ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
II. HAMILTON WRITES HIMSELF OUT OF REPUTATION, continued ...
The work of James Monroe, with the help of Madison, these six articles were careful replies to Hamilton's charges.
While few Republicans could match Hamilton's skill with words, as Jefferson had pointed out several times, Monroe was the winner of this debate.
He had an advantage in the form of Jefferson's correspondence to Madison from France.
When the Treasury Secretary tried to put words in Jefferson's mouth, Monroe could quote him exactly.
Hamilton's charge that Jefferson had opposed the Constitution could not stand up to Monroe's thorough and documented refutations.
"At last, well cornered, and practically exposed as the Secretary of the Treasury,"' Catallus' gave up the struggle and refused to answer. 72
So the Republicans had the last word.
Hamilton was silenced.
He had shown dramatically that "in attack he had a tendency to get too much heated; to hit too hard and too promiscuosuly; to rely too much on his muscles, too little on his eyes." 73
Not only had Hamilton's original purpose in writing been obscured, if not even reversed -~ he had intended to discredit the Republicans before the elections — but he had contributed to a development that alarmed him: the beginning of the two—party system as we know it.
Most historians agree that the Republican party began to organize in 1792.
The National Gazette made a contribution to its consolidation, among many other sources of impetus.
And Hamilton also did his part.
Freneau could not have championed a cause unless there was at least one visible villain to buck.
Hamilton made himself vulnerable.
By the fall elections of 1792, voters had a choice.
While John Adams retained the vice-presidency, the Republicans won five states and a majority in the House. 75
Republican newspapers continued to multiply and had a great deal to do with the final victory of Jefferson in 1800 and the subsequent disappearance of the Federalists.
And so, unwittingly, Hamilton had contributed to the healthy rise of the two-party system in America.
The notion of parties so horrified him that if he had it to do over, he surely would have restrained himself from entering the public feuding between the gazettes.
Perhaps, though, he could not have.
He never learned to steel himself against public comment, to learn to live with newspaper commentary of all varieties.
In his involvement in the gazette war and elsewhere, he "revealed a sensitivity to such abuse that seriously handicapped his career in American politics," and "a temperamental weakness that was to destroy his leadership." 76
Of course "he would have been wiser -- but less human -- had he accepted this denigration as one of the inevitable concomitants of political office,"
wrote John C. Miller, who suggested that one reason for Hamilton's inability to develop a tough skin was that "he carried into political life the ethics and the punctilio of the military man, and he never fully realized that they were out of place in the netherworld of politics in which he had cast his lot." 77
72 Philip M. Marsh, "Madison's Defense of Freneau," William and Mary Quarterly, ser. 3 (April 1946): 271.
73 0liver, Hamilton, p. 297.
74 See Noble E. Cunningham, Jr., The Jeffersonian Republicans: The Formation of Party Organization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1957), p. 49; Alexander De Conde, Entangling Alliance: Politics and Diplomacy under George Washington (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1958), p. 61; and Miller, Federalist Era: 1789-1801 (New York: Harper and Row, 1960), p. 99.
75 See De Conde, Entangling Alliance, p. 62 and Lewis Leary, That Rascal Freneau (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1941), p. 221.
76 Miller, Hamilton, p. 345, and Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton, p. 168.
77 Miller, Hamilton, p. 345.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
II. HAMILTON WRITES HIMSELF OUT OF REPUTATION, continued ...
Hamilton was to repeat his mistake several years later.
In the presidential campaign of 1800, when once again he believed that he could overwhelm his enemies with a rhetorical onslaught, he only succeeded in damaging his reputation and severely injuring the Federalist Party's reputation.
He did so by publicly attacking President John Adams.
Hamilton had long since fallen out with President Adams on a number of issues, particularly that of war with France which Adams had been able to avoid.
By so doing, he had in effect eliminated Hamilton's excuse to form a permanent standing army, one of his lifelong priorities that had not been achieved when he was part of Washington's administration.
Hamilton entertained thoughts of publicly criticizing Adams when he wrote to Oliver Wolcott in the summer of 1800.
"I have serious thoughts of giving to the public my opinion respecting Mr. Adams, with my reasons, in a letter to a friend, with my signature,” he wrote.
"This seems to me the most authentic way of conveying the information, and best suited to the plain dealing of my character." 78
A month and a half later, after giving the idea more thought, he again wrote Wolcott:
Decorum may not permit going in to the newspapers, but the letter may be addressed to so many respectable men of influence as may give its contents general circulation. What say you to the measure? Anonymous publications can now effect nothing. 79
It is interesting that Hamilton concluded as he did, he who had long been such an effective anonymous writer.
Perhaps Hamilton found himself in somewhat of a dilemna: while he wanted to make a bold statement and put his name to it, he was unwilling to do so in the newspapers, convincing himself that decorum would not allow it.
He decided to write his critical assessment of Adams, have copies printed, and send it to leading Federalists all over the country.
So he sat down and wrote his opinion of "The Public Conduct and Character of JohnAdams, Esq., President of the United States."
It was a severely derogatory characterization of President Adams.
His thesis sentence was that "he does not possess the talents adapted to the administration of government, and that there are great and intrinsic defects in his character." 80
He went on at length about the inept way Adams had handled the foreign policy crisis he faced with France, castigating him for making the first gesture toward a resumption of normal relations.
But his complaint against Adams emerged as a purely personal one.
He claimed that Adams had abused him verbally by calling him the leader of a British faction, and had further insulted him by not even responding to his two letters, written to clear his name against the charge.
The essay was a vicious attack on Adams the man as well as on Adams the diplomat and president.
Hamilton's motivation in writing the piece was most likely a selfish one, made transparent by his surprise ending.
After venting his spleen, he concluded that he would not recommend the withholding of a single vote from Adams.
Apparently no fruitful purpose was even intended.
Rather, an embittered Hamilton felt the need to air a private antagonism.
He sent his essay to the editor of the New York Gazette for printing before sending copies to leading Federalists.
But Aaron Burr intercepted a copy of the document and sent it off to the Aurora and the New London Bee. 81
It actually appeared in the Republican press before some of the Federalists had even received their copies.
The damage done was considerable.
The split in the Federalist Party, made wider now, was exposed for all to see.
Hamilton's public attack on Adams not only crushed the last Federalist hope of a victory against the Republicans, but it also diminished his own reputation.
He was never again to command the attention of his party as he once had.
"Democrats exulted in the disservice Hamilton had done his party and himself." 82
Hamilton apparently had no regrets about what he had done.
78 "Letter to Oliver Wolcott," August 3, 1800, Works vol. 10, p. 383.
79 "Letter to Oliver Wolcott," September 26, 1800, Works, Vol. 10, p. 390.
