AMERICA, LAND OF HUMANKIND’S TWO GREATEST GIFTS

By Edwin Cooney

Let me guess -- You believe that we’re living today under the most corrupt and immoral leadership in our history. Is that a good guess or a poor one?

Most of the time when teachers, preachers and, of course, politicians, refer to our “Founding Fathers” (a phrase created by the much berated Warren G. Harding, our twenty-ninth president), they are represented as not only collectively brilliant and wise, but gifted with super morality. After all, the argument goes, “they founded a Christian nation -- did they not?” Be that as it may, they also visited raw and unchained liberty upon themselves and their “posterity.”

Liberty, of course, is the “Holy Grail” of America’s expectation and faith. However, with liberty comes responsibility and accountability. Even with the much-vaunted system of constitutional checks and balances to defuse power within the national government, there were few rules beyond the common law and the Ten Commandments to check the behavior of its new leadership.

President Washington needed little governing, of course, because he was above politics, but others did.

The two most prominent political antagonists of the 1790s and early 1800s were Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. These men, against the devout wishes of “the Father of our country,” deliberately, with malice of forethought, established two political parties.

In 1791, while serving as Secretary of State, Jefferson hired Phillip Freneau as a clerk in the State Department. His real duty, at taxpayer’s expense, was to publish and distribute the National Gazette—the newspaper of the Democratic - Republican Party. Today, that would be both illegal and a conflict of interests.

Although Alexander Hamilton didn’t use the Treasury Department to fund the Federalist Party’s Gazette of the United States, he surrendered to a much more traditional lure.

In 1790s Philadelphia, there resided an attractive lady named Maria (Lewis) Reynolds who was married “unhappily” to a former commissary officer in the Revolutionary War Army named James Reynolds. With her husband’s compliance, Maria charmed Alexander Hamilton into a three year affair. During that affair, James Reynolds blackmailed Secretary Hamilton even as Hamilton continued sleeping with Maria. Finally, in 1793, after he was indicted for illegal speculation with money appropriated to pay benefits to Revolutionary War veterans, Reynolds implicated Alexander Hamilton in the crime.

A discreet congressional investigation conducted by House Speaker Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania and Senator James Monroe of Virginia (later our fifth President) absolved Hamilton of wrongdoing, but the investigatory process forced him to reveal the numerous love letters sent to him by Maria Reynolds.

There were two unsettling outcomes of this scandal. Though the investigation was private, James Monroe revealed its evidence to his good friend Thomas Jefferson —Hamilton’s bitter political as well as personal enemy. In 1797, Vice President Jefferson, for political advantage, made public the details of the investigation revealed to him by James Monroe.

On Wednesday, July 11th, 1804, another political feud, that between Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Aaron Burr, came to a head. Burr, who was hated by both President Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, continuously (however discreetly) goaded Hamilton over his marital infidelity. In turn, Hamilton implied extramarital malfeasance on the part of Vice President Burr. Burr, while still Vice President, had sought the New York governorship in 1803 and Hamilton, who hated Burr more than he did President Jefferson, successfully blocked Burr’s ambition. Thus, Burr challenged Hamilton to the duel that killed the brilliant former Treasury Secretary and destroyed Aaron Burr’s political career.

All of the above -- plus the entire Georgia State Legislature’s 1796 land speculation fraud -- occurred in the first fifteen years of our republic. It might be said that America survived largely because there was no “24/7” news coverage, but this observer suspects that our survival in the face of political corruption and ambition is due to something as precious as liberty.

Just as Americans are at liberty to realize financial and political ambitions, they’re also free to discipline themselves. The laws of physics and human nature clearly demonstrate that no human activity or virtue standing alone and acting in its purest form can bring about or sustain our prosperity, peace or fulfillment. Thus, opposites, for the good of all, must find common ground.

Good business management requires a happy labor force. A prosperous health care system requires customers or patients who can afford it. Good politics requires compromise far more than it does self-righteous outrage.

Yes, indeed, just as opposites often attract in business and marital bliss, so we have at our command America’s two most powerful forces — liberty and discipline.

Oh! By the way, James and Maria Reynolds eventually did divorce. Guess who Maria Reynolds’ attorney was during her divorce court proceedings! You’re exactly right—Aaron Burr!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY