Swalwell’s Scandal, Striking Fear at Washington, Illustrates the Wisdom of Alexander Hamilton

The hounds of Washington’s press corps are on the scent of sex scandals as they pick over unfolding allegations against the California Democrat, Congressman Eric Swalwell. With other powerful figures sweating their secret shames, Alexander Hamilton stands as an example of how honesty best serves a political legacy, personal life, and America.Thirty-four and the nation’s first Treasury secretary under President Washington, Hamilton had a hot summer in 1791. It had less to do with New York City’s weather than it did with a visitor, Maria Reynolds. She arrived at Hamilton’s door saying that her husband, James, had abandoned her and begged for financial help.Hamilton’s wife, Elizabeth, deserved better than what followed. A daughter of the powerful Schuyler family, she’d brought prestige to her husband, who’d been born out of wedlock and into poverty. Yet Elizabeth was vacationing with the couple’s children when the 23-year-old blonde dropped into her husband’s lap and made clear that she was available.Judging that “other than pecuniary,” meaning monetary, “consolation would be acceptable” to Maria, and with the cat away, Hamilton played. A torrid affair followed. James Reynolds confronted Hamilton in a letter, but said that for $1,000, he’d leave Gotham “and take my daughter with me,” freeing up Maria. Hamilton cut a check.Detail of John Trumbull’s portrait of Alexander Hamilton. Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia CommonsJames never left town, but he let Maria keep visiting to extort more money. This arrangement indicated to all save the smitten Hamilton that his mistress was complicit in what we now call a honey pot trap. After two years, the situation came to a head when — as it often does — the price of silence grew too high.Imprisoned for forgery, James demanded Hamilton get him released. Unlike Mr. Swalwell, Hamilton wasn’t alleged to have committed crimes, but James threatened to implicate him in a scam to defraud Revolutionary War soldiers. That would damage Hamilton’s Federalists and shake the financial system he’d built for the fledgling nation.Hamilton refused to break the law and James retaliated by feeding his dirt to anti-Federalists. After speaking to the Reynoldses, President Monroe and a fellow congressman confronted Hamilton. He confessed to the affair but proclaimed innocence of the fraud scheme. The pair agreed to keep quiet, as friends of Mr. Swalwell are alleged to have done.Yet “what’s done in the dark will come to light,” as the biblical proverb warns, and the scandal hit the papers. Hamilton blamed Monroe — who he challenged to a duel that never took place — and President Jefferson. Yet he accepted blame and published “Observations of Certain Documents,” offering up the letters used to blackmail him for public scrutiny.Hamilton acknowledged his “irregular and indelicate amour,” and apologized to Elizabeth, saying he could “never cease to condemn myself for the pang” he’d “inflicted” on someone “eminently entitled to all my gratitude, fidelity, and love.” He asked for his wife’s support since, “at great expense,” he sought to “wipe away a more serious stain” off the family name.“The public, too,” Hamilton wrote, “will, I trust, excuse the confession. The necessity of it to my defense against a more heinous charge could alone have extorted from me so painful an indecorum.” As humiliating as the admission was, the public accepted that Hamilton had betrayed his marriage vows but didn’t use his position to fleece fellow veterans.“Hamilton’s example of facing up to his unfaithfulness,” the author of “American Emperor: Aaron Burr’s Challenge to Jefferson’s America,” David O. Stewart, tells The New York Sun, “evidently was well received by the two people of paramount importance to him — his wife and President Washington.”The financial system that Hamilton had built endured. When he ended the affair and stopped the money train, Maria filed for divorce. Vice President Burr was her legal counsel. He would later kill Hamilton in a duel, a tragic death that helped restore a reputation left in tatters.In the centuries since America’s first sex scandal shocked the nation, Mr. Stewart said, “legions of misbehaving public officials have chosen to deny, deflect, and disparage.” He asked those Washingtonians who fear dark secrets being brought to light like Mr. Swalwell’s to consider a Hamiltonian solution. “Maybe, just maybe, try honesty?”

Swalwell’s Scandal, Striking Fear at Washington, Illustrates the Wisdom of Alexander Hamilton

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