80 Works, vol. 7, pp. 310—311.
81 Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton, p. 478.
82 Broadus Mitchell, Alexander Hamilton: The National Adventure: 1788-1804 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), p. 485.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
II. HAMILTON WRITES HIMSELF OUT OF REPUTATION, continued ...
Hamilton was to repeat his mistake several years later.
In the presidential campaign of 1800, when once again he believed that he could overwhelm his enemies with a rhetorical onslaught, he only succeeded in damaging his reputation and severely injuring the Federalist Party's reputation.
He did so by publicly attacking President John Adams.
Hamilton had long since fallen out with President Adams on a number of issues, particularly that of war with France which Adams had been able to avoid.
By so doing, he had in effect eliminated Hamilton's excuse to form a permanent standing army, one of his lifelong priorities that had not been achieved when he was part of Washington's administration.
Hamilton entertained thoughts of publicly criticizing Adams when he wrote to Oliver Wolcott in the summer of 1800.
"I have serious thoughts of giving to the public my opinion respecting Mr. Adams, with my reasons, in a letter to a friend, with my signature,” he wrote.
"This seems to me the most authentic way of conveying the information, and best suited to the plain dealing of my character." 78
A month and a half later, after giving the idea more thought, he again wrote Wolcott:
Decorum may not permit going in to the newspapers, but the letter may be addressed to so many respectable men of influence as may give its contents general circulation. What say you to the measure? Anonymous publications can now effect nothing. 79
It is interesting that Hamilton concluded as he did, he who had long been such an effective anonymous writer.
Perhaps Hamilton found himself in somewhat of a dilemna: while he wanted to make a bold statement and put his name to it, he was unwilling to do so in the newspapers, convincing himself that decorum would not allow it.
He decided to write his critical assessment of Adams, have copies printed, and send it to leading Federalists all over the country.
So he sat down and wrote his opinion of "The Public Conduct and Character of JohnAdams, Esq., President of the United States."
It was a severely derogatory characterization of President Adams.
His thesis sentence was that "he does not possess the talents adapted to the administration of government, and that there are great and intrinsic defects in his character." 80
He went on at length about the inept way Adams had handled the foreign policy crisis he faced with France, castigating him for making the first gesture toward a resumption of normal relations.
But his complaint against Adams emerged as a purely personal one.
He claimed that Adams had abused him verbally by calling him the leader of a British faction, and had further insulted him by not even responding to his two letters, written to clear his name against the charge.
The essay was a vicious attack on Adams the man as well as on Adams the diplomat and president.
Hamilton's motivation in writing the piece was most likely a selfish one, made transparent by his surprise ending.
After venting his spleen, he concluded that he would not recommend the withholding of a single vote from Adams.
Apparently no fruitful purpose was even intended.
Rather, an embittered Hamilton felt the need to air a private antagonism.
He sent his essay to the editor of the New York Gazette for printing before sending copies to leading Federalists.
But Aaron Burr intercepted a copy of the document and sent it off to the Aurora and the New London Bee. 81
It actually appeared in the Republican press before some of the Federalists had even received their copies.
The damage done was considerable.
The split in the Federalist Party, made wider now, was exposed for all to see.
Hamilton's public attack on Adams not only crushed the last Federalist hope of a victory against the Republicans, but it also diminished his own reputation.
He was never again to command the attention of his party as he once had.
"Democrats exulted in the disservice Hamilton had done his party and himself." 82
Hamilton apparently had no regrets about what he had done.
78 "Letter to Oliver Wolcott," August 3, 1800, Works vol. 10, p. 383.
79 "Letter to Oliver Wolcott," September 26, 1800, Works, Vol. 10, p. 390.
80 Works, vol. 7, pp. 310—311.
81 Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton, p. 478.
82 Broadus Mitchell, Alexander Hamilton: The National Adventure: 1788-1804 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), p. 485.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
II. HAMILTON WRITES HIMSELF OUT OF REPUTATION, continued ...
Perhaps he did not realize for a long time, if ever, the extent of the damage done by his public exposure of inner-party struggle in an election year.
He actually considered writing a second essay, as if he "was feeding his defiance," or as if writing "under an obsession that adjourned his judgment and blotted out his own vulnerability." 83
He wrote his friend Timothy Pickering:
You no doubt have seen my pamphlet respecting the conduct and character of President Adams. The press teems with replies, and I may finally think it expedient to publish a second time. 84
What he thought he might accomplish through a second essay, only Hamilton knew.
He may have considered it expedient to publish a second time until he realized how little respect expediency had brought him on his first effort.
There is an ironic footnote to this episode, little known or repeated.
In 1798, Republican editors were fined and imprisoned for expressing critical opinions of President Adams -- far less derogatory than those in Hamilton's pamphlet.
One of the victims of the Sedition Law, Thomas Cooper, decided it would be interesting to charge Hamilton now with seditious libel, since he was surely guilty of violating the Sedition Law.
Cooper, who had served six months for libeling Adams, wrote Hamilton to ask whether he were indeed the author of the seditious attack on Adams.
Hamilton did not reply.
And since Adams paid no attention to the incident, Cooper dropped his threatened charge before anything came of it.
But at least his exposure of the clearly partisan Sedition Law was recorded in history. 85
The pamphlet attack on Adams, like the attack on Jefferson in the Gazette of the United States, is a striking example of Hamilton's tendency toward a self-destructive rhetorical onslaught.
In both instances he damaged his reputation and that of his party more than he furthered them.
In both cases he was divisive.
His attack on Jefferson in the Gazette speeded the formation of a formidable Opposition party.
His "astonishing attack on President John Adams left Hamilton a party leader without a following." 86
In both of these offensives, too, Hamilton seems to have overreacted out of an exaggerated pride, a pride which made him feel persecuted.
Hamilton revealed that trait in a third episode which hurt his reputation -- this time more personally than politically.
It is in the famous case of the Reynolds Affair that Hamilton hurt himself and his family more than anyone else.
In 1797, an unprincipled journalist named James T. Callender published the "Historical Memoirs of the United States, for the Year 1796"; in which he raised the question of whether Hamilton had speculated unethically as Secretary of the Treasury.
The charges were not new to Hamilton, but he thought they had been answered satisfactorily years earlier.
At that time three Congressmen -- Abraham Venable, James Monroe, and Frederick Muhlenberg — had approached Hamilton and asked him to explain why he was involved in making payments to a James Reynolds.
They had evidence in the form of written notes that Hamilton was slipping Reynolds money for some unknown purpose.
Hamilton then had made a full confession of his adultery with Reynolds' wife and subsequent blackmail by the couple, a result they had carefully plotted all along.
