Speaker 1: This episode of Stuff You Should Know is sponsored by Squarespace.
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Speaker 1: website apart. Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from
Speaker 1: House Stuff Works dot com and New York Hey, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, and that was Lin Manuel
Speaker 1: Miranda in the original Broadway show cast cats of Hamilton's
Speaker 1: Oh Yeah, great song? Do you listen to that stuff?
Speaker 1: Like Broadway Show sometimes recordings and stuffing. I don't necessarily
Speaker 1: seek it out or whatever, but I'm not like turn
Speaker 1: it off. Have you listen to Hamilton's I have not
Speaker 1: heard a second of Hamilton's even still because that song
Speaker 1: was put in in post production. I've still never heard
Speaker 1: a second of Hamilton's. I've seen like video on mute,
Speaker 1: but that's it. Well, it is no wonder that show
Speaker 1: has become a runaway hit because of two things. One,
Speaker 1: the music is great, and the book and is great,
Speaker 1: and it looks great. I've not seen it yet because
Speaker 1: I'm not wealthy, man, don't you have to be? Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to get a ticket to Hamilton's that's
Speaker 1: sold out, Yeah, you gotta pay thousands of dollars. I
Speaker 1: can't do it. Um. And the second reason is because
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton is finally getting his due as perhaps the
Speaker 1: most influential American in history. These are big words, buddy, Uh,
Speaker 1: show me someone else, uh saying there haven't been influential Americans?
Speaker 1: Would I think tops them all? Yeah? You know, I
Speaker 1: can't disagree. I think you're absolutely right. Most controversial founding
Speaker 1: father for sure, youngest founding father by far. Yeah, he's
Speaker 1: an outsider. Wasn't even born in the United States, wasn't
Speaker 1: even born in England. He was an immigrant bastard child,
Speaker 1: which um yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a lot to
Speaker 1: do with his, um how he turned out in life.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he had a chip on his shoulder, he
Speaker 1: had well, yeah, you can put it that way. I
Speaker 1: would put it like he had extra drive that a
Speaker 1: lot of those like hoity toity blue blood aristocrats founding
Speaker 1: fathers didn't have because they didn't need it. They had
Speaker 1: a lot of money, they had a lot of opportunity.
Speaker 1: This guy picked himself up from the bootstraps, like the
Speaker 1: first American Horatio Alger. I think he thought he was
Speaker 1: smarter than everyone else. He yes, I get that impression.
Speaker 1: But the thing is he was right most of the time.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, and if someone came out and disagreed with him,
Speaker 1: he was not He wasn't a good politician. He was
Speaker 1: not skilled at being deferential or I didn't know how
Speaker 1: to bow, certainly didn't know how to curtsy. No, Like
Speaker 1: he would come out and say, no, you're completely wrong
Speaker 1: for these fourteen reasons, right, and you're ugly? That all
Speaker 1: explain at length? Yeah, Um, he'd like poke them in
Speaker 1: the belly, pull on their jowels a little bit to
Speaker 1: tear their wig off. Yeah. I saw there's this really
Speaker 1: great American Experience episode from Yeah. Did you notice there
Speaker 1: were like some recognizable actors in there, Like one guy
Speaker 1: was like I was like, I recognized that guy from
Speaker 1: Fraser and the Wire. And ye, there were a few
Speaker 1: das were played the recreated the roles of but not like, oh,
Speaker 1: great actor, do you mind daigning to be in this
Speaker 1: American Experience? It was like, hey, hungry actor, your agent
Speaker 1: called us and we have a role for you, because
Speaker 1: this is like back in the nineties seven. I looked
Speaker 1: it up. Really good episode though, Yeah, and if you
Speaker 1: look at the website for it you can tell it's
Speaker 1: from sure, but it was great and in it one
Speaker 1: of the historians put it pretty plainly, he was, uh,
Speaker 1: excellent statesman, maybe one of the best United States has
Speaker 1: ever had. Terrible politicians. One of the parts of being
Speaker 1: a politician is um to have finesse. Again, one of
Speaker 1: the historians called it an s Yeah, he had. He
Speaker 1: didn't learn it. No one taught him that he was
Speaker 1: orphaned at age what eleven, no? Thirteen? Possibly fifteen. There's
Speaker 1: some dispute over really when he was born and if
Speaker 1: he lied about his age. Well, yeah, I mean, let's
Speaker 1: just go back to the to the Islands of the
Speaker 1: Caribbean in seventeen fifty seven or seventeen fifty five. Is
Speaker 1: that the two dates? Possibly? Yeah. If you look at
Speaker 1: the official records in Nevis, which I did before this episode,
Speaker 1: I went down there and uh, it's it has him
Speaker 1: listed as having been born January eleventh, seventeen fifty five.
Speaker 1: He always said January eleven, seventeen fifty seven. And there's
Speaker 1: actually good reason why he would have fudged his name.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that a minute. Oh, I'll talk about
Speaker 1: that in forty eight seconds. So his father was a
Speaker 1: Scottish merchant and his mother, her name was Rachel Fawcett.
Speaker 1: She was an English French planter's daughter. Uh. He dad
Speaker 1: moved the family to St. Croix and then left his family.
Speaker 1: Mom died uh in seventy and um, it's interesting. I
Speaker 1: was watching this great documentary on Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers,
Speaker 1: same thing by Peter Bogdanovitch, and they these music historians
Speaker 1: make a point that there's something about a father who
Speaker 1: rejects you or a mother who dies when you're young.
Speaker 1: And they say, in the case of Tom Petty, he
Speaker 1: had both. But they listed like a list of rock
Speaker 1: stars like from Bono to Tom Petty, I can't remember
Speaker 1: Jimi Hendrix were either rejected by their dads or mothers
Speaker 1: died younger both, and they said they have something to prove.
Speaker 1: And I was like, dude, that's Alexander Hamilton to a t.
Speaker 1: He spent his whole life was something to prove. Live
Speaker 1: Manuel Miranda just yeah, he's way ahead of us on this.
