Hamilton–Reynolds affair
It involved Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, who conducted an affair with Maria Reynolds from 1791 to 1792, during the presidency of George Washington.
In 1797, Hamilton publicly admitted to the affair after his political enemies accused him of financial corruption during his time as the Treasury Secretary.
In the summer of 1791, 23-year-old Maria Reynolds allegedly approached the married 34-year-old Alexander Hamilton in Philadelphia to request his help and financial aid by claiming that her husband, James, had abandoned her.
"[3] The common practice in the day was for the wronged husband to seek retribution in a pistol duel, but Reynolds, realizing how much Hamilton had to lose if the activity came into public view, insisted on monetary compensation instead.
[6] After extorting $1000 in exchange for secrecy over Hamilton's adultery,[8] James Reynolds rethought his request for Hamilton to cease his relationship with Maria and wrote inviting him to renew his visits "as a friend,"[9] only to extort forced "loans" after each visit, which the most-likely-colluding Maria solicited with her letters.
[11] Hamilton had possibly become aware of both Reynoldses being involved in the blackmail[12] and both welcomed and strictly complied with James' request to end the affair.
[2] In November 1792, after James Reynolds was jailed for participation in a scheme involving unpaid back wages intended for Revolutionary War veterans, he used his own knowledge about Hamilton's sex affair to bargain his way out of his own troubles.
Reynolds knew that Hamilton would have to choose between revealing his affair with Maria or falsely admitting complicity to the charges.
James Monroe, Abraham Venable, and Frederick Muhlenberg were the first men to hear of this possible corruption within the nation's new government, and on December 15, 1792, they decided to confront Hamilton personally with the information that they had received, supported by the notes of Hamilton's payments to Reynolds that Maria had given them to corroborate her husband's accusations.
While Hamilton's admitted affair served to confirm Jefferson's conviction that he was untrustworthy, it did nothing to change Washington's opinion of him, who still held him in "very high esteem" and still viewed him as the dominant force in establishing the federal law and government.
[18] The first movie depicting Hamilton's life was a 1918 silent film about his affair with Maria Reynolds titled The Beautiful Mrs.
Hamilton becomes involved in the affair with Reynolds in the song "Say No to This", and his political opponents accuse him of fiscal corruption—prompting him to defend himself by saying the financial transactions were actually hush money for a sex scandal—in "We Know".