When Callender published the same circumstantial evidence that the three congressmen had originally produced, Hamilton felt compelled to clear his public honor of the charge of speculation, a charge which the Republican press was eagerly picking upon.
To do so he chose to sacrifice his private reputation.
He was able to clear himself of any appearance of unethical involvement, he thought, by publishing the Reynolds' letters to him, both the wife's invitations and the husband's demands for money.
So on August 31,1797, he told all to everyone in the form of "Observations on Certain Documents, Contained in No.V and VI of 'The History of the United States for the Year 1796 in which the Charge of Speculation against Alexander Hamilton, late Secretary of the Treasury, is fully refuted. Written by himself."
Its title was hardly suggestive, but the confessions inside were complete.
"As could be expected, he suffered through a good deal of Republican wisecracking and, worse, disbelief."
83 Mitchell, National Adventure, pp. 485, 487.
84 "Letter to Timothy Pickering," November 13, 1800, Works, vol. 10, p. 391.
85 See Dumas Malone, "The Threatened Prosecution of Alexander Hamilton under the Sedition Act by Thomas Cooper," American Historical Review 29 (1923-1924): 76-81.
86 Richard B. Morris, ed., Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation (New York: The Dial Press, 1957), P-xii.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
II. HAMILTON WRITES HIMSELF OUT OF REPUTATION, continued ...
Perhaps he did not realize for a long time, if ever, the extent of the damage done by his public exposure of inner-party struggle in an election year.
He actually considered writing a second essay, as if he "was feeding his defiance," or as if writing "under an obsession that adjourned his judgment and blotted out his own vulnerability." 83
He wrote his friend Timothy Pickering:
You no doubt have seen my pamphlet respecting the conduct and character of President Adams. The press teems with replies, and I may finally think it expedient to publish a second time. 84
What he thought he might accomplish through a second essay, only Hamilton knew.
He may have considered it expedient to publish a second time until he realized how little respect expediency had brought him on his first effort.
There is an ironic footnote to this episode, little known or repeated.
In 1798, Republican editors were fined and imprisoned for expressing critical opinions of President Adams -- far less derogatory than those in Hamilton's pamphlet.
One of the victims of the Sedition Law, Thomas Cooper, decided it would be interesting to charge Hamilton now with seditious libel, since he was surely guilty of violating the Sedition Law.
Cooper, who had served six months for libeling Adams, wrote Hamilton to ask whether he were indeed the author of the seditious attack on Adams.
Hamilton did not reply.
And since Adams paid no attention to the incident, Cooper dropped his threatened charge before anything came of it.
But at least his exposure of the clearly partisan Sedition Law was recorded in history. 85
The pamphlet attack on Adams, like the attack on Jefferson in the Gazette of the United States, is a striking example of Hamilton's tendency toward a self-destructive rhetorical onslaught.
In both instances he damaged his reputation and that of his party more than he furthered them.
In both cases he was divisive.
His attack on Jefferson in the Gazette speeded the formation of a formidable Opposition party.
His "astonishing attack on President John Adams left Hamilton a party leader without a following." 86
In both of these offensives, too, Hamilton seems to have overreacted out of an exaggerated pride, a pride which made him feel persecuted.
Hamilton revealed that trait in a third episode which hurt his reputation -- this time more personally than politically.
It is in the famous case of the Reynolds Affair that Hamilton hurt himself and his family more than anyone else.
In 1797, an unprincipled journalist named James T. Callender published the "Historical Memoirs of the United States, for the Year 1796"; in which he raised the question of whether Hamilton had speculated unethically as Secretary of the Treasury.
The charges were not new to Hamilton, but he thought they had been answered satisfactorily years earlier.
At that time three Congressmen -- Abraham Venable, James Monroe, and Frederick Muhlenberg — had approached Hamilton and asked him to explain why he was involved in making payments to a James Reynolds.
They had evidence in the form of written notes that Hamilton was slipping Reynolds money for some unknown purpose.
Hamilton then had made a full confession of his adultery with Reynolds' wife and subsequent blackmail by the couple, a result they had carefully plotted all along.
When Callender published the same circumstantial evidence that the three congressmen had originally produced, Hamilton felt compelled to clear his public honor of the charge of speculation, a charge which the Republican press was eagerly picking upon.
To do so he chose to sacrifice his private reputation.
He was able to clear himself of any appearance of unethical involvement, he thought, by publishing the Reynolds' letters to him, both the wife's invitations and the husband's demands for money.
So on August 31,1797, he told all to everyone in the form of "Observations on Certain Documents, Contained in No.V and VI of 'The History of the United States for the Year 1796 in which the Charge of Speculation against Alexander Hamilton, late Secretary of the Treasury, is fully refuted. Written by himself."
Its title was hardly suggestive, but the confessions inside were complete.
"As could be expected, he suffered through a good deal of Republican wisecracking and, worse, disbelief."
83 Mitchell, National Adventure, pp. 485, 487.
84 "Letter to Timothy Pickering," November 13, 1800, Works, vol. 10, p. 391.
85 See Dumas Malone, "The Threatened Prosecution of Alexander Hamilton under the Sedition Act by Thomas Cooper," American Historical Review 29 (1923-1924): 76-81.
86 Richard B. Morris, ed., Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation (New York: The Dial Press, 1957), P-xii.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
II. HAMILTON WRITES HIMSELF OUT OF REPUTATION, concluded ...
"By confessing his adultery, Hamilton persuaded few Republicans that he was innocent of financial wrongdoing." 87
Hamilton's defense of himself is particularly revealing in its opening section.
It shows him to be a bitter and a resentful man, convinced that the press had treated him shabbily.
It is true that Callender's charges against him had been unfair and unearned, for he had been scrupulously honest as Secretary of the Treasury.
But for him to strike out at an entire portion of the press which was not Federalist in sympathy was also an injustice.
His rage and bitterness were never more forcefully stated:
[Republican] newspapers continually ring with odious insinuations and charges against many of our most virtuous citizens; but, not satisfied with this, a measure now in this country has been lately adopted to give greater efficacy to the system of defamation -- periodical pamphlets issue from the same presses, full freighted with misrepresentation and falsehood .... How then can I ... expect to escape? And if truly this be, as every appearance indicates, a conspiracy of vice against virtue, ought I not rather to be flattered, that I have been so long and so peculiarly an object of persecution? Ought I to regret, if there be anything about me so formidable to the FACTION as to have made me worthy to be distinguished by the plenitude of its rancor and venom? It is certain that I have had a pretty copious experience of its malignity. For the honor of human nature, it is to be hoped that the examples are not numerous of men so greatly calumniated and persecuted as I have been, with so little cause. 88
Once again, Hamilton proved himself to be too sensitive to ever ignore the criticism of his political opponents.
