Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757 – July 12, 1804) was the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, a Founding Father, economist, and political philosopher. He led calls for the Philadelphia Convention, was one of America's first Constitutional lawyers, and cowrote the Federalist Papers, a primary source for Constitutional interpretation.
Easton Press Alexander Hamilton books
The Federalist Papers - 100 Greatest Books Ever Written - 1979
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The Federalist - 100 Greatest Books of All Time - 1977
The Federalist American State Papers - Great Books of the Western World - 1980
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Born on the British West Indian island of Nevis, Hamilton was educated in the Thirteen Colonies. During the American Revolutionary War, he joined the New York militia and was chosen artillery captain. Hamilton became senior aide-de-camp and confidant to General George Washington, and led three battalions at the Siege of Yorktown. He was elected to the Continental Congress, but resigned to practice law and to found the Bank of New York. He served in the New York Legislature, and was the only New Yorker who signed the Constitution. As Washington's Treasury Secretary, he influenced formative government policy widely. An admirer of British political systems, Hamilton emphasized strong central government and implied powers, under which the new U.S. Congress funded the national debt, assumed state debts, created a national bank, and established an import tariff and whiskey tax.
By 1792, a Hamilton coalition and a Jefferson–Madison coalition had arisen (the formative Federalist and Democratic-Republican Parties), which differed strongly over Hamilton's domestic fiscal goals and his foreign policy of extensive trade and friendly relations with Britain. Exposed in an affair with Maria Reynolds, Hamilton resigned from the Treasury in 1795 to return to Constitutional law and advocacy of strong federalism. In 1798, the Quasi-War with France led Hamilton to argue for, organize, and become de facto commander of a national army.
Hamilton's opposition to fellow Federalist John Adams contributed to the success of Democratic-Republicans Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr in the uniquely deadlocked election of 1800. With his party's defeat, Hamilton's nationalist and industrializing ideas lost their former national prominence. In 1801, Hamilton founded the New York Post as the Federalist broadsheet New York Evening Post. His intense rivalry with Vice President Burr eventually resulted in a duel, in which Hamilton was mortally wounded, dying the following day.
Early years
By his own account, Hamilton was born in Charlestown, the capital of Nevis in the British West Indies, out of wedlock to Rachel Faucett Lavien, of part French Huguenot descent, and James A. Hamilton, fourth son of Scottish laird Alexander Hamilton of Grange, Ayrshire. He was born on January 11 in either 1755 or in 1757; most historians now say 1755, although disagreement remains. A young Hamilton claimed 1757 as his birth year when he first arrived in the Thirteen Colonies; but he is also recorded in probate papers, shortly after his mother's death, as being 13 years old, indicating 1755. Explanations for this discrepancy include that he may have been trying to appear younger than his college classmates or to avoid standing out as older, that the probate document may have misreported, or that he may have been passing as 13 to be more employable after his mother's death. He was often approximate about his age in his later life.
Hamilton's mother had been separated previously from Johann Michael Lavien of St. Croix; to escape an unhappy marriage, Rachel left her husband and first son for St. Kitts in 1750, where she met James. They moved together to Rachel's birthplace of Nevis, where she had inherited property from her father. Their two sons were James, Jr., and Alexander. Because Hamilton's parents were not legally married, the Church of England denied him membership or education in the church school. Instead, he received "individual tutoring" and classes in a private Jewish school. Hamilton supplemented his education with a family library of thirty-four books, including Greek and Roman classics.
A 1765 business assignment led Hamilton's father to move the family to Christiansted, St. Croix; he then abandoned Rachel and the two sons. Rachel supported the family by keeping a small store in Christiansted. She contracted a severe fever and died on February 19, 1768, leaving Hamilton effectively orphaned. This may have had severe emotional consequences for him, even by the standards of an eighteenth-century childhood. In probate court, Hamilton's half-brother obtained the few valuables Rachel had owned, including some household silver. Many items were auctioned off, but a friend purchased the family books and returned them to the studious young Hamilton. (Years later Hamilton received his half-brother's death notice and a small amount of money.)
Hamilton then became a clerk at a local import-export firm, Beekman and Cruger, which traded with New England; he was left in charge of the firm for five months in 1771, while the owner was at sea. He and his older brother James were adopted briefly by a cousin, Peter Lytton, but when Lytton committed suicide, Hamilton was split from his brother. James apprenticed with a local carpenter, while Hamilton was adopted by Nevis merchant Thomas Stevens. Some evidence suggests Stevens may have been Hamilton's biological father: his son, Edward Stevens, became a close friend of Hamilton; the two boys looked much alike, were both fluent in French, and shared similar interests.
