Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States is a political pamphlet written by Alexander Hamilton, originally published in 1800 during the heated presidential election contest between John Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. The work takes the form of an open letter addressed to an unnamed “SIR,” and it constitutes a detailed indictment of Adams’s character, judgment, and conduct in public office. The text is divided into two main components: a preface supplied by the publishers who reissued the letter nine years after its original appearance, and the letter itself, which runs through a systematic critique of Adams’s career from the Revolutionary period through his presidency. The publishers’ preface, written when both Hamilton and Adams were near death, explains their reasons for bringing the letter back before the public and adds their own accusations against Adams. The letter proper combines personal reminiscence, political analysis, and character assessment, drawing on Hamilton’s long acquaintance with Adams in Congress, in the administration of George Washington, and during Adams’s presidency. The work is notable for its frankness, its detailed recounting of specific incidents and grievances, and its unsparing psychological portrait of Adams as a man governed by vanity, jealousy, and ungovernable temper.
Context
The letter was originally published in 1800, at a moment of acute crisis and division within the Federalist Party. The presidential election of that year pitted the Federalist candidates John Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney against the Democratic-Republican candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. Within the Federalist ranks, a bitter factional struggle had developed between supporters of Adams and supporters of Hamilton, who favored Pinckney. Hamilton’s letter was intended to influence Federalist electors to prefer Pinckney over Adams, and its publication was a bombshell that exposed the depth of the party’s internal rupture. The publishers’ preface, added nine years later for the reissue, places the letter in the context of the subsequent political evolution of both men. By that later date, Adams had made his peace with the Democratic-Republican ascendancy, and the publishers accuse Adams and his son of having formed an alliance with the democratic party for family aggrandizement. The preface also notes that the original letter had excited regret even among Hamilton’s warmest friends, who assented to most of his charges while regretting the harshness of his abuse. The reissue came at a time when Hamilton’s memory was being attacked by Adams and his allies, and the publishers sought to defend Hamilton’s reputation against what they characterize as cowardly attacks on a dead man who could no longer answer for himself.
Structure of the Book
The work is structured in two distinct parts. The first part is the publishers’ preface, which serves as an introduction to the reissued letter. This preface explains the publishers’ motives, recounts the reception of the original letter, and adds their own denunciations of Adams’s conduct toward Hamilton’s memory. The second and larger part is Hamilton’s letter itself, which proceeds in a roughly chronological and thematic fashion. The letter opens with Hamilton’s explanation of why he is writing and his denial that personal resentment motivates him. It then moves through Adams’s early career, including his conduct in Congress during the Revolution, his service as minister abroad, and his tenure as Vice-President. The bulk of the letter is devoted to Adams’s presidency, with particular attention to his conduct of foreign relations, his handling of the mission to France, his treatment of his cabinet ministers, and his dismissal of Secretary of War James McHenry and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering. The letter concludes with an examination of Adams’s character and an assessment of his fitness for the office of President. Throughout, Hamilton interweaves narrative, argument, and character analysis, frequently pausing to refute Adams’s own justifications and to offer alternative interpretations of the events he describes.
