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Kiffer said, “We have been thrilled
to be part of the cultural movement
that has reestablished this Founding
Father’s rightful place in history.”
Sotheby’s, New York City
Alexander Hamilton Papers Sold
by Lita Solis-Cohen
Photos courtesy Sotheby’s
S
otheby’s successful sale of the Hamilton-Bowdoin
family archive of Alexander Hamilton letters proved that
Hamilton is no longer a neglected Founding Father. Ron
Chernow’s prize-winning best-selling biography in 2004 put
Hamilton in the light. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway musical
Hamilton
, which won 11 Tony Awards, added vibrancy to his
history, and now the sale on January 18 of a family archive has
brought $2,645,750, topping its $2.1 million presale estimate,
figured without the 25% buyer’s premium.
It was a white glove auction; that means 100% sold. The
auctioneer, Selby Kiffer, who also masterminded the sale,
received a pair of white gloves. Eleven lots surpassed the
previous auction record for any Hamilton manuscript, and seven
lots exceeded $100,000. Institutions were among the buyers,
and some bidders connected with the
Hamilton
production
were successful.
“The seventy-seven lots went to thirty-six different people,
half of whom—that’s eighteen of them—never before
participated in a Sotheby’s sale,” said a pleased Kiffer.
The Hamilton story is a compelling one. Yale historian
Joanne Freeman summed it up in her brilliant short essay in
the sale’s catalog. She told how a poor, illegitimate, orphaned
teenager in the West Indies inspired locals to collect funds
to send him north for an education and how he plunged into
the American Revolution, became a noted pamphleteer and a
soldier, and came to the attention of George Washington, who
appointed him as an aide-de-camp. Hamilton’s writing took
him into the heart of political debates and sometimes got him
into trouble. He defended the proposed U.S. Constitution in
New York newspapers and influenced public debate. She writes
of Hamilton’s national vision, “radical for its time, promoting
centralized power in a nation that had just broken away from
a monarch; weakening the political pull of state governments
among a people who had long seen their state as their country;
and promoting manufacturing in an agrarian republic.”
Freeman connects the Hamilton-Bowdoin family archive to
major facets of Hamilton’s life—his legal prowess as one of
the nation’s leading lawyers, his politicking, his family life,
his romantic entanglement with Maria Reynolds, his service
as Washington’s advisor, his concern with his honor, and his
dislike of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams are all found in
the letters that were up for sale.
The sale played to a full house. The Society of the Cincinnati
bought a letter from Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, president
general of the Society of the Cincinnati, thanking Elizabeth
Schuyler Hamilton for entrusting the society with its most
precious emblem, Washington’s jewel-encrusted insignia of
the order. It cost $25,000 (est. $10,000/15,000), even though
Pinckney’s signature had been clipped in the 19th century,
when clipped signatures were collected.
A previously unrecorded draft of Pacificus Essay VI, a fine
example of Hamilton’s writing with deletions and corrections,
sold for $262,500—the new auction record for a Hamilton
manuscript. Hamilton wrote it under the pen name Pacificus,
not the pseudonym Publius, which was the name used for the
51 articles he wrote for New York newspapers that in 1788
were compiled as
The Federalist
Papers, with additional essays
by James Madison and John Jay. None of the manuscripts for
the 1788 first printing of
The Federalist
survive. According to
Sotheby’s catalog, the Pacificus Essay VI was included in an
1802 edition of
The Federalist
Papers. Freeman writes that its
deletions and corrections reflect the energies Hamilton poured
into his newspaper writings.
The Pacificus Essay brought more than five times the
previous record for an Alexander Hamilton manuscript, which
was $44,650 paid at Christie’s in May 2001 for a letter relating
to matters of banking. Hamilton letters relating to banks and the
treasury generally bring a premium.