Hamilton continued clerking, remained an avid reader, developed an interest in writing, and began to long for a life off his small island. A letter of Hamilton's was first published in the Royal Danish-American Gazette, describing a hurricane that had devastated Christiansted on August 30, 1772. The impressed community began a collection for a subscription fund to educate the young Hamilton on the mainland of North America.
Education
Hamilton arrived, by way of Boston, at a grammar school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in the autumn of 1772. In 1773, he studied with Francis Barber at Elizabethtown, in preparation for college work; there he came under the influence of a leading intellectual and revolutionary, William Livingston. Hamilton may have applied to the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) but if so, he was refused admission because he insisted on studying as fast as he could; he decided to attend King's College in New York City (now Columbia University). While studying there, Hamilton and several classmates were members of a campus literary group that foreran Columbia's Philolexian Society.
When Church of England clergyman Samuel Seabury published a series of pamphlets promoting the Tory cause the following year, Hamilton struck back with his first political writings, A Full Vindication of the measures of Congress and The Farmer Refuted. He published two additional pieces attacking the Quebec Act as well as fourteen anonymous installments of "The Monitor" for Holt's New York Journal. Although Hamilton was a supporter of the Revolutionary cause at this prewar stage, he did not approve of mob reprisals against loyalists. One generally accepted account details how Hamilton saved his college president, Tory sympathizer Myles Cooper, from an angry mob, by speaking to the crowd long enough for Cooper to escape the danger.
Military career
After the first engagement of American troops with the British in Boston Hamilton joined a New York volunteer militia company called the Hearts of Oak in 1775 . He drilled with the company (which included other King's students) before classes in the graveyard of nearby St. Paul's Chapel. Hamilton studied military history and tactics on his own, and achieved the rank of lieutenant. Under fire from the HMS Asia, he led a successful raid for British cannon in the Battery, the capture of which resulted in the Hearts of Oak becoming an artillery company thereafter. Through his connections with influential New York patriots like Alexander McDougall and John Jay, he raised his own artillery company of sixty men in 1776, a company which is the only unit from the Revolutionary War still in service with the American Army. Drilling them, selecting and purchasing their uniforms with funds he helped raise, and winning their loyalty, they chose the young man as their captain. He earned the interest of Nathanael Greene and George Washington by the proficiency and bravery he displayed in the campaign of 1776 around New York City, particularly at the Battle of Harlem Heights.
After turning down invitations to serve under several different high-ranking officers, Hamilton joined Washington's staff in March 1777 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Hamilton served for four years, in effect, as Washington's Chief of Staff. He handled the "letters to Congress, state governors, and the most powerful generals in the Continental Army." He drafted many of Washington's orders and letters at the latter's direction, and was eventually allowed to "issue orders from Washington over his own signature." Hamilton was involved in a wide variety of high-level duties, including: intelligence, diplomacy, and negotiation with general officers as Washington's emissary. The important duties with which he was entrusted attest to Washington's deep confidence in his abilities and character, then and afterward. Indeed, reciprocal confidence and respect initially took the place of personal attachment in their relations.
During the war Hamilton became close friends with several fellow officers, including John Laurens and the Marquis de Lafayette. Jonathan Katz argues that Hamilton's letters to Laurens reveal at least a homosocial attachment and perhaps, in coded allusions to Greek history and mythology, a relationship modern readers would label homosexual; Ron Chernow implies this in discussing Laurens. Thomas Flexner portrays a similar homosocial relationship with Lafayette. These biographers may well be over-reading the literary conventions of the late eighteenth century, an age of sentiment
Hamilton repeatedly sought independent command, especially of small units. He became impatient of detention in what he regarded as a subordinate position. Hamilton wanted a combat command position, and an opportunity for military glory before the war was over. In February 1781, he used a slight reprimand from Washington as an excuse for resigning his staff position. After hounding Washington and others for a field command, he submitted a letter to Washington in early July of 1781 with his commission enclosed, "thus tacitly threatening to resign if he didn't get his desired command." On July 31, 1781, Hamilton was given command of a New York light infantry battalion. In the planning for the assault on Yorktown, Hamilton was given command of three battalions which were to fight in conjunction with French troops in taking Redoubts #9 and #10 of the British fortifications at Yorktown. Hamilton and his battalions fought bravely and took Redoubt #10 with bayonets as planned. The French also fought bravely, took heavy casualties, and successfully took Redoubt #9. This action forced the British surrender at Yorktown, effectively ending the British effort to reclaim the Thirteen Colonies.