Criticism in the Republican press was the one sure thing to make him act out of emotion rather than reason.
Public retaliation with his pen never really made matters better and usually made them worse.
He never learned when to keep quiet.
87 Miller, Hamilton, p. 463.
88 Works, Vol. 7, pp. 372-373.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
II. HAMILTON WRITES HIMSELF OUT OF REPUTATION, concluded ...
"By confessing his adultery, Hamilton persuaded few Republicans that he was innocent of financial wrongdoing." 87
Hamilton's defense of himself is particularly revealing in its opening section.
It shows him to be a bitter and a resentful man, convinced that the press had treated him shabbily.
It is true that Callender's charges against him had been unfair and unearned, for he had been scrupulously honest as Secretary of the Treasury.
But for him to strike out at an entire portion of the press which was not Federalist in sympathy was also an injustice.
His rage and bitterness were never more forcefully stated:
[Republican] newspapers continually ring with odious insinuations and charges against many of our most virtuous citizens; but, not satisfied with this, a measure now in this country has been lately adopted to give greater efficacy to the system of defamation -- periodical pamphlets issue from the same presses, full freighted with misrepresentation and falsehood .... How then can I ... expect to escape? And if truly this be, as every appearance indicates, a conspiracy of vice against virtue, ought I not rather to be flattered, that I have been so long and so peculiarly an object of persecution? Ought I to regret, if there be anything about me so formidable to the FACTION as to have made me worthy to be distinguished by the plenitude of its rancor and venom? It is certain that I have had a pretty copious experience of its malignity. For the honor of human nature, it is to be hoped that the examples are not numerous of men so greatly calumniated and persecuted as I have been, with so little cause. 88
Once again, Hamilton proved himself to be too sensitive to ever ignore the criticism of his political opponents.
Criticism in the Republican press was the one sure thing to make him act out of emotion rather than reason.
Public retaliation with his pen never really made matters better and usually made them worse.
He never learned when to keep quiet.
87 Miller, Hamilton, p. 463.
88 Works, Vol. 7, pp. 372-373.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS
In the second to last of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton attempted to justify the absence of a constitutional bill of rights.
He argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary to the Constitutiton, and impractical.
"Why,"asked Hamilton,"declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"
"Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?" 89
Hamilton's rhetorical questions were not entirely honest since he plainly believed that the federal government could adopt powers and enact legislation when it deemed necessary, regardless of the delineated areas of authority granted by the Constitution.
He always considered the Constitution a guideline, and never an absolute limitation upon federal powers.
The answer to the questions he posed is that without the First Amendment, the government would indeed try to restrain the press.
Even with the amendment, the Federalist administration of John Adams thought it perfectly valid to adopt measures which it was not constitutionally empowered to adopt, dramatically and undemocratically so in the passage of the Sedition Law.
Hamilton went on to argue that the free press amendment of the proposed bill of rights was impractical because impossible to define.
He asked who could give the liberty of the press "any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion?"
"I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government." 90
Hamilton's erception has in fact been borne out over the course of American history.
The free press concept has necessarily had to be flexible, changing with time and circumstances.
Whether for good or ill, the First Amendment has been expanded and narrowed throughout its history, as the courts have reflected the general spirit of the people.
Hamilton was also right about the difficulty of defining press liberty.
Afterall, no one has yet come up with a definition to meet everyone's satisfaction and to cover all occasions.
Courts at all levels continue to reexamine and refine the amendment and its implications.
Despite Hamilton's arguments, the First Amendment was added to the Constitution, and it remained for the leaders of the 1790s to define the meaning of press liberty and, more specifically, the role of an opposition press and public criticism in a democracy.
Hamilton's role in the shaping of attitudes toward the press has been variously interpreted.
Some have condemned him as a man who stood ready to suppress press liberty, while others have credited him with being among the great defenders of press freedom.
Some biographers have based their judgments on just one or two episodes of Hamilton's life, while others have based their conclusions on his last word on the subject of the press.
89 The Federalist Papers 84 (New York: New American Library, A Mentor Book, 1961), pp.513-514.
9O The Federalist Papers 84, p. 514.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS
In the second to last of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton attempted to justify the absence of a constitutional bill of rights.
He argued that a bill of rights was unnecessary to the Constitutiton, and impractical.
"Why,"asked Hamilton,"declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?"
"Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?" 89
Hamilton's rhetorical questions were not entirely honest since he plainly believed that the federal government could adopt powers and enact legislation when it deemed necessary, regardless of the delineated areas of authority granted by the Constitution.
He always considered the Constitution a guideline, and never an absolute limitation upon federal powers.
The answer to the questions he posed is that without the First Amendment, the government would indeed try to restrain the press.
Even with the amendment, the Federalist administration of John Adams thought it perfectly valid to adopt measures which it was not constitutionally empowered to adopt, dramatically and undemocratically so in the passage of the Sedition Law.
Hamilton went on to argue that the free press amendment of the proposed bill of rights was impractical because impossible to define.
He asked who could give the liberty of the press "any definition which would not leave the utmost latitude for evasion?"
"I hold it to be impracticable; and from this I infer that its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government." 90
Hamilton's erception has in fact been borne out over the course of American history.
The free press concept has necessarily had to be flexible, changing with time and circumstances.
Whether for good or ill, the First Amendment has been expanded and narrowed throughout its history, as the courts have reflected the general spirit of the people.
Hamilton was also right about the difficulty of defining press liberty.
Afterall, no one has yet come up with a definition to meet everyone's satisfaction and to cover all occasions.
Courts at all levels continue to reexamine and refine the amendment and its implications.
Despite Hamilton's arguments, the First Amendment was added to the Constitution, and it remained for the leaders of the 1790s to define the meaning of press liberty and, more specifically, the role of an opposition press and public criticism in a democracy.
Hamilton's role in the shaping of attitudes toward the press has been variously interpreted.
Some have condemned him as a man who stood ready to suppress press liberty, while others have credited him with being among the great defenders of press freedom.
Some biographers have based their judgments on just one or two episodes of Hamilton's life, while others have based their conclusions on his last word on the subject of the press.
89 The Federalist Papers 84 (New York: New American Library, A Mentor Book, 1961), pp.513-514.
9O The Federalist Papers 84, p. 514.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Among his discreditors are several Jefferson biographers who have been particularly eager to contrast their libertarian with his foil.
And Hamilton has been linked by association with the repressive measures instituted against the press by the Adams administration.
It is often assumed that Hamilton was the author of every Federalist measure during the 1790s.
