirty-four, for the position of Secretary of the Treasury. Jefferson was appointed Secretary of State. There were tensions immediately between the two that threatened to wreck the first term of the country’s first president.

In Washington and Hamilton, Tony Williams writes: Hamilton wanted to remake the economy so that the United States would be independent of the old world powers for the necessities of war. In fact, he hoped to create an integrated economy capable of surpassing the European powers. In order for this to happen, he first had to stabilize the perilous fiscal situation that confronted the new nation.

He needed to confront the war debt head-on, not just dismiss it, which was often the practice for newly established governments. Jefferson wanted to keep control of taxation and commerce powers in the hands of the states, but Hamilton had a card to play.

Williams writes: Hamilton proposed that the U.S. government assume all the debts contracted by the states during the American Revolution, and while Congress passed this plan, it did so only after it was agreed to move the nation’s capital to the banks of the Potomac River in exchange for Southern support of the plan. The deal would later prompt Jefferson to believe Hamilton had hoodwinked him into accepting a plan that enhanced the power of the central government: “I was duped into it by the Secretary of the Treasury, and made a tool for forwarding his schemes..and of all the errors of my political life this has occasioned me the deepest regret.”

Williams details Hamilton's machinations: Next Hamilton proposed that a national bank be established to facilitate the economic policies of the federal government and to serve as a catalyst for national growth. It would allow the federal government to conduct four constitutionally specified powers: to collect taxes, to borrow money, regulate trade among states, and raise and support fleets and armies.

With the national bank in place, Hamilton proposed that the federal government should pursue policies, including protective tariffs and government bounties, that would assist in the development of American manufacturing capability. Hamilton linked political independence to economic independence. Almost all of the manufactured goods essential for national defense and for the nation’s overall economic security were made in Europe, a situation that put the United States in a vulnerable position. True American independence required the creation of domestic sources of manufactured goods.

By introducing a national bank, centralizing debt to the federal government, and pushing for domestic manufacturing, Hamilton looked beyond the political fights of now and imagined a strong, self-reliant country that could tap the limitless resources of the North American landscape. Washington shared these views and was a big proponent in ensuring the success of these policies.

When Hamilton became Treasury secretary, the country was bankrupt and American debt was selling for 10-15 cents on the dollar. By the time he left five years later, the country’s credit was as good as any other major international player.

But Hamilton’s success would be short-lived, and a tawdry tale would mar his rising political career. It was also the country’s first major political sex scandal.

According to Willard Randall in Alexander Hamilton: A supposed widow named Maria Reynolds approached Hamilton and begged him for financial support. She played on his heartstrings by claiming that her husband James Reynolds had abandoned her.

After delivering monetary aid to Reynolds for the first time at the house where she was lodging, the two began an illicit affair. It was not long before Maria’s husband, the very much alive James, found out about the affair and used his knowledge to blackmail Hamilton, who paid him to remain silent.

After James Reynolds was arrested for counterfeiting, he informed investigators that Hamilton had been using government funds as hush money. When confronted with this, Hamilton admitted to the affair, but he also insisted that he had used his own personal funds to cover it up, even showing James Monroe his love letters from Maria Reynolds as proof.

Monroe gave the letters to his close friend Thomas Jefferson, one of Hamilton’s fiercest political enemies. Jefferson passed them on to publisher James Callender, already notorious as the pre-eminent 19th-century peddler of political gossip, and in 1797 the scandal was news around the country.

Most men would retire from the public eye, but Hamilton knew he must remain a prominent national figure if he hoped to regain his credibility and reputation. Over the next few years, he built his New York law practice and was called to serve as Inspector General of the U.S. Army, where he oversaw its organization, training, armament, and, working with his Treasury successor, its funding.

As a founding father and engineer of the country’s financial architecture, he retained his influence in New York and national politics. That clout, however, would ultimately lead him to the shores of the Hudson River and deliver a bullet into his spine.

Part 4: 10 Paces and Shoot
The start of the end for Hamilton began in the 1800 presidential election. Hamilton, ever the Machiavellian acolyte, worked to defeat Jefferson and his own party’s nominee, John Adams. Jefferson did in fact beat Adams but tied with Aaron Burr with 73 electoral votes each. Hamilton viewed Jefferson as the lesser of two evils and threw his support behind him. After six rounds of voting the House of Representatives elected Jefferson as president.

