157

FIRST FULL APPEARANCE OF HAMILTON'S REYNOLDS SCANDAL

[James T. Callender.]

The History of the United States for 1796, with a related newspaper.

Philadelphia, 1797
viii, 312 pages. 8vo, contemporary ¼ calf, worn, boards detached; moderate foxing and dampstaining; uncut; later owner's signature on front free endpaper. In modern folding case.

  • Notes: First edition of explosive allegations against Alexander Hamilton in book form (originally published in parts).   

    This book exposed America's first major political sex scandal. Alexander Hamilton was married and serving as Secretary of the Treasury in 1791 when he began a year-long affair with a young married woman named Maria Reynolds. Her husband James soon found out, but rather than challenge Hamilton to a duel, he demanded regular blackmail payments instead. In November 1792, James Reynolds was caught in a different scam (embezzling the pension payments of Revolutionary veterans), and attempted to blackmail Hamilton into protecting him. Hamilton came clean privately to John Adams and James Monroe, and they decided to ignore the sordid affair. However, Hamilton's enemy Thomas Jefferson started to leak the story of the affair in 1797. The allegations first appeared here in print, as part of a serial publication issued anonymously by anti-Federalist scandal-monger James Callender. Hamilton's scandal is discussed and documented in chapters V and VI, pages 204 to 231. William Reese described Callender as "a hack writer with no scruples . . . employed by Jefferson to attack Hamilton and plunge him into disrepute."

    Hamilton realized that the only way to protect his professional reputation would be to lay it out for public consumption. In 1797, he issued his response, "Observations on Certain Documents Contained in . . . The History of the United States for 1796," which demonstrated that Hamilton was innocent of corruption--but also a cheating scoundrel. This Reynolds affair features prominently in the musical "Hamilton."

    Ford, Hamiltoniana 67; Evans 31906; Howes C69; Reese, Federal Hundred 67; Sabin 10064. Howes and other sources describe the "History of the United States" as a later edition of Callender's "American Annual Register, or Historical Memoirs of the United States, for . . . . 1796," but the text of the "American Annual Register" appears to be substantially different throughout, and does not contain the Reynolds allegations.

    With--an issue of the Gazette of the United States. Philadelphia: John Fenno, 22 January 1798. 4 pages, 22 x 13½ inches, on one folding sheet; stitch holes, minimal wear. At the bottom corner of the last page is an advertisement for Hamilton's famous response to Callender, "Observations on Certain Documents Contained in . . . The History of the United States for 1796": "This publication presents a concise statement of the base means practiced by the Jacobins of the United States to asperse the characters of those persons who are considered as hostile to their disorganizing schemes." 
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