Alexander Hamilton’s appointment as aide-de-camp to
General George Washington was the most poignant item in
the sale. It started Hamilton’s career and his relationship with
Washington that raised him to power and prominence. By age 35
he was the leading force behind the Washington administration.
The appointment sold in the salesroom to Joe Fay, bidding for
dealer William Reese of New Haven, Connecticut, who said he
bought it for a private collector. Dealer Seth Kaller of White
Plains, New York, was the underbidder.
Hamilton’s notes prepared for Washington’s third annual
A previously unrecorded draft of Pacificus Essay VI.
As stated in the catalog, “In April 1793, President
Washington issued a Proclamation of Neutrality in the
nascent war between Revolutionary France and other
European powers: ‘Whereas it appears that a state of
war exists between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great
Britain, and the United Netherlands, of the one part,
and France on the other; and the duty and interest
of the United States require, that they should with
sincerity and good faith adopt and pursue a conduct
friendly and impartial toward the belligerent Powers;
I have therefore thought fit by these presents to declare
the disposition of the United States to observe the
conduct aforesaid towards those Powers respectfully;
and to exhort and warn the citizens of the United States
carefully to avoid all acts and proceedings whatsoever,
which may in any manner tend to contravene such
disposition.’
“The Proclamation was issued only after a
contentious debate among the cabinet; while all
agreed the United States should remain neutral, the
Democratic-Republicans saw no necessity for an official
proclamation, which they felt could forestall some
benefit from one side or the other of the belligerents
‘bidding for’American neutrality. Thomas Jefferson’s
opposition to the proclamation was so great that he
eventually resigned as Secretary of State.
“Under the pen name Pacificus, Alexander Hamilton
took up a defense of the neutrality proclamation; James
Madison (ironically one of Hamilton’s co-authors
of
The Federalist Papers
), writing as Helvidius,
responded with the opposing viewpoint. The debate
expanded into the areas of the limits of executive
authority, the separation of powers in foreign relations,
and the correct interpretation of the Constitution.”
“...Hamilton himself considered his Pacificus essays
to be the equal of the
Federalist
essays that he wrote as
Publius, even incorporating them into an 1802 edition
of
The Federalist.
As none of his
Federalist
essays
survive in manuscript, the present Pacificus paper
may be considered the most important political
holograph of Hamilton in private hands.”
It sold for $262,500, a record for a Hamilton
manuscript, to an anonymous bidder on the phone.
The bets are that the winner was an institution.
There are crossed-out paragraphs and corrections
showing how hard Hamilton worked on it.
“Alexander Hamilton Esquire is appointed Aid De-Camp to
the Commander in Chief; and is to be respected and obeyed
as such.” The one-page manuscript document (11" x 8
⅝
",
watermarked
JWhatman) is written in a neat clerical hand
in imitation of letterpress, signed by Alexander Scammell,
adjutant-general of the Continental Army, and
docketed on
the upper center of the back by Hamilton “Commission as
Aid de Camp | 1 March 1777.” It has a few light stains and
minor repairs to fold separations and sold for $212,500 (est.
$150,000/250,000) to William Reese Company, New Haven,
Connecticut. Hamilton remained on General Washington’s
staff throughout the American Revolution and later served
as arguably the most influential member of President
Washington’s cabinet. The document was known, but its
whereabouts had been unknown. It is believed that this
appointment made possible the meteoric and momentous
career of the most unlikely of the Founding Fathers.
Correspondence by and to
Alexander Hamilton about
his reputation as a soldier and
a gentleman, including one
that nearly provoked a duel
.
A
group of nine autograph letters
(including one draft) plus three
copies (one complete, two being
fragments) between Hamilton
and John Brooks, Francis Dana,
William Gordon, and David
Henley, various formats, various
places, including West Point, Jamaica
Plains, Cambridge, and Boston, July
1779 through September 1779, sold
for $100,000 (est. $100,000/150,000) to
dealer Seth Kaller of White Plains, New
York, in the salesroom.