Jefferson and Hamilton

by Claude G. Bowers

An easy, patrician life for some of these Philadelphians, but not for all. The workman receiving a dollar a day and board, and with the smallest houses on the outskirts renting for three hundred dollars a year, found it far from a frolic to make both ends meet. The middle-class employees of the stores and industries, paying from eight to twelve dollars a week for board, without wine, candles, or fire, could have found little to interest them in Mrs. Whiteside’s show windows, for, while the clerks were courteous and the merchant polite, the cost of her goods was far in excess of that on Bond Street.[493] But it is not with these of the more humble order that we are concerned just now. It is quite possible that the curious Jefferson, who had a habit of prying into the living conditions of ‘people of no importance,’ may have wondered how these lived, but the social environment of the majority of the statesmen was far removed from the common people. It is with the world of fashion that we are concerned.

III

No society in America could have been less in harmony with the spirit of democracy, for nowhere was class consciousness and caste pride more pronounced. ‘Those who constitute the fashionable world are at best a mere oligarchy, composed of a few natives and as many foreigners,’ wrote Otis to his wife.[494] ‘I might have believed myself in an English town,’ said Viscount de Chateaubriand.[495] An Englishman noted that ‘amongst the upper circles ... pride, haughtiness, and ostentation are conspicuous; and it seems that nothing could make them happier than that an order of nobility should be established, by which they might be exalted above their fellow citizens, as much as they are in their own conceit.’[496] A French nobleman could not escape the observation that ‘the English influence prevails in the first circles and prevails with great intolerance.[497] And Otis, who liked the tone himself, was much impressed with the discovery that ‘the women after presentations to the court of George III or Louis XVI transplanted into Philadelphia society the manners of the English aristocracy and the fashions of Paris.’[498] During the days of the British occupation, the cream of society had reveled with the British officers, and many of these had resumed their places in the society of the republican capital without abandoning their former views. This English tone was to be felt by Jefferson a little later when his sympathy with the French Revolution was to enter into his policies. From the beginning these pro-English aristocrats were to draw political lines in social intercourse, and in time Otis was to record that ‘Democratic gentlemen and their families, no matter how high their social qualifications, were rigidly ostracised by the best society.’[499] Along with this went a rather vulgar deification of the dollar, and, strangely enough, a lack of polite hospitality to the stranger. ‘What is justly called society,’ wrote Liancourt whose ideas had been fashioned at Versailles, ‘does not exist in this city. The vanity of wealth is common enough.’ The picture he paints is not a pretty one. It shows a flamboyant rich man flauntingly displaying ‘his splendid furniture, his fine English glass, and exquisite china,’ to the stranger invited to come to ‘one ceremonious dinner,’ and then dismissing him for another who had not ‘seen the magnificence of the house, nor tasted the old Madeira.’ This, we are told, was the routine for all who came from Europe—‘philosophers, priests, literati, princes, dentists, wits and idiots.’ But alas, ‘the next day the lionized stranger is not known in the street except he be wealthy.’[500] However much they may have fallen short in manners, they yielded nothing to Versailles in dress. This ‘elegance of dress’ astonished Chateaubriand, and Liancourt was amazed at ‘the profusion and luxury’ in ‘the dresses of their wives and daughters.’ At balls, ‘the variety and richness of the dresses did not suffer in comparison with Europe.’ The brilliant note was assiduously sought in costumes, and there was much copying of the subjects of Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds. One foreigner noting the ‘immense expense on their toilet and head dress’ thought it ‘too affected to be pleasing.’[501] But by common consent these grand dames and belles were beautiful, with their sparkling eyes, graceful forms, and the brilliancy of their complexions.

If this aristocracy was neglectful of the stranger who had no golden key to its interest, it was not because of a dearth of entertaining. Here there was a hectic activity—dinners, dances, breakfasts, teas, parties enough to satisfy the most insatiate passion for such excitement. Throughout the season the great houses were ablaze with light, and if, as Mrs. Adams complained, there was much the same company in all, it was congenial company, and the intimacy of the contact allowed a familiarity that sometimes verged on the risqué. In less than a month after her arrival, Mrs. Adams was appalled at ‘the invitations to tea and cards in the European style,’[502] and was complaining that she ‘should spend a very dissipated winter if [she] were to accept one half the invitations, particularly to the touts or teas and cards with even Saturday night ... not excepted.’[503] A little later Aaron Burr was being swamped with ‘many attentions and civilities—many invitations to dine, etc.’[504] If Burr declined, as he wrote his wife, the handsome young Otis, who loved the company of women, was not so coy. ‘I have dined once with Cuttling at Mrs. Grattan’s,’ he wrote home, ‘once at Yznardi’s [Spaniard who spent much time in Philadelphia] in great stile; and yesterday in the country with Jonathan Williams [nephew of Franklin]. I am engaged for next Christmas with Mrs. Powell, but with nobody for the Christmas after next.’[505]