Under the Confederation
After Yorktown, Hamilton resigned his commission. He was elected a member of the Continental Congress from New York in July 1782. While he was there, several Congressmen from that area, including Hamilton, Robert and Gouverneur Morris wanted to acquire stable revenues for the Confederation. They attempted to persuade the states of this by encouraging the Newburgh conspiracy of discontented Continental officers, who wanted to be sure Congress paid their pensions, by the threat of mutiny. This would be most likely to succeed if Washington were at the head of the movement, and Hamilton wrote to persuade him. Washington did indeed go to Newburgh, but called the officers together and rebuked them for their arrogance, when he himself had grown gray in their service. He also wrote Hamilton, criticizing the Congressmen severely for playing with so "dangerous an instrument" as an army and making the veterans "mere Puppets to establish Continental funds".
In 1783, Hamilton resigned to open his own law office in New York City. He specialized in defending Tories and British subjects, as in Rutgers v. Waddington, in which he defeated a claim for damages done to a brewery by the Englishmen who held it during the military occupation of New York. He pleaded that the Mayor's Court should interpret state law to be consistent with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which had ended the Revolutionary War.
In 1784, he founded the Bank of New York, now the oldest ongoing banking organization in the United States. Hamilton was one of the men who restored King's College as Columbia College, which had been suspended since the Battle of Long Island in 1776 and severely crippled by the Revolutionary War. His public career resumed when he attended the Annapolis Convention as a delegate in 1786 and drafted its resolution for a Constitutional convention.
Constitution and the Federalist Papers
In 1787, he served as assemblyman from New York County in the New York State Legislature and was the first delegate chosen to the Constitutional Convention. Hamilton's direct influence at the Convention was limited, since New York had chosen two Clintonians (under George Clinton), who opposed a strong national governments, as the other two delegates. While they were present, they decided New York's vote; and when they left the convention in protest, Hamilton remained with no vote (two representatives were required for any state to cast a vote).
Early in the Convention he made a speech proposing what was considered a very monarchical government for the United States; though regarded as one of his most eloquent speeches, it had little effect, and deliberations continued largely ignoring his suggestions. Based on his interpretation of history, he concluded the ideal form of government had represented all the interest groups, but maintained a hereditary monarch to decide policy. In Hamilton's opinion, this was impractical in the United States; nevertheless, the country should mimic this form of government as closely as possible. He proposed, therefore, to have a President and elected Senators for life. He was also for the abolition of the state governments. Much later, he stated that his "final opinion" in the Convention was that the President should have a three year term. The notes of the Convention are rather brief; there has been some speculation that he might have also proposed a longer, and more republican, plan.
During the convention, he constructed a draft on the basis of the debates which he did not actually present. This has most of the features of the actual Constitution, down to such details as the three-fifths clause, but not all of them. In his draft, the Senate was to be elected in proportion to population, being two-fifths the size of the House, and the President and Senators were to be elected through complex multi-stage elections, in which chosen electors would elect smaller bodies of electors; they would hold office for life, but were removable for misconduct. The President would have an absolute veto. The Supreme Court was to have immediate jurisdiction over all suits involving the United States, and State governors were to be appointed by the Federal Government.
Despite his reservations about the finished Constitution, he became a stalwart promoter and took the lead in the successful campaign for its ratification in New York (1788), a crucial victory for national ratification. Hamilton recruited John Jay and James Madison to write a defense of the proposed Constitution, now known as The Federalist Papers, and made the largest contribution to that effort, writing 51 of 85 essays published (Madison wrote 29, Jay only five). Hamilton's essays and arguments were influential in New York State, and elsewhere, during the debates over ratification. The Federalist Papers are more often cited than any other primary source by jurists, lawyers, historians and political scientists as the major contemporary interpretation of the Constitution.
In 1788, Hamilton served yet another term in what proved to be the last time the Continental Congress met under the Articles of Confederation.
Secretary of the Treasury: 1789–1795
President George Washington appointed Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton served in the Treasury Department from September 11, 1789, until January 31, 1795.
Within one year, Hamilton submitted five reports that amounted to a financial revolution in the American Economy.
First Report on the Public Credit: Communicated to the House of Representatives, January 14, 1790.
Operations of the Act Laying Duties on Imports: Communicated to the House of Representatives, April 23, 1790.
Second Report on Public Credit: Report on a National Bank. Communicated to the House of Representatives, December 14, 1790.
Report on the Establishment of a Mint: Communicated to the House of Representatives, January 28, 1791.
Report on Manufactures: Communicated to the House of Representatives, December 5, 1791.