Speaker 1: But apparently we're the only podcast he does not listen to.
Speaker 1: So yeah, or he politely ignored it. Come on, so um,
Speaker 1: let's talk about though his his early life, his early situation.
Speaker 1: He finds himself an orphan, his father abandoned him, and
Speaker 1: he never saw his father for the rest of his life.
Speaker 1: And I was like boo, his right, Um, but I
Speaker 1: saw elsewhere and I can't I couldn't find it again.
Speaker 1: But that that it was explained that his mother had
Speaker 1: been married before, and even though she was divorced, she
Speaker 1: was not capable legally of being married again, so her
Speaker 1: husband or um Alexander's father left her in the family
Speaker 1: to prevent her from being um accused of being a
Speaker 1: big amist and possibly going to jail. So maybe that
Speaker 1: was it. But I only saw that in one place. UM.
Speaker 1: Most other people just say the father left in Alexander
Speaker 1: never saw him again, and as as a result, he
Speaker 1: was not able to inherit uh any estate with mother's estate. No,
Speaker 1: but it would have been pretty helpful to have anything,
Speaker 1: especially when you're thirteen s last fifteen uh and apparently
Speaker 1: had a kind uncle who tried to help him out
Speaker 1: and and secure the estate. But now it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: It actually went to his mother's first husband. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he moved in with a cousin who then committed suicide.
Speaker 1: And so he said, he hasn't had good experiences with
Speaker 1: being taken care of. H left to his own devices.
Speaker 1: He got a job working for Beachman and Krueger Mercantile.
Speaker 1: And this dude, at fourteen was running a major company,
Speaker 1: not just a major company, a major company on what,
Speaker 1: until the last couple of decades had been the largest
Speaker 1: income producing colony in in um the English Empire. Like
Speaker 1: it made more money from tobacco and then sugar than
Speaker 1: the other thirteen colonies combined. And it was just this
Speaker 1: little tiny speck of an island, and this kid is
Speaker 1: running the major company on this major island. So it
Speaker 1: was it was even bigger than it seems at first blush. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a child prodigy, he wrote in a newspaper
Speaker 1: articles at fourteen, he wrote poetry, published poetry. And uh,
Speaker 1: it was clear to everyone at the company. They were like,
Speaker 1: this kid, he's he's going places, So let's start a
Speaker 1: fund to get him out of here and get him
Speaker 1: to New York City. Yeah, because uh, in New York
Speaker 1: you can be a new man. Yes, I'm Broadway. That's
Speaker 1: from Hamilton's. Okay, I'm gonna drop those in. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna know. I'll struggle to make sense of them to
Speaker 1: keep it up. Uh, So they did, so they raised
Speaker 1: some money and um he went to King's College, which
Speaker 1: later became Columbia University. Yeah, and for those of us
Speaker 1: who saw our UK tour, they remember that Alexander Hamilton's
Speaker 1: shows up at Columbia University to plead with the rioting crowd.
Speaker 1: Remember apparently he did that a couple of times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I noticed that too in that documentary. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like he's a lot of time arguing with like crowds
Speaker 1: with torches and pitchforks on the steps of Columbia University.
Speaker 1: All right, So it goes to King's College's doing his
Speaker 1: studying there. Uh. He really makes a name for himself
Speaker 1: in writing, uh political pamphlets, which was kind of the
Speaker 1: thing to do. And of that day, there weren't magazines,
Speaker 1: there wasn't Tiger Beat no. So, like, if you wanted
Speaker 1: to feel a lot to say, he didn't have squarespace, right,
Speaker 1: so he would yeah you like that, So he would write, Uh,
Speaker 1: he would write political pamphlets and they became very well known. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He um was railing against the British monarchy, and it
Speaker 1: was very much in favor of the loose confederation that
Speaker 1: the colonies had had um created amongst themselves, in their um,
Speaker 1: their joints suffering at the hands of the British colonies,
Speaker 1: which were like or the British crown, which was actively
Speaker 1: trying to punish them um and keep them in line
Speaker 1: through like taxation and representation, Um. All the Asians that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't like, right and um. Alexander Hamilton definitely saw
Speaker 1: this as a potential for um revolution to occur. And
Speaker 1: he actually wrote in his journal as a younger man,
Speaker 1: back when he's like twelve, thirteen fourteen, that he wished
Speaker 1: there a war would happen so that he could prove himself.
Speaker 1: It would be a great opportunity to prove himself. And
Speaker 1: he probably saw that opportunity and this unrest that was
Speaker 1: going on that was being aroused in the colonies, and
Speaker 1: he was fanning the flames of it. Yeah. And he
Speaker 1: also uh, and this is sort of a side note,
Speaker 1: he was the most consistent abolitionist. Oh. Yeah, of all
Speaker 1: the founding fathers throughout his entire life. Uh, and for
Speaker 1: very well, for two reasons. One he thought it was wrong,
Speaker 1: but very practically he thought, you know, some of these
Speaker 1: people might be able to do great things for this
Speaker 1: country and they're not allowed to. And he was like,
Speaker 1: that just doesn't make sense to not let people live
Speaker 1: up to their potential. But to make America better, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but at least equally is important. He personally found it
Speaker 1: abhorrent and despicable, Like he was against slavery from the
Speaker 1: time he was a kid. Amazing. Yeah, well he saw
Speaker 1: at firsthand too when his family moved to St. Croix
Speaker 1: Um they plantations here. Yeah, he he was, he was,
Speaker 1: he encountered it, and it had a real impact on him. Alright.
Speaker 1: So seventeen seventy six, the Revolution is underway. He joins
Speaker 1: as a captain and the Continental Army. And I was
Speaker 1: amazed that this little factoid from the PBS saying his
Speaker 1: artillery unit that he founded is still around today. It's
Speaker 1: the only surviving army unit from the Revolutionary War. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's pretty amazing. Yeah, he found it a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that's still around today. Well, in our Customs episode,
Speaker 1: we touched on that a little bit in Our Lighthouses episode.
