Hey, it's me, Tyla. Bose open earbuds are stylish. The color, the way it looks, it looks almost like an earring, you know, so I feel like I could go with anything. My style is very fun. I feel like I always look like I'm on holiday. I just really like playing around with it and tying it to the music. So yeah, I really feel like the music I'm making right now feels like a holiday, so I want to look like it soon.
Check out Bose.com for more. This is Simone Boyce from The Bright Side. Beauty is about more than just beauty. It's about worth, individuality, and the power that comes from being your truest self. At L'Oréal Paris, beauty means embracing who you already are, enhancing the diverse features, experiences, and personality that makes you, well, you. L'Oréal's beauty essentials combine innovative products with that classic Parisian touch to help you feel like your most confident self. Because taking on the world is a little less scary when you feel ready for your close-up. L'Oréal Paris. Because you're worth it. Learn more at L'OréalParis.com.
To listen, just search Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike. This episode is brought to you by Navy Federal Credit Union. With the new Cash Rewards Plus card, you can keep things pretty simple.
Simple. Like unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase. No spend categories. And now, when you spend 2K, you get $200 and a Walmart Plus annual membership.
The new Cash Rewards Plus card. Learn more at NavyFederal.org. Navy Federal Credit Union. Their members are the mission.
Navy Federal is insured by NCUA. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. The show where America is the star and the American people. And all of our history segments are brought to us by the great folks at Hillsdale College. Where you can go learn all the things that are good in life and all the things that are beautiful in life. Their online courses are free. They're terrific.
Go to Hillsdale.edu. Few figures in American history have been more hotly debated or more grossly misunderstood than Alexander Hamilton. Ron Chernow's New York Times bestselling biography about Hamilton became the inspiration for the Broadway hit musical. Here's Ron with the story of founding father Alexander Hamilton. I think it's fair to say that nowadays even well educated Americans are largely ignorant about the first treasury secretary. They know that he appears on the $10 bill, although you may notice with something of a Hollywood makeover on the new currency. Hamilton, I think, was the best looking of the founders, but the treasury department in its wisdom has decided that he needed some plastic surgery.
You'll notice that they have widened his face and they've given him this rugged square-jawed look as if he were auditioning for a Hollywood action movie. In fact, there was a marvelous piece in US News and World Report reviewing the airbrushed images of the founders on the latest bills. And when the magazine came to Hamilton, it positively gushed, and I quote, and as for Hamilton, he now looks like a real hunk. So, took us two centuries to get a hunky founder where we have him. Of course, the other thing that everybody knows about Hamilton, or at least used to know, was that he was gunned down by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey, two centuries before HBO and Tony Soprano took over the nearby turf. Burr, you probably know, was the only Vice President in American history ever indicted for murder in two states, yes. And he actually presided over a famous impeachment trial in the Senate of a Supreme Court Justice while he, Burr, was simultaneously on the lam from the law in New York and New Jersey.
Never a dull moment in the life of Aaron Burr. Hamilton unquestionably led the most dramatic life of any founder. He was an illegitimate boy, born on the British island of Nevis, and he had suffered through a series of childhood traumas that would have shattered a lesser figure. His father abandons the family when Alexander is 11, mother dies of tropical fever when he's 13, he's then farmed out to a first cousin who commits suicide years later.
The remedies of biblical proportions seem to find their way to this young man. Now, in 1772, in other words, about a year before the Boston Tea Party, a monster hurricane lashes St. Croix, and this self-taught prodigy sits down and he pens a description of the hurricane of such precocious force and eloquence that the local merchants, recognizing this wonder in their midst, band together to finance his education in North America. A wonderkin studied at King's College in lower Manhattan, later renamed Columbia, King's being a slightly awkward and inconvenient name after the revolution. And already as undergraduate extraordinaire, Hamilton is publishing stirring pamphlets against the British.
He takes up a musket and he drills with his fellow students in nearby St. Paul's Churchyard, today adjacent to Ground Zero, to risk spellbinding speeches to large crowds on what is today New York City Hall Park. But this young man, for all his palpable ardor, is an ambivalent revolutionary. When a rampaging mob of patriots swoops down on the college, hoping to tar and feather the Tory president, Miles Cooper, young Hamilton, who was only about five foot six and rather slight of build, courageously stands in the doorway and blocks their path. This young man craves liberty, yes, but he also dreads disorder, and this is a fine balancing act, a recurring tension that will characterize his entire career.