In the Report on Public Credit, the Secretary made the controversial proposal that would have had the Federal Government assume state debts incurred during the Revolution. It was a bold move to empower the federal government over State governments, and it drew sharp criticism from Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Representative James Madison. The disagreements between Jefferson and Hamilton extended to other proposals Hamilton made to Congress, and they grew especially bitter, with Hamilton's followers known as federalists and Jefferson's as republicans. As Madison put it:
"I deserted Colonel Hamilton, or rather Colonel H. deserted me; in a word, the divergence between us took place from his wishing to administration, or rather to administer the Government into what he thought it ought to be..."
These became the first political parties in the U.S. as the Federalist Era emerged.
Jefferson and Madison eventually brokered a deal with Hamilton that required him to use his influence to place the permanent capital on the Potomac River, while Jefferson and Madison would encourage their friends to back Hamilton's assumption plan. In the end, Hamilton's assumption, together with his proposals for funding the debt, overcame legislative opposition and became law.
Hamilton's next milestone report was his "Report on Manufactures." Congress shelved the report without much debate, except for Madison's objection to Hamilton's formulation of the General Welfare clause, which Hamilton construed liberally. Nevertheless, The Report on Manufactures is a classic document heralding the industrial future America would soon inhabit. In it Hamilton counters Jefferson's vision of an Agrarian American nation of farmers and gives a clear vision for a dynamic industrial economy, subservient to manufacturing interests.
Hamilton helped found the United States Mint, the First National Bank, a "System of Cutters", forming the Revenue Cutter Service, now known as the United States Coast Guard, and an elaborate system of duties, tariffs, and excises. The complete Hamiltonian program replaced the chaotic financial system of the confederation era, in five years, with a modern apparatus to give financial stability to the new government and give investors the confidence necessary for them to invest in government bonds.
As principal sources of revenue, Hamilton's system imposed an excise tax on whiskey. Strong opposition to the whiskey tax erupted into the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794; in Western Pennsylvania and western Virginia, whiskey was commonly made and used (often in place of currency) by most of the community. In response to the rebellion—on the grounds compliance with the laws was vital to the establishment of federal authority—he accompanied President Washington, General "Light Horse Harry" Lee and more Federal troops than the Continental Line to the site of the rebellion. This overwhelming display of force intimidated the leaders of the insurrection, ending the rebellion virtually without bloodshed.
Founding the Federalist Party
Hamilton created the Federalist Party and dominated it until 1800. It was the first political party in the nation; some have called it the first mass-based party in any republic; others have seen its chief weakness in having too little connection to the masses. As early as 1790, Hamilton started putting together a nationwide coalition, using the contacts he had made in the Army and the Treasury, building vocal political support in each state by signing up prominent men who were like-minded nationalists. The friends of the government especially included merchants, bankers, and financiers in a dozen major cities. By 1792 or 1793 newspapers started calling Hamilton supporters "Federalists" and the opponents "democrats" or "republicans". Religious and educational leaders, hostile to the French Revolution, joined his coalition, especially in New England. Hamilton systematically set up a Federalist newspaper network, recruiting and subsidizing editors including Noah Webster and John Fenno; he wrote numerous anonymous editorials and essays for his papers.
In 1801, Hamilton founded his own newspaper, the New-York Evening Post, edited by William Coleman.
The Federalist and Republican newspapers of the 1790s traded "rancorous and venomous abuse." John Fenno had founded the Gazette of the United States in 1789, on Hamilton's side; Philip Freneau, known as the "Poet of the Revolution," became a Democratic-Republican editor in 1791. The Republicans attacked Hamilton as a monarchist who betrayed America's true values; after the Reynolds affair became known they used salacious humor relentlessly.
By 1792, Jefferson and Madison started an opposition caucus in Congress, which was to grow into the Democratic Republican Party). By 1795, Federalists and Republicans had organized in every state and city, firmly establishing themselves, with all the arts of politics. Hamilton had over 2,000 Treasury jobs to dispense, while Jefferson had only one. Jay's Treaty of 1794 injected foreign policy into the party debates, with Hamilton and his party favoring Britain and denouncing the French Revolution, while the Jeffersonians strongly opposed the treaty as a sellout to the archenemy.
Hamilton drafted Jay's instructions in negotiating the Treaty; he also made Jay's doing so more difficult. As part of the European war, several nations had formed a League of Armed Neutrality; the Cabinet had decided not to join it, but had kept the decision secret. Hamilton had revealed this decision in private to George Hammond, the British Minister to the United States, without telling Jay—or anyone else; it was unknown until Hammond's dispatches were read in the 1920s. This "amazing revelation" may have had limited effect on the negotiations; Jay did threaten to join the League at one point, but the British had other reasons not to view the League as a serious threat.