Speaker 1: He popped up in that too. Yeah, he's all over
Speaker 1: the place. No one that his fingers in a lot
Speaker 1: of pots. So he fought like a champ in the
Speaker 1: Revolutionary War and impressed Um George Washington, who was pretty
Speaker 1: important guy at the time, and he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I like the cut of your jib, kid, why don't
Speaker 1: you join me? And he surrounded himself with these young
Speaker 1: men who as his team and his family. He called
Speaker 1: them that he thought, were, you know, bright guys in
Speaker 1: in the future of this country. And he said, you
Speaker 1: will be my aide de camp, you'll be my assistant.
Speaker 1: And I got a lot of good dudes around me.
Speaker 1: They're great military minds. But you're the only one that
Speaker 1: can write like you can write like a mug. He did.
Speaker 1: He said that you can write like a mug. Is
Speaker 1: that in the Broadway show? It should be? I honestly
Speaker 1: don't know it could be. It sounds like that could
Speaker 1: definitely be in a Hamilton rap. So I said, what's
Speaker 1: your name, man, and he said, Alexander Hamilton's Okay, that's
Speaker 1: from the show too. Okay, how about this indicate it's
Speaker 1: from the show by making jazz hands. Okay, you know what,
Speaker 1: that's that's the last of him. Okay, so well, if
Speaker 1: you want to keep it up, that's fine. But I'll
Speaker 1: say everyone who hasn't seen the show chucks making jazz hands, alright,
Speaker 1: and then Jerry will ring a bell post production. Okay, alright,
Speaker 1: So he's Washington's assistant. Yeah, and he actually um one
Speaker 1: of the Again, the historians on that American experience said,
Speaker 1: if you look at Washington's um writing at the Times Correspondence, um,
Speaker 1: his uh diaries, I guess probably not his diary. I
Speaker 1: don't think he had him write his diaries. Well, his
Speaker 1: speeches and things, Um, the best stuff is just obviously
Speaker 1: written by Alexander Hamilton's like indisputably so, right, But it
Speaker 1: made Washington look really good, and Washington was eternally grateful,
Speaker 1: and he he also had aum definite soft spot for
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's person and and will for the rest of
Speaker 1: his life for sure, stands by him through thick and thin. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, our own article does a good job of
Speaker 1: pointing out that he wasn't just some kid that was
Speaker 1: like yes, sir or anything you say, Like from the
Speaker 1: very beginning He's like, you know what, this army is
Speaker 1: messed up, is disorganized. We need funding. Uh and like
Speaker 1: there's a this is a big mess to keep killing people.
Speaker 1: Yeah and what And Washington was like I like hearing this.
Speaker 1: You know he didn't he didn't want a yes man around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well maybe a couple right, he needs a couple of
Speaker 1: lickspittles to keep his boots clean. Lickspittle Mr Burns used
Speaker 1: in One Love that um so Washington, Uh, I think
Speaker 1: actually Hamilton's was a victim of his own success. Like
Speaker 1: Washington liked having him around in this position as an
Speaker 1: aide to Camp so much that um Hamilton is like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's let's keep rising through the ranks. And when I
Speaker 1: really get out there and fight. And he really railed
Speaker 1: against his position for a while and finally Washington was like, okay, fine, fine,
Speaker 1: go get out there and fight. And he did. Actually,
Speaker 1: he really um honored himself on the battlefield, particularly in Yorktown.
Speaker 1: He led his regiment into battle. Let it not like
Speaker 1: I'm on horseback back here, but I'm leading you. Like
Speaker 1: he was the first guy breaking through the lines and
Speaker 1: jumping on like into the trenches with the British and
Speaker 1: fighting them hand to hand. Yeah, at least so he
Speaker 1: definitely put his money where his mouth was. Like. He
Speaker 1: wasn't like, yeah, I'm gonna get out there and fight,
Speaker 1: and then when the time came, he was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna hang back here. He got out there and fought.
Speaker 1: I get the impression that he ran through more than
Speaker 1: one person. Yeah, and he was a little dude too.
Speaker 1: He wasn't you know. He wasn't trying to think of
Speaker 1: some big tough guy and the rock. He wasn't the rock.
Speaker 1: He was Kevin Hart. Who's that? Uh you know who
Speaker 1: Kevin Hart is? Oh? Kevin hart Ish. I thought you're
Speaker 1: saying Kevin Hardish, Like that's a person. He's bigger than
Speaker 1: Kevin Hart. But yeah, Kevin Harve. Uh how big was
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's seven? Oh? Well he's wave breaker. Well those
Speaker 1: three inches matter when you're five. But Washington, he was
Speaker 1: a giant. He was a big dude, wn't he? Uh?
Speaker 1: So the war is over. That's the quickest description of
Speaker 1: the Revolutionary War ever. Who won the US one or America?
Speaker 1: I guess? And um it's interesting too that documentary pointed
Speaker 1: out at one point they were like I don't think
Speaker 1: anyone gave much thought to what literally they were going
Speaker 1: to do. The day after the war, they were so
Speaker 1: like gung ho for it, and then afterward they're like, whoa,
Speaker 1: we're in bad shape, Like we're a bankrupt nation. Right.
Speaker 1: But even more than that, there the the people who
Speaker 1: were running the show. We're pretty content with the idea
Speaker 1: of like their state being an independent country. Now. Thought
Speaker 1: like Thomas Jefferson referred when when when he called, when
Speaker 1: he said my country, he was talking about Virginia, and
Speaker 1: he was he was basically of a similar mind to
Speaker 1: just about everyone else we would consider a founding father.
Speaker 1: There weren't too many people who were thinking like Alexander
Speaker 1: Hamilton's whose idea was, hey, let's let's get together. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be a lot more peace, a lot less in fighting,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna have a lot less headaches with things
Speaker 1: like multiple currencies and all that stuff. Let's just come
Speaker 1: together and create a centralized federal government. And all these
Speaker 1: guys are like, well, who are you nuts? A centralized
Speaker 1: federal government? It sounds an awful lot like a monarchy.