Hamilton himself is largely responsible for the diverse opinions, since his attitudes toward the press were not entirely consistent nor predictable. 57
Because there is no unanimity of opinion about Hamilton's final place with regard to the liberty of the press in America, it is helpful to study three crucial episodes during Hamilton's last six years, from 1798 to 1804: the passage of a federal Sedition Law; Hamilton's prosecution of a Republican editor under common libel law; and his defense of a Federalist newspaper, also charged under common libel law.
Taken together, the three episodes show that Hamilton has earned both criticism and praise for his First Amendment attitudes.
And while certain contradictions are evident in his words and actions, there is also a common thread running between his earlier and later statements.
While Hamilton questioned the need for the First Amendment on the grounds that it was unnecessary and impractical, he certainly never questioned the concept of a free press in America.
In general, he seems to have been in the mainstream of eighteenth-century thought, which accepted the British understanding of press freedom as defined by William Blackstone.
The liberty of the press, according to Blackstone, "consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published."
In short, Blackstone said, a free man can publish what he will.
"But if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity." 91
Federalists and Republicans alike accepted the Blackstonian concept of press liberty: that material critical of the government was seditious libel and needed to be checked.
The two parties differed as to where the authority for censoring improper, mischievous, or illegal words should be lodged, whether in the states or federal government.
But apparently, before 1798, there was "no dissent from the proposition that the punishment of a seditious libeler did not abridge the proper or lawful freedom of the press." 92
91 Commentaries on the Laws of England,18th ed., vol.2 (New York, 1836), pp. 112-113; cited by Leonard Levy, "Liberty and the First Amendment: 1790-1800," American Historical Review 68 (October 1962): 23n.
92 Levy, "Liberty and the First Amendment," p. 27.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Among his discreditors are several Jefferson biographers who have been particularly eager to contrast their libertarian with his foil.
And Hamilton has been linked by association with the repressive measures instituted against the press by the Adams administration.
It is often assumed that Hamilton was the author of every Federalist measure during the 1790s.
Hamilton himself is largely responsible for the diverse opinions, since his attitudes toward the press were not entirely consistent nor predictable. 57
Because there is no unanimity of opinion about Hamilton's final place with regard to the liberty of the press in America, it is helpful to study three crucial episodes during Hamilton's last six years, from 1798 to 1804: the passage of a federal Sedition Law; Hamilton's prosecution of a Republican editor under common libel law; and his defense of a Federalist newspaper, also charged under common libel law.
Taken together, the three episodes show that Hamilton has earned both criticism and praise for his First Amendment attitudes.
And while certain contradictions are evident in his words and actions, there is also a common thread running between his earlier and later statements.
While Hamilton questioned the need for the First Amendment on the grounds that it was unnecessary and impractical, he certainly never questioned the concept of a free press in America.
In general, he seems to have been in the mainstream of eighteenth-century thought, which accepted the British understanding of press freedom as defined by William Blackstone.
The liberty of the press, according to Blackstone, "consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published."
In short, Blackstone said, a free man can publish what he will.
"But if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequences of his own temerity." 91
Federalists and Republicans alike accepted the Blackstonian concept of press liberty: that material critical of the government was seditious libel and needed to be checked.
The two parties differed as to where the authority for censoring improper, mischievous, or illegal words should be lodged, whether in the states or federal government.
But apparently, before 1798, there was "no dissent from the proposition that the punishment of a seditious libeler did not abridge the proper or lawful freedom of the press." 92
91 Commentaries on the Laws of England,18th ed., vol.2 (New York, 1836), pp. 112-113; cited by Leonard Levy, "Liberty and the First Amendment: 1790-1800," American Historical Review 68 (October 1962): 23n.
92 Levy, "Liberty and the First Amendment," p. 27.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Indeed,the only time the Blackstonian concept was questioned prior to 1798 was in the famous trial of John Peter Zenger in 1735.
Zenger was a printer charged with seditious libel under the common law, which embodied the Blackstonian understanding of libel.
Under this common law, the truth of the offending words could not be offered as a defense, nor could thejury decide the law or the content of the offending words, but only the fact of publication.
In the Zenger case, Andrew Hamilton argued that a defendent charged with seditious libel should be given the right to plead truth as a defense and that the jury should determine both the law and the fact.
Zenger's jury courageously found him innocent, against the instruction of the court which asked the jury merely to decide whether Zenger had printed the offending words.
But such a libertarian interpretation of the First Amendment, with its double protection against charges of seditious libel, was not incorporated into law for another sixty-three years, and then only temporarily — and ironically — in the enactment of a federal Sedition Law.
The Sedition Law was adopted by the Adams administration during the summer of 1798 when war with France seemed a distinct possibility.
The Federalist administration feared and hated the loosing of democratic sensibilities in France and felt more comfortable with a British alliance.
The opposition party of Republicans, on the other hand, felt great sympathy for the democratic revolution in France and antipathy for the British.
The Republican press was sharply critical of Adams' policies, particularly his allowance of a standing army in preparation for war with France.
Since Hamilton was appointed acting general of that army, he became the butt of much of the opposition press criticism.
The recourse available to the administration and to Hamilton in dealing with critical commentary in the Republican press was access to the common libel law.
But the administration felt it needed stronger measures to still the opposition, which it considered a threat to the peace and security of the new nation and to the dignity and authority of the government.
The summer of 1798 was considered by the Adams administration to be a period of national emergency and criticism was considered so dangerous as to be tantamount to treason.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Indeed,the only time the Blackstonian concept was questioned prior to 1798 was in the famous trial of John Peter Zenger in 1735.
Zenger was a printer charged with seditious libel under the common law, which embodied the Blackstonian understanding of libel.
Under this common law, the truth of the offending words could not be offered as a defense, nor could thejury decide the law or the content of the offending words, but only the fact of publication.
In the Zenger case, Andrew Hamilton argued that a defendent charged with seditious libel should be given the right to plead truth as a defense and that the jury should determine both the law and the fact.
Zenger's jury courageously found him innocent, against the instruction of the court which asked the jury merely to decide whether Zenger had printed the offending words.
But such a libertarian interpretation of the First Amendment, with its double protection against charges of seditious libel, was not incorporated into law for another sixty-three years, and then only temporarily — and ironically — in the enactment of a federal Sedition Law.
The Sedition Law was adopted by the Adams administration during the summer of 1798 when war with France seemed a distinct possibility.
The Federalist administration feared and hated the loosing of democratic sensibilities in France and felt more comfortable with a British alliance.
The opposition party of Republicans, on the other hand, felt great sympathy for the democratic revolution in France and antipathy for the British.
The Republican press was sharply critical of Adams' policies, particularly his allowance of a standing army in preparation for war with France.