Detailed Section-by-Section Summary
The publishers’ preface opens by explaining their motives for reissuing Hamilton’s letter nine years after its original appearance, at a time when both Hamilton and Adams are near death. The publishers recall that the letter originally excited regret among friends of the political system that Hamilton and Adams had jointly supported, because an open rupture between two such influential men was seen as favorable to the advance of democracy. They acknowledge that Hamilton’s warmest political and personal friends assented to most of his charges against Adams while regretting the harshness of his abuse, which they attribute to Hamilton’s ardent, impetuous feelings and his acute sensibility that disdained calculation when reputation was at stake. The publishers state that they had hoped the letter would be forgotten out of tenderness to Adams’s feelings. They further note that leading members of the federal cabinet had participated with Hamilton in his opposition to Adams, and that some of them had personally felt the effects of Adams’s ill-founded suspicions. The publishers had hoped Adams would forget personal differences and reassume his patriotic character, but his “strange and incoherent answer” to his Northampton correspondents first suggested this hope was vain, showing symptoms of intellectual imbecility and susceptibility to flattery. When Adams’s letter proved to be a prelude to a systematic development of principles repugnant to his ancient professions, and revealed deep personal animosity, his former admirers saw him as a self-victim of overweening vanity. His subsequent letter against Hamilton showed labour and reflection, betraying a man stimulated by resentment. The publishers accuse Adams of cowardly attacking Hamilton’s memory after death, when Hamilton could not defend himself. They claim that Adams and his son have formed an alliance with the democratic party for family aggrandizement, demanding abjuration of their former faith. They note that Hamilton and Ames, while living, were objects of their party’s deadly hatred, and they charge that the father sacrifices Hamilton’s fame to “the Moloch of Democracy” while the son conciliates his new party by displaying Ames’s spirit.
Hamilton’s letter proper begins with an address to a “SIR,” in which he states that Adams’s warm personal friends are disparaging federalists who support General Pinckney’s equal candidacy for President and Vice-President. These federalists are depicted by Adams’s friends as versatile, ambitious spirits, or intriguing partisans of Great Britain. Hamilton denies that resentment of disappointed ambition motivates him, specifically addressing the charge that he would have favored Adams had Adams appointed him commander in chief after Washington’s death. Hamilton claims he would have declined such an appointment. He then recalls early reports that Adams opposed independence, favored a constitution like Britain’s, and advocated appointing yearly a new army commander, a project Hamilton calls chimerical and pernicious. These reports led him to qualify his admiration for Adams. In Congress, Hamilton found a party disposed to subject American interests to France, and Adams was among those resisting French influence, particularly in negotiating a loan from France, where Adams’s firmness was honorable. Hamilton’s scrutiny of Adams’s communications enhanced his esteem for Adams’s moral qualifications but lessened his respect for Adams’s intellectual endowments. He concluded that Adams had “an imagination sublimated and eccentric,” with “vanity without bounds” and “jealousy capable of discolouring every object.” Hamilton recounts an episode from Adams’s journal, which was sent to Congress and embarrassed his friends, especially the Massachusetts delegates, who stopped its reading. One sample involved Adams, dining with the King of Spain, being placed below a “pretty young lady” rather than near the King, which he resented. Hamilton supported Adams for Vice-President but agreed that votes should be diverted from Adams to ensure Washington’s plurality. Adams complained of unfair treatment for not being permitted an equal chance with Washington. As Vice-President, Adams supported Hamilton as trustee of the sinking fund against the opposition of Jefferson and Randolph. Hamilton supported equal votes for Adams and Pinckney to exclude Jefferson. In New York, all electors voted for both. Hamilton admits preferring Pinckney, who had superior qualifications. The plan was not pursued, and Adams received one more vote than Pinckney. Had two electors changed their votes, Jefferson would have won. Adams was enraged at those supporting Pinckney’s equal chance, causing the federal party schism. Adams’s animosity toward Hamilton was so vehement that he forgot decorum. Hamilton notes that Adams’s jealousy extended even to the Pinckneys’ youthful connection with the Duke of Leeds, suspecting British influence in a classmate’s appointment to London, logic Hamilton dismisses as jealousy, not reason.
