I know there are many who believe my husband was driven by ambition, greed, and a lust for power, but I believe that the strongest attraction for him was the desire to create and build, and to integrate immense projects and ideas so that they prospered for the good of the whole. That was the real satisfaction for him, solving the puzzle of the government’s creation, and there were days and long nights where he could no more resist solving one more problem or writing one more plan than a hardened drunkard could resist that next drink.
While I had dared to hope otherwise, the capital’s move to Philadelphia made no alteration in Alexander’s zeal for his office. If anything, after his initial successes in his first year, his determination seemed only to increase. He continued to develop a coastal guard to protect the revenue that came from import customs, and a post office to increase communications between the states. He proposed an excise tax on all distilled liquor (whiskey being the most popular in America at that time), instead of a tax on individuals or property that might excite memories of the loathsome British taxes of the 1760s.
But the project that most occupied him was a plan for a Bank of the United States to secure and stabilize the national economy. To his satisfaction, the bill proposing the bank’s establishment found little resistance or debate in Congress, and passed easily through the Senate. Mr. Madison, now firmly an opponent of Alexander’s, attempted to block the bill on grounds that it favored the north with it merchants and manufacturers over the south—his south—that relied upon slave-run plantations as well as smaller farmers. Finally the bill was passed by the Senate, and it remained only for President Washington to sign into law, a near certainty given that the president, too, realized its necessity.
But when Alexander came home in the middle of a January afternoon—never a fortuitous sign—I knew from the grimness of his expression that matters must not be going as he’d expected.
“Come walk with me, Betsey,” he said with no further greeting, and I hurried to get my cloak and fur muff and told the servants to mind the children. Most often when he’d a difficult problem, he paced his library, but if the problem were more sizable, he required the length of a city street, and chose to walk outdoors. For the most challenging problems, he’d ask me to join him. It had been a long time since we’d walked together like this, and I’d no idea what to expect.
I learned before we’d taken ten steps beyond our front door.
“Jefferson is trying to convince the president to veto the banking bill,” he said, his voice surprisingly even.
For once I was the indignant one.
“The dog!” I exclaimed, so loudly that he shushed me. The day was cold and gray, a weakling sort of afternoon, with dirty patches of snow still gathered in the streets, and few other people abroad, let alone in hearing. Still, he was wise to be cautious.
“I am sorry, Alexander,” I said, lowering my voice. “But for Mr. Jefferson to wait until now to attempt to undermine you!”
“It’s completely in Jefferson’s character to do so,” he said. “The man keeps his thoughts to himself behind a pretense of not caring, waits, and then strikes at the last moment.”
“The dog,” I repeated vehemently, a slight against canines, I know, but I couldn’t help myself. “That great, lying, spotted dog.”
At least that made my husband smile. “He is at that.”
“Do you know his argument?” I asked. “On what grounds does he protest?”
“It’s the usual one with the Virginians, although carried further,” he said, beginning to walk more quickly. “He believes I am a despot in the making, traitorously in sympathy with the British, and with designs on creating an American aristocracy.”
I shook my head in furious denial. “Why must they always say that of you?”
“Because a despot is an easy villain, one his Virginian voters will understand,” he said. “But he also claims that the banks of Europe are the seat of all decadence and corruption, and that a single American bank would only destroy the values for which the Revolution was fought.”
I gasped with righteousness, a little puff of outrage in the winter air. “How dare he say that, considering that he’s an infamous coward who never once has worn a uniform to defend his country?” I demanded. “When it’s common knowledge that he ran and hid in the woods rather than face Cornwallis’s men?”
Alexander grunted, all the acknowledgment he’d make. We both knew I wasn’t exaggerating; the charges of craven cowardice against Mr. Jefferson were entirely true. Even tiny little Mr. Madison had served in his militia, while Mr. Jefferson had spent most of the war lolling in Paris amidst the luxury he so deplored for everyone else.
“It’s all part of his ideal America,” Alexander said. “A simple country of self-reliant farmers in the wilderness, without banks or government.”
“And nary a rainy day or failed crop, either,” I said with disgust. “How easy it is for him to preach simplicity whilst he surrounds himself with rich food, French porcelain, and furnishings covered in silk velvet, and easier still to urge self-reliance when he embraces the evil of slavery, and orders his Africans about to do his every bidding.”
“Oh, Betsey, my Betsey,” he said fondly. “If only all the entire cabinet and Congress were as vehement in supporting the president as you are.”
“I’m serious, Alexander,” I said, looking up at him from inside the hood of my cloak. “He has no sense of the modern world. He believes America should be like those fanciful printed linens the French so love, sweet-faced shepherds and shepherdesses frolicking amongst the greenery. I’m entirely serious.”
“I know you are, dearest, and I love you all the more for it,” he said. “And I will be serious, too. The president has come to me for more reasons why he should sign the bill, and not heed the Virginians. I have only a few days to write my reply.”
“But you already know what you’ll say,” I said, a little breathless from keeping pace with him.
“For the most part, yes,” he said. “I’ve a few more arguments to work out.”
I nodded, understanding, and saying no more. If he wished my opinion, he’d ask it, but for now the act of walking would serve him better. He took my nearest hand from my muff and tucked it into the crook of his arm, clearly in need of that small, silent comfort. I soon found the air to be too cold, however, and instead moved my hand from his arm to the pocket of his coat for warmth. He smiled, and patted my hand through the wool, and we walked that way, side by side and in step, the hem of my petticoat brushing over the toes of his boots.