Since Hamilton was appointed acting general of that army, he became the butt of much of the opposition press criticism.
The recourse available to the administration and to Hamilton in dealing with critical commentary in the Republican press was access to the common libel law.
But the administration felt it needed stronger measures to still the opposition, which it considered a threat to the peace and security of the new nation and to the dignity and authority of the government.
The summer of 1798 was considered by the Adams administration to be a period of national emergency and criticism was considered so dangerous as to be tantamount to treason.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Further, the Federalists claimed the right to enact a federal Sedition Law on the grounds that the First Amendment had never protected the licentiousness of the press, that seditious libel was naturally not protected under the amendment.
It seemed eminently clear to them that particularly during a national emergency, criticism of government policies and men could not be tolerated.
For the general welfare and security of the Republic, it was not only constitutionally valid, but imperative to act.
Hamilton, who retained his influence in shaping and interpreting the Constitution even after his 1795 resignation as Secretary of the Treasury, could agree with this reasoning.
He had devoted his public life to secure the strongest possible federal government, even where that meant sacrificing individual civil liberties.
Yet, when the sedition bill was originally proposed, Hamilton was immediately displeased with it.
His displeasure with the bill, communicated to Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, has been misunderstood and inaccurately used by some historians as the basis for absolving him of any support of the final Sedition Law.
But in fact, Hamilton only disapproved of the proposed sedition bill in its original, most repressive form.
Its original form, as proposed by General James Lloyd of Maryland, was so harsh that it was distasteful to many of his fellow Federalists.
Called "A Bill to define more particularly the crime of Treason, and to define and punish the crime of Sedition," its first section was practically a declaration of war on France and suggested the death penalty for any person giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The second section made knowledge of treasonous acts a crime of treason.
The third section forbade criticism of any measure of the United States and expressions against any public officer which would damage his character.
The fourth section added that any material which tended "to induce a belief in the citizens" that the government "in enacting any law, was induced so to do by motives hostile to the constitution," or tended "to justify the hostile conduct of the French government," or any defamation of the President or any court, would result in a fine and an imprisonment. 93
A Senate committee reviewed Lloyd's bill and significantly revised it, striking completely the first two sections and the references to France and the death penalty.
But Hamilton had not seen the revision when he dashed off his letter to Wolcott, warning that some of the bill's provisions "appear to me highly exceptionable," such that "may endanger civil war."
He added what has since been quoted as the definite statement of Hamilton's attitude toward the Sedition Law.
He was later to have more to say on the subject, but it is the following words which have stuck to Hamilton's reputation:
I hope sincerely the thing may not be hurried through. Let us not establish a tyranny. Energy is a very different thing from violence.... If we push things to an extreme, we shall then give to faction body and solidarity. 94
His objection to the sedition bill, as here expressed, was not founded on constitutional or libertarian grounds.
Rather, his concern with the bill was politically motivated.
As one of the best scholars of the Sedition Law concluded: "Fearing that the vigorous measure would make the Republicans martyrs to an obviously tyrannical act, he objected to it solely because he considered it to be politically inexpedient." 95
When the Senate bill reached the House, Federalists there again altered the bill, and this time drastically.
They went so far as to write in the conditions which had been suggested by Andrew Hamilton at the Zenger trial.
They declared:
That if any person shall be prosecuted under this act, for the writing or publishing any libel afore said, it shall be lawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in his defense, the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the cause, shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases. 96
As written, then, and passed by a vote of 44 to 41, the federal Sedition Law guaranteed to journalists safeguards that could not be had under common libel law.
It is one of the great ironies of the period that Federalist congressmen wrote in the double protection against libel charges.
"The procedural safeguards were probably the best the Republicans could manage (and in truth they incorporated most of the libertarian thinking of the day)." 97
Of course, as exercised, the Sedition Law was a gross abridgment of press freedom, aimed directly and with thorough partisanship at any and all opposition voices, no matter how small.
The federal circuit court judges who presided over the seditious libel cases were themselves Federalists, and they decided what was truth and what was not.
In none of the dozen or more trials was truth successfully presented as a defense.
And while the law, as written, did not require proof of good intent, the judges interpreted the law to require such.
They claimed that bad intent, which could be inferred from the tendency of the words to stir up sedition, was the basis for their prosecutions.
As passed and signed into law by President Adams on July 14, 1798, the Sedition Law was one to which Hamilton could give support.
"Hamilton went as far in the direction of sustaining the principle of [this law] as anyone." 98
Yet many scholars have maintained that Hamilton gave no support whatsoever to the punitive Sedition Law.
At least three well—known historians 99 — one of them, ironically, an admitted Jefferson partisan -- have absolved him of complicity in the support of the law on the basis of the one phrase in his letter to Wolcott: "Let us not establish a tyranny."
But once the law was passed, Hamilton considered it helpful and necessary as a "vigorous measure of counteraction "to be taken against the Opposition press, which was increasingly hostile toward Adams' policies.
93 The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Annals of Congress), 5th Congress, vol. 2 (Washington: GaIes and Seaton, 1851), p. 2093.
94 "Letter to Oliver Wolcott," June 29, 1798, Works: vol. 10, p. 295.
95 James M. Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,1956), p. 109.
96 Annals of Congress, pp. 2134, 2137.
97 John D. Stevens, "Congressional History of the 1798 Sedition Law," Journalism Quarterly 43 (Summer 1966): 248.
98 Henry Cabot Lodge, Alexander Hamilton (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899), p. 220.
99 See John C. Miller, Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1952), p. 73; Andrew C. McLaughlin, A Constitutional History of the United States (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. 1935), p. 268; and Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton, p. 376.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Further, the Federalists claimed the right to enact a federal Sedition Law on the grounds that the First Amendment had never protected the licentiousness of the press, that seditious libel was naturally not protected under the amendment.
It seemed eminently clear to them that particularly during a national emergency, criticism of government policies and men could not be tolerated.
For the general welfare and security of the Republic, it was not only constitutionally valid, but imperative to act.
Hamilton, who retained his influence in shaping and interpreting the Constitution even after his 1795 resignation as Secretary of the Treasury, could agree with this reasoning.
He had devoted his public life to secure the strongest possible federal government, even where that meant sacrificing individual civil liberties.
Yet, when the sedition bill was originally proposed, Hamilton was immediately displeased with it.
His displeasure with the bill, communicated to Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott, has been misunderstood and inaccurately used by some historians as the basis for absolving him of any support of the final Sedition Law.
But in fact, Hamilton only disapproved of the proposed sedition bill in its original, most repressive form.
Its original form, as proposed by General James Lloyd of Maryland, was so harsh that it was distasteful to many of his fellow Federalists.
