and follies.”7 Nor was Hamilton without friends. Washington relied on him,8 and Gouverneur Morris might silently have agreed with much of what he said. For the rest of delegates, however, Hamilton’s aristocratic government was anathema, even when adorned in republican robes. Hamilton, they thought, would be quite prepared to accept the corruption they thought endemic to monarchies, with the fawning courtiers that surround a prince and the kings who trade off favors for support. That was what they had seen of colonial government, and they meant to have something better with a republic, a form of government in which they thought that private interests would be trumped by the public good.9 What the delegates would have hated is the crony nation America has become, where ambassadorships are bought and sold in return for campaign contributions, and pay-for-play is the order of the day as much as ever it was in eighteenth century Britain.
Hamilton was so far outside the mainstream that when he finished his speech no one seconded it or even thought it necessary to speak against it. A few days later a delegate reviewed the various plans that had been presented, and of Hamilton said that, “though he has been praised by every body, he had been supported by none.”10 Hamilton recognized that he had marginalized himself, and chose to absent himself for much of the rest of the debate. He left on June 29, popped in on August 13, and returned to Philadelphia only on September 6, at the Convention’s close. What the delegates adopted became our Constitution, but no one who reads their debates would ever think of consulting Hamilton on how to interpret it.
Hamilton had come from the humblest of backgrounds, and it was ironic that of all the delegates he should defend aristocratic rule. It was equally ironic that the Virginia delegates should have objected to this, for their state had created a minor aristocracy in the Old Dominion, and the myth of a Cavalier Virginia was not entirely without foundation. The second generation of arrivals to the colony in the mid-seventeenth century included the younger sons of well-born Englishmen, who over the next century elbowed their way into social and financial eminence. The proudly self-assertive Tidewater planters along the James, the Rappahannock, and the Potomac, the slave-owning members of the Established Church, the Carters, Byrds, Lees, Fitzhughs, Beverleys, and Washingtons, aspired to the condition of English gentility in their homes, offices and manners.11 There were no Blenheim Palaces in Virginia, but the Carter’s Grove, Sabine Hall and Shirley plantations of the Carters, the Westover of the Byrds, the Stratford of the Lees, and the Mount Vernons left no doubt that their owners were masters of large fortunes.
Some concessions were made for local conditions, to be sure. The colonial Tidewater gentry dispensed with their periwigs and lace-ruffled cuffs in the hot Virginia summers, but at other times dressed like English gentry. Venturing forth, their carriages carried them down the sandy streets of Williamsburg, with postilions, drivers, and footmen dressed in the distinctive livery of their respective houses. Sword on hip, the planters bandied jests just short of the point where a duel was required, and sometimes past that point, as where someone was called a lout or a Scot. Or perhaps, for those more concerned to insist upon their honor, when they quarreled over the pronunciation of a word.12 Their sons idled away the time in dancing, gambling, and horse-racing. Until 1784 Virginia asserted a claim over all the lands westward to the Mississippi, from Memphis to Manitoba. Had it not abandoned its territorial ambitions, the national pastime today might be riding to hounds and not baseball.
Great families augmented their wealth through profitable marriages, producing the thickest of family connections amongst them. The Byrds intermarried with the Carters and Culpeppers, and the Washingtons were connected to the Lees, Beverleys, Randolphs, and Jeffersons. By the nineteenth century, the Virginian’s love of family had turned into ancestor worship. John Randolph of Roanoke, Thomas Jefferson’s cousin and a descendant of Pocahontas, lovingly recorded the names of all his ancestors and relatives in a book. “I am an aristocrat,” he said. “I love liberty. I hate equality.”13 Even today one can while away an idle afternoon by asking a Virginia docent if Robert E. Lee was a fifth as well as a double-third cousin of George Washington.
Virginia lacked banks, and great landowners became a source of capital in an economy fueled by the promissory notes they gave to the younger men they sponsored. Those a notch down on the financial or social order would look up to wealthy patrons, for open-handed liberality was prized as an aristocratic virtue; and in this way networks of interest were created throughout what was an essentially hierarchical society.14 Rising men, such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, looked for “friends” amongst the great planters, people such as Lord Fairfax to whom they could turn for credit, advice, and advancement. For the planters who mentored them, the relationship offered the prestige and power that came from an entourage of dependents. In this way, the Tidewater planters became what Gordon Wood describes as the strongest aristocracy that America has ever known.15
Children of the gentry were taught to be conscious of their position and to respect their superiors. The sixteen-year-old George Washington dutifully copied out 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, to remind him of what was expected of a Virginia gentleman.
1. Every Action done in Company, ought to be with Some Sign of Respect, to those that are Present.
19. Let your Countenance be pleasant but in Serious Matters Somewhat grave.
25. Superfluous Complements and all Affectation of Ceremony are to be avoided, yet where due they are not to be Neglected.
26. In Pulling off your Hat to Persons of Distinction, as Noblemen, Justices, Churchmen &c make a Reverence, bowing more or less according to the Custom of the Better Bred, and Quality of the Person.
29. When you meet with one of Greater Quality than yourself, Stop, and retire especially if it be at a Door or any Straight place to give way for him to Pass.
36. Artificers & Persons of low Degree ought not to use many ceremonies to Lords, or Others of high Degree but Respect and highly Honor them, and those of high Degree ought to treat them with affability & Courtesy, without Arrogance.16
People so self-conscious of their dignity are not given to familiarity or levity, and Washington was no exception. During the Convention, Hamilton dared Gouverneur Morris to greet Washington and pat him on the shoulder. Morris accepted the challenge, and at a reception walked up to Washington, bowed and, laying his hand on Washington’s shoulder, said, “My dear General, I am very happy to see you looking so well.” Washington withdrew the offending hand, stepped back and glared at Morris until he retreated. Perhaps Washington had remembered the sixty-fourth of his Rules of Civility:
Break not a Jest where none take pleasure in mirth. Laugh not aloud, nor at all without Occasion, deride no mans Misfortune, though there Seem to be Some cause.
Later Morris told Hamilton that, though he had won a bet, he would never repeat the attempt at familiarity.17
While their plantations kept the Virginia gentry busy, they aspired to an aristocratic idleness.18 They were forced to deal with the merchants and tradesmen who lived in their towns, but had little love for them. “Let your Discourse with Men of Business be Short and Comprehensive,” was Washington’s Rule 35. To finance their purchase of Hepplewhite chairs and all the latest clothing from London, the planters sold future interests in their tobacco crops to the Scottish factors of Norfolk and Alexandria, and after a financial crisis in the early 1770s found themselves indebted to the hilt to a set of creditors increasingly anxious about the direction American politics was taking. Their impudent demands for payment dismayed the planters, who had been accustomed to easy credit, and for whom the Revolution amounted to a welcome bankruptcy petition in which debts to British creditors were effectively discharged. No one profited from this more than the planters, for Virginians accounted for nearly half (£1.4 million) of all American debts owed to British creditors at the Revolution, and it has even been argued that this helps explain why the most aristocratic of all the colonies rebelled.19 The debt crisis is only a part of the story, however, and perhaps a small part. Something else had happened