Speaker 1: And we just threw those cats off. Why would we
Speaker 1: want to go back to it. So Hamilton's saw very
Speaker 1: clearly that a central, very powerful federal government that was
Speaker 1: in control and as an umbrella over the thirteen colonies,
Speaker 1: turning them into states assembled under this federal government was
Speaker 1: the best way to help this. The these colonies turned states,
Speaker 1: and that now turned country to mature to keep going
Speaker 1: to progress forward. But he had a real uphill battle
Speaker 1: to climb um because there was nobody really who saw
Speaker 1: things that way. Yeah, and uh, he knew that the
Speaker 1: only way to do this was to have a document
Speaker 1: behind him pushing him along, and he did. Uh he
Speaker 1: saw the U. S Constitution is a great chance to
Speaker 1: do so. And uh, we'll talk about that right after this.
Speaker 1: So Chuck Um, A lot of people don't really recognize
Speaker 1: that the Revolutionary War ends in seventeen seventy six, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't until seventeen eighty seven that the Constitution is written, right,
Speaker 1: and in between that time people were just kind of like, okay,
Speaker 1: what do we do? There was the Articles of Confederation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were great, Well, they weren't so great. Actually I
Speaker 1: thought they were pretty great. Okay, well, the founding fathers
Speaker 1: thought they stunk. And actually they showed up in I
Speaker 1: think Philadelphia, and UM we're called there to say, hey, uh,
Speaker 1: let's figure something out about this Articles of Confederation. It's
Speaker 1: that the the country's bankrupt. We're going nowhere. Um, everybody's
Speaker 1: hooked on drugs. We don't know what's going on. Everybody,
Speaker 1: come and let's figure out how to make the Articles
Speaker 1: of Confederation better. And these founding fathers um all showed up,
Speaker 1: these delegates, it's including Alexander Hamilton, who was a delegate
Speaker 1: from New York, and they really looked at it and
Speaker 1: they're like, this is terrible. Let's just start over. So
Speaker 1: they crumple it up, through it over their shoulder, pull
Speaker 1: out a fresh piece of paper, said, okay, debate, that's right,
Speaker 1: And through that debate, the Constitution of the United States
Speaker 1: was drafted. Uh. Hamilton's actually was not there a lot
Speaker 1: for the debates because of business and UM. So he
Speaker 1: wasn't actually a key member in drafting the Constitution. What
Speaker 1: he was um and of course the Constitution was the
Speaker 1: document that that indicated a strong central government and a
Speaker 1: powerful president. Uh. He came into into play when it
Speaker 1: came time for for saying this is the document we're
Speaker 1: gonna go forward with. Forgetting it ratified. Um, they needed
Speaker 1: nine and thirteen states for it to pass, and there
Speaker 1: was a lot of strong opposition, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: you know, we were we just got out from under
Speaker 1: Britain's rule. Why are we gonna draft this thing with
Speaker 1: like these taxes and the central government and we like
Speaker 1: all of our little small states making all their own
Speaker 1: decisions and um. It turned out to be a big
Speaker 1: deal when he and uh John j and James Madison
Speaker 1: wrote the Federalist papers, forming the Federalist Party and really
Speaker 1: coming out hard like have you ever read like even
Speaker 1: the first Federalist paper? Uh, No, it's amazing. And Hamilton's
Speaker 1: wrote that the introduction and in it he basically just says,
Speaker 1: here are all your questions answered, and here's why you're
Speaker 1: all wrong, and here's why this is the way forward,
Speaker 1: no questions asked, and I know in it like he
Speaker 1: he basically he and Jay and Madison used it as
Speaker 1: an opportunity to address every single um opposition to the
Speaker 1: Constitution and the adoption of it, including things like, um,
Speaker 1: well you know we have a court to inter with
Speaker 1: the law so that it's constantly evolving and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. Um, and just explaining why we needed a
Speaker 1: powerful executive, but that it would be um balanced out
Speaker 1: by these other branches of government as well. Um. And
Speaker 1: it worked. These things were getting published in the papers
Speaker 1: and and it helped really change the minds of a
Speaker 1: lot of people. Yeah. And remarkably, the Federalist Papers have
Speaker 1: been cited by the Supreme Court of the United States
Speaker 1: more than any other document, including the Constitution. It's pretty
Speaker 1: pretty amazing. Yeah, it really is, because I mean, if
Speaker 1: you think about it's just these guys are saying, here
Speaker 1: are here's our opinion of the constitution, uh, and why
Speaker 1: it works. And the Supreme Court says, we're with you, buddy,
Speaker 1: that's right. Uh. So he got married along the way
Speaker 1: in seventy two, uh, a woman named Elizabeth uh Schyler
Speaker 1: Skyler Skyler. Yeah, and um, a big thing happened in sight.
Speaker 1: They had the first presidential election, Washington one, and as
Speaker 1: his confidant, he appointed quickly Hamilton's as his secretary of Treasury. Uh,
Speaker 1: probably the most powerful cabinet position of all. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: like we said, we were nearly bankrupt from the Revolutionary War.
Speaker 1: We borrowed money from everyone from like they owed money
Speaker 1: to the army, they owed money to individuals who supported
Speaker 1: the army. They would just go take equipment and money
Speaker 1: and say here, we're gonna pay you back one day.
Speaker 1: And they literally owed money to American citizens to the
Speaker 1: point where they couldn't pay it back. And it was
Speaker 1: a disorganized mass of records. And Hamilton's got in there
Speaker 1: and most people would have shied away, and he was like,
Speaker 1: this is great. I can really get in here and
Speaker 1: do what I do best, which is get this on
Speaker 1: the right track. Yeah, he's a He's a big picture
Speaker 1: guy if there was ever a big picture guy. And
Speaker 1: UM historians now look back at Hamilton's and say he
Speaker 1: They actually say the man who made America. It's one
Speaker 1: of his his UM nicknames, right, which is that's not
Speaker 1: for nothing saying something like that. UM. He had a
Speaker 1: vision to where the strong central government could create the UM,
Speaker 1: the nation that these states comprised or composed UM. And
Speaker 1: it was based on four points. Right. One was tariffs,
Speaker 1: which we talked about in the Customs episode. UM one
Speaker 1: was a central bank and UH investment in infrastructure. And
Speaker 1: then a big one called assumption, which was taking all
Speaker 1: the state's individual debts and UM the federal government assuming
Speaker 1: it and that was a big He had a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble with that one because a lot of people
Speaker 1: were like, why would you want to do that? Oh,
Speaker 1: we understand why you want to make the central government
Speaker 1: that much more powerful because will owe you now? Right?
