It is February 1st. Welcome to Episode 32 of History in a Year. Today, the war against the British is over, but the war for America’s soul has just begun. We enter the 1790s, where President Washington tries to govern with a “Team of Rivals.” We meet the brilliant, arrogant Alexander Hamilton and the idealistic, enigmatic Thomas Jefferson. We see how a difference in philosophy turns into a personal feud that births the two-party system and threatens to destroy the young republic from within.
STEPHEN: Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH: Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH: And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: It is February 1st. Welcome to Episode 32. We have officially turned the page. Goodbye to the 1780s. Hello to the 1790s.
LEAH: And if you thought the War for Independence was dramatic, just wait. The 1790s are arguably the most politically toxic, vicious, and dangerous decade in American history.
STEPHEN: That’s a big claim.
LEAH: I stand by it! We have foreign wars, domestic rebellions, sex scandals, and political dirty tricks that make modern Twitter look polite.
STEPHEN: And it all starts right here, in 1790. Yesterday, in our big recap, we left George Washington on the balcony of Federal Hall. The Constitution is law. The machine is built.
LEAH: But now, the machine has to run. And almost immediately, the gears start grinding.
STEPHEN: To understand why, you have to understand George Washington’s philosophy. Washington hated political parties. He called them “factions.” He thought they were a disease that destroyed republics.
LEAH: He believed that if you just got the smartest, most virtuous men in a room, they would debate rationally and come to a consensus for the common good.
STEPHEN: So, when he built his first Cabinet, he didn’t pick “Yes Men.” He picked the absolute best talent available, regardless of their ideology. He wanted a “Team of Rivals” seventy years before Lincoln made that phrase famous.
LEAH: He appointed Henry Knox—his old artillery general—as Secretary of War. He appointed Edmund Randolph—the brilliant lawyer—as Attorney General.
STEPHEN: But the main event… the heavyweight championship of the world… was between the Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of State.
LEAH: For Treasury, Washington picked his former aide-de-camp. The man with the mile-a-minute brain. Alexander Hamilton.
STEPHEN: And for State, he picked the author of the Declaration of Independence. The sage of Monticello. Thomas Jefferson.
LEAH: On paper, this was a Dream Team. In reality, it was a disaster waiting to happen. These two men didn’t just disagree on policy; they lived in different universes.
STEPHEN: Let’s look at the tale of the tape. In the blue corner: Alexander Hamilton.
LEAH: Hamilton was a self-made man in the extreme. Born in the Caribbean. Illegitimate. Orphaned. He clawed his way up from poverty by sheer brilliance and work ethic.
STEPHEN: Because of his background, Hamilton had a dark view of human nature. He had seen chaos. He didn’t trust the “mob.” He believed that for a nation to survive, it needed Order.
LEAH: He looked at Great Britain and saw a model of success. He wanted the United States to be a financial superpower. He wanted banks. He wanted factories. He wanted a strong federal government that could tax, borrow, and build a mighty army and navy.
STEPHEN: He was a “Federalist.” He believed the future of America was in the cities, in commerce, and in industry.
LEAH: Now, in the red corner: Thomas Jefferson.
STEPHEN: Jefferson was the opposite in every way. He was born into the Virginia aristocracy. He owned thousands of acres and hundreds of enslaved people. He lived on a mountaintop, literally looking down on the world.
LEAH: Jefferson was an optimist about human nature—at least, for white men. He trusted the people. He feared the government. He believed that Liberty was the only thing that mattered.
STEPHEN: He looked at cities and saw corruption, disease, and poverty. He looked at banks and saw scams designed to steal from the poor.
LEAH: He wanted America to be a nation of “yeoman farmers.” He thought that if every man owned his own piece of land and grew his own food, he would be independent. He wouldn’t have to bow to a boss or a bank manager.
STEPHEN: He looked at France—which was just starting its own Revolution—and saw the future of mankind. He hated the British system with a passion.
LEAH: So, you have Hamilton wanting to build an Industrial Empire, and Jefferson wanting to build an Agricultural Republic.
STEPHEN: At first, the conflict was polite. They met for cabinet meetings. They were civil. But the spark that blew it up was… money.
LEAH: Specifically, debt.
STEPHEN: The United States was broke in 1790. The federal government owed millions to France and Dutch bankers. But the individual states also owed millions from the war.
LEAH: Hamilton came up with a bold, complex plan. He released his “Report on Public Credit” in January 1790.
STEPHEN: He proposed that the Federal Government should “assume”—or take over—all the state debts. He would combine them into one giant national debt.
LEAH: To Hamilton, this was genius. If the Federal Government owed the money, then the wealthy bankers who lent the money would want the Federal Government to succeed. They would be invested in the United States. He called it “cement” for the Union.
STEPHEN: But Jefferson hated it. And here is why: The geography of debt.
LEAH: Jefferson’s home state, Virginia, had already paid off most of its war debt. They had taxed their farmers and paid the bill. But Hamilton’s friends in Massachusetts? They hadn’t paid a dime. They still owed a fortune.
STEPHEN: So Jefferson looked at Hamilton’s plan and said, “Wait a minute. You want to tax Virginia farmers to bail out Massachusetts merchants? You want the responsible states to pay for the irresponsible ones?”
LEAH: He saw it as a massive wealth transfer from the South to the North. From farmers to bankers.
STEPHEN: And this is where the fight got personal. Jefferson started whispering that Hamilton wasn’t just wrong—he was dangerous. He called Hamilton a “monarchist.”
LEAH: That was the ultimate slur. He was accusing Hamilton of trying to turn President Washington into King George IV.
STEPHEN: Hamilton fired back. He said Jefferson was a naive dreamer. He said Jefferson’s weak government would lead to anarchy and collapse.
LEAH: Poor George Washington. He was stuck in the middle. He felt like a divorced dad trying to keep the family together.
STEPHEN: He wrote letters to both of them. He pleaded with them. He wrote to Jefferson: “I believe it will be difficult to manage the Reins of Government… if one pulls this way and another that.”
LEAH: But they couldn’t stop. They were obsessed with each other. They even started funding rival newspapers just to trash each other!
STEPHEN: Hamilton wrote for the Gazette of the United States. Jefferson hired a poet named Philip Freneau to start the National Gazette.
LEAH: And Freneau was brutal. He attacked Hamilton every day. He even attacked Washington! He called the President a “stepfather of his country” because he listened to Hamilton.
STEPHEN: By 1792, the government was paralyzed. Congress was yelling. The North and South were threatening to split apart.
LEAH: This is the birth of the two-party system. You were either a “Federalist” (Team Hamilton) or a “Democratic-Republican” (Team Jefferson).
STEPHEN: But in 1790, they had a specific problem to solve. Hamilton needed the votes to pass his Debt Plan. Jefferson wanted to stop him.
LEAH: But Jefferson wanted something else, too. He wanted the permanent Capital City of the United States to be in the South. He didn’t want it in New York or Philadelphia, where the bankers lived.
STEPHEN: So, they needed a trade. A compromise.
LEAH: And that trade happened at one of the most famous dinner parties in history.
STEPHEN: Join us tomorrow for Episode 33. The Room Where It Happened. Thomas Jefferson invites Alexander Hamilton to his lodgings on Maiden Lane. Over a bottle of fine wine and a potpie, they redraw the map of America. Hamilton gets his Bank… and Jefferson gets Washington, D.C.
LEAH: I’m Leah.
STEPHEN: And I’m Stephen.
STEPHEN: You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.