Alexander Hamilton and the Reynolds Affair

By Dianne L. Durante

Given that he loved his wife and family, why did Alexander Hamilton choose to have an affair with Maria Reynolds? And why did he publish a pamphlet five years later telling the whole world about it? Via dozens of primary sources and contemporary images, this book puts all three phases of the Reynolds Affa

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dianne L. Durante
• Release date: Mar 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781088091029

Dianne L. Durante

At age five, I won my first writing award: a three-foot-long fire truck with an ear-splitting siren. I've been addicted to writing ever since. Today I'm an independent researcher, freelance writer, and lecturer. The challenge of figuring out how ideas and facts fit together, and then sharing what I know with others, clearly and concisely - that's what makes me leap out of bed in the morning. Janson's *History of Art*, lent to me by a high-school art teacher, was my first clue that art was more than the rock-star posters and garden gnomes that I saw in Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and that history wasn't just a series of names, dates, and statistics. Soon afterwards I read Ayn Rand's fiction and nonfiction works, and discovered that art and history - as well as politics, ethics, science, and all fields of human knowledge - are integrated by philosophy. My approach to studying art is based on Rand's *The Romantic Manifesto*. (See my review of it on Amazon.) As an art historian I'm a passionate amateur, and I write for other passionate amateurs. I love looking at art, and thinking about art, and helping other people have a blast looking at it, too. *Outdoor Monuments of Manhattan: A Historical Guide* (New York University Press, 2007), which includes 54 sculptures, was described by Sam Roberts in the *New York Times* as "a perfect walking-tour accompaniment to help New Yorkers and visitors find, identify and better appreciate statues famous and obscure" (1/28/2007). Every week I issue four art-related recommendations to my supporters, which have been collected in *Starry Solitudes* (poetry) and *Sunny Sundays* (painting, sculpture, architecture, literature, and more). For more of my works, see https://diannedurantewriter.com/books-essays .

Book preview

Chapter 1

Introduction

1.1 Background

Alexander Hamilton has been my favorite Founding Father ever since I read Chernow’s biography back in 2004. In 2016-2017, I wrote seventy or so blog posts painting a picture of Hamilton’s life via his own writings and those of his friends, family, colleagues, and enemies. I began that project out of frustration that I couldn’t afford tickets to the musical … and continued it for a year and a half simply because I enjoyed Hamilton’s company. I published the blog posts as a two-volume set, Hamilton: A Friend to America.

For the blog posts, the only part of Hamilton’s life that I did not look forward to investigating was the Reynolds Affair. Either Hamilton had an adulterous affair, which would be a betrayal of Eliza—or he was doing something financially dishonest. Either way, I was pretty sure the Reynolds Affair would be Hamilton’s feet of clay.

My husband sensibly asked: Well then, why spend time on the Reynolds Affair? A reasonable question, since the Affair didn’t have significant long-term effects on Hamilton. Eliza didn’t throw him out of the house or divorce him. He didn’t lose the respect of his friends and colleagues. It didn’t harm his career: a year later, he was named inspector general of the United States Army.

It comes down to this: I prefer to place my heroes on sturdy pedestals rather than quicksand. But it’s difficult to steer clear of quicksand if one goes about with eyes squeezed shut, and it’s difficult to be sure a hero is a hero if one refuses to look at all available facts of his life. Since there is enough evidence to form a coherent, consistent narrative about the Reynolds Affair, we ought to do it. Of course, new evidence might turn up, and we might have to change the narrative accordingly. That’s the hazard and the fun of being a historian!

I decided to approach the Reynolds Affair in the same way I approached every other aspect of Hamilton’s life. I collected and read every relevant document in chronological order. There are more than sixty of those. Even excerpted, they fill 75 pages of the second volume of Hamilton: A Friend to America.

It’s a lot of material to digest, so I’ll start by telling you briefly my interpretation of the whole affair. Next I’ll set the context and run through the primary sources, so you can decide if my interpretation fits the facts. Finally, I’ll look at the aftermath of the Reynolds Affair.

NOTES

Hamilton: A Friend to America: Alexander Hamilton: A Brief Biography and Alexander Hamilton: A Friend to America, volumes 1-2 (which include my 2016-2017 blog posts), are available via Amazon and Barnes & Noble / Ingram. ABrief Biography has cross-references to the blog posts, but can be read without them.

1.2 Caveat lector (Let the reader beware!)

Before we do that, let me set your expectations with four warnings.

First warning: this book isn’t full of sex. If you’re lusting after salacious content, you might as well put this book back on the shelf.

Second: I’m not giving an analysis based on gender, religion, race, politics, or socio-economic status. I grew up long ago and far away, and I have a quaint habit of assuming adults have free will. I think they make their own choices and should be held responsible for them. If this bothers you, consider this your trigger warning! Put the book back on the shelf.

Third warning: I don’t have a conspiracy theory. Some eminent scholars believe Hamilton forged all the letters attributed to Maria and James Reynolds in order to hide his nefarious deeds as secretary of the Treasury. There are too many independent witnesses for that to hold water. I’m going to assume that all of the early documents are real. I will, however, give far more weight to eyewitness accounts written at the time of the events in question.

So if you’re hoping for a conspiracy theory, put the book back on the shelf.

And the fourth caveat: I’m not focusing on Lin-Manuel Miranda’s interpretation of the Reynolds Affair, although I will mention it briefly at the end of the book. As a historian and art historian, I’m very cranky about keeping the lines drawn between those two disciplines. See Appendix 3 for a short essay on that. Meanwhile, if you’re a historian and you’re going to criticize Miranda’s content … fair’s fair. You should do it in meter and rhyme.

NOTES

Eminent scholars: Most notably Julian Boyd, editor of the Thomas Jefferson papers; see Oliver Wolcott’s letter of 7/3/1797, n. 75, at https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-21-02-0076-0002. The first to suggest that the Reynolds documents were forged was apparently James Callender, some months after he made the Reynolds Affair public knowledge in his History of the United States in 1796. He comments on love sick epistles, real or forged and The evidence or presumption against the authenticity of the letters printed by Mr. Hamilton, in his Sketches (1798), pp. 92 and 94. https://archive.org/details/sketchesofhistor00call/page/92 andhttps://archive.org/details/sketchesofhistor00call/page/94. More on Callender in Phase 3.

1.3 My interpretation of the Reynolds Affair

D:\__InProgressDD\20210903 Reynolds KINDLE\PSDs by page for Kindle version\p8_RA1-8 phases 1-3.jpg

The Reynolds Affair unfolded in three phases: private, political, and public.

Phase 1 is the private affair, from mid-1791 to mid-1792. In that phase, James Reynolds and his wife Maria pick Hamilton as a target for blackmail, choose their moment, and carry their plan through.

Phase 2 begins a few months later, in November 1792, and runs until early January 1793. Here the affair takes a political turn. James Reynolds and a crony of his are arrested for defrauding the government. Reynolds tries to wriggle out of jail by saying that Hamilton was in cahoots with him on financial chicanery of some sort. Hamilton persuades James Monroe and two other Congressmen that he paid money to Reynolds as blackmail after sleeping with Maria, rather than for nefarious financial dealings.

Phase 3 begins five years later, in July 1797. This is when the affair becomes public. As part of a political attack on the Federalists, James Callender, a fervently Democratic-Republican journalist, publishes some of the documents written in 1792. Callender proclaims that Hamilton—leader of the Federalists—must have been doing something financially nefarious. Hamilton cannot persuade James Monroe to state that he disagrees with Callender’s interpretation. Therefore Hamilton publishes his own version of