madtomedgar:

publius-esquire:

megcubed: So there is definitely some speculation that John Mulligan and Charles Adams were involved with one another. To the point where John and Abigail Adams grow extremely concerned with how close and intense the relationship has become, and try to break them apart. John and Charles then go to Baron von Steuben for help, and move in with him for a while, though after a while it just falls apart and Charles just… never really recovers from that. He dies less than a decade later. But the more I think about it, the more I do have to wonder, even if it had the same tragic end, how differently it would have gone if the two of them went to Hamilton instead. Not that they ever would have known about ‘Lams’ and all of that, which is clearly why Hamilton was never an option to them, aside from asking him to send a letter for them. But if they did go to him? If two young men in love go to Alexander Hamilton and say that John Adams is trying to break them up? I don’t know, it just seems like something Hamilton would immediately offer to help with. I mean, it’s two birds with one stone: 1. Offer these kids the chance he and Laurens never had. 2. Piss off John Adams. Win win. We do know that before they lost all semblance of speaking terms, John Adams did send Charles to study under Hamilton for his law degree in 1789. It’s entirely possible that Hamilton introduced Charles to von Steuben, since Hamilton was at that time helping Steuben with his financial problems. And apparently Charles continued as something of a Hamiltonian, and this passage to his father in January 31, 1799 when Hamilton was putting the army together is pretty interesting: “If I should err with respect to my sentiments of what are here called Hamilton’s appointments I hope you will not impute it to any wrong motive. He has become the Universal Recommendator. Many of the appointments made as I have reason to believe at his request are spoken of as extremely improper. I could mention many. Danberry for instance as first Leutt of the Navy when there is not a single Merchant who would trust him with the Command of a Sloop of Twenty tons

Nay he even went so far as to say at his own Table when I was present; that he had, in his own words ‘Been that day appointing a Son of the Notorious Bill Livingston’s a Midshipman in our Navy.’ This modest speech was addressed to [Philip] Church [Hamilton’s nephew] whose reply was you have then I find weaknesses not confined to the female sex: which produced a laugh and perhaps was not thought of by any person but myself afterwards.” I’m just saying, I think it would be fascinating to know more about Charles’s relationship to both Hamilton and Steuben, and how I honestly think this only added fuel to John Adams’s fire .



The possibility that John Adams either knew or suspected that Hamilton had same-gender-attraction or, if we want to be really historically accurate and really use gross hurtful words, sodomitical tendencies, really opens up a lot of possibilities as to what Adams meant in a lot of his diatribes against Hamilton.

Firstly and most obviously there was the letter so bad that Adams had to request it back and destroy it. We’ve all speculated that what, in comparison to the other stuff Adams had said, was so terrible it had to be destroyed. Accusing his deceased political nemesis of being a sodomite might just have been the reason.

Then there’s the infamous “superabundance of secretions which he could not find whores enough to draw off.” According to Thomas Foster (see Sex and the 18th Century Man for more on this) sodomy was often times seen as the final achievement in the debauchery olympics. Your run of the mill rake had a lot of normal sex with women he wasn’t married to, probably prostitutes. An advanced rake had a lot of normal sex with women he wasn’t married to, but seduced blushing innocent virgins and noble virtuous matrons to their doom. A really debauched individual had a lot of kinky sex (usually things that we would think of as falling under the BDSM label) with women he wasn’t married to, b-team with prostitutes, a-team convinced non-professional women to do it. And then if a man were too debauched and too sex crazed to any more be able to be satisfied by even the “wildest” acts with women, then he turns to other men to get his kicks. There’s a thinly veiled warning in a lot of anti-rake literature of the day that, if they keep this up they will either become impotent, become a sodomite, or both.

So what does this have to do with the Adams-Hamilton hate-fest?

Well, “superabundance of secretions” means that Hamilton, according to Adams, was more sex-crazed than was natural and wholesome. Adams then says that he “could not find whores enough” to satisfy him. If Adams knew or suspected that Hamilton was interested in men, this could actually be an allusion to that. It would probably have made perfect sense to Adams that Hamilton had reached that level of debauchery, because we know from another letter exchange between himself and Abigail that they both believed Hamilton was committing, as they saw it, “incest” with his sister-in-law. And since sodomy was seen in Massachusetts 18th century culture as the next logical step on that slippery sex slope, it actually makes perfect sense that Adams would latch on to such an insinuation.

Frankly, I’ve always suspected that Adams’ unbridled hatred of Hamilton and bizarre obsession with his personal life were the results of a personal, rather than a professional animosity. His hostility towards others who he had professional issues with is, as everything with him, well documented, and comparatively tame. While he and Hamilton did have a lot of professional issues, I don’t feel that that explains the metric fuckton of words Adams spilled for decades just to vilify him. I do actually think that Charles is the key here. He sent his son to apprentice under Hamilton largely because Hamilton had a (well deserved) reputation for working his interns like dogs, and literally not giving them enough time away from their desks in which to fuck up. Charles was sent there to acquire a work ethic. As we all know, he did not. From Adams’ standpoint, instead of teaching his son how to be a responsible adult, Hamilton teaches him how to be a degenerate! He introduces him to the Baron, suddenly Charles is acting kinda gay, and I mean just look at how the Treasury Secretary behaves in public! Where else could Charles have learned it? (sarcasm/Adams-logic). Adams also believed that Hamilton either drank too much or couldn’t hold his liquor (he was smol I believe it), and Charles develops alcoholism. Adams couldn’t blame genetics because he didn’t know about that yet, so he blamed the next obvious culprit! No, not himself, Hamilton! Last but far from least, Charles’ problems start when he gets involved with shitty money schemes proposed to him by Nabby’s shitty husband’s shitty relatives. Adams, being himself a classical Whig, and subscribing to the antisemitic European tradition that people who are good with money are evil and untrustworthy and up to no good nefariousness for the sake of nefariousness, bought into the bullshit that Hamilton was doing dastardly deeds with money. After interning for Hamilton, Charles falls victim to some sneaky people doing dastardly deeds with money. Coincidence? Adams thinks not.

In conclusion, the possibility that John Adams “knew” about Hamilton’s weakness for other than the female sex changes the tone of a lot of his Hamilton-bashing, and adds to the reasons Adams had for truly despising him, in that it gives him another way to blame Hamilton for Charles’ behavioral issues.