XIII. Andrew Hamilton
The lawyer who won the acquittal for Peter Zenger was, like his friend James Alexander, a Scot. The year of Andrew Hamilton’s birth is a matter of some debate, an old story holding that he was in his eighties when he appeared in the New York courtroom, while later evidence makes him around 65 at that time. His life holds other mysteries. For one thing, we do not know why he left Scotland. It has been said that he was forced to flee after fighting a duel; again, the motive has been called political, which prompts the surmise that he was implicated in the 1715 Jacobite rising—a pleasing theory in that it allows us to imagine him and Alexander together on the same Scottish battlefield with no presentiment that their place in history lay twenty years ahead and three thousand miles away. We have too little evidence about this phase of Hamilton’s life to speak authoritatively about it.
There is even some doubt that he belonged to the Hamilton clan. When he arrived in America he went by the name of Trent. However, trouble back home would account for the pseudonym, and before long he reverted to Hamilton. Rivaling Alexander in the versatility of his talents, he rose to power as soon as opportunity beckoned. He married an affluent widow, founded a great landed estate in Maryland (“Henberry,” near Chestertown), went back to England to study law as a member of Gray’s Inn, and then entered Colonial politics to begin an illustrious career crowned by his appointment to the Council and his election to the Assembly of Pennsylvania.
From then on his name appears prominently in Pennsylvania business. He handled legal cases for the Penn family and helped draw up addresses to the crown. He gained a reputation for opposing arbitrary acts by the Governor, especially with reference to the courts, which put him right at home when he entered the Zenger trial.
Hamilton’s commanding personality had no little share in winning an acquittal for Peter Zenger. Knowing that Chief Justice Delancey would instruct the jury to leave the verdict to the court, Hamilton had to maneuver them in such a way as to make them see that they ought to ignore the instruction; and that required not only basic legal argumentation, an assured manipulation of both fact and logic, but also his own domination of the proceedings. His success was due to his courtroom presence added to his maintenance of the initiative from beginning to end. He could not afford to falter, nor did he.
By comparison, James Delancey looked like a tyro, which indeed he was—a young man, just 32, who moreover had gained his office under dubious circumstances, facing one whom he knew by reputation to be the old master of their common profession. Reading between the lines of the trial we are compelled to infer that Delancey lost control partly because of his own inadequacy, and partly because his hostility toward Hamilton was tempered by a deferential respect due to superior knowledge, experience, ability, and prestige. It is just as easy to see how the spectacle of the Hamilton-Delancey duel swayed the jury, prompting them to act on the advice of the defense attorney rather than on the instruction of the chief justice.
Aside from this historic victory, Hamilton is memorable as the architect of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. When the Pennsylvania Assembly decided that it needed a new building, Hamilton was named as one of the Commission to look into the problem. He submitted a plan for site and structure, had it approved by the legislators, and then supervised the work. The result was the State House in which the Assembly met for the first time in 1736. It still stands, one of the most hallowed buildings in America; now it is known from its place in the Revolution as Independence Hall.
The Zenger verdict and Independence Hall—how many men in the history of America have two comparable monuments to their memory? Andrew Hamilton had done well the two major tasks entrusted to him when he died on August 4, 1741, exactly six years to the day after the trial of Peter Zenger.