Before he has a chance to graduate, this slim, blue-eyed West Indian is appointed an artillery captain for the Continental Army. He slips across the fog-bound East River during Washington's famous nocturnal retreat after the Battle of Brooklyn. The young man rises from his sickbed to cross the icy Delaware to surprise the drowsing Hessians at Trenton. And then just a few months later, Hamilton is just 22. That guy who had been a penalist orphan just five years before in the trading house on St. Croix is miraculously appointed aide-de-camp to George Washington. In fact, he proved so adept at handling Washington's correspondence, Washington is able to give him the gist of a message, perhaps a beautifully worded, delicately nuanced letter from Hamilton that it almost seems like an inspired act of ventriloquism. You will see in this story that with almost comical, zellig-like consistency, Hamilton has an act for being where the action is. He is always there when history is unfolding.
It's like he's parachuted into every major event over a 30-year period. For instance, Hamilton was there at Benedict Arnold's house the morning that the treason plot was discovered and Arnold fled down the Hudson River. Hamilton found himself consoling the voluptuous but distraught Peggy Arnold, who lay in an upstairs bed.
She was weeping in this very gauzy and provocative lingerie as she faked a mad scene to disguise the fact that she was in cahoots with her husband. Hamilton, I think, was the brainiest of all the founders, but I think it's fair to say that around Beautiful Women he shed approximately 50 points on his IQ, and he was suckered in by this masterful performance by Peggy Arnold. Now, surprisingly enough, you would think that after this ghastly Dickensian childhood that Hamilton, aide-de-camp and effectively chief of staff for George Washington, was thrilled at his sudden station in life, but he was Hamilton.
No, he was chafing at his desk. He dreamed of battlefield glory. Unlike so many intellectuals then and now, Hamilton was a daredevil who actually enjoyed courting physical danger. At the Battle of Monmouth, he was horrified to find General Charles Lee in full-blown retreat with his panic-stricken men. The Colonel rides up to General Lee and says, I will stay here with you, my dear General, and die with you.
Let us all die rather than retreat. And you're listening to Ron Chernow, who wrote the book about Alexander Hamilton and inspired the musical, but also inspired readers to know so much more about their founders. And my goodness, what a story he's telling here to folks at the Library of Congress. When we come back, more of the remarkable story of Alexander Hamilton here on Our American Stories. This is Lee Habib, host of Our American Stories. Every day, we set out to tell the stories of Americans past and present, from small towns to big cities, and from all walks of life doing extraordinary things, but we truly can't do this show without you. Our shows are free to listen to, but they're not free to make. If you love what you hear, go to OurAmericanStories.com and make a donation to keep the stories coming.
That's OurAmericanStories.com. Sex, politics, IVF, mental illness. I bet you have rarely, if ever, heard these topics discussed in church, and I bet you've got questions about them that you'd love to ask a pastor. Well, there's a podcast that tackles these taboo topics. I'm Pastor Mike Novotny with Time of Grace Ministry, and in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny, I answer questions from people just like you as I open up the Bible to give answers that point people back to the truth and especially to our Savior Jesus.
To listen, just search Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike. The 2024 presidential election is here. MSNBC has the in-depth coverage and analysis you need. We'll tell reporters around the ground.
Steve Kornacki is at the big board breaking down the races. Rachel Maddow and our Decision 2024 team will provide insight as results come in. And the next day, Morning Joe will give you perspective on what it all means for the future of our country.
Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5th, beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC. Wake up at Holiday Inn Express to a can't-miss breakfast that's free with every stay. Count on all the hot, fresh coffee you need and an incredible breakfast buffet that has something for everyone, like eggs, cinnamon rolls, and even hot, fresh pancakes with all the toppings you crave. Next time, do yourself a favor and stay at a Holiday Inn Express with a can't-miss breakfast that's free with every stay.
So when you wake up at Holiday Inn Express, you'll wake up happy, a part of IHG Hotels and Resorts. Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face, the lack of pet-friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet-friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the Purple Leash Project. With more pet-friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together.
Visit purina.com slash purple to get involved. Attention parents and grandparents. Are you searching for the perfect gift for your kids this holiday season? Give the gift of adventure that will last all year long. A Guardian Bike. The easiest, safest and quickest bikes for kids to learn on. Kids are learning to ride in just one day.
No training wheels needed. What makes Guardian Bikes special? They're the easiest to ride thanks to thoughtful engineering, lightweight frames and kid-friendly components. Kids love how fun and easy they are to ride, and parents appreciate the safety features, like the patented braking system that prevents head-over-handlebar accidents. Guardian Bikes are the only kids' bikes designed and assembled in a USA factory, ensuring top-notch quality and durability. They're built to last and make perfect hand-me-downs. Join the hundreds of thousands of happy families by getting a Guardian Bike today. Their holiday season sales have begun, offering the biggest deal of the year. Save up to 25% on bikes.
No code needed. Plus, get free shipping and a free bike lock and pump with your first purchase after signing up for their newsletter. Visit GuardianBikes.com to take advantage of these deals and secure your holiday season gifts today.