Industrialist
Hamilton was among the first to predict an industrial future. In 1778, he visited the Great Falls of the Passaic River in northern New Jersey and saw that the falls could one day be harnessed to provide power for a manufacturing center on the site. While still Secretary of the Treasury, in 1791, he helped to found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures, a private corporation that would use the power of the falls to operate mills. Although the company did not succeed in its original purpose, it leased the land around the falls to other mill ventures and continued to operate for over a century and a half.
Affair
In 1791, Hamilton became sexually involved in an affair with Maria Reynolds that badly damaged his reputation. Reynolds' husband, James, blackmailed Hamilton for money, threatening to inform Hamilton's wife Elizabeth. When James Reynolds was arrested for counterfeiting, he contacted several prominent members of the Democratic-Republican Party, most notably James Monroe and Aaron Burr, touting that he could expose a top level official for corruption. When they visited Hamilton with their suspicions (believing the accusation was that Hamilton had abused his position in Washington's Cabinet), Hamilton insisted he was innocent of any misconduct in public office and admitted to the affair with Maria Reynolds. When rumors began spreading, Hamilton published a confession of his affair, shocking his family and supporters by not merely confessing but narrating the affair in detail, thus injuring Hamilton's reputation for the rest of his life.
At first Hamilton accused Monroe of making his affair public, and challenged him to a duel. Aaron Burr stepped in and persuaded Hamilton that Monroe was innocent of the accusation. His well-known vitriolic temper led Hamilton to challenge several others to duels in his career.
Hamilton resigned as Secretary of the Treasury while this affair was still being investigated; he submitted his resignation on December 1, 1794, effective on January 31, 1795.
1796 presidential election
Hamilton's resignation as Secretary of the Treasury in 1795 did not remove him from public life. With the resumption of his law practice, he remained close to Washington as an adviser and friend. Hamilton influenced Washington in the composition of his Farewell Address; Washington and members of his Cabinet often consulted with him.
In the election of 1796, each of the presidential Electors had two votes, which they were to cast for different men; the one with most votes to be President, the second Vice President. This system was not designed for parties, which had been thought disreputable and fractious. The Federalists planned to deal with this by having all their Electors vote for John Adams, the Vice-President, and all but a few for Thomas Pinckney of South Carolina, then on his way home from a successful embassage to Spain. Jefferson chose Aaron Burr as his vice presidential running mate.
Hamilton, however, disliked Adams and saw an opportunity. He urged all the Northern Electors to vote for Adams and Pinckney, lest Jefferson get in; he cooperated with Edward Rutledge to have South Carolina's Electors vote for Jefferson and Pinckney. If all this worked, Pinckney would have more votes than Adams; Pinckney would be President, and Adams would remain Vice President. It did not. The Federalists found out about it (even the French minister to the United States found out about it), and Northern Federalists voted for Adams but not for Pinckney, in sufficient numbers that Pinckney came in third and Jefferson became Vice President.
Quasi-War
Adams resented this; from the non-partisan point of view, his services and seniority were much greater than Pinckney's. Adams also resented Hamilton's influence with Washington and considered him overambitious and scandalous in his private life; Hamilton compared Adams unfavorably with Washington and thought him too emotionally unstable to be President. During the Quasi-War of 1798–1800, and with Washington's strong endorsement, Adams reluctantly appointed Hamilton a major general of the army (essentially placing him in command since Washington could not leave Mt. Vernon).
Hamilton proceeded to set up an army, which was to guard against invasion and march into the possessions of Spain, then allied with France, and take Louisiana and Mexico. His correspondence further suggests that when he returned in military glory, he dreamed of setting up a properly energetic government, without any Jeffersonians. Adams, however, derailed all plans for war by opening negotiations with France. Adams had also held it right to retain Washington's cabinet, except for cause; he found, in 1800 (after Washington's death), that they were obeying Hamilton rather than himself and fired several of them.
1800 presidential election
In the 1800 election, Hamilton acted against both sides. He proposed that New York, which Burr had won for Jefferson, should have its election rerun with carefully chosen districts - a definitely non-legal maneuver. John Jay, who had given up the Supreme Court to be Governor of New York, wrote on the back of the letter the words "Proposing a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt", and declined to reply. John Adams was running this time with Pinckney's elder brother Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. On the other hand, Hamilton toured New England, again urging Northern Electors to hold firm for this Pinckney, in the renewed hope to make Pinckney President; and he again intrigued in South Carolina. This time, the important reaction was from the Jeffersonian Electors, all of whom voted both for Jefferson and Burr to ensure that no such deal would result in electing a Federalist. (Burr had received only one vote from Virginia in 1796.)