The letter then turns to an analysis of an argument made by Adams, who uses the hostility of the Pinckneys toward him, evidenced by their “long intrigue” against him, as proof of their devotion to Great Britain. Adams’s argument is that he is the bulwark of his country against foreign influence, so the batteries of every foreign power are always open against him; therefore, any citizen who is his enemy must be a confederate of one or another of those foreign powers. Hamilton proposes to examine the facts upon which this argument’s applicability depends, without contesting this “argument of self-love.” The evidence of “the long intrigue” is that the Pinckney family contributed to limiting the duration of Adams’s commission to the court of London to three years, to make way for one of themselves to succeed him. Hamilton notes this was a “long-sighted calculation” for a government like ours. He states that the resolution of Congress by which Adams was appointed was a general one, applying to all ministers. He suggests the truth is that the measure was a precaution to bring the propriety of continuing a minister at a particular court under frequent review, and to facilitate the removal of a disagreeable one without the harshness of formally displacing him. The cautious maxims of New-England would naturally have taken a lead in such a policy. Hamilton finds the refutation of the suspicion in the very grounds of it, and adds that the rigor with which the war was prosecuted by the British armies in the Southern quarter produced more animosity against the British Government among the friends of the Revolution there than in other parts of the United States. This disposition was conspicuous among the Pinckneys and their connections. They were also known to have been attached to the French Revolution, continuing so until long after the appointment of Thomas Pinckney to the Court of London. The idea of nominating Thomas Pinckney originated with President Washington himself, and it met the approbation of the whole Administration, including Jefferson. This fact refutes the surmise of a British agency in the appointment. Hamilton questions how Adams will answer to the Government and his country for giving the sanction of his opinion to the worst aspersions thrown upon the Administration by its enemies. It is noted that Adams desired the appointment given to Pinckney, but the President declined the measure, thinking it incompatible with the spirit of the Constitution and the dignity of the Government to designate the Vice-President to such a station.
Hamilton states that this letter develops the true, unfortunate character of Adams. The remaining causes of dissatisfaction with him respect his conduct in the office of President, which is described as a “heterogeneous compound of right and wrong, of wisdom and error.” The outset of his presidency was distinguished by a speech his friends lamented as temporizing, having the air of a lure for the favor of his opponents at the expense of his sincerity. It is in regard to foreign relations that Adams’s public measures first attract criticism. General Pinckney, the brother of Thomas, had been deputed by President Washington as successor to Monroe and had been refused to be received by the French Government. This excited much disapprobation and resentment among those who felt a just pride for the honor of their country. Hamilton acknowledges that Adams took a manly and courageous lead on the occasion of the French rejection of the Envoys, doing all in his power to rouse the pride of the nation and dispose it to a firm and magnanimous resistance, and that his efforts contributed materially to the end. The friends of the Government were not agreed on ulterior measures; some were for immediate and unqualified war, others for a more mitigated course, including the dissolution of treaties, preparation of force by land and sea, and partial hostilities of a defensive tendency. Hamilton criticizes Adams for a declaration he made, stating that if France should send a Minister to-morrow, he would order him back the day after. This idea was refuted, as it could entail perpetual hostility between nations. In less than forty-eight hours, Adams underwent a total revolution, resolving to insert the sentiment proposed to him in his speech and to go further, declaring that if France would give explicit assurances of receiving a minister with due respect, he would send one. All his ministers opposed this extension, but he obstinately persisted, and the “pernicious declaration” was introduced. Hamilton calls the declaration pernicious because it was the groundwork of the false steps that succeeded. The declaration recommended to the President was a prudent one, as it gave an opening to France to make conciliatory propositions and assured her she would not pass herself to an affront by a refusal. The supplement to the declaration was a blamable excess, as it waved the point of honour and transferred the negotiation from our government to France. Hamilton argues that Paris was not wisely preferred as the place of negotiation, as the intrigues of Genet and his successors were perplexing chiefly because they were seconded by the prepossessions of the people. The great alteration in public opinion had put it in the power of the executive to control the machinations of any future public agent of France. The French minister for foreign relations, through the French diplomatic agent at the Hague, had opened a communication with the American charge d’affaires, indicating a disposition to treat. Hamilton argues this was an inadequate basis for instituting a new mission, as it was not made to a person who was the regular organ of the American government. Hamilton criticizes Adams’s practice of not consulting his ministers, contrasting it with the practice of the model of prudent executive conduct.