Called "A Bill to define more particularly the crime of Treason, and to define and punish the crime of Sedition," its first section was practically a declaration of war on France and suggested the death penalty for any person giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The second section made knowledge of treasonous acts a crime of treason.
The third section forbade criticism of any measure of the United States and expressions against any public officer which would damage his character.
The fourth section added that any material which tended "to induce a belief in the citizens" that the government "in enacting any law, was induced so to do by motives hostile to the constitution," or tended "to justify the hostile conduct of the French government," or any defamation of the President or any court, would result in a fine and an imprisonment. 93
A Senate committee reviewed Lloyd's bill and significantly revised it, striking completely the first two sections and the references to France and the death penalty.
But Hamilton had not seen the revision when he dashed off his letter to Wolcott, warning that some of the bill's provisions "appear to me highly exceptionable," such that "may endanger civil war."
He added what has since been quoted as the definite statement of Hamilton's attitude toward the Sedition Law.
He was later to have more to say on the subject, but it is the following words which have stuck to Hamilton's reputation:
I hope sincerely the thing may not be hurried through. Let us not establish a tyranny. Energy is a very different thing from violence.... If we push things to an extreme, we shall then give to faction body and solidarity. 94
His objection to the sedition bill, as here expressed, was not founded on constitutional or libertarian grounds.
Rather, his concern with the bill was politically motivated.
As one of the best scholars of the Sedition Law concluded: "Fearing that the vigorous measure would make the Republicans martyrs to an obviously tyrannical act, he objected to it solely because he considered it to be politically inexpedient." 95
When the Senate bill reached the House, Federalists there again altered the bill, and this time drastically.
They went so far as to write in the conditions which had been suggested by Andrew Hamilton at the Zenger trial.
They declared:
That if any person shall be prosecuted under this act, for the writing or publishing any libel afore said, it shall be lawful for the defendant, upon the trial of the cause, to give in evidence in his defense, the truth of the matter contained in the publication charged as a libel. And the jury who shall try the cause, shall have a right to determine the law and the fact, under the direction of the court, as in other cases. 96
As written, then, and passed by a vote of 44 to 41, the federal Sedition Law guaranteed to journalists safeguards that could not be had under common libel law.
It is one of the great ironies of the period that Federalist congressmen wrote in the double protection against libel charges.
"The procedural safeguards were probably the best the Republicans could manage (and in truth they incorporated most of the libertarian thinking of the day)." 97
Of course, as exercised, the Sedition Law was a gross abridgment of press freedom, aimed directly and with thorough partisanship at any and all opposition voices, no matter how small.
The federal circuit court judges who presided over the seditious libel cases were themselves Federalists, and they decided what was truth and what was not.
In none of the dozen or more trials was truth successfully presented as a defense.
And while the law, as written, did not require proof of good intent, the judges interpreted the law to require such.
They claimed that bad intent, which could be inferred from the tendency of the words to stir up sedition, was the basis for their prosecutions.
As passed and signed into law by President Adams on July 14, 1798, the Sedition Law was one to which Hamilton could give support.
"Hamilton went as far in the direction of sustaining the principle of [this law] as anyone." 98
Yet many scholars have maintained that Hamilton gave no support whatsoever to the punitive Sedition Law.
At least three well—known historians 99 — one of them, ironically, an admitted Jefferson partisan -- have absolved him of complicity in the support of the law on the basis of the one phrase in his letter to Wolcott: "Let us not establish a tyranny."
But once the law was passed, Hamilton considered it helpful and necessary as a "vigorous measure of counteraction "to be taken against the Opposition press, which was increasingly hostile toward Adams' policies.
93 The Debates and Proceedings in the Congress of the United States (Annals of Congress), 5th Congress, vol. 2 (Washington: GaIes and Seaton, 1851), p. 2093.
94 "Letter to Oliver Wolcott," June 29, 1798, Works: vol. 10, p. 295.
95 James M. Smith, Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press,1956), p. 109.
96 Annals of Congress, pp. 2134, 2137.
97 John D. Stevens, "Congressional History of the 1798 Sedition Law," Journalism Quarterly 43 (Summer 1966): 248.
98 Henry Cabot Lodge, Alexander Hamilton (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899), p. 220.
99 See John C. Miller, Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1952), p. 73; Andrew C. McLaughlin, A Constitutional History of the United States (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc. 1935), p. 268; and Bowers, Jefferson and Hamilton, p. 376.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Some months after the law was in effect, Hamilton felt that Adams was not employing it with half enough energy.
In a letter to House Speaker Jonathan Dayton, he wrote that President Adams should be encouraged to prosecute libelers much more vigorously than he had been to date.
He urged that Adams "surround the Constitution with more ramparts" against dissenters, and "disconcert the schemes of its enemies."
In this letter to Dayton, Hamilton also proposed that the Sedition Law should encompass others than just the government officials.
It would be useful to declare, he wrote, that all writings "which at common law are libels, if levelled against any officer whatsoever of the United States, shall be cognizable in the courts of the United States." 100
Here, Hamilton was suggesting an expansion of the Sedition Law, one which would include himself, as acting general of the standing army, in the group which could not be criticized by the press.
And since his wish to see his own critics subjected to the federal Sedition Law never came to pass,he resorted to calling on the common libel law to punish one of his more ardent newspaper critics.
It is in the case of the Argus that Hamilton has probably best earned his reputation as an opponent of opposition press criticism of government and its officials.
It is this case which casts him in the light of a man who stood ready to suppress the free press.
The Argus was the only Republican paper in New York and one of the most influential in the nation.
While a federal sedition charge was already pending against it and its editor, Mrs.Greenleaf (a case which never came to court), Hamilton brought charges against the paper for a personal libel.
He thought that criticism of himself was equal to a threat against the peace and security of the government itself, given his position as acting head of the army.
So, whether or not he had admired the Sedition Law for its libertarian provisions, especially those guaranteeing truth as a defense in a libel charge and jury determination of the matter, he was now willing to charge a paper under the common law, which did not provide these two protections.
100 "Letter to Jonathan Dayton," Works, vol.10, pp. 331—335. Lodge places this letter between December 1798 and February 1799.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
Some months after the law was in effect, Hamilton felt that Adams was not employing it with half enough energy.
In a letter to House Speaker Jonathan Dayton, he wrote that President Adams should be encouraged to prosecute libelers much more vigorously than he had been to date.
He urged that Adams "surround the Constitution with more ramparts" against dissenters, and "disconcert the schemes of its enemies."
In this letter to Dayton, Hamilton also proposed that the Sedition Law should encompass others than just the government officials.