Happy riding! And we continue with our American stories and with Ron Chernow telling the story of Alexander Hamilton. Let's pick up where we last left off. Hamilton, of course, has his supreme moment of heroism at Yorktown. Hamilton, after mercilessly badgering Washington, is given the command of the 1st Infantry Battalion to storm the outer ramparts. Picture the scene. Hamilton rises up out of the trench. He sprints across a rutted wasteland, leading his men with frenzied war whoops. Once at the parapet, Hamilton, whom I said was relatively short, has one of his subordinates, Hamilton steps on his shoulder, he springs up on the parapet, and then he exhorts his men to follow.
You could almost picture Tom Cruise in the starring scene. Now, despite crushing daytime duties for George Washington, Hamilton, against all odds, manages to give himself a crash course during the revolution in finance, history, and politics. From camp to camp, this young autodidact is lugging two enormous folio-sized volumes called Malachy-Poselthwaite's Dictionary of Trade and Commerce.
Not exactly light bedtime fare after a day of heavy-duty correspondence for George Washington. Hamilton also totes along six volumes of Plutarch's Lives and he takes the empty pages of a military paybook and we see him recording notes on foreign exchange, population growth, geography, even European rivers that he will never set eyes on. In fact, in his notes, very interesting notes culled from Plutarch, we see a young man who seems absolutely bewitched by the bizarre sexual practices of ancient Rome. For instance, Hamilton noted that in ancient Rome, young married women seemed to enjoy being whipped by lusty young noblemen.
Why? Because they thought that it aided conception. I can tell you, when you study our founding fathers, you are led down all sorts of unexpected byways. In fact, Hamilton had such a roving eye for the young women that Martha Washington, during the revolution, nicknamed her lascivious Tomcat Hamilton, which must have made for some interesting moments at headquarters with George Hamilton and Martha calling for Hamilton. Now, Hamilton, as you well know, is a very proud, ambitious outsider without money.
He lacked what the 18th century referred to as birth or breeding. He knew that he needed to marry into a respectable family. And indeed, soon after Elizabeth Schuyler, the daughter of a very powerful New York dynasty, visits the Continental Army in 1780, one of Hamilton's colleagues reports, quote, Hamilton is a gone man. The wedding at the Schuyler Mansion is a very bittersweet affair because Eliza Hamilton has this huge, rich family. It's teeming with all sorts of Van Cortland and Van Rensselaer cousins, while Hamilton has only a single friend from Washington's staff. And of course, he doesn't have a single family member in attendance.
I mean, think of the underlying poignancy of that emotional imbalance in that affair. And yet the very, very status conscious Schuyler family always embraces Hamilton as an adored member of the family. Amazing. When Hamilton then launches his post-war legal career, being Hamilton, his exploits again seem to verge on the superhuman. At the time, he usually served a three-year apprenticeship period to qualify for the law. Hamilton, being Hamilton, manages to qualify after six months of self-study. In fact, he cobbles together a crib sheet of New York legal procedures and practices. He does it so expertly that it becomes a textbook for a generation of New York lawyers.
Wonderboy. He then immediately does something quite fearless and, of course, quite controversial. Hamilton begins to defend the Tory merchants who had remained in occupied New York during the British wartime occupation. And those Tory merchants were now being persecuted by returning patriots. Hamilton always feared a frenzy of revolutionary retribution, a fear, in fact, that would be realized in the French Revolution. He also wanted to retain the capital and connections and know-how of those Tory merchants in order to rebuild New York.
Our city lost somewhere between a quarter and a half of all of its buildings during the Revolution. Now, you'll hear it said, and very often it's taught this way in school, that Hamilton was a ferocious snob, that he was the stooge of the plutocrats of his day, in fact, that would be despot with Napoleonic ambitions. And, of course, in this particular morality play of early American history, Thomas Jefferson is always represented as the pure and virtuous tribune of the people.
The situation was far more complicated than that historical cartoon. Case in point, during the Revolutionary War, it is Hamilton, of course, who champions an audacious plan to emancipate any slave who is willing to pick up a musket for the continental cause. In the 1780s, it is Hamilton who co-founds the first abolitionist society in New York, the New York Manumission Society. Remember that trading firm in St. Croix that I had mentioned that Hamilton worked for as a teenager? That firm had imported up to 300 slaves per year from Western Africa, and it's clear from subsequent actions that this first-hand experience of slavery left Hamilton with a permanent detestation of the system. In fact, Caribbean slavery was the most brutal in the world, even those who managed to survive the Middle Passage. Their life expectancy, once they started working in the sugar cane breaks of the West Indies, was somewhere between three and five years.