In September, Hamilton wrote a pamphlet (Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States) which was highly critical of Adams, although it closed with a tepid endorsement. He mailed this to two hundred leading Federalists; when a copy fell into Democratic-Republican hands, they printed it. This also hurt Adams's 1800 reelection campaign and split the Federalist Party, virtually assuring the victory of the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Jefferson, in the election of 1800, and destroyed Hamilton's position among the Federalists.
On the Federalist side, Governor Arthur Fenner of Rhode Island denounced these "jockeying tricks" to make Pinckney President, and one Rhode Island Elector voted for Adams and Jay. The result was that Jefferson and Burr tied for first and second; and Pinckney came in fourth.
So Jefferson had beaten Adams, but both he and his running mate, Aaron Burr, received 73 votes in the Electoral College. With Jefferson and Burr tied, the United States House of Representatives had to choose between the two men. (As a result of this election, the Twelfth Amendment was proposed and ratified, adopting the method under which presidential elections are held today.) Several Federalists who opposed Jefferson supported Burr, but Hamilton reluctantly threw his weight behind Jefferson, causing one Federalist congressman to abstain from voting after 36 tied ballots. This ensured that Jefferson was elected President rather than Burr. Even though Hamilton did not like Jefferson and disagreed with him on many issues, he was quoted as saying, "At least Jefferson was honest." Burr then became Vice President of the United States. When it became clear that he would not be asked to run again with Jefferson, Burr sought the New York governorship in 1804 but was badly defeated by forces led by Hamilton.
Family life
In spring 1779, Hamilton asked his friend John Laurens to find him a wife in South Carolina:
"She must be young—handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape) Sensible (a little learning will do)—well bred. . . chaste and tender (I am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness); of some good nature—a great deal of generosity (she must neither love money nor scolding, for I dislike equally a termagant and an economist)—In politics, I am indifferent what side she may be of—I think I have arguments that will safely convert her to mine—As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me—She must believe in God and hate a saint. But as to fortune, the larger stock of that the better."
Hamilton however found his own bride. On December 14, 1780, he married Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of General Philip Schuyler, and thus joined one of the richest and most political families in the state of New York. The marriage took place at Schuyler Mansion in Albany, New York.
Hamilton grew extremely close to Eliza's sister Angelica Church, who was married to John Barker Church, a Member of Parliament. It is believed by many that the two had an affair, although, due to extensive editing of much Hamilton-Church correspondence by Hamilton's later descendants, it is impossible to know for sure. Hamilton, however, all but admitted to his relationship with Maria Reynolds, and in later years the mixed-race abolitionist William Hamilton claimed to be Alexander's son.
Hamilton's widow, Elizabeth (known as Eliza or Betsey), survived him for fifty years, until 1854; Hamilton had referred to her as "best of wives and best of women." An extremely religious woman, Eliza spent much of her life working to help widows and orphans. After Hamilton's death, she co-founded New York's first private orphanage, the New York Orphan Asylum Society. Despite the Reynolds affair, Alexander and Eliza were very close, and as a widow she always strove to guard his reputation and enhance his standing in American history.
Hamilton and Elizabeth had 10 children, although there is some confusion due to the fact that two sons were named Philip and two were named "John C." The elder Philip, Hamilton's first child, was killed in 1801 in a duel with George I. Eacker whom he had publicly insulted in a Manhattan theater. The second Philip, Hamilton's last child, was born in 1802, after the first Philip was killed. Another Hamilton son, William S. Hamilton, became a well-known miner after migrating to Wisconsin by way of Illinois in the 1820s.
Duel with Aaron Burr
Soon after the gubernatorial election in New York—in which Morgan Lewis, greatly assisted by Hamilton, defeated Aaron Burr—a newspaper published a letter recounting a dinner party in upstate New York during which Hamilton said he could reveal "an even more despicable opinion" of Colonel Burr. Burr, sensing an attack on his honor, and surely still stung by the political defeat, demanded an apology. Hamilton refused on the grounds that he could not recall the instance.
Following an exchange of three testy letters, and despite the attempts of friends to avert a confrontation, a duel was nevertheless scheduled for July 11, 1804, along the west bank of the Hudson River on a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey, a common dueling site at which, three years earlier, Hamilton's eldest son, Philip, had been killed.