It would be useful to declare, he wrote, that all writings "which at common law are libels, if levelled against any officer whatsoever of the United States, shall be cognizable in the courts of the United States." 100
Here, Hamilton was suggesting an expansion of the Sedition Law, one which would include himself, as acting general of the standing army, in the group which could not be criticized by the press.
And since his wish to see his own critics subjected to the federal Sedition Law never came to pass,he resorted to calling on the common libel law to punish one of his more ardent newspaper critics.
It is in the case of the Argus that Hamilton has probably best earned his reputation as an opponent of opposition press criticism of government and its officials.
It is this case which casts him in the light of a man who stood ready to suppress the free press.
The Argus was the only Republican paper in New York and one of the most influential in the nation.
While a federal sedition charge was already pending against it and its editor, Mrs.Greenleaf (a case which never came to court), Hamilton brought charges against the paper for a personal libel.
He thought that criticism of himself was equal to a threat against the peace and security of the government itself, given his position as acting head of the army.
So, whether or not he had admired the Sedition Law for its libertarian provisions, especially those guaranteeing truth as a defense in a libel charge and jury determination of the matter, he was now willing to charge a paper under the common law, which did not provide these two protections.
100 "Letter to Jonathan Dayton," Works, vol.10, pp. 331—335. Lodge places this letter between December 1798 and February 1799.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
Re: HAMILTON ON THE PRESS
ALEXANDER HAMILTON’S USE, ABUSE, AND DEFENSE OF THE PRESS, continued ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
The Argus had reprinted an article from the Boston Constitutional Telegraphe, itself a reprint from other Republican newspapers, charging Hamilton with an attempt to buy the Philadelphia Aurora, and hinting at other indiscretions.
Specifically, the article said Hamilton had attempted to suppress the Aurora by purchasing it from Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Bache.
An editorial comment asked how he could raise the estimated $20,000 selling price, since he had pleaded poverty just two years earlier in an attempt to clear himself of a charge of speculation as Treasury Secretary.
If Hamilton could not raise that much money, the article suggested, perhaps he could get help from other Federalists, or even from the British secret service fund.
This last crack particularly angered Hamilton, and he immediately wrote to the Attorney General of New York, Josiah Hoffman.
Claiming that "personal considerations alone" were not involved -- ordinarily he would only repay "hatred with contempt" — he said that public motives compelled him to act.
He went on angrily:
A bolder calumny; one more absolutely destitute of foundation, was never propagated. And its dangerous tendency needs no comment; being calculated to inspire the belief that the independence and liberty of the press are endangered by the intrigues of ambitious citizens aided by foreign gold. In so flagrant a case, the force of the laws must be tried. I therefore request that you will take immediate measures towards the prosecution of the persons who conduct the enclosed paper. 101
Attorney General Hoffman sent his assistant, Cadwallader D. Colden, to the Argus office, where he asked Mrs. Greenleaf who was responsible for the offensive article.
She said her journeyman-printer, David Frothingham, was responsible for everything in the paper.
Frothingham agreed, saying he "expected" that he was answerable for any material in the paper.
He added that the offending piece was only a reprint and one in which he had no personal concern.
He was charged under the common libel law for being the printer of offending words.
Frothingham was tried in New York on November 21, Judge Radcliff presiding.
The inquiry of the jury, he said, "would be whether the piece mentioned in the indictment was calculated to expose Gen. Hamilton to the hatred and contempt of his fellow citizens, and if it was, whether the defendant had published it." 102
Such were the conditions of common libel law.
Proving that Frothingham had printed the article was a simple matter: Colden simply testified that Frothingham had said he was responsible for all Agrgus articles.
101 "Letter to Josiah 0. Hoffman," Works, vol. 10, pp.355-356. Lodge places this letter between July and October, but James M. Smith has fixed the date as November 6,1799, the day the Argus article appeared.
102 Francis Wharton, ed., "Trial of David Frothingham for a Libel on General Hamilton, "State Trials of the United States During the Administrations of Washington and Adams (Burt Franklin, 1849; reprint ed., N. Y.: Burt Franklin, 1970), P. 651.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
III. HAMILTON EARNS TWO REPUTATIONS: OPPONENT AND DEFENDER OF THE FREE PRESS, continued ...
The Argus had reprinted an article from the Boston Constitutional Telegraphe, itself a reprint from other Republican newspapers, charging Hamilton with an attempt to buy the Philadelphia Aurora, and hinting at other indiscretions.
Specifically, the article said Hamilton had attempted to suppress the Aurora by purchasing it from Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Bache.
An editorial comment asked how he could raise the estimated $20,000 selling price, since he had pleaded poverty just two years earlier in an attempt to clear himself of a charge of speculation as Treasury Secretary.
If Hamilton could not raise that much money, the article suggested, perhaps he could get help from other Federalists, or even from the British secret service fund.
This last crack particularly angered Hamilton, and he immediately wrote to the Attorney General of New York, Josiah Hoffman.
Claiming that "personal considerations alone" were not involved -- ordinarily he would only repay "hatred with contempt" — he said that public motives compelled him to act.
He went on angrily:
A bolder calumny; one more absolutely destitute of foundation, was never propagated. And its dangerous tendency needs no comment; being calculated to inspire the belief that the independence and liberty of the press are endangered by the intrigues of ambitious citizens aided by foreign gold. In so flagrant a case, the force of the laws must be tried. I therefore request that you will take immediate measures towards the prosecution of the persons who conduct the enclosed paper. 101
Attorney General Hoffman sent his assistant, Cadwallader D. Colden, to the Argus office, where he asked Mrs. Greenleaf who was responsible for the offensive article.
She said her journeyman-printer, David Frothingham, was responsible for everything in the paper.
Frothingham agreed, saying he "expected" that he was answerable for any material in the paper.
He added that the offending piece was only a reprint and one in which he had no personal concern.
He was charged under the common libel law for being the printer of offending words.
Frothingham was tried in New York on November 21, Judge Radcliff presiding.
The inquiry of the jury, he said, "would be whether the piece mentioned in the indictment was calculated to expose Gen. Hamilton to the hatred and contempt of his fellow citizens, and if it was, whether the defendant had published it." 102
Such were the conditions of common libel law.
Proving that Frothingham had printed the article was a simple matter: Colden simply testified that Frothingham had said he was responsible for all Agrgus articles.
101 "Letter to Josiah 0. Hoffman," Works, vol. 10, pp.355-356. Lodge places this letter between July and October, but James M. Smith has fixed the date as November 6,1799, the day the Argus article appeared.
102 Francis Wharton, ed., "Trial of David Frothingham for a Libel on General Hamilton, "State Trials of the United States During the Administrations of Washington and Adams (Burt Franklin, 1849; reprint ed., N. Y.: Burt Franklin, 1970), P. 651.
TO BE CONTINUED ...