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.
2. The Meaning of the Trial
The trial of John Peter Zenger was one of the spectacular events of American history, involving as it did powerful personalities, factional intrigue, a newspaper war, and a splendid courtroom scene in which low chicanery mingled with high rhetoric. It boasted a shining hero and a glowering villain. It passed through the dramatic sequence of conflict, climax, and denouement. It had a happy ending.
Offhand you might think that the Zenger case could be nothing more than that—a scintillating drama with a story-book finish, a tale worth telling without sequel or epilogue. Yet it was one of the most significant things that ever happened on this side of the Atlantic. It was a center from which forces—legal, political, social, constitutional—radiated throughout America, and from one generation to another down to our own time.
The historian and the dramatist may rejoice at the event as such, but the real importance of that trial of August 4, 1735, lies in what came out of it. When Peter Zenger returned to his home instead of to his prison cell, that very fact made him forever a focal point in the development and philosophy of American democracy. The implications for the future were more fundamental, varied, and far-reaching than any of the men concerned could have dreamed. It is the implications that lift the Zenger case out of the class of ordinary political prosecutions and give it a transcendent meaning.