Events again repeated themselves in the New York gubernatorial election of 1804. Hamilton backed Morgan Lewis, and once again Aaron Burr lost the race.

The series of public defeats, at the hands of his rival, pushed Burr to the brink and their fierce private feud quickly spilled out into the public.

According to Chernow: Burr was such a dissipated, libidinous character that Hamilton had a rich field to choose from in assailing his personal reputation. Aaron Burr had been openly accused of every conceivable sin: deflowering virgins, breaking up marriages through adultery, forcing women into prostitution, accepting bribes, fornicating with slaves, and looting the estates of legal clients.

Conversations Hamilton had in private about Burr were published, without his knowledge, in newspapers around the country. In the past Hamilton had used the prospect of a duel to silence his critics, this time it was Burr who had been wronged, and he was the one seeking redress. In a rare turn of events, he had put Hamilton on the defense.

Chernow writes: Duels were elaborate forms of conflict resolution, which is why duelists did not automatically try to kill their opponents. The mere threat of gunplay concentrated the minds of antagonists, forcing them and their seconds into extensive negotiations that often ended with apologies instead of bullets. In the unlikely event that a duel occurred, the antagonists frequently tried to only wound each other, clipping an arm or a leg. The point was not to exhibit deadly marksmanship; it was to demonstrate courage by submitting to the duel.

Everything in Alexander Hamilton’s life pointed to the fact that he would not dodge a duel or negotiate a compromise. He was incapable of turning the other cheek. With his checkered West Indian background, he had predicated his career on fiercely defending his honor.

The two men met on the shores of the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey at dawn on July 11, 1804. At the turn, Hamilton shot first and deliberately put his shot above Burr’s head. Burr, with all the time in the world to decide his next actions, took deliberate aim and put his shot directly into Hamilton.

According to Willard Randall in Alexander Hamilton: Alexander Hamilton realized instantly that he would die. Before he even heard the shot, the oversize lead ball had torn into his right side just above the hip, crashed through a rib, sliced through his liver, shattering a vertebra. His friend and second in the duel, Nathaniel Pendleton, rolled him over, cupped him in his arms, and held him, half sitting, under a cedar tree, away from the glaring July sunlight.

Alexander Hamilton lasted thirty-one hours after Aaron Burr shot him. The pain and suffering during that time were beyond imagination. The ball had lodged inside his second lumbar disk, which had shattered, paralyzing his legs. His stomach slowly filled with blood from severed blood vessels in his liver.

His wife, who did not know about the duel, visited him with their seven children in the bed he lay dying. Hysterical from the news and seeing his fatal condition, she had to be sedated and led away. He died with his sister-in-law, Angelica, at his bedside.

Hamilton’s ancestry never gave him emotional stability or financial security. From the moment of his birth, he was surrounded by conflict--affection and abandonment, beauty and brutality, refinement and savagery. It is not too much of a stretch to proclaim Hamilton a genius at the science of politics. He was a horrible politician, but as a nation builder and strategic thinker, he was without an equal.


What if? Scenario
In our What If? scenario both Hamilton and Burr throw their shots wide and spare the possibility of wounding one another. In a rare show of congeniality between two bitter rivals, the men quietly shook hands and acknowledged an end to hostilities and public beration of each other.

Despite the fiery defense of his honor, he had lost his son to a duel, with the same pistols, by the way, only 3 years earlier. Perhaps Hamilton will never know how close he came to an agonizing death, but the new timeline will deliver significant changes to the direction of the United States.

At the time of the duel, Thomas Jefferson is in his first term as president. He had completed the Louisiana Purchase and doubled the size of the young country. But he did it at the expense of his own governing philosophy by using the powers of the presidency, not Congress, to initiate the treaty and purchase.

Hamilton, who could always sense weakness in his rivals, used the power of his pen to paint Jefferson as dishonest to his ideals and flaccid on his governance. Jefferson is immensely popular after the Louisiana Purchase, but his long tenure in government has created a cadre of political enemies that rally to Hamilton’s critique.

