#chernowisms

It’s about a quote describing the appearance of Alexander Hamilton that Chernow claims is by Fisher Ames, a federalist, member of the Essex Junto and great admirer of Hamilton (spoiler: it isn’t).

(Very long post. There’s a tl;dr at the end if you don’t want the details or how I got there.)

In the article “The Erotic Charisma of Alexander Hamilton” (read here or on JSTOR) the author writes:

“His good friend and fellow Federalist Fisher Ames (1758–1808) rhapsodized about him, particularly admiring his eyes (“of a deep azure, eminently beautiful”) and his physical deportment (“one of the most elegant of mortals” with “easy, graceful, and polished movements”).”

That’s Fisher Ames

The eye part is probably the more widely known part of this quote but the most elegant of mortals part is the funnier one. Now this isn’t too crazy but still quite the thing to say about someone. Not that I wouldn’t have thought Fisher Ames to be capable of that, he did write what I call the glazing manifesto about Ham after his death after all. You can read that here, it’s fun. But still, I thought, I’d check where it came from.

The citation was of course Chernow. Since the man sometimes just doesn’t cite at all, I went to the copy I acquired some time ago for these purposes to check if he did cite here. And he did!

On page 51 he writes: “His later federalist friend Fisher Ames left some graphic impressions of Hamilton’s appearance. Of his eyes he said, “These were of a deep azure, eminently beautiful, without the slightest trace of hardness and severity, and beamed with higher expressions of intelligence and discernment than any others that I ever saw.” Ames often bumped into Hamilton on his daily walks and said “he displayed in his manners and movements a degree of refinement and grace which I never witnessed in any other man … and I am quite confident that those who knew him intimately will cheerfully subscribe to my opinion that he was one of the most elegant of mortals. […]””

This is footnote 26 of this chapter (three) and that is the following citation: New York Mirror, n.d. Copy in LC-AHP, reel 31.

With LC-AHP he means the Papers of Alexander Hamilton as hosted by the Library of Congress, he has an abbreviations key for that fortunately because all kinds of things abbreviated AHP are hosted by the Library of Congress and the Ham papers isn’t one of them. They’re PAH but whatever.

So firstly I searched for New York Mirror in the PAH and found there to be no such document. Then I went to the reel 31 that he cites specifically and again that doesn’t exist as a document.

Turns out it’s not a document of its own, it’s just a clipping in the file “Clippings” of the file “Miscellany” (which is one of two files titled reel 31) but Chernow couldn’t be bothered to add that to his citation and instead made me go through all of reel 31 which took me some time because I was supposed to be doing other things.

(I did find all kinds of funny stuff doing that though, so that’s positive. I might share some of it later.)

Because it’s just a newspaper clipping we’re missing some information, like Chernow says it’s not dated (n.d.), we don’t have the full context and as you will see we also can’t say who wrote that. But the quote is in fact there and real. Let’s get into it.

So first of all it’s way more insane than Chernow let’s on so read it yourself here in full (on danger of choking on your drink)

Secondly, the context:

So apparently there was some sort of description of AHam printed in the New York Mirror, our not-Fisher Ames had gripes with it and wrote to the Editor of the New York Mirror, his corrections being subsequently printed as well. Then someone requested it and it was re-printed in “The American” (I can’t say what paper that is, there were many with The American in their title).

Then there’s part one of the elegance quote:

This is quoted correctly but I included the sentences before that because Chernow says “Ames often bumped into Hamilton on his daily walks”. Is it just me or does the first sentence sound less like them walking together and more this person watching (stalking) Ham?

Here’s the most elegant part:

There’s some insane glazing in between but I’ll spare you that, you can just go read it yourselves if you wish.

The eye part:

I’ll be nitpicky because why not, it’s “They were” not “These were”. And he left out the best part of this honestly. “Human face divine” lmao. We’re quoting John Milton for this I guess. (It’s a quote from Paradise Lost)

Lastly, we have a sign off:

“Remembrancer”

So it’s anonymous…

After finding the quote where Chernow vaguely said it was, I expected him to have been correct but I really don’t know where he could have possibly gotten Fisher Ames from in relation to this. Did he just pick someone who would seem realistic because they were glazing Hamilton anyway?

Because not only is there no indication of this Remembrancer being Fisher Ames (it’s anonymous and also has no private information that would point towards him. Even if we’re assuming Chernow got it from somewhere that Ames did often accompany Ham on walks and this person was walking with him too, what kind of evidence is that??? Generally this could have been anyone who knew him personally in his later years.) it’s actually impossible for this to have been Ames.

The “New York Mirror” was first published in 1823. There were other newspapers of that or a similar name later but seemingly not before. Fisher Ames died in 1808!

At first I thought the original quote might have been re-printed in the NYM but alas, that’s not it. It was clearly a correction addressed explicitly to the editor of the New York Mirror which didn’t exist while Ames was alive.

Subsequently this is not Ames but some unidentified contemporary AHam fanboy or fangirl and Chernow is wrong! (Unless he knows something he doesn’t want to share with the class?)

Ha! I fact-checked you, Ron!

So there you have it. Of course, if someone else knows anything more about the mystery writer or does in fact have information debunking what I just explained too elaborately, let me know.

If you read to the end, congratulations and I love you. Have a cookie 🍪

*squints at the word sympathy

*looks at the ten page simping letter Hamilton wrote about John André

*back at Chernow