Speaker 1: He said, it's way more than that. Um, not only
Speaker 1: will yes, you guys, will owe us, but you know
Speaker 1: it's a it's a gesture of goodwill, but it legit
Speaker 1: themizes this federal government. And it also allows it once
Speaker 1: there's an establishment of a national debt, to borrow more
Speaker 1: money and to um issue right and to issue bonds
Speaker 1: against those debts, which can be traded on the open market.
Speaker 1: And I was like, whoa wait, what he's like? Just
Speaker 1: just trust me? And um, he was faced with that
Speaker 1: a lot like where he understood the steps forward, and
Speaker 1: he was he faced opposition and just about every turn.
Speaker 1: And I get the imperson that a lot of it
Speaker 1: was like from people who weren't getting what he was
Speaker 1: getting across because very like like some of them a
Speaker 1: century ahead of their time. Like here there was a
Speaker 1: panic in seventeen ninety two, a financial panic where somebody
Speaker 1: tried to corner the market on treasury bonds and almost
Speaker 1: collapse the federal debt right just just almost ruined it
Speaker 1: single handedly, and under the guidance of Alexander Hamilton's the
Speaker 1: national bank that he had established stepped in and became
Speaker 1: a what's called a buyer of last resort, where they
Speaker 1: were buying treasury bills at less than what they were worth,
Speaker 1: so that you had to be really desperate to go
Speaker 1: and sell them to them. Um. And that that wasn't,
Speaker 1: I guess, legitimized by economists until like a full century
Speaker 1: after that. This guy was just operating on like a
Speaker 1: totally different level, like very much ahead of his time. Well,
Speaker 1: the idea of creating a national purposefully creating a national
Speaker 1: debt seems crazy and no one understood it. And he
Speaker 1: came out with quotes like the national debt will be
Speaker 1: the cement of our nation and basically like these creditors
Speaker 1: are gonna have to get on board and support the
Speaker 1: federal government so they can get paid back exactly, and
Speaker 1: it really had a unifying effect. Um. He had a
Speaker 1: he had a problem getting assumption passed through. It was
Speaker 1: blocked on almost every level with the politicians and um.
Speaker 1: One of his neighbors in New York at the time
Speaker 1: was one Thomas Jefferson, one of his biggest foes throughout
Speaker 1: his career, and uh, he worked out a little deal
Speaker 1: at a very famous dinner called the Dinner Table Compromise,
Speaker 1: wherein Jefferson wanted to move the capital to essentially what
Speaker 1: would become Washington, d C. And UM Hamilton's was like, no,
Speaker 1: I'd like it here in New York City. He said,
Speaker 1: but here's what we'll do. Um, you can move your
Speaker 1: capital down there if you throw your support and Madison
Speaker 1: was there too, if you guys throw your support behind Assumption. Uh,
Speaker 1: and they said, great, that's what we'll do. So he
Speaker 1: sacrificed New York City is the capital his own people
Speaker 1: because he was like a true New Yorker through and
Speaker 1: through by this time, but he was a transplant, a transplant,
Speaker 1: and historians point to that is saying like he didn't
Speaker 1: have the kind of ties that like native born New
Speaker 1: Yorkers had to it necessarily. But that's why the capital
Speaker 1: ended up in d C. And uh, that's why Assumption
Speaker 1: went through and it changed history. And we also talked
Speaker 1: in the Customs episode about how tariffs paid for the
Speaker 1: um United States. It's like these high taxes on imports,
Speaker 1: especially imported British goods. Um. But that money didn't just
Speaker 1: automatically funnel into the infrastructure that built the United States
Speaker 1: Industrial Revolution. That was directed by the policies of Alexander
Speaker 1: Hamilton's because Jefferson was like, we want to be farmers,
Speaker 1: which like I want to be an agricultural society, small government,
Speaker 1: and he said, no, where it's at is big government
Speaker 1: and a big industrialized nation. That's how we're gonna get ahead.
Speaker 1: And you can actually trace the to um political parties
Speaker 1: in the United States, or actually the fact that we
Speaker 1: have political parties back to the rivalry between Alexander Hamilton's
Speaker 1: and Thomas Jefferson and how they saw things, Um, small government,
Speaker 1: agrarian based and big government and infrastructure based, industrial based. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was it was the new party was the Republicans
Speaker 1: and then the Federalists. Um, nothing to do with Republicans
Speaker 1: of modern times to although there was like that whole
Speaker 1: small government bent. That's kind of a big deal with Republicans. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we have these two parties. Things got really ugly. Uh.