So you constantly have these poor people who are perishing in the fields, and the supply had to be constantly replenished. Hamilton, despite the historic stereotype, turns out to have been the most consistent abolitionist among the founders, bar none. I repeat, bar none. Hamilton, it also turns out, had very enlightened views about Native Americans. There is a college in upstate New York called Hamilton College.
Well, the origins of that school, it started out as a secondary school that was supposed to educate Native Americans. Hamilton lent his name and his prestige to that undertaking. Hamilton turns out to have had very benign and enlightened views about Jews. He said in an unpublished paper that the success of the Jews could only be explained by special providence.
So here's this man who we're taught to regard as this ferocious snob, who again and again shows himself as not only devoid of prejudice, but with a special sympathy for the oppressed. I think with the clear exception of George Washington, nobody did more than Alexander Hamilton to weld the 13 squabbling states into the powerful nation we know today. Hamilton personally drafts the first appeal for the Constitutional Convention.
He attends it, he is the sole New York delegate to sign it. There's Hamilton who dreams up and then supervises the most influential defense of the document ever written, the Federalist Papers. Of those 85 essays, Hamilton manages to draft an astonishing 51. No less astonishing, there are periods where he's publishing them at a rate of as many as five or six per week.
No less astonishing, he's doing it as a sideline. He had a full-time legal practice. In fact, we have anecdotal evidence of the printer sitting in the outer office as Hamilton scribbles the final lines of an essay. No single treatise on the U.S. Constitution has been cited more frequently by the Supreme Court than the Federalist Papers, nearly 300 times over the past two centuries.
And if you chart the frequency of citation, the frequency of citation actually is rising with time, not decreasing. Hamilton, boy wonder, the new federal government is created, he hits the ground running. Hamilton is only 34 years old when Washington appoints him the first Treasury Secretary. This instantly makes him not only the most powerful person in America, it guarantees that he'll be the most controversial.
Why? Remember Washington's cabinet, and the term was not used, it was originally called the General Counsel. Washington's cabinet consisted of just three people. There was Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, Henry Knox, Secretary of War, and Hamilton a Treasury.
I think fair to say pound for pound the best cabinet in American history. Even the Attorney General, Edmund Randolph, is a part-time legal advisor to the president, lacking that small thing called the Justice Department at that point. And you've been listening to Ron Chernow, author of the definitive biography on Alexander Hamilton, called Alexander Hamilton.
And what a story we're listening to. He didn't have the birth, that is, he wasn't born to blue bloods, obviously, he was born, well, in St. Croix with nothing. But he had that talent, that writing talent to start. Remarkably, Hamilton drafts 51 of the Federalist Papers, and he did it in his spare time.
He was a lawyer, and self-taught, and just a prodigy. What's so fascinating about the Federalist Papers, that it's the most cited document in Supreme Court jurisprudence and in case law than any other document there is. And it continues to be cited with increasing frequency.
In other words, the writing of Hamilton, more relevant than ever in our nation's battles that are often settled in the courts. When we come back, more of the story of Alexander Hamilton, here on Our American Stories. We'll be right back.
We'll be right back. When you wake up at Holiday Inn Express, you'll wake up happy, a part of IHG Hotels and Resorts. Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet, or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face, the lack of pet-friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet-friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the Purple Leash Project. With more pet-friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together.
Visit purina.com slash purple to get involved. Attention parents and grandparents, are you searching for the perfect gift for your kids this holiday season? Give the gift of adventure that will last all year long. A Guardian Bike, the easiest, safest and quickest bikes for kids to learn on. Kids are learning to ride in just one day, no training wheels needed. What makes Guardian Bikes special? They're the easiest to ride thanks to thoughtful engineering, lightweight frames and kid-friendly components. Kids love how fun and easy they are to ride and parents appreciate the safety features, like the patented braking system that prevents head over handlebar accidents. Guardian Bikes are the only kids' bikes designed and assembled in a USA factory, ensuring top-notch quality and durability. They're built to last and make perfect hand-me-downs. Join the hundreds of thousands of happy families by getting a Guardian Bike today.
Their holiday season sales have begun, offering the biggest deal of the year. Save up to 25% on bikes, no code needed. Plus, get free shipping and a free bike lock and pump with your first purchase after signing up for their newsletter. Visit guardianbikes.com to take advantage of these deals and secure your holiday season gifts today.
Happy riding! Music And we continue with our American stories and with the story of Alexander Hamilton, as told by his definitive biographer, Ron Chernow. This talk again came from the Library of Congress.