When it is time for Jefferson to run for his next term in office, he finds a bitter, eloquent, and prominent, competing candidate in Alexander Hamilton. His platform of a strong central government, a proactive national bank, and a powerful federal military are compelling counterpoints to Jefferson’s views.

But Hamilton has one final card to play that will change the race for president. A few months before the election, Hamilton releases a blistering critique of Jefferson’s slavery position. He is not afraid to dig up, as it turns out true, allegations of his improper relationship with one of his servants, and his general treatment of the slaves in his possession.

This part is true. Jefferson had secretly advocated for the shipment of all slaves back to Africa, or if not practicable, to a desolate area of the country they could share with Native Americans. Hamilton made this secret view a prominent critique of Jefferson that was shared in the northern and southern states alike. The South was horrified at losing their free workforce, and the North was horrified at the genocidal treatment of a large race of people.

In a series of letters published in newspapers, and in meeting hall speeches throughout the country, Hamilton did not call for the end of slavery, although that was his aim, but rather he used the critique as a cudgel to hammer away at Jefferson’s mystique and competence.

It works. By the narrowest of margins, Hamilton emerges as the electoral college victor and, in 1805, ascends as the fourth president of the United States. And America, as we know it, is about to change forever.


The Country’s First State Dinner
Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton
White House, Washington D.C.
May 14, 1805

Eliza Schuyler Hamilton was intimately familiar with the social life of the nation’s capital. Endless dinner parties, theater showings, and political galas peppered the calendar with countless opportunities to be intimate with friends and rivals alike.

But this season, as the First Lady of the United States, she was not merely a player, she was the queen of the social season. And as torturous as the events could be, it was much better being the center of attention.

But the pressure was on Eliza to throw the fete of the season in welcoming the French delegation in what she called a “state dinner.” Nothing like this had been done before in the history of the country. The feast was meant as a diplomatic overture to cement the relationship between the two countries and thank them for their support during the Revolutionary War. There could not have been more on the line.

In addition to holding American debt, the French empire, under Napoleon, had recently sold the Louisiana Territory to Thomas Jefferson, his predecessor, and Hamilton needed to make sure there were no hard feelings of being swindled or ill will that could threaten their commerce agreements.

The U.S. Army band, dressed in spotless uniforms, played the delegation into the room, where they were greeted by President Hamilton and his wife. The seven-course meal featured oysters from the Chesapeake Bay, beef from Vermont, pheasant from Virginia, fried chicken from Georgia, and lobsters from Maine. In the fashion of colonial cuisine, the dishes were accompanied by boiled vegetables, including corn, waxed beans, and tomatoes. The dessert included baked apple tarts, pumpkin pie, and gooseberry whipped custard.

Hamilton, who spoke fluent French, regaled his guests, the French Foreign Minister, his wife, and aides, with stories of shipwrecks, sea battles, and the plundering of Spanish galleons from his time growing up in the West Indies. They were rapt with attention during the tense moments of the stories and delightfully guffawed during the humorous parts.

The men retired to the parlor to enjoy after-dinner aperitifs and cigars. Eliza had always heard of the French as aloof and snobby, but she was pleasantly surprised that they were gracious guests and polite diners of cuisine that was utterly foreign to them. She took her French counterpart, the minister’s wife, aside and they walked the White House grounds after dinner.

During casual conversation, she picked up that the Minister would also be visiting French holdings in the Caribbean in the hopes of solidifying what was left of their West Indies colonies. Eliza recognized this as an errant slip that could lead to a valuable diplomatic breakthrough.

After their tour of the grounds, she excused herself and slipped into the parlor, and pulled Hamilton aside. She fed him the crucial intelligence, and in a sign of their close relationship, counseled him to broker a deal that night.

Alexander Hamilton, armed with his wife’s information, used the atmosphere of cigar smoke and iced cognac to pull the minister aside for some hushed conversations. Not one to engage in small talk when the direct conversation would serve him better, he mentioned to the French foreign minister that the United States Navy had 34 ships of the line stationed in Florida. And those ships could serve as a local protection force over the next 7 years for French shipping in the Caribbean. In return, he asked for forgiveness of American debt held by the French after the Revolutionary War.