Speaker 1: They weren't afraid to I mean, they weren't nice guys
Speaker 1: with each other. They weren't afraid to to argue and
Speaker 1: yell and scream about the I mean, this is the
Speaker 1: direction of the country at very tentative time. You know,
Speaker 1: we could have gone one of two ways. So it
Speaker 1: was it was a big deal. Yeah, it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a matter of passing a couple of laws. It's like,
Speaker 1: what kind of country do we want to be? Yeah,
Speaker 1: in Hamilton's kind of one? He definitely one. Uh. He
Speaker 1: left public office as uh when he resigned as Treasury Secretary,
Speaker 1: but he was far from leaving politics, still very heavily involved.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he kept his his thumb on the Federalist
Speaker 1: Party as as much as he could. And um, he
Speaker 1: actually ended up basically screwing up the party's chances of
Speaker 1: the presidency from that point on when he became involved
Speaker 1: in I think the election, right, he kind of destroyed
Speaker 1: his own party. Uh Huh. So John Adams was the
Speaker 1: country's second president, and Adams was a Federalist, but he
Speaker 1: and Hamilton's didn't really get along. They didn't see things
Speaker 1: eye to eye. They couldn't stand each other. And um,
Speaker 1: they were both members of Washington's cabinet. Uh, and Adams
Speaker 1: was very much the older than Um. Alexander Hamilton's and
Speaker 1: he kind of got pushed to the side whenever there
Speaker 1: was um a in their rivalry is whenever Washington was around,
Speaker 1: because he kind of favored Hamilton's more than Adams. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm picturing Paul Giamati shoving around lin Manuel Miranda. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: you know, right, one of those guys is cooler than
Speaker 1: the other. Who it's Paul Giamati. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Paul giamight is kind of a cool cat. No,
Speaker 1: he's In fact, I knew someone who worked on a
Speaker 1: movie with him locally and our buddy Craig, and he
Speaker 1: was like, he went out with us a few times,
Speaker 1: like drinking, and he was like the coolest guy. That's neat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So that's what that's I expect that from him there
Speaker 1: in it'sie for cool dudes. Okay. So, um, Paul Giamati
Speaker 1: is like, I don't like you Li Manuel, and lim
Speaker 1: Manuel is like I don't care sucking egg and um Broadway,
Speaker 1: you just had an HBO show, right exactly. So, Um,
Speaker 1: when Adams comes to power, he very much freezes um
Speaker 1: Hamilton's out of the Federalist Party. Well yeah, and he
Speaker 1: he's said some really nasty things. He questioned his integrity.
Speaker 1: He called him a bastard, Uh, a bastard, creole immigrant
Speaker 1: like he was not nice. Okay, so um Hamilton's doesn't
Speaker 1: like this. He starts writing about Adams and just what
Speaker 1: a terrible person he thinks as he went after him hard.
Speaker 1: But he didn't go after him publicly. It was actually
Speaker 1: Aaron Burr, who, from what I understand it was a
Speaker 1: pretty big scoundrel. He he got his hands on these
Speaker 1: private papers, I think private correspondents and published them just
Speaker 1: in time for the eight hundred election. And in the
Speaker 1: eight hundred election there John Adams was up for re
Speaker 1: election for a second term. Uh, and then Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: and Aaron Burr were running against him, both as Republicans, right,
Speaker 1: and with the publication of these this basically slander against
Speaker 1: John Adams at the hands of Alexander Hamilton's it created
Speaker 1: enough in fighting in the Federalist Party that they they
Speaker 1: were out of the race and it was down to
Speaker 1: the two Republicans. They actually tied and congress Um Congress
Speaker 1: decided who would win. If I remember correctly, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it went to the House and there was
Speaker 1: a tie there. Then it went to Congress and uh
Speaker 1: the Senate. So what the Senate went to the House
Speaker 1: and then the Senate. Yes, I believe that's correct. Okay,
Speaker 1: so um they they ultimately voted for Jefferson. And at
Speaker 1: the time, if you were the runner up in a
Speaker 1: presidential election, you became vice president. So Aaron Burr became
Speaker 1: vice president. But was it just tore Hamilton's apart that
Speaker 1: he had to figure out who to support in this
Speaker 1: He didn't like either one of them. But um, Burr
Speaker 1: was just a jerk. He was an aristocratic rich kid
Speaker 1: who clearly was getting into politics to become more famous,
Speaker 1: to make more money. Uh he was. He was impure
Speaker 1: of heart and intention. And despite how Hamilton's felt about Jefferson,
Speaker 1: I mean, like this is his mortal enemy basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: well one of them, he had a bunch. But despite
Speaker 1: how he felt about him, he was like, at least Jefferson,
Speaker 1: I think isn't a jerk and wants like good things
Speaker 1: for America. And I can't even say that about burr R. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like if Alexander ham Alton was a great statesman terrible politician,
Speaker 1: alex Aaron Burr was a pretty good politician, terrible statesman. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he threw his support behind Thomas Jefferson UH and
Speaker 1: against Aaron Burr so much so that apparently he made
Speaker 1: a remark at a dinner party about Aaron Burr's character
Speaker 1: that got back to Aaron Burr and it was vicious
Speaker 1: enough that he challenged them to a duel. And we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that right after this. So we did a
Speaker 1: good episode on duels any years ago and we covered
Speaker 1: this duel. Uh, but we would be remiss not to
Speaker 1: go over it again. UM. Hamilton has been challenged to
Speaker 1: a lot of duels over the years, which is no
Speaker 1: surprise because he was not afraid to mix it up.
Speaker 1: But at the time, duels were like they didn't often
Speaker 1: go down. Like you, you could almost always talk your
Speaker 1: way out of a duel by doing a certain certain
Speaker 1: amount of apologizing without fully like uh, destroying your reputation
Speaker 1: as like someone who stood behind his word. And in
Speaker 1: this case he Hamilton's very much tried to get out
Speaker 1: of this duel. Uh went so far as to almost
Speaker 1: offer a full retraction, which is a miracle for Hamilton's
Speaker 1: but a Burr was having none of it. He like
Speaker 1: really wanted this to go down, and it went down.
Speaker 1: It did. Um. It was we hawk in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: which is like along the shores of the Hudson and UM.
