Their career doing manual labor jobs, doing Service Industry jobs. This is one thing that really hasnt changed you know ,com,com ma lots of different aspects of the clinical. Broadcast Television Cable news the rise in Canada Center collections big money in politics and client unions, while all of this is happening one of the constants during the last 100 years or so is that workingclass people are not getting elected to political office. Historian john ferling examines the repertory between Thomas Jefferson alexander hamilton. This program from a History Center is just over an hour. [applause] hello everybody and i want to thank the atlanta History Center for inviting me in and providing much nicer weather for me than six years ago when i came in and my wife carol and i were driving in that day. We looked at the monitor on the dashboard of the car and it was 103 degrees as they came in. Its much nicer tonight. I want to thank you for coming out and especially on a night when my Pittsburgh Pirates are struggling to stay alive. I guess we will find out how they came out when this is over. I want to talk with you tonight about jefferson and hamilton. They are political battle was over the shape and character of the new american nation and that battle has in a sense never really ended. It puts one in mind of a line from faulkner when he said the past isnt dead. In fact the past isnt even past because jefferson and hamiltons battle was over the same kind of issues that have been perennial battles in american political history. Struggles over the power and intrusiveness of the federal government, over which americans were to be empowered, over the distribution of wealth and over the size of the american military. The reputations of hamilton and jefferson have ebbed and flowed over the years. Jefferson was the predominant figure all the way down to the civil war. In fact hamilton was almost forgotten during much of that time period but it was a rural society. Jeffersons party was triumphant during the early part of the 19th century and jefferson predominated. But then jeffersons reputation suffered somewhat as a result of the civil war. A u. S. After all a southerner and a slave owner and following the civil war the country began to industrialize, following the lines that hamilton had emphasized. Hamiltons reputation soared but then jeffersons came back again in the early 20th century. Franklin roosevelts new deal embraced jefferson and it was during roosevelts presidency in 1943 on the 200th anniversary of jeffersons birth at the Jefferson Memorial in washington d. C. But then after world war ii with the cold war, with america triumphant militarily and industrialized urbanized nation hamiltons reputation soared again and jeffersons has plummeted somewhat in the aftermath of the civil rights revolution and revelations about his relationship with sally hemings. And in fact, during the lifetimes of jefferson and hamilton, both men were praised and condemned just as they have been by subsequent generations. For example, governor mora maurice said of hamilton it seems as if god had called him suddenly into existence but he might assist to save the world. And there were those who condemned hamilton like Abigail Adams who said not only that she thought hamilton wished to be americas napoleon but she said, i have read his heart and his wicked eyes in the very devil is in them. [laughter] her husband john adams said of hamilton, his talents are greatly exaggerated. He wishes to destroy everyone in his way and adams was just warming up with those comments. He went on to call hamilton a breath of the scottish peddler. His ambition, his restlessness and always grandiose schemes come on condensed a super abundance of secretions which he couldnt find enough to absorb. [laughter] jefferson was praised by some. Abigail adams said of jefferson, he is one of the choice ones of the earth and john adams lauded his extraordinary mind and praised him as a gifted writer. Lafayette called jefferson good, upright and enlightened. Thomas ship in the philadelphia was on a European Tour following his schooling and while in france he met jefferson and said of jefferson hes the wisest and most amiable man in europe. There were those who didnt care for jefferson. Charles carol of harrington said jefferson was too theoretical and fanciful to be a statesman and one of jeffersons enemies in virginia John Nicholas said that he thought jefferson was the most intriguing and double faced man in american politics. So, these two have had the pros and cons thrown at them since their lifetime and by generations that followed. The two were similar in some ways been different in many ways. They were different in the sense that they had very different, a very different youth. Hamilton didnt grow up in an impoverished background but what a sociologist would probably call a lower middleclass background. Jefferson on the other hand was the son of a plantar aristocrat, and his mother was from the prestigious randolph family in virginia. He grew up on a plantation near presentday charlottesville. They were different in appearance. Hamilton was about average height. He was about 5 feet 7 inches tall in those days but very small in stature and many people describe hamilton is having a somewhat feminine manner about him. Jefferson on the other hand was quite tall. He was about 6 feet 2 inches which for our time period would be the equivalent of someone who is about 6 feet 5 inches or 6 feet 6 inches towering over most other men. Jefferson was described by many people as having a mild and pleasing personality but rather shy and rather serious, somewhat grave demeanor, a man with poor posture where hamilton tended to stand ramrod straight according to many people. Jefferson was described as a senator from pennsylvania while he was secretary of state as entering a room, speaking without ceasing, rambling in his talk but offering spicy comments and scattering information, some of it really and said that observer. Hamilton