John Adams Alexander Hamilton dispute

IchBinDieKaiser

IchBinDieKaiser

It is common knowledge among students of early American History that Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton were arch enemies politically. They despised each others ideas and became the centers of their respective parties. However less known is the hatred between John Adams and Alexander Hamilton.

Though I am aware of this hatred, I am not so knowledgeable about WHAT they hated eachother for? What were their political or philosophical disputes? I know that Hamilton was pro-war and expansion and Adams was against war, but what else?
 

Shawn Endresen

It would be safe to say that Adams was more moderate than Hamilton, so that their disagreements over policy were limited and more about degree than kind. Large parts of it were simply culture and upbringing, though. Adams was a well-off man from an old established family in Massachusetts with a Harvard education; Hamilton was a bastard orphan from St. Nevis who was brilliant but self-taught. Hamilton had participated in the war as Washington's adjutant; Adams had been a member of the Continental Congress who got sent on diplomatic missions to France. Adams saw in Hamilton an opportunistic upstart and sycophant of Washington; Hamilton saw in Adams the combination of self-important arrogance and cowardice.
 

Shevek23

I get the impression that both Adams and Hamilton were men who tended to grate on a lot of people just personally; it's a rarer thing to find evidence either man had good friends than enemies!:p

It's rather gratifying then to realize that toward the end of their lives Adams and Jefferson took up a mutually cordial correspondence; despite their differences in principles they did respect one another, at least in the context of the perspective the intervening decades of success of the republic, incorporating principles both had championed sometimes in opposition to each other, sometimes together.

Hamilton on the other hand--I've seen it said that one reason, perhaps the reason, the Constitution specifies that any candidate for President must be born in the USA was specifically to bar him from seeking the office, he having been born in St. Nevis. (Obviously that would have been a rather irrational bar to enforce, since the Caribbean/Atlantic sugar islands were as much British North American colonies as the 13 that eventually comprised the USA would be, and it would be quite some time before there was a President born after 1776. But if it's true the clause was put in there to block Hamilton, surely it would have been defended if he'd challenged it.)

I'm guessing that one reason we hear little of this today is that the conflict between Adams and Hamilton was personal and not based on any deep divergence of principle, whereas the division between Adams and Jefferson was about philosophy--hence their later personal reconciliation.
 
Space Oddity

Space Oddity

Shevek23 said:
Hamilton on the other hand--I've seen it said that one reason, perhaps the reason, the Constitution specifies that any candidate for President must be born in the USA was specifically to bar him from seeking the office, he having been born in St. Nevis. (Obviously that would have been a rather irrational bar to enforce, since the Caribbean/Atlantic sugar islands were as much British North American colonies as the 13 that eventually comprised the USA would be, and it would be quite some time before there was a President born after 1776. But if it's true the clause was put in there to block Hamilton, surely it would have been defended if he'd challenged it.)
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*Sigh*

Would people PLEASE read the natural-born clause? It was specifically formulated not to bar Hamilton from office, but to allow him to run if he so chose.

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
​
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
I think it was really just a clash of personalities. Adams saw Hamilton as an upstart little brat and Hamilton saw Adams as a grouchy and pompous old crank.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
The Adams-Hamilton rift didn't really manifest until Adams became president. Hamilton was used to having his way since his domination of the Washington administration and believed Adams in his debt for winning him the election.

Adams was principled, stubborn, devoted to neutrality, and not nearly as anti-French as Hamilton had thought. So when Hamilton and his cronies in Adams' administration kept interfering in and obstructing Adams' policies (especially by insisting on war with France), he lost his patience.

Things came to a head over the issue of America's military situation in the wake of Washington's death and the ongoing French Revolutionary Wars. Hamilton pushed too hard, Adams booted him and his cronies out, and promptly lost the next election.

The whole "clash of backgrounds/classist antipathy" tends to be really overplayed. Nobody looked down on Franklin, for example, for only having a few years of education and being a self-made man.
 
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AN9

John Adams didn't look down on Franklin for being a self-made man with little education, if anything he respected him for his work and reputation. His dislike for Franklin came during their work together in France when their personalities started to clash, Adams believed that they should demand more aid for America, while Franklin believed they should take only what France was willing to give them.
 

Know Nothing

AN9 said:
John Adams didn't look down on Franklin for being a self-made man with little education, if anything he respected him for his work and reputation. His dislike for Franklin came during their work together in France when their personalities started to clash, Adams believed that they should demand more aid for America, while Franklin believed they should take only what France was willing to give them.
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Actually you're right - I am incorrect. :)
 
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