Speaker 1: Three years earlier, Uh, Alexander Hamilton's firstborn son, Philip, who
Speaker 1: the family had put basically all of their hopes and
Speaker 1: dreams into, was killed in a duel himself. There him
Speaker 1: for his dad. Yeah, there was a guy who was
Speaker 1: slandering his dad publicly and Philip demanded a retraction and
Speaker 1: the guy said, no, dude, down the gauntlet. So yeah,
Speaker 1: Philip challenged him to a duel and they met it
Speaker 1: we Hawking and Philip was killed at that duel. And
Speaker 1: three years later at the same spot when Alexander Hamilton's
Speaker 1: met Aaron Burr, historians think this was on his mind
Speaker 1: and that he actually um purposefully missed Aaron Burr because
Speaker 1: he saw what can happen in a duel. But Aaron
Speaker 1: Burr was like, thanks for the free ride, chump, and
Speaker 1: shot him in the stomach. Yeah. They were very Nobody
Speaker 1: knows for sure what happened. They were conflicting accounts um
Speaker 1: whether or not he purposefully missed, whether he didn't shoot
Speaker 1: at all and got fired upon and then accidentally fired
Speaker 1: his weapon. Um. No one actually saw it go down.
Speaker 1: They do know there were two shots. Uh fired though
Speaker 1: because of the noise, and UM, yeah, he got a
Speaker 1: a bullet through the liver and through his abdomen and
Speaker 1: immediately said to his confidant who rushed up to him,
Speaker 1: He's like, this is it. Yeah, this is a mortal wound.
Speaker 1: And some people even say that he was goating Burr
Speaker 1: into killing him that day with the way he handled
Speaker 1: the duel and like he was taking his time putting
Speaker 1: on his glasses. He had a special gun that had
Speaker 1: a hair trigger, which would make it easier to aim. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's all these weird, conflicting accounts. Um, it's kind of
Speaker 1: frustrating that no one knows like the actual truth. I
Speaker 1: think it is frustrating. I that's very odd that he
Speaker 1: would have, um wanted to die at this point. It
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like his life was well. I don't think
Speaker 1: he thought he was gonna die. I think he thought
Speaker 1: he could destroy Burr's reputation by being a gentleman and
Speaker 1: firing into the air, and then Burr actually shooting him.
Speaker 1: He lives and is a bit of a martyr. I
Speaker 1: got a living murder that didn't happen. No, he died. No,
Speaker 1: And before he died, his his reputation had gone down
Speaker 1: quite a bit thanks to an extramarital affair that he
Speaker 1: had um starting in I think seventeen ninety one, while
Speaker 1: he was still the Secretary of the Treasury. Right. So, uh,
Speaker 1: he met a woman named Maria Reynolds who showed up
Speaker 1: on his doorstep in Philadelphia and said, Hey, I am
Speaker 1: in great trouble. My husband left me with this kid.
Speaker 1: I'm from New York. I know you're from New York.
Speaker 1: He can can I have some money? And uh, it
Speaker 1: just kind of went from there, right, So he ended
Speaker 1: up having a I think a three year long affair. Well,
Speaker 1: he gave her some money and she said, how can
Speaker 1: I ever repay you? And he went, well, I have
Speaker 1: one idea. She said okay, and that kind of became
Speaker 1: the arrangement. Yep, so um again this one I'm for
Speaker 1: three years. And it turned out that um, Mrs Reynolds
Speaker 1: husband was a criminal himself and that this was all
Speaker 1: an extortion attempt. Um he hadn't left her at all.
Speaker 1: They had plotted together and um they were extorting money
Speaker 1: from uh, from Alexander Hamilton's and when Mr Reynolds, James
Speaker 1: Reynolds was caught in another scandal, um, he said, hey,
Speaker 1: get this, you guys should take it easy at me,
Speaker 1: because I got some great information. You're gonna love. You know,
Speaker 1: the Secretary of the Treasury, Well, me and my wife
Speaker 1: have been extorting him what I can only assume is
Speaker 1: federal money for years. Now go go talk to him.
Speaker 1: And they did. That's right. And Hamilton's uh, he had
Speaker 1: one thing he couldn't stand for is for his integrity
Speaker 1: to be questioned. And uh, in this case, not integrity
Speaker 1: is being a faithful husband, but integrity and stealing from
Speaker 1: the government. And he's like, I won't stand for that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna come out and say, you know, I was
Speaker 1: having an affair and I was making payments and they
Speaker 1: were from my personal funds. Here's the letters to prove it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which was pretty remarkable. It was stroyed his political career
Speaker 1: in the process. But he was like, no one's gonna
Speaker 1: accuse me of pilfering money from the country that I love. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And originally that he was approached by a delegation um
Speaker 1: of investigators I think including James Madison, who said no,
Speaker 1: James Monroe, I'm sorry, who said, hey man, we're you're
Speaker 1: being accused of using government funds as hush money. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to you want to speak to this And
Speaker 1: he produced the love letters that exonerated him privately, and
Speaker 1: Monroe and the other investigators agreed to just keep the
Speaker 1: matter private because they saw that that was a false accusation,
Speaker 1: that he'd been using his own money to um to
Speaker 1: cover the extortion. And uh, but he let them walk
Speaker 1: with the love letters provided they kept him confidential. Well,
Speaker 1: one of them gave him to Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson
Speaker 1: was like, oh baby, what, thank you God for dropping
Speaker 1: this in my lap. I hate this guy, he's my
Speaker 1: political rival. I'm going to see to it that these
Speaker 1: things are published. And so they got published, and as
Speaker 1: a result of them being published, that's when Hamilton was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll published my own explanation, and he did, and he
Speaker 1: went he went large with it and went wide and
Speaker 1: everyone knew. But like I said, at least he was
Speaker 1: proven out to not be ripping off his government, right,
Speaker 1: So everybody was like, good for that. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, uh, you just confess to an affair in
Speaker 1: a in a publication that you published yourself. So that's
Speaker 1: the part we're gonna remember. So his star definitely waned
Speaker 1: as a result of that. He wasn't um as as
Speaker 1: important in the Federalist Party he was. He didn't hold
Speaker 1: any civil office any longer. Um. And by the time
Speaker 1: he was killed in the duel forty nine years old. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and his finances have been pretty stretched. He built a
Speaker 1: place called the Grange on thirty five acres and what
Speaker 1: is now hard him uh, and it almost bankrupted his
Speaker 1: family apparently. Yeah, and he um, like you said, he
Speaker 1: had stretched himself too thin. He was out of the
Speaker 1: public eye for the most part, and once he died
Speaker 1: and was not around to vigorously defend himself, people like
Speaker 1: Adams and Jefferson and Madison jumped on him, uh and
Speaker 1: started writing these things about you know, he wanted a monarchy,
Speaker 1: He wasn't a good guy. He didn't have the the
Speaker 1: best interest of the country, which was really a shame.