Let's pick up where we last left off. Now, in the early days, Jefferson, it stayed, starts with six employees. Henry Knox starts with a mere dozen at war. Hamilton starts out with about three dozen and the number quickly balloons to several hundred employees. A frightening bureaucracy by the standards of the day and also, again, many times larger than the rest of the government combined, which is why when you read histories of the period, historians tend to liken Hamilton's position in Washington's administration to that of a Prime Minister rather than a mere department head. When you say to people, Alexander Hamilton was the first Treasury Secretary, it just does not begin to capture the scope and magnitude of the power that this man wielded. Beyond the size of the Treasury Department is a proportion of the government. Remember, Hamilton had to invent that department from scratch. At the time, there were no income taxes.
Most revenues came from import duties. This meant he had to create a custom service. To have a custom service, you have to create beacons and buoys and lighthouses up and down the eastern seaboard. Smuggling, as you know, was a favorite revolutionary pastime. Suddenly, this activity has to be stopped in the name of patriotism. So Hamilton has to construct a fleet of so-called revenue cutters that start, of course, of the Coast Guard. Again and again, we see Hamilton forging the basic building blocks of the American government. He takes a country bankrupted by revolutionary war debt.
He restores its credit. He devises our first tax system, our first budget system, our first central bank, our first monetary system. He has the federal government adopt all of the state debt.
Why does he do that? That seems counterintuitive for the federal government to add that to what it already had. Well, Hamilton knew that if the federal government adopted the state debt, creditors would transfer their allegiance to the federal government.
And it would also forever after give the federal government a kind of moral authority over revenues that the states would never have. Very cunning and very characteristic of Hamilton in terms of embedding a political program in a seemingly technocratic program. Again and again, no less important than all of these pragmatic achievements as Treasury Secretary. It is Hamilton, the great constitutional scholar, who makes the enduring arguments that all of these new activities are, in fact, permitted under the new national charter.
Remember, Washington's first question, first administration always is, is this permissible under the Constitution? Hamilton, with a kind of clairvoyance that is hard to explain, encourages manufacturing, stock exchanges, banks, and corporations at a time when these activities seemed like scary futuristic stuff to many people. In the book I dub him the messenger from the future or, as the New York Historical Society would have it, the man who made modern America. So why has Hamilton been villainized as a dangerous reactionary since he seems to anticipate things that happened 100 or 200 years later rather than looking backward? Partly I think this goes back to the deadly rivalry between Hamilton and Jefferson in Washington's cabinet. Jefferson, you know, a man of very decided opinions, was a rather shy, soft-spoken man and Jefferson actually shrank from open disagreement. If you happened to find yourself at a dinner party with Thomas Jefferson and you disagreed with him, Jefferson would not openly confront you. Hamilton would certainly openly confront you. What Jefferson would do, he would repair to his lodgings that evening.
He would record the statement that you had made and then he would store it up for later use. And boy did he store things up with Hamilton and Jefferson's secret diary. There are nearly four dozen references to Hamilton.
The epic animosity between these two Olympian figures is partly a matter of clashing visions. Jefferson wants a rural America with a weak central government, stresses states' rights, strict construction of the Constitution, tax cuts, limited government, et cetera. Hamilton's division is of a bustling, diversified America of trade, finance, and manufacturing as well as traditional agriculture. Hamilton favors an energetic federal government, certainly a strong presidency, a strong independent judiciary, relatively weak states, and a very expansive interpretation of the Constitution. You could see where the laconic Jefferson was quite understandably terrified of Hamilton's sheer brilliance. Hamilton was one of these frightening windbags whom you meet from time to time who can speak in perfectly worded paragraphs for hours on end and Hamilton did. Hamilton also is one of these intimidating characters who could and did toss off a 10,000 word opinion overnight for George Washington. And you could see in Jefferson's diary that he's really struggling with Hamilton. Quote, Hamilton made a speech of three quarters of an hour in the cabinet today as if he had been speaking to a jury. The next day Jefferson wearily records Hamilton spoke again for three quarters of an hour. Hamilton was, quite frankly, a word machine. Hamilton wrote enough in 49 years to fill 22,000 pages in the latest edition of his collected papers.
And your speaker was masochistic enough to read every one of those pages. It is said that Harold Syrett, who edited the papers for Columbia University Press, an outstanding job, Harold Syrett evidently used to joke that he intended to dedicate the many volumes to Aaron Burr. Quote, without whose cooperation this project would never have been completed. Hamilton publishes some articles supporting Washington's neutrality proclamation, Jefferson contacted James Madison and pleaded with him to rebut Hamilton in print. Quote, for God's sake, my dear sir, take up your pen, select the most striking heresies and cut Hamilton to pieces.
There is nobody else who can and will enter the list with him. There is nobody else in America who can enter the list with Alexander Hamilton, even James Madison often shrank from the invitation. The cabinet feud between Hamilton and Washington becomes so vitriolic and almost pathological that poor long suffering Washington has to finally plead with both of them to desist from their vicious attacks on each other. Hamilton's attacks were directly written by Hamilton, Jefferson would employ different surrogates but the effect was the same. In the end it's Jefferson, not Hamilton, who leaves Washington's cabinet and defeat and Hamilton who reigns triumphant.