At dawn, the duel began, and Vice President Aaron Burr shot Hamilton. Hamilton's shot broke a tree branch directly above Burr's head. A letter that he wrote the night before the duel states, "I have resolved, if our interview (duel) is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire." The circumstances of the duel, and Hamilton's actual intentions, are still disputed. Neither of the seconds, Pendleton or Van Ness, could determine who fired first. Soon after, they measured and triangulated the shooting (both men were the same height), but could not determine from which angle Hamilton fired. Burr's shot, however, hit Hamilton in the lower abdomen above the right hip. The bullet ricocheted off Hamilton's second or third false rib, fracturing it and caused considerable damage to his internal organs, particularly his liver and diaphragm before becoming lodged in his first or second lumbar vertebra.
If a duelist decided not to aim at his opponent there was a well-known procedure, available to everyone involved, for doing so. Hamilton did not follow this procedure. (If so, Burr might have followed suit, and death may have been avoided.) It was a matter of honor among gentlemen to follow these rules. Because of the high incidence of septicemia and death resulting from torso wounds, a high percentage of duels employed this procedure of throwing away fire. Years later, when told that Hamilton may have misled him at the duel, the ever-laconic Burr replied, "Contemptible, if true."
Death
Hamilton was ferried back to New York. After final visits from his family and friends and considerable suffering, Hamilton died on the following afternoon, July 12, 1804. Gouverneur Morris, a political ally of Hamilton's, gave the eulogy at his funeral and secretly established a fund to support his widow and children. Hamilton was buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan.
Legacy
From the start, Hamilton set a precedent as a Cabinet member by dreaming up federal programs, writing them in the form of reports, pushing for their approval by appearing in person to argue them on the floor of the United States Congress, and then implementing them.
Another of Hamilton's legacies was his pro-Federal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Though the Constitution was drafted in a way that was somewhat ambiguous as to the balance of power between Federal and state governments, Hamilton consistently took the side of greater Federal power at the expense of states. Thus, as Secretary of the Treasury, he established against the intense opposition of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and the country's first national bank. Hamilton justified the creation of this bank, and other increased Federal powers, on Congress's constitutional powers to issue currency, to regulate interstate commerce, and anything else that would be "necessary and proper." Jefferson, on the other hand, took a stricter view of the Constitution: parsing the text carefully, he found no specific authorization for a national bank. This controversy was eventually settled by the Supreme Court of the United States in McCulloch v. Maryland, which in essence adopted Hamilton's view, granting the federal government broad freedom to select the best means to execute its constitutionally enumerated powers, specifically the doctrine of implied powers.
Hamilton's policies as Secretary of the Treasury have had an immeasurable effect on the United States Government and still continue to influence it. In 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. Navy was still using inter-ship communication protocols written by Hamilton for the original U.S. Coast Guard. His constitutional interpretation, specifically of the necessary-and-proper clause, set precedents for federal authority that are still used by the courts and are considered an authority on constitutional interpretation. The prominent French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand once said "I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton. He divined Europe."
Hamilton's portrait began to appear during the American Civil War on the $2, $5, $10, and $50 notes. His face continues to appear on the front of the ten dollar bill. Hamilton also appears on the $500 Series EE Savings Bond. The source of the face on the $10 bill is John Trumbull's 1805 portrait of Hamilton that belongs to the portrait collection of New York City Hall.
On the south side of the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C. is a statue of Hamilton. Hamilton's upper Manhattan home is preserved as Hamilton Grange National Memorial.
Slavery
In the nineteenth century, Hamilton had a reputation for having been a staunch opponent of slavery: Abraham Lincoln, for example, characterized Hamilton as among "the most noted anti-slavery men of those times." A member and officer of the New York Manumission Society, Hamilton used his influence to press the New York legislature to adopt a law prohibiting the export of slaves from the state (import was already illegal).
Some modern scholars believe that the historical record confirms Hamilton as a "steadfast abolitionist"; others see him as a "hypocrite.". For example, Hamilton returned an escaped slave to a friend. Hamilton's first polemic against King George's ministers contains a paragraph which speaks of the evils which "slavery" to the British would bring upon the Americans. One biographer sees this as an attack on actual slavery; such hostility was quite common in 1776.
During the Revolutionary War, there was a series of proposals to arm slaves, free them, and compensate their masters. Freeing any enlisted slaves had also become customary by then both for the British, who did not compensate their American masters, and for the Continental Army; some states were to require it before the end of the war. In 1779, Hamilton's friend John Laurens suggested such a unit be formed under his command, to relieve besieged Charleston, South Carolina; Hamilton wrote a letter to the Continental Congress to create up to four battalions of slaves for combat duty, and free them. Congress recommended that South Carolina (and Georgia) acquire up to three thousand slaves, if they saw fit; they did not, even though the South Carolina governor and Congressional delegation had supported the plan in Philadelphia.
