It is February 12th. Welcome to Episode 43 of History in a Year. Today, we step away from the battlefield and into the bedroom for the first major political sex scandal in American history. We look at the summer of 1791, when Alexander Hamilton made a terrible mistake by inviting a crying woman named Maria Reynolds into his life. We watch as her husband blackmails the Secretary of the Treasury, and we see Hamilton’s shocking decision to destroy his own marriage and reputation by publishing a 95-page confession just to prove he didn’t steal government money.
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 12th. Welcome to Episode 43. For the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about Alexander Hamilton the genius. The man who built the American economy.
LEAH:
But today, we are talking about Alexander Hamilton the human being. And human beings make terrible, terrible mistakes.
STEPHEN:
We are going back in time slightly, to the summer of 1791. The government is in Philadelphia. George Washington is President. And Hamilton is at the absolute peak of his power.
LEAH:
His wife, Eliza, and their children had gone upstate to New York to spend the summer with her family. Hamilton stayed behind in Philadelphia to work. He was all alone in the house.
STEPHEN:
One evening, there is a knock at his door. Hamilton opens it to find a beautiful, 23-year-old woman named Maria Reynolds. She is in tears.
LEAH:
She tells Hamilton a tragic story. She says her husband, James Reynolds, had abandoned her. She is destitute. She has no money to get back to her family in New York. She asks the Secretary of the Treasury if he could spare some cash to help her.
STEPHEN:
Hamilton is moved. He tells her he doesn’t have any money on him right then, but he takes her address and promises to bring her some money later that night.
LEAH:
And he does. He shows up at her boarding house with a $30 bill. That’s a decent amount of money back then.
STEPHEN:
But Hamilton later wrote in his own confession: “Some conversation ensued, from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable.”
LEAH:
Which is a very 18th-century way of saying, she invited him into her bedroom.
STEPHEN:
And so began the affair. Hamilton visited her repeatedly over the summer and into the fall.
LEAH:
But it was a trap.
STEPHEN:
A few months later, Hamilton gets a letter from Maria’s husband, James Reynolds. The guy who had supposedly abandoned her.
LEAH:
James Reynolds writes to Hamilton and plays the part of the heartbroken husband. He says his life is ruined. But… he doesn’t challenge Hamilton to a duel. Which is what a gentleman would do.
STEPHEN:
Instead, James Reynolds says, “I won’t tell your wife, and I won’t cause a public scandal… if you give me a thousand dollars.”
LEAH:
A thousand dollars in 1791 is a massive sum. It’s roughly a third of Hamilton’s annual salary. But Hamilton was terrified. He paid it. He thought that would be the end of it.
STEPHEN:
It wasn’t. James Reynolds realized he had the most powerful man in the country on a hook. He started sending letters asking for “loans.” Fifty dollars here. Thirty dollars there.
LEAH:
And he even encouraged Hamilton to keep seeing his wife! It was a complete extortion racket. Hamilton paid the blackmail for almost a year before finally breaking it off.
STEPHEN:
Fast forward to the winter of 1792. James Reynolds gets arrested. Not for blackmail, but for a completely different scam involving unpaid back wages for Revolutionary War veterans.
LEAH:
While he’s in jail, Reynolds tries to cut a deal. He tells the authorities, “You can’t keep me in jail! I have dirt on the Secretary of the Treasury! Alexander Hamilton is feeding me inside information so we can speculate on government funds!”
STEPHEN:
This was a huge accusation. He was accusing Hamilton of using his position to steal money.
LEAH:
Word gets to Congress. Three members of Congress—including a young James Monroe and Frederick Muhlenberg—decide to investigate. They go to Hamilton’s house to confront him.
STEPHEN:
They lay out the evidence: They have letters from Hamilton to James Reynolds arranging payments. They say, “Mr. Secretary, it looks like you are embezzling.”
LEAH:
Hamilton is cornered. He realizes that if people think he is stealing money, his entire financial system will collapse. The Bank, the debt, everything he built will be destroyed.
STEPHEN:
So, he has to prove that the payments to James Reynolds weren’t for illegal financial speculation.
LEAH:
He opens his desk drawer. And he pulls out a stack of love letters from Maria Reynolds.
STEPHEN:
He shows these three congressmen the letters. He walks them through the entire affair. He essentially says, “Gentlemen, I am not a thief. I am just an adulterer. The money I paid this man was out of my own pocket, to hide my private sins. I never touched a dime of the public’s money.”
LEAH:
Monroe and the others are stunned. They read the letters. They realize Hamilton is telling the truth. And because it’s a private matter, they agree to keep it a secret. They lock the letters away.
STEPHEN:
And for five years, the secret held. Hamilton eventually stepped down from the Treasury. He went back to private life in New York.
LEAH:
But in 1797, everything exploded.
STEPHEN:
A scandalmonger journalist named James Callender published a series of pamphlets accusing Hamilton of financial crimes. And he had the receipts! He published the old letters between Hamilton and James Reynolds.
LEAH:
Someone had leaked the file. Hamilton immediately suspected James Monroe, who was a close ally of Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton was furious. He almost challenged Monroe to a duel right then and there.
STEPHEN:
Now Hamilton is facing a public relations nightmare. The public thinks he’s corrupt. His political enemies are cheering.
LEAH:
So, Alexander Hamilton decides to take control of the narrative. He does something no politician had ever done before.
STEPHEN:
He writes a 95-page booklet called “Observations on Certain Documents.” History remembers it as The Reynolds Pamphlet.
LEAH:
In it, Hamilton tells the entire world about the affair. He prints the love letters. He prints the blackmail letters. He holds nothing back.
STEPHEN:
He wrote: “The charge against me is a connection with one James Reynolds for purposes of improper pecuniary speculation. My real crime is an amorous connection with his wife.”
LEAH:
He cleared his name financially. He proved he didn’t steal a single cent of public money.
STEPHEN:
But he destroyed himself personally. The public was appalled. Even his friends couldn’t believe he would air his dirty laundry so publicly. They thought it showed a shocking lack of judgment.
LEAH:
And poor Eliza. His wife. She had to read about her husband’s infidelity in the newspapers. She was humiliated. It is a testament to her incredible grace that she eventually forgave him.
STEPHEN:
But the damage was done. The Reynolds Pamphlet essentially ended Alexander Hamilton’s chances of ever being President of the United States. He saved his public honor, but he sacrificed his private life to do it.
LEAH:
Hamilton wasn’t the only one stepping back from power. Over in Philadelphia, the man who had held the country together for eight years was getting very tired.
STEPHEN:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 44. Washington’s Farewell. We watch as the Father of the Country refuses to be a King, steps down from the Presidency, and writes a final letter to the American people warning them about the very political parties that Hamilton and Jefferson had just created.
LEAH:
I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
And I’m Stephen.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.