But as you all know, the glittering prize that eludes Alexander Hamilton is the presidency and of course Thomas Jefferson goes on to become a two term president. During the summer of 1791, remarkably enough, at the height of his powers as treasury secretary, a young 23 year old woman named Mariah Reynolds knocks at his door. Government was then in Philadelphia, she asked to speak to Hamilton privately and she spills out a woeful tale of how she has been cruelly abandoned by her husband, this Bulgarian named James Reynolds. He appeals to Hamilton for financial aid, Hamilton several years later narrated what happened next, quote, in the evening I put a bank bill in my pocket and went to her rooming house. I inquired for Mrs. Reynolds and was shown upstairs at the head of which she met me and conducted me into a bedroom.
She took the bill out of my pocket and gave it to her. Some conversation then ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable. The 18th century had a way with words. I'm listening to Ron Chernow, author of the definitive biography on Alexander Hamilton called Alexander Hamilton, and of course that book inspired the musical that has made its way around the world more than once. And what a story, by the way, what a battle between him and Jefferson about competing visions for the United States and some of those battles still happening today.
Clearly Hamilton won in the larger broader vision of a strong central government, but the battle today between the states and the big bureaucracies in Washington DC prevail and continue to dominate the headlines, even when we come back. More of this remarkable story, the story of Alexander Hamilton with author Ron Chernow, here on Our American Stories. I'm Pastor Mike Novotny, and these are just some of the topics I tackle in my new podcast, Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike Novotny. I answer questions for people just like you on essential topics that are not often discussed in church. To listen, just search Taboo Questions with Pastor Mike.
Watch coverage of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday, November 5 beginning at 6pm Eastern on MSNBC. Wake up at Holiday Inn Express to a can't miss breakfast that's free with every stay. Count on all the hot fresh coffee you need and an incredible breakfast buffet that has something for everyone, like eggs, cinnamon rolls, and even hot fresh pancakes with all the toppings you crave. Next time, do yourself a favor and stay at a Holiday Inn Express with a can't miss breakfast that's free with every stay.
So, when you wake up at Holiday Inn Express, you'll wake up happy, a part of IHG hotels and resorts. Just a few years ago, only 3% of domestic violence shelters accepted pets, meaning many abuse survivors had to choose between staying in a difficult situation for their pet or leaving their pet behind. One in three women and one in four men experienced domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina believes in the healing power of pets, particularly for survivors of abuse. They believe pets and people are better together, which is one of the many reasons they started the Purple Leash Project. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping break down one of the many barriers abuse survivors face. The lack of pet-friendly domestic violence shelters. Purina has helped increase the amount of pet-friendly shelters across the country from 3% to nearly 20% through the Purple Leash Project. With more pet-friendly domestic violence shelters, survivors and their pets can escape and heal together.
Visit purina.com slash purple to get involved. Attention parents and grandparents, are you searching for the perfect gift for your kids this holiday season? Give the gift of adventure that will last all year long, a Guardian Bike. The easiest, safest and quickest bikes for kids to learn on. Kids are learning to ride in just one day, no training wheels needed. What sets Guardian Bikes apart? Designed especially for stability, they're low to the ground with a wide wheel base and ultra lightweight frames offering superior control and balance. This design gives young riders the ability to learn in just one day without tears or frustration. Guardian Bikes are the only kids bikes designed and assembled in a USA factory, ensuring top notch quality and durability. They were also featured on Shark Tank under the New York Times Wirecutter Top Kids Bike Pick for 2024. Join the hundreds of thousands of happy families by getting a Guardian Bike today.
Their holiday season sales have begun, offering the biggest deal of the year. Save up to 25% on bikes, no code needed. Plus get free shipping and a free bike lock and pump with your first purchase after signing up for their newsletter. Visit guardianbikes.com to take advantage of these deals and secure your holiday season gifts today. Happy riding. And we continue with our American stories and with the author of Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow.
Let's pick up where we last left off. And for a full year, despite all of the controversy swirling around his programs when Hamilton should have been most vigilant of his reputation, the smartest man in American politics does about the most foolish thing imaginable. Hamilton, to his embarrassment, never knew whether Mrs. Reynolds' attraction for him was real or just a clever con job.
