Hamilton’s Office

Every state had to decide what to do with this large group, from Massachusetts, where they numbered in single digits, to New York, where they made up perhaps a third of the state. The first impulse was revenge. Pamphlets and broadsides swore retribution, while committees gathered lists of supposed war-crimes, including the everyday acts of vigilantism which had scarred the population for nearly twenty years. Exacerbating this common feature of wars and revolutions was another economic depression, perhaps larger than that of the 1930s, occasioned by the end of British trade. During these years, radicals like the Sons of Liberty also re-emerged, demanding a much larger swath of political freedoms than leaders of the Revolution had ever advocated: an end to property qualifications to voting, popular election of local officials, increased access to public education, and general abolition of aristocratic privilege. While some encouraged this populist energy, others sought to restrain it. Hamilton became their champion.

The young Wall Street lawyer rose to prominence defending Loyalists from confiscation and fiercely opposing the demands of sailors and mechanics for such things as wage and price controls. Hamilton rallied elite New Yorkers on all sides into a new ruling coalition that soon quelled the revolt. But as he explained in court and in two pamphlets which had national reach, it was also simply impossible to define what had constituted a treasonous act, much less belief, without doing violence to any respectable legal norm. The Revolution featured so much allegiance-switching, trading with the enemy, and forced opinion that any retribution would have been morally, politically, and economically disastrous. In part for this reason, legislatures began to repeal the laws punishing and disenfranchising Loyalists, following New York’s lead, which had the greatest number of Loyalists and the harshest codes.

While there is no clear evidence of strategy, the “Federalists” who emerged in this period later recalled that Loyalists were crucial allies in the political battles of the Founding. With the economic downturn, radicals had swept the nation’s first elections, with most states passing tax and debt relief. In Massachusetts, veterans of the Revolution led a march to stop courts from issuing evictions and throwing debtors into peonage. These events caused great panic among most elites, leading Federalists to propose a new constitution, nationalizing the war debt and greatly empowering the national government, entrenching “checks and balances” on legislative power.

Hamilton played another major role in this much closer struggle, writing most of the essays that later became known as “The Federalist Papers” — circulated steps from his office by the even larger number of printers now at Hanover Square, the first US media capital.

Hamilton and other leaders in the city would outmaneuver the anti-Federalist majority at New York’s ratifying convention, as Federalists did in many states. But these forgotten founders made one last giant contribution, drafting a Bill of Rights that James Madison was forced to largely enshrine in the Constitution.