The letter continues by arguing that the expediency of the Mission to France must be judged by the state of affairs at its inception. At the time the foundation was laid by the speech when the nomination of Murray took place, the affairs of France and her enemies portended a result very inauspicious to her, different from a general peace on conditions that would leave her the inclination or power to prosecute this country. Even on the supposition of other prospects, Adams had the option of a substitute far preferable to the expedient he chose: he might have confidentially nominated one or more of our ministers actually abroad for the purpose of treating with France, with instructions predicated upon appearances of an approaching peace. Such a provisory expedient could have had none of the bad effects of the other; if kept secret, no inconvenient consequences; if divulged, it would be deemed a prudent precaution. To France’s enemies it gave no ill impression; to France, no motive to forbear other conciliatory means, because the operation would be eventual. Hamilton then discusses collateral incidents connected with the business of the Mission that illustrate Adams’s extreme propensity to jealousy. Hamilton arrived at Trenton a short time before the President, with the heads of departments, the Chief Justice, and himself, to endeavor to influence or counteract him. Hamilton states he went to Trenton pursuant to a pre-concert to have personal conferences with the heads of departments on the arrangement of future diplomatic measures. He had no interview with the President at Trenton, and did not stay a day longer than indispensable. He appeals to General [blank] that this was a real and sincere purpose. Hamilton had no anticipation of the President’s arrival. His journey was understood to be more early at the seat of government, where they would be at the fountain head of information. Hamilton believes the true reason of these simple occurrences were to the jealous mind of Adams strong proof of a plot against his independence. A circumstance caused much sensation to the disadvantage of Adams: it happened at a peculiar juncture, immediately after the unfavorable turn of the election in New-York, and had much the air of an explosion of combustible materials long prepared but kept down by prudential calculations. Perhaps, when it was supposed nothing could be lost in one quarter and something gained elsewhere by an atoning sacrifice of those ministers, personally Mr. Pickering, who had been particularly odious to the opposition party, it was determined to proceed to extremities. Hamilton offers this as a mere conjecture. One fact is admitted: neither of the dismissed Ministers had given any new or recent cause for their dismission. A primary cause of the state of things is traced to the ungovernable temper of Adams. He is often liable to paroxysms of anger which deprive him of self-command and produce very outrageous behaviour. Most, if not all, his Ministers and several distinguished Members of the two Houses of Congress have been humiliated by these gusts of passion. This violence, and the little consideration implied in declining to consult them, occasioned great dryness between the President and his Ministers, except, Hamilton believes, the Secretary of the Navy. The neglect was most poignant to Mr. Pickering, because it repeatedly operated in matters appertaining to his office. It was not in the disposition of this respectable man, tenacious of his own dignity and independence, to practice condescensions towards an imperious chief. Hence the breach grew wider. The dismission was preceded by doubt, and was managed as a thing shortly to happen. The circumstances at which it happened provoke the conjecture that the step was taken about the time in the sequel of a long conversation between the President and him, of a nature to cause pain. A prominent report that Hamilton had attempted to influence General [Hamilton] was mentioned. Hamilton finds it wonderful that an eulogy of the dead patriot and hero, the admired and beloved Washington, consecrated in the affections of his country, should be irksome to the ears of his successor. It is singular that an encomium on the officer first in rank in the armies of the United States, appointed and continued by Adams, should be a crime in the head of the War Department, and that it should be necessary to obliterate a compliment to that officer from an official Report. Another principal topic of accusation was that the Secretary had, with the other Ministers, signed the joint letter addressed to the President respecting a suspension of the Mission to France. It was ostentatiously asked how he or they should pretend to know anything of diplomatic affairs, and it was intimated that it was presumption to intermeddle. Hamilton was distinguished by a torrent of gross personal abuse and accused of having contributed to the loss of the election in New-York out of ill-will to Adams. Hamilton argues that if actuated by such a motive, he would have preferred the success of the election to secure electors for New-York who would co-operate in his views. These details would appear incredible to those without close inspection of Adams’s weaknesses, but to those with opportunities, they would not furnish surprise; they are irrefragable proofs of his unfitness for the station of Chief Magistrate. The letter then discusses insurrections in Pennsylvania. In the first case, two poor wretches were sentenced to die, one little short of an ideot, the other a miserable follower; both were insignificant, and after lenity shewn to the chiefs, justice would have worn the mien of ferocity. The sentiment that their punishment ought to be remitted was universal.