He later wrote, the variety of shapes which this woman could assume was endless. Hamilton keeps furtively slipping off in the night to these assignations with Mrs. Reynolds, even after Mr. Reynolds, who was this rather coarse character. Mr. Reynolds suddenly appears and instead of stopping the adulterous affair between Hamilton and his wife, Mr. Reynolds decides it would be more fun to tax it. Hamilton begins to fork over blackmail money to this grifter, James Reynolds, despite the obvious fatal damage that this can do to Hamilton's career, not to mention to his devoted, long-suffering wife, Eliza. One day, Mrs. Reynolds was entertaining a friend named Jacob Clingman when Hamilton comes unexpectedly to the door, and even Hamilton took certain precautions like always being alone with Mrs. Reynolds. Hamilton is petrified to discover an eyewitness, so what does he do? He pretends that he's simply dropping off a message for the low-life James Reynolds.
Pause a moment to picture this, kind of let it sink in. Imagine you're home one day, there's a knock at the door, you go downstairs, you open the door, and there's Colin Powell or Donald Rumsfeld pretending to be the FedEx delivery man, and imagining that he's going to get away with the disguise. Hamilton ultimately publishes a 95-page pamphlet admitting to the affair because his enemy said, oh, you know, that money he was paying to James Reynolds, that was for illicit speculation and Treasury securities. Hamilton says, no, no, no, it says it in 95 pages, no, no, no, that was adultery that the money was for. Now, I know that all of this intrigue and backstabbing runs counter to our preferred image of the founders.
These tales may remind us more of the fallen state of our tabloid political culture today than of the men enshrined in our school textbooks. And let me stress so that there's not any misunderstanding, my attempt here is in no way to deny the greatness of the founders. The best thing about spending five years on Alexander Hamilton, I got on a daily basis just to drink in his glorious words, to spend five years not only in his company, but that of all of the founders. And if anything, I came away with a far more exalted sense of their brilliance, their depth, their integrity, et cetera. At the same time, I wanted to liberate Hamilton and the other founders from what I thought was a sometimes stultifying image of gentility of these people with powdered wigs and silver buckled shoes. The founding fathers were not statues chiseled in stone, they were passionate, fascinating figures of tremendous force and intensity. Once the revolution was over, they exhibited very much the same lust for power, status, and influence as other human beings.
Nor do I think that we should fault them for that. In fact, it was their candidly realistic view of the ambition and the avarice rooted in human nature that enabled them to construct the most ingenious constitution that has guarded us against human frailty for more than two centuries. As you know, Madison wrote famously in Federalist 51, if men were angels, no government would be necessary. Thank God that they took that grim, that pessimistic view of human nature rather than assuming that we would have a succession of saints in the White House.
The founders, I think, wrote these things not just from abstract speculation, but from their own personal experiences and observation. Let me jump ahead to the duel. Six times earlier in his career, Alexander Hamilton had entered into the highly ritualized quarrels known as Affairs of Honor. The potential culmination of Affairs of Honor could always be a duel.
On those previous six occasions, Hamilton had, as it were, settled out of court. The quarrels had not ended up in the dueling ground they could have. Hamilton was a very combative man. He was hypersensitive. I think probably because of his illegitimate boyhood in the Caribbean and what was a lifelong sense of shame about his illegitimacy. So he's always very vigilant, anything concerning his reputation and sense of honor. The novelty of what happens with Aaron Burr in 1804 was that for the first time, Hamilton is on the receiving end of the challenge instead of issuing it.
I think this throws him off balance psychologically. When Hamilton and Burr met on the field of honor in Weehawken, New Jersey on July 11, 1804, Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr were two politicians with their careers in sharp decline. As shown by the Reynolds affair, Hamilton had perhaps committed political suicide in public once too often by this point. Aaron Burr for his part had alienated Thomas Jefferson. He was of Jefferson's party during the famous tie election of 1800 to try to explain it briefly for those of you unfamiliar with it.
There was not a separate vote in the Electoral College for President and Vice President. Jefferson and Burr were nominally on the same ticket, the understanding being that Jefferson would be President. Aaron Burr Vice President. When there is a tie between Jefferson and Burr in the Electoral College, Aaron Burr suddenly decides that it might be rather pleasant to be President of the United States instead of merely Vice President. Thomas Jefferson, who incredibly enough wins that election with an assist from Alexander Hamilton of all people, Burr becomes Vice President. Thomas Jefferson has a very, very long memory for such fatal miscalculations, decides to drop Burr from the ticket in 1804. Burr returns to New York, tries to run for Governor. Again, Hamilton blocks Burr's path.
Hamilton's explanation for it was as follows. He said that he supported Jefferson rather than Burr because he would rather have somebody with the wrong principles rather than no principles. He thought that Burr was unprincipled and unscrupulous.
