How did Hamilton’s reputation survive his affair with Maria Reynolds?
Hamilton confessed to the affair because he wanted to prove that the money he had paid to her husband, James Reynolds, was blackmail money arising from adultery and not money secretly given to Mr. Reynolds to speculate in government securities. Oddly, Hamilton published a 95-page pamphlet about the affair, describing it in almost novelistic detail. As with President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky, some people defended Hamilton by saying that his tarnished private morality didn’t detract from his public record. But even staunch friends believed that a couple of well-chosen paragraphs would have neatly done the trick. The needlessly long pamphlet made people question Hamilton’s judgment. Today, Hamilton’s death in a duel seems strange. How unusual was it at that time? Duels were then commonplace, especially among politicians, military men and self-styled aristocrats. Where people today would sue for libel, many politicians at the time issued challenges to duels. Usually they didn’t want to