Hamilton argued that blacks' natural faculties were as good as those of free whites, and he forestalled objections by citing Frederick the Great and others as praising obedience and lack of cultivation in soldiers; he also argued that if the Americans did not do this, the British would (as they had elsewhere). One of his biographers has cited this incident as evidence that Hamilton and Laurens saw the Revolution and the struggle against slavery as inseparable. Hamilton later attacked his political opponents as demanding freedom for themselves and refusing to allow it to blacks.
In January 1785, he attended the second meeting of the (New York) Society for Promoting Manumissions. John Jay was president and Hamilton was secretary; he later became president. He was also a member of the committee of the society which put a bill through the New York Legislature banning the export of slaves from New York; three months later, Hamilton returned a fugitive slave to Henry Laurens of South Carolina.
Hamilton never supported forced emigration for freed slaves; it has been argued from this that he would be comfortable with a multiracial society, and this distinguished him from his contemporaries. In international affairs, he supported Toussaint L'Ouverture's black government in Haiti after the revolt that overthrew French control, as he had supported aid to the slaveowners in 1791 — both measures hurt France.
He may have owned household slaves himself (the evidence for this is indirect; one biographer interprets it as referring to paid employees), and he did buy and sell them on behalf of others. He supported a gag rule to keep divisive discussions of slavery out of Congress, and he supported the compromise by which the United States could not abolish the slave trade for twenty years. When the Quakers of New York petitioned the First Congress (under the Constitution) for the abolition of the slave trade, and Benjamin Franklin and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society petitioned for the abolition of slavery, the NYMS did not act.
On economics
Alexander Hamilton is sometimes considered the "patron-saint" of the American School of economic philosophy that, according to one historian, dominated economic policy after 1861. He firmly supported government intervention in favor of business, after the manner of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, as early as the fall of 1781.
Hamilton opposed the British ideas of free trade which he believed skewed benefits to colonial/imperial powers, in favor of U.S. protectionism which he believed would help develop the fledgling nation's emerging economy. Henry C. Carey was inspired by his writings. Some say he influenced the ideas and work of German Friedrich List.
Hamilton's religion
In his early life, he was an orthodox and conventional, though not deeply pious, Presbyterian. From 1777 to 1792, he appears to have been completely indifferent, and made jokes about God at the Constitutional Convention. During the French Revolution, he had an "opportunistic religiosity", using Christianity for political ends and insisting that Christianity and Jefferson's democracy were incompatible. After his misfortunes of 1801, he asserted the truth of the Christian revelation. He proposed a Christian Constitutional Society in 1802, to take hold of "some strong feeling of the mind" to elect "fit men" to office; but Hamilton now wrote also of "Christian welfare societies" for the poor. He did not join any denomination, but led his family in the Episcopal service the Sunday before the duel. After he was shot, Hamilton requested communion first from Benjamin Moore, the Episcopal Bishop of New York, who initially declined to administer the Sacrament chiefly because he did not wish to sanction the practice of dueling. Hamilton then requested communion from Presbyterian pastor John Mason, who declined on the grounds that Presbyterians did not reserve the Sacrament. After Hamilton spoke of his belief in God's mercy, and of his desire to renounce dueling, Bishop Moore reversed his decision, and administered communion to Hamilton.
Memorial at colleges
Alexander Hamilton served as one of the first trustees of the Hamilton-Oneida Academy when the school opened in 1793. When the academy received a college charter in 1812 the school was formally renamed Hamilton College. There is a prominent statue of Alexander Hamilton in front of the school's chapel (commonly referred to as the "Al-Ham" statue) and the Burke Library has an extensive collection of Hamilton's personal documents. Columbia College, Hamilton's alma mater, whose students formed his makeshift artillery company and fired some of the first shots against the British, has official memorials to Hamilton. The college's main classroom building for the humanities is Hamilton Hall, and a large statue of Hamilton stands in front of it. The university press has published his complete works in a multivolume letterpress edition.
The main administration building of the Coast Guard Academy is named Hamilton Hall, because he founded the Coast Guard.
Alexander Hamilton Quotes
"If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last.... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government." - Alexander Hamilton, Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, August 28, 1794
"For my own part, I sincerely esteem it [the Constitution] a system which without the finger of God, never could have been suggested and agreed upon by such a diversity of interests." - 1787 after the Constitutional Convention
"I have carefully examined the evidences of the Christian religion, and if I was sitting as a juror upon its authenticity I would unhesitatingly give my verdict in its favor. I can prove its truth as clearly as any proposition ever submitted to the mind of man."
On July 12, 1804 at his death, Hamilton said, “I have a tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty, through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me.”
Source and additional information: Alexander Hamilton