Hamilton, deflecting the Virginian Republican’s accusations of speculation, excuses himself in his Observations on Certain Documents pamphlet, by putting the onus on the Daughter of Eve, Maria Reynolds. Not everyone bought it: Jefferson, who made his money from Slavery, breeding and trafficking, is eliminating the abolitionists who stand between him and an all-slave Louisiana Purchase. When the Maria Reynolds Affair splashes over the flash press in 1797, it’s Jefferson who conspires against Hamilton. Monroe went to Jefferson with evidence of Hamilton’s guilt. Taken to the extraordinary extreme of an entire needlepoint sofa. Into repressed domestic seclusion engaging in needlework. The one-sided animosity likely began as New York’s Clinton faction elected Burr to the Senate over Hamilton’s father-in-law, Philip Schuyler.Įliza Hamilton, unable to reconcile her position as cuckold by her own sister with her husband, followed by this public admission of infidelity, withdrew The story goes that what Hamilton had to pay Maria for… Burr was given freely. When things get ugly, Hamilton challenges Monroe to a duel, requiring Burr to intervene, diffusing the situation, effecting Maria’s divorce from her husband becoming her consolation and Hamilton’s nemesis. Reynolds, and divert attention from his wife’s family’s finances. In question he’s paid to the Reynolds was sexual blackmail. In this he attempts to compensate the cuckold, cover up his affair with Mrs. Known as ‘The Maria Reynolds Affair’, the nation’s first sex scandal. In 1792, caught out by the humorless James Monroe, Hamilton contends the monies It was his own hypocritical philandering that ensnared him in what was is from Yale University.While Hamilton’s slanders of Aaron Burr were frequently of a sexual nature, She is co-organizer (with John Dixon) of the Columbia University Seminar on Early American History and Culture. Her manuscript in progress, tentatively titled Underwriters of the United States, explains how the transnational system of marine insurance, by governing the behavior of American merchants, influenced the establishment and early development of the American republic.
![maria reynolds maria reynolds](https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc4NjAyOTk1ODAzODcx/gettyimages-90015518.jpg)
Her additional research interests include early modern globalization, the culture of economic life, and visual and material culture. Farber specializes in the political economy of colonial North America, the early American republic, and the Atlantic World. Hannah Farber is an Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University. And yet, this lecture will ask, does an 18th-century definition of corruption tie us to an outdated, 18th century vision of what a republic ought to be? More than two hundred years have passed since Hamilton's death.
![maria reynolds maria reynolds](http://pm1.narvii.com/7131/a79c4feb25aeaefbd9fa0621e0999c5b91f1a6a3r1-2048-2048v2_uhq.jpg)
But what was a republic, and how would its citizens know if it was corrupted? Using the Maria Reynolds scandal as a jumping off point, Professor Hannah Farber will explore what these terms actually meant to Hamilton and his contemporaries, and why the potential corruption of the United States worried them so much.Īt first glance, an 18th-century corruption scandal like Hamilton's seems compelling because so many of its elements seem so contemporary: sex financial wheeling and dealing the specter of foreign influence and personal enrichment at public expense. As a result of this affair, he would submit to blackmail and, ironically, fall under the suspicion of corruption from which his reputation would never entirely recover.Ĭorruption, in Hamilton's day, was thought to destroy republics. But by the summer of 1791, the 36-year old Hamilton had become enmeshed in a seamy affair.
![maria reynolds maria reynolds](https://64.media.tumblr.com/3915bc722b89b12aa53613109d6c1292/tumblr_otcfqsiAKP1wsk39io1_1280.png)
A 21st Century Re-examination of “Corruption” and What A Republic Ought to Be Professor Hannah Farberĭuring the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787, Alexander Hamilton and the other framers of the United States Constitution worried endlessly about the possible corruption of their republic.