Hamilfacts Part 3

Part 3 of our Hamilton series features “the room where it happens.” 

Alexander served as the nation’s first treasury secretary and was presented with many challenges (Picture above is Lin in front of Alex's statue at the US treasury building in DC, which is right next to the White House). Not least of which was how to collect taxes from states who had no interest in paying and establishing a common currency. The northern states had massive debts from fighting most of the revolutionary war on their soil. The south didn’t have those debts, well, because slavery. Hamilton was very much a Federalist and believed in a strong central government to keep the union together. Jefferson was a constitutional literalist, and he believed Hamilton’s national bank plan was unconstitutional because the constitution didn’t say you could have one. Hamilton devised the financial model that we understand and use today and created a national bank to consolidate the state’s debts for the good of the union. The colleagues from the south, Jefferson & Madison, sat down over dinner with Hamilton to see if they could come to terms. The Virginians wanted the capital in the south, in their home state if possible, Hamilton needed to get a national bank & a financial plan passed. They compromised over dinner, as featured in the song below (pbs feature summary is first link), the southerners agreed to back Hamilton’s plan in exchange for his faction’s support of moving the capitol from New York to present day DC. In the song is lead by Burr, who’s hunger for power eventually leads him to kill Alexander. But it does a beautiful job of painting the picture of the complicated nature of the essence of compromise in politics.

 

Full Song:

 Fun Fact: Jefferson is credited for popularizing ice cream in America. Jefferson served as the ambassador to France for many years (missing the revolutionary  war almost entirely), and his French butler gave him a recipe  for what we consider ice cream in the style we’d recognize (farmers had long before used ice during winter months with cream to make a treat). Ice cream was the dessert served at this meal, and once Jefferson became President, he frequently served it in the president’s house, helping to ingrain its popularity and several copies of the recipe written by Jefferson’s hand are still preserved.

Fun Fact #2: NYC was the original USA capital, but for 10 years 1790-1800 Philadelphia served as the temporary home. Philly very much wanted the capitol to be in their town, but congress decided it would be best for it to not be in any state for fear of preferential treatment. Thus, Virginia & Maryland gave land to the federal government. It was determined that they needed 10 years to build the new seat of government, so to appease the Pennsylvanians, Philly got to host the federal government while the new home was being made. Initial plans for the capital were called “Federal City” and later were adjusted to be “City of Washington.” DC was designed by a friend of Hamilton, Pierre Charles L’Enfant.