tended to be rather outgoing in his personality, somewhat domineering where is jefferson was quite reserved. Jefferson hated confrontations throughout his life. Hamilton relished them. Jefferson tended to be a somewhat manipulative individuaindividua l. Hamilton seemed to attract his followers by the force of his personality. Around women when they were young, jefferson was quite shy. Hamilton on the other hand fancied himself as a ladykiller and in fact, when the army would go into Winter Quarters and a number of young women would calm to camp with their fathers, hamilton courted so many of them that washingtons wife Martha Washington named her tomcat hamilton. [laughter] both became lawyers, but jefferson hated practicing law. The moment that he got married and was independent economically he quit his Legal Practice for good. Hamilton loved practicing law. He loved the giveandtake of the courtroom and the fighting that went on and jefferson had a passion for architecture and gardening. Hamilton was largely indifferent to that. During washingtons presidency, early in the presidency when they were still in relatively good terms jefferson invited hamilton to his residence in new york and when hamilton came in he saw the pictures of three men on the wall. Hamilton asked, who are those three men . Jefferson responded, they are the three greatest men in history, john locke, sir isaac newton and sir francis bacon. Hamilton corrected him by saying no, the greatest man in history was julius caesar. Jefferson never got over that and never forgot that. For all of their differences and there were similarities between these two. Both had rather unhappy youths. Jefferson tellingly referred to youths at the time of what he called colonial subservience. If you think about that a little bit, that comes from a man who was the author of the declaration of independence, break away from the subservience. Hamilton endured in the a youth that a novel is like Charles Dickens would have been hard pressed to write about i think. Jefferson hamiltons mother was branded by the courts as a horror. His father abandoned the family. His mother and father never married so hamilton was an illegitimate child and the bigots of that day not finding enough to occupy their prejudices visited much of it on illegitimate children. Not so much on the parents but on the child himself so that hamilton i think must have experienced a thousand cruel lows in his youth. We know that he was discriminated against in the sense that he could not attend Public Schools where he was growing up. I think out of that youth, hamilton is really shaped. I believe in the old adage that the child is the father to the man and in this instance i think hamilton comes out of his youths guard and is driven from map point on to seek fame, to seek renown, to seek respect and that drives him throughout his life. Another similarity is that both surprisingly grew up with slaveowning parents. Jeffersons father owned about 200 slaves and hamiltons mother owned five slaves. Both were extremely ambitious. Jefferson spoke of that little tincture of ambition as he put it, but there was more than a little in jefferson and a great deal and hamilton. And helped further their career and in hamiltons case, a presbyterian minister rose moneyraised money to send hamilton to the mainland colonies to study. The hope was hamilton would attend Princeton University but his preparatory education was deficient and after prolonged study on his own he wound up at columbia university. Jefferson was shepherded along by william small, his favorite professor at the college of william and mary and later by andrew wyeth, the leading lawyer in virginia at the time, a signer of the declaration of independence. They were similar in the sense that both were affable. I mentioned earlier jefferson was shy and reserved but once he got to know someone, he was quite open and friendly and had many friends throughout his life and so too did hamilton when he was washingtons aid during the revolutionary war. The other aids not only liked him but called him ham or hammy and piled around with him. And more significantly jefferson and hamilton were alike in one other way, they were both revolutionaries. Both were caught up in the American Revolution. Hamilton is i think the more intriguing of the two. When one tries to determine why he became a revolutionary, if you are a cynic and i am cynical, one could argue that hamilton was merely an opportunist. That was part of what went into him becoming a supporter of the American Revolution. I dont think he was alone in that respect. You could say that about virtually every one who was a major figure in the American Revolution. If you think for a moment he comes to new york, knows very little about the background of the protest against england which started almost a decade before he arrived in new york and i think he looks at the situation and as hamilton was always want to do a rather calculated decision which would be the best way for me to go, if i choose england, can i rise very far . If i choose america and a new nation emerges, doors will open and the way will be clear perhaps for me to rise. I would not say opportunism alone explains hamiltons revolutionary debt. He was a recent immigrant to new york, and like recent immigrants, many of those immigrants embrace their new country, as they see their new country as a place that has given them opportunities that did not exist where they came from and they fall in love with their new country and want to serve their new country and hamilton was to be sure and in tents american nationalist from the 1770s until his death in 1804 and he serves and risks his life for his country during the revolutionary war. I think there was more to hamilton than merely opportunism. In jeffersons case i think he becomes a revolutionary through studies of the enlightenment. He is introduced to the enlightenment in preparatory school. He delves further into it at the college of william and