Main Arguments
The central argument of Hamilton’s letter is that John Adams, whatever his moral virtues and his services to the country in earlier years, was temperamentally and intellectually unfit for the office of President of the United States. Hamilton argues that Adams’s vanity was without bounds, his jealousy capable of discolouring every object, and his imagination sublimated and eccentric. These defects of character, Hamilton contends, rendered Adams incapable of the calm, deliberate, and consultative conduct that the presidency required. A second major argument concerns Adams’s conduct of foreign relations, particularly toward France. Hamilton acknowledges that Adams took a manly and courageous lead in rousing the nation to resist French aggression, but he argues that Adams’s subsequent conduct undermined this firmness. The “pernicious declaration” that Adams inserted into his speech, offering to send a minister to France if France would give assurances of receiving him with respect, is presented as a blamable excess that waved the point of honour and transferred the negotiation from the American government to France. Hamilton argues that this declaration was the groundwork of all the false steps that succeeded, and that the mission to France was undertaken on an inadequate basis and at an inauspicious time. A third argument concerns Adams’s treatment of his cabinet ministers. Hamilton contends that Adams’s practice of not consulting his ministers, his liability to paroxysms of anger that deprived him of self-command, and his dismissal of Pickering and McHenry without any new or recent cause, demonstrated both his unfitness for office and his disregard for the principles of republican governance. Hamilton also argues that Adams’s suspicions of British influence in the Pinckneys and others were the products of jealousy rather than reason, and that Adams’s accusations against his political opponents were unfounded and harmful to the public interest. Throughout the letter, Hamilton insists that his own motives are pure, that he is not actuated by resentment of disappointed ambition, and that he writes only out of concern for the public good.
Key Concepts
Several key concepts run through Hamilton’s letter. The first is the idea of executive fitness, understood as the combination of temperament, judgment, and consultative habits necessary for the chief magistrate of a republic. Hamilton argues that Adams possessed the moral qualifications for office but lacked the intellectual and temperamental endowments, and that this deficiency manifested itself in erratic decision-making, refusal to consult ministers, and susceptibility to jealousy and anger. A second concept is the distinction between firmness and obstinacy in foreign policy. Hamilton credits Adams with firmness in resisting French aggression but argues that his subsequent conduct, particularly the “pernicious declaration,” represented an abandonment of the point of honour and a transfer of negotiation initiative to France. A third concept is the importance of proper executive consultation. Hamilton repeatedly criticizes Adams for not consulting his ministers and for treating their advice with contempt, contrasting this with what he presents as the proper model of executive conduct. A fourth concept is the role of jealousy and vanity in distorting political judgment. Hamilton presents Adams’s jealousy as a lens that discoloured every object, leading him to see plots and conspiracies where none existed, such as in the Pinckneys’ supposed British connections or in Hamilton’s own journey to Trenton. A fifth concept is the distinction between prudent and imprudent diplomatic measures. Hamilton argues that Adams’s mission to France was imprudent because it was undertaken on an inadequate basis, at an inauspicious time, and in a manner that gave France the advantage in negotiation. Finally, the concept of party unity and the dangers of schism runs throughout the letter, as Hamilton presents Adams’s conduct as having caused the federal party schism and as having been propitious to the advance of democracy.