At these functions—heavy drinking—flirting—risqué talk. Even a German was shocked to find that at public dinners each person would often consume six bottles of Madeira.[506] Only Burr was hard to satisfy. ‘I despair of getting genuine Trent wine in this city,’ he wrote Theodosia. ‘There never was a bottle of real unadulterated Trent imported here for sale. Mr. Jefferson, who had some for his own use, has left town.’[507] But if there was no Trent, Madeira flowed in streams, beer and ale, punch and whiskey and champagne could be had for the asking, and there was asking enough, even at parties and dinners. Even Hamilton, who drank with moderation, sometimes became ‘liquorish’ at the table, and on one occasion made rather free with another man’s wife to the husband’s indignation until mollified with the assurance of his spouse that she ‘did not like him at all.’ Even so, thought the irate husband, Hamilton ‘appears very trifling in his conversation with ladies.’[508] And ‘trifling’ indeed must have been much of the talk.

Thus it was at a dinner at Clymer’s, a leading member of the House. Present, Otis, the Binghams, the Willings—the top cream of the aristocracy. Aha, cried the vivacious sister of Mrs. Bingham, referring to the host’s newly acquired stomacher, and mentioning the touching case of the Duke of York, recently married to the Duchess of Württemberg who was compelled to cut a semi-circle out of his table to give access to his plate. Mrs. Bingham coyly expressed sympathy for the Duchess. (Bursts of laughter and applause.) But Clymer, not to be outdone, turned to his married sister with the comment that he would ‘soon be able to retort this excellent jest on her.’ (Renewed laughter and more applause.) It was an hilarious occasion, the applause ‘would have done credit to a national convention’ and ‘Miss Abby and Miss Ann did not disguise their delight nor their bosoms.’[509] On now to a dinner at Harrison’s, who married a sister of Mrs. Bingham, where one of the guests, ‘after rallying Sophia ... upon her unfruitfulness,’ led to a ‘natural but not very flattering transition’ which ‘introduced Mrs. Champlin and her want of prolific qualities as a seasoning for the Canvas Backs.’[510] But let us hurry on to a third dinner, with Hamilton, his vivacious sisters-in-law, Mrs. Church and Miss Schuyler. A lively company! Mrs. Church, ‘the mirror of affectation,’ who is ‘more amusing than offensive’ because so affable and free from ceremony; and, still more lively, Miss Schuyler ‘a young wild flirt from Albany, full of glee and apparently desirous of matrimony.’ Mrs. Church drops her shoe bow, Miss Schuyler picks it up and fastens it in Hamilton’s button-hole with the remark, ‘I have made you a knight.’ ‘But what order?’ asks Mrs. Church, ‘he can’t be a knight of the garter in this country.’ ‘True, sister, but he would be if you would let him.’

Wine, women and song—such the spirit in some of the great houses in moments of abandon. But it would be unfair to leave the impression these incidents would convey. There were brilliant men of vast achievement, and women of extraordinary charm and cleverness moving behind these curtained windows. Let us meet them in the mansion of Mrs. Bingham—the uncrowned queen of the Federalist group—the woman without a peer.

IV

None of the three capitals of the country have produced another social leader of the cleverness, audacity, and regality of Mrs. William Bingham. During the eight years of the domination of the Federalists, of whom her husband was one of the leaders, there was no public character of the first order who did not come under the influence of her fascination. By birth, environment, nature, and training she was fitted to play a conspicuous part in the social life of any capital in the world. The daughter of Willing, the partner of Robert Morris, she was the favored of fortune. Some years before her birth, her father, inspired by sentimental motives, built the mansion on Third Street in which she was born, and patterned it after the ancestral home in Bristol, England. There, surrounded by all the advantages of wealth, her beauty unfolded through a happy childhood. The pomp and pride of great possessions did not imbue her with a passion for republics or democracy. She was destined to play a part in a rather flamboyant aristocracy, and was as carefully perfected in the arts and graces of her sex as any princess destined to a throne. In the midst of the Revolution, in her sixteenth year, she married William Bingham who combined the advantages of wealth, social position, and a capacity for political leadership.

She was only twenty, when, accompanied by her husband, she went abroad to captivate court circles with her vivacity, charm, and beauty. At Versailles, the gallants, accustomed to the ways and wiles of the most accomplished women of fashion, were entranced. At The Hague, where she lingered awhile, the members of the diplomatic corps fluttered about the teasing charmer like moths about the flame. In the court circles of England she suffered nothing in comparison with the best it could offer, and the generous Abigail Adams, thrilling to the triumph of the young American, found her brilliancy enough to dim the ineffectual fires of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Five years of familiarity with the leaders in the world of European fashion and politics prepared her to preside with stunning success over the most famous political drawing-room of the American capital.