Since the French fleet was tied up with English hostilities, the offer was too good to pass up, and Hamilton knew that. The two men stared at each other for a few tense moments, and then the minister quietly offered his hand and the Treaty of Florida, as it was to be known, was agreed upon.

In the course of other state dinners, there would be far less international intrigue, and certainly no treaties as a result. It was certainly the event of the D.C. social season and an international hit on all fronts. It’s easy to argue that Eliza Hamilton’s first state dinner, the first of its kind for the U.S., was the most successful 7-course meal in American history.


What If Aftermath
As president Hamilton sets out to turn the United States into an international economic powerhouse. Unlike any other politician of his time, Hamilton had a long-term vision for both the economy and the military.

Chernow, in an interview with CNN, surmises:  Hamilton had a very modern take on our economic future. He envisioned a country built on banks, corporations, stock exchanges, and factories. This was a frightening and sinister vision to a lot of Americans at the time. Jefferson represented a more soothing point of view: an America of small towns and traditional agriculture. One reason for the eventual reappraisal of Hamilton is that America has grown into the contours of the country of his imagination, not Jefferson’s. We have caught up to his prophetic vision.

Chernow goes on to say: It is more valid to say that Hamilton was a patron saint of Wall Street. In fact, when he was Treasury Secretary back in the 1790s, there were only five securities traded. Three were Treasury securities created by Hamilton. The fourth was shares of the Bank of the United States, created by Hamilton. The fifth, shares of the Bank of New York—the first private bank of New York—were also created by Hamilton. So he literally had created the entire infrastructure of Wall Street.

Decades of financing war have decimated the value of the British pound and the French franc. Hamilton’s machinations in building American economic credibility quickly put the dollar on par with other international currencies.

Under his umbrella of protective tariffs, excise taxes, and debt financing, Hamilton leverages the country’s endless untapped iron, lumber, cotton, and food resources to build a manufacturing engine, unlike the world, has ever seen.

Countless lumber yards churn out millions of boards to build towns and fleets. Markets are stacked to the brim with fresh produce and meat. Harbors are filled with sleek sloops and towering man-o-wars. Armories are filled with American-made muskets, cannons, bullets, and uniforms.

No other European power can compete in North America with the military muscle the U.S. has built on its home turf. With an eye to the Spanish holdings covering the rest of the continent, Hamilton forces the powerless Spanish to surrender much of their territory, including California, Florida, and Texas.

And in doing so he is the first president to unite the country from coast to coast. His popularity soars and he is easily elected to a second term which will last into 1812.

By the time of the War of 1812, the British land in Washington D.C and face a formidable, well-armed military that easily repels the small force of invaders. Instead of burning the White House to the ground, a celebratory dinner is held in honor of the U.S. victors.

The foundation that Hamilton builds in commerce, international finance, military might, and manufacturing capability creates an entirely self-sufficient powerhouse that expands its influence on the world stage in the 19th century and dominates it during the 20th century.

Despite a lifetime of hardship that would have broken most men, Hamilton turned these challenges into an opportunity to build his talents, sharpen his wit, and rise to the heights of leadership. He was far from a perfect founding father, but the world as we know it was shaped by his vision more than 200 hundred years ago. It may have taken a musical to learn his name, but his impact on our lives necessitates we all learn his story.

Conclusion
Thank you for joining me, Mark Bouffard, on this trip. This show is produced by me, Mark Bouffard, and Beto McQuade. It is mixed and edited by Beto McQuade. The music you hear is Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com.

Don’t forget to review, like, and subscribe to this podcast. Check out our blogs on whatifworldhistory.com and follow us on your favorite social media channel.

This has been What If World History? To mark our tenth episode, we will be taking a few weeks off to enjoy the summer. I hope you take some time to enjoy the summer as well. Our next episode will drop on August 8th. In it, we will tackle the legacy of the original sexy siren, Cleopatra. And we ponder a history in which she survives Roman occupation, becomes a unifying leader, and changes the Middle East forever.