Themes
The dominant theme of the work is the danger posed by an unfit chief magistrate to the republic. Hamilton presents Adams’s presidency as a case study in how vanity, jealousy, and ungovernable temper can corrupt the exercise of executive power and undermine the public good. This theme is developed through detailed accounts of specific incidents, from Adams’s resentment at being placed below a “pretty young lady” at the Spanish court to his dismissal of his cabinet ministers. A related theme is the tension between personal honor and public duty. Hamilton presents himself as a man who, despite personal grievances and the abuse he has suffered from Adams, writes out of concern for the public good, while Adams is presented as a man whose personal vanity and resentment govern his public conduct. The theme of foreign influence and the danger of foreign entanglements also runs through the work, as Hamilton examines Adams’s conduct toward France and his suspicions of British influence in others. The theme of party and faction is prominent, as Hamilton recounts the schism within the Federalist Party and the consequences of that schism for the election. The theme of reputation and memory is also significant, particularly in the publishers’ preface, which defends Hamilton’s reputation against attacks made after his death and accuses Adams of cowardly attacking a man who could not defend himself. Finally, the theme of the proper conduct of foreign relations, including the importance of maintaining the point of honour and the dangers of making unilateral concessions, is developed at length in Hamilton’s analysis of the mission to France.
The Author’s Conclusions
Hamilton concludes that John Adams is unfit for the office of President of the United States. He reaches this conclusion through an examination of Adams’s character, his conduct in foreign relations, and his treatment of his cabinet ministers. Hamilton acknowledges Adams’s moral qualifications and his services to the country, particularly his firmness in resisting French influence in Congress and his manly lead in rousing the nation against French aggression. But he argues that Adams’s vanity, jealousy, and ungovernable temper disqualify him for the chief magistracy. Hamilton concludes that Adams’s conduct in the presidency was a “heterogeneous compound of right and wrong, of wisdom and error,” and that the errors proceeded from defects of character that were not corrigible. He presents the details of Adams’s conduct as “irrefragable proofs of his unfitness for the station of Chief Magistrate.” Hamilton also concludes that Adams’s suspicions of British influence in the Pinckneys and others were unfounded, the products of jealousy rather than reason, and that Adams’s accusations against his political opponents were harmful to the public interest. He concludes that the mission to France was undertaken imprudently, on an inadequate basis, and at an inauspicious time, and that the “pernicious declaration” was the groundwork of the false steps that succeeded. Finally, Hamilton concludes that his own motives in writing are pure, that he is not actuated by resentment of disappointed ambition, and that he writes only out of concern for the public good. The publishers, in their preface, conclude that Adams’s later conduct, including his alliance with the democratic party and his attacks on Hamilton’s memory, confirmed the justice of Hamilton’s charges and demonstrated that Adams was a self-victim of overweening vanity.
Significance
The significance of Hamilton’s letter lies in its role as a document of the Federalist Party’s internal crisis and its detailed portrait of the personal and political conflicts that shaped the election of 1800. The letter is one of the most important primary sources for understanding the schism between the Adams and Hamilton wings of the Federalist Party, and it provides a vivid account of the personalities, grievances, and policy disputes that divided them. The letter is also significant for its unsparing psychological portrait of Adams, which has influenced subsequent historical assessments of Adams’s character and presidency. Hamilton’s charges of vanity, jealousy, and ungovernable temper, and his account of Adams’s erratic conduct toward France and his own cabinet, have been debated by historians ever since. The letter is also significant as a reflection of Hamilton’s own political philosophy, particularly his views on executive power, the conduct of foreign relations, and the importance of consultative governance. Finally, the letter is significant for its role in the election of 1800 itself, as its publication contributed to the defeat of Adams and the victory of Jefferson, marking a turning point in American political history. The publishers’ preface, added nine years later, extends the letter’s significance by placing it in the context of the subsequent political evolution of both Hamilton and Adams, and by defending Hamilton’s reputation against what the publishers characterize as Adams’s cowardly attacks on a dead man. The letter thus stands as both a contemporary political document and a lasting contribution to the historical record of the early republic.