Speaker 1: And for many years I think that had a big
Speaker 1: impact on how he was viewed in America. Like, you know,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a statue in Washington, d C. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't have a memorial in Washington, d C. Yet
Speaker 1: are they trying to get one? I'm sure lin Manuel
Speaker 1: Miranda's like, come on, well, the one guy, that one historian,
Speaker 1: it's really great. At the end, he was like, America
Speaker 1: is his memorial. Like you're you're living in his memorial.
Speaker 1: Pretty powerful. So now scholars have gotten on board and
Speaker 1: they said, you know what, this guy was actually perhaps
Speaker 1: the most influential person in our history to the America
Speaker 1: that we look around at today. Yeah, the coast Guard, lighthouses, lighthouses,
Speaker 1: that's it. Uh, the well, just the whole the structure
Speaker 1: of our economy, the fact that we have a central bank, um,
Speaker 1: the fact that the government intervenes in financial crises. He's
Speaker 1: credited with coming up with the stock market after that
Speaker 1: panic of He got the biggest traders around to meet
Speaker 1: him in New York and say, hey, let's all sign
Speaker 1: a letter of cooperation. And that became the New York
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange. And he's buried steps from the New York
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange. Uh. He founded the Bank of New York.
Speaker 1: That was one of three banks that he founded, two
Speaker 1: national banks in the Bank of New York and the
Speaker 1: Bank of New York actually was still in continuous operation
Speaker 1: until I think two thousand eight or two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: when Chemical Banker City Group took it over. But it
Speaker 1: had been like operating continuously since I think seventeen ninety four. Right.
Speaker 1: He founded the New York Post newspaper. Yeah, I had
Speaker 1: a what was the original name, the New York Evening Post,
Speaker 1: which became the Post, and he founded that so he
Speaker 1: could get his word out. Yeah. It was a federalist
Speaker 1: newspaper originally. Pretty pretty amazing guy. He did quite a bit.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he is starting to get his his due recognition. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And he you mentioned the Grange Um. It was the
Speaker 1: only home he ever owned in New York. He lived
Speaker 1: downtown for most of his life in apartments, but finally
Speaker 1: bought that land uh and the suburb of Harlem and
Speaker 1: Um in eighteen eighty nine. That home was donated to
Speaker 1: a New York church, UH if they moved it two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty feet, which they did, and then in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties it fell into uh disrepair basically, and
Speaker 1: they said, you know, now it's part of the National
Speaker 1: Park Service. We need to honor this house. Let's find
Speaker 1: it location for it and restore it. And it took
Speaker 1: about thirty years and then finally uh in two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven September UH fourteen point five million dollars later reopened
Speaker 1: to the public near St. Nicholas Park. Pretty amazing, yep.
Speaker 1: And he's buried right there behind Trinity Church, around the
Speaker 1: corner from the Stock Exchange, lasting legacy. It's on Broadway.
Speaker 1: Immigrant bastard child. Amazing, Pretty amazing. So I wonder if
Speaker 1: he got a music written about him. At first, when
Speaker 1: that first came out, I didn't know a lot about him.
Speaker 1: I was like a lot somebody writing a musical about him,
Speaker 1: and then you read up on it and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's exactly why true underdog. Yeah he was. He was great.
Speaker 1: I like him. If you want to know more about
Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton's go to Broadway. Uh. And you can also
Speaker 1: type those words in the search bar how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. And since I said Broadway, it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail, I'm gonna call this rare shout out. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: to know us. This isn't your usual m O. But
Speaker 1: I was hoping you'd be able to publicly thank my
Speaker 1: friend Jeff Beverage. This guy's name. It's a great name.
Speaker 1: He's my best friend for fifteen years and it's been
Speaker 1: like a brother to me. He's the one that got
Speaker 1: me hooked on your show. Recently, he has stepped up
Speaker 1: even more after my family suffered a pretty devastating house fire.
Speaker 1: We had lots of family and friends reaching out the
Speaker 1: support us, but he offered to take in my pet
Speaker 1: turtle and toward us that we didn't have room for
Speaker 1: in our rental house. It's hard to fathom just how
Speaker 1: you'll be able to repay and thank him for thank
Speaker 1: all of our family and friends. I know the best
Speaker 1: way to thank Bev. So what they call him would
Speaker 1: be a shout out from you guys. Even better if
Speaker 1: you would call him a schmump, which is a combination
Speaker 1: of a schmuck and a chump. Well, I don't know
Speaker 1: if we should do that. Well, I mean, it sounds
Speaker 1: like it would make Bev's day, So I, for one,
Speaker 1: we'll say, Bev, sir, you are a first rate schmump smump.
Speaker 1: What if we just made him cry? I doubt it.
Speaker 1: I hope you had a great UK tour. We did,
Speaker 1: and we look forward to hearing some of the tangents
Speaker 1: from the travels you might thanks for all the hours
Speaker 1: of entertainment, and that is from Kevin Barrett. Nice. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go, Kevin, your wish has been fulfilled. Uh.
Speaker 1: You're a schmump too, Kevin, thanks for thanks for that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Bev for being a top notch person. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you want to get in touch with this,
Speaker 1: you can hang out with us on Twitter at s
Speaker 1: Y s K podcast. You can hang out with me
Speaker 1: too at Josh Underscore, um Underscore Clark. You can hang
Speaker 1: out with us on Facebook. Chuck has his own Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. Right, that's right, sir, I've got one called
Speaker 1: Super Josh Clark. Check it out. Yeah, good stuff going
Speaker 1: on in those places. Yeah. And then of course you
Speaker 1: can hang out the official Stuff you Should Know page
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Speaker 1: the House, Stuff Works dot com, and as always, you
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