mary and the idea of the line meant was to question everything and jefferson does question everything including his society in virginia. He wonders why there are so many people in virginia who have so little property and so little power and so many others have so much power and books that england and asks the same questions about england as well and for jefferson the American Revolution from the very beginning was about reforms, reforming virginia, breaking away from england, creating an america that would offer a Thomas Paines term in common sense the birthday of a new world, that was what jefferson was after, i think. During the American Revolution, the two played very different roles. Hamilton was a soldier. He went into the militia on the eve of the outbreak of the war into the continental army, and for the first year of fighting he is an officer in an artillery company. An observer at the time saw hamilton during washingtons retreat across new jersey in the fall of 1776 and instead of hamilton he is a mere stripling, small, slender column almost delicate in frame, marching with a cocked head pulled over his eyes. Apparently lost in thought with his hand resting on a can. Every now and then patting it as if it were a favorite horse or hat place thing. Hamilton, a year into his service in the continental army, was offered a position as an aid decamped to washington. He didnt want the position. He had been offered as a position as an aide to board sterling and turned that down. He wanted a field command. After all, he was unlikely to win glory at a desk job but he could possibly win glory in a field command. When washington offers him a position as an aide, hamilton debated it for several days before he finally accepted it. He accepted it because he thought it would be a shortterm appointment leading to his appointment as commander of the brigade which happened with some of washingtons other aides. He never grew very close to washington. Washington was cold, olympian in public and apparently the same way in private. Hamilton had lost his father who abandoned the family when hamilton was only about can or 11 years old and died think he may have wanted washington to be a father to him and washington was not going to be his father or anyone elses father. It was a rather cold, distant relationship and at one point there was a blow up between the two. In february of 1780 one, washington has hamilton in the hallway at headquarters and said i need to see you about something and hamilton had a load of papers and said let me put these down and i will be right in but along the way he was distracted by fell into a conversation and forgot all about washington. When he remembered he went in to washingtons office quite wait and washington upgraded him. No one keeps me waiting, washington said to hamilton, and hamiltons response was i quit, and he did quit, as washingtons age. He told some other people including his father in law, general schuyler, what he would done, general schuyler told him to get back to washington and apologize and hamilton did that and continued to serve washington in an untitled position but he said at the time to a friend, i really dont like washington. I have seen him up close and on the inside and he is a course individual and he is an overrated individual, hamilton said. But also, as he put it to Martha Washington following washingtons death in 1799, washington is my egis to success. He stuck with washington and washington stuck with him during the remaining years. Jeffersons revolution was extremely different from hamiltons. When hamilton was with washington and in battle, fighting in seven major engagements during the war, risking his life, at one point being surprised by the British Patrol and when they shot at him, having to dive off of his boat into the school the Schuylkill River and swim for safety. Jefferson served in the house of burgesses, then in congress and while in congress, 15 months in congress, the principal author of the declaration of independence. Almost immediately after independence was declared, jefferson Left Congress and returned to virginia because he was interested in reform. The Continental Congress was simply going to be a managerial body that managed the conduct of the war and the conduct of the army and hamilton wanted to return jefferson wanted to return to virginia and carry out as many reforms as he could. He didnt always succeed, but he pushed for reforms in the land laws of virginia so that land would become more available, at one point he even proposed that all landless men, all landless free men be given land, something that didnt fly with the virginia assembly. But he did push for religious toleration, reform of the criminal statutes in virginia, and many of his reforms were eventually realized. In 1779, with the war effort really suffering, washington came to the conclusions that the best man who once served in congress, men like Benjamin Franklin and john adams and jefferson, had left and the congress was suffering in their absence and washington wrote to george mason in virginia and said very pointedly, where is jefferson . When his country needs him . That got back to jefferson and, stung by washingtons apparent criticism, jefferson agreed to serve as the governor of virginia and he served two extremely difficult and not terribly successful terms as the governor of virginia. I think almost anyone of the governors would have had difficulties jefferson had but he certainly did have a tempestuous time as governor. For both, the time period on the cusp of the 1780s and during the 1780s were Pivotal Moments. For hamilton, i think the Pivotal Moment is the collapse of the american economy. It begins to collapse in 1777 and has utterly collapsed by 1779. I dont think hamilton understood the reasons for that collapse and washington didnt either. Both initially thought it was due to lack of good leadership by congress. The problems where really much deeper than that. Hamilton, beginning around 1779, began