Of course, Burr is during that tie kind of tacitly flirting with the Federalists. A lot of Federalists who, like Hamilton, disliked Thomas Jefferson said, well, Burr may be an opportunist, he may be a loose cannon, whatever, but we can cut a deal with Burr. Whereas Jefferson, they realized that he had the wrong principles, but he was a man of very fixed and unalterable principles. At the time, Hamilton, who had engaged in a lot of legitimate criticism but also a lot of hyperbole toward Thomas Jefferson, wrote what I think was the most candid and accurate appraisal of Jefferson that he ever did. In a letter at the time of the tie election, he said, you know, I used to watch Mr. Jefferson when he was Secretary of State and I was Secretary of the Treasury. He said, I often thought that he was like a man who knew that he would someday inherit an estate, the estate being the presidency, and in spite of his rhetoric did not really want to deplete the estate, which he knew he would someday inherit. Hamilton predicted that Jefferson, once in office, would in fact enjoy it and would betray a taste for federal power that had not been apparent in his rhetoric, certainly when he was in opposition to the policies of Washington and Hamilton. The duel occurs when Aaron Burr reads in a newspaper that Hamilton has issued a despicable opinion about him at an Albany dinner party.
Burr was never unduly disturbed by having killed Hamilton. He had a rather macabre sense of humor. He liked to refer jokingly, quote, to my friend Hamilton, whom I shot. Let me say in closing that I knew with Hamilton that I had been handed a precious biographer's gift. I seemed to like these large, flawed figures who forced me to wrestle with their contradictions. And with Hamilton, every time I began to lapse into hero worship, he would pull me up with some colossal, unexpected blunder. When I started to lose patience with him, he would redeem himself again with some beautiful act of statesmanship or friendship or love.
I would maintain that from Lexington and Concord in 1775 to at least Jefferson's first inauguration in 1801, nobody stood more consistently at the center of American political life than Alexander Hamilton. This is a story, an incredible story, of an illegitimate orphaned young man who comes out of nowhere, who grows up quite literally alongside his adopted country. And a terrific job on the editing by our own Greg Hengler and a special thanks to Ron Chernow. This talk was given at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and we love bringing you speeches and stories from the past and sometimes from the very distant past. And this by no better a storyteller in American history than Ron Chernow. Again, the book is Alexander Hamilton. If you haven't read it, get it. If you haven't seen the musical, see it.
But you'll understand what inspired the musical if you read the book. I love what he said about Hamilton, that every time he started to get into some hero worship, well, Hamilton would do something that would take his mind off that, let's just say. And then every time he got frustrated with Hamilton, well, he'd get lifted right out of that frustration by something either heroic or beautiful or dazzling that Hamilton would do. He was a fierce abolitionist and had a heart for the oppressed, for Jews, for the American Indian. So in addition to being this towering financial figure, this incredible fighter, he had a soul for the outsider.
The story of Alexander Hamilton, indeed the story of one of our fundamental founders here on Our American Stories. I answer questions from people just like you as I open up the Bible to give answers that point people back to the truth and especially to our Savior Jesus. To listen, just search, Tableau Questions with Pastor Mike.
This is Lee Habib here. Do you wake up every morning dreading that first step out of bed because of foot pain? I know I used to. Then I tried PowerStep, the number one podiatrist recommended in-soles clinically proven to relieve pain.
I was skeptical at first, but from the moment I put them in my shoes, I felt the difference. Support and comfort exactly where I needed it. Now I can go through my day pain-free. Go to PowerStep.com slash OAS and use code OAS for 15% off your first order. Wake up at Holiday Inn Express to a can't-miss breakfast that's free with every stay. Count on all the hot, fresh coffee you need and an incredible breakfast buffet that has something for everyone. Like eggs, cinnamon rolls, and even hot, fresh pancakes with all the toppings you crave. Next time, do yourself a favor and stay at a Holiday Inn Express with a can't-miss breakfast that's free with every stay.
So when you wake up at Holiday Inn Express, you'll wake up happy, a part of IHG Hotels and Resorts. One in three women and one in four men experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, and nearly half of survivors delay leaving because they can't bring their pets with them. Purina started the Purple Leash Project to help eliminate one of the many barriers domestic abuse survivors face, a lack of pet-friendly domestic violence shelters. Through the Purple Leash Project, Purina is helping to create more pet-friendly domestic violence shelters across the country, so abuse survivors and their pets can escape and heal together.
Visit Purina dot com slash purple to get involved. Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you. It's through their Uber Teen account. You drive your teenager around, a lot, to their friend Jacob's house, their other friend Jake's house, to James's, to Jayden's, to Jalen's too. Uh, Mom?
This is Jake's house, not Jacob's. Now with an Uber Teen account, your teen can request a ride under your supervision. The ride with a highly rated driver and with live trip tracking, you'll follow along the whole ride to their friends' houses that all sound the same. Add your teen to your Uber account today. See app for details. Bye, Mom!
