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Alexander Hamilton was an Army officer, Founding Father, American politician, leading statesman, financier, political theorist and one of America's foremost constitutional lawyers. He was a leader in calling the U.S. Constitutional Convention in 1787 and one of the two leading authors of the Federalist Papers, the most important interpretation of the United States Constitution.
He was likely born on the island of Nevis in the British West Indies. The exact date of his birth is unknown, and even his year of birth is an item of dispute among scholars. The youngest of two illegitimate sons born to Rachel Faucett Lavien and James Hamilton. Alexander had no birth certificate nor baptismal record to track his early journey. The only trace is a document stating his age at 13 when his mother died in 1768. Alexander, his brother James, and their mother, who had been abandoned by their undependable father in 1765 on St. Croix, lived at the bottom of white society on the island. He was aware that, having no money, family connections, or inherited prestige, nothing would be handed to him. He would have to work harder and excel beyond everyone else in order to make a name for himself, which is what he resolved to do early on.
Hamilton landed a job as a clerk with the international trading firm of Nicholas Cruger, a New Yorker whose business hub was on St. Croix. His exceptional skills and endless learning capacity soon saw him running the firm upon the owner's absence. As a teenager, Hamilton was inspecting cargoes, advising ships' captains, and preparing bills of lading. Under Cruger's tutelage, Hamilton mastered the intricacies of global finance and experienced first hand how the material interests of peoples and countries interwove in the complicated fabric of international trade.
Whereas Cruger exposed Alexander Hamilton to material realities, the Reverend Hugh Knox provided him with a strong spiritual and intellectual grounding. Knox was a Scottish Presbyterian minister at odds with the mainstream of his faith because of his firm belief in free will. Hamilton expanded his intellect in Knox's library, where he read voluminously in the classics, literature, and history. Hamilton, who had early fancied himself a writer, published an occasional poem in the local paper, and impressed the residents of the island with a particularly vivid account of a hurricane in 1772.
It was clear to all who encountered the young man that he was much too brilliant and determined to remain in what Hamilton himself termed "the grovelling condition of a clerk." Cruger, Knox, and other wealthy islanders, sent Hamilton off in June of 1773 to the Elias Boudinot family, in New York to study medicine, most likely in the hope that he would return to the island and set up his practice there. But Alexander Hamilton was to never look back.
Following the Boston Tea Party in December of 1773, Hamilton had journeyed to Boston to investigate the situation, and came back to New York convinced that the American colonists had a valid argument against England. Dedication to making informed decisions was to become a familiar working pattern for Hamilton, he researched extensively and often conducted lengthy fact-finding missions before he came to any major decisions.
In 1774, Hamilton began his studies in medicine at King's College (now Columbia University). At the time he entered college the first Continental Congress was meeting to decide the future of the colonies under the increasingly tyrannical rule of the English government. Although Kings College was known for its loyalist leanings, Hamilton's American benefactors, were Presbyterians of the Whig persuasion who supported rebellion against England.
When armed hostilities broke out at Lexington and Concord in April of 1775, Hamilton and some of his college friends formed a drilling company. In the summer of 1776, as the British fleet sailed toward New York harbor, Hamilton responded to a call for recruits, and upon studying the science of artillery, was appointed Captain of the Provincial Company of Artillery.
The professionalism of the New York artillery company and its commander impressed all the senior officers who had dealings with it, including Henry Knox, artillery commander of the Continental army. Hamilton and his company fought with Washington's army at Long Island in August of 1776, followed him on campaign to White Plains, and took part in the Delaware river crossing to participate in the victories at Trenton and Princeton that closed out that year.
Hamilton had earlier refused similar positions, but when Washington offered Hamilton the position of aide-de-camp in 1777, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he accepted the prestigious position with the commander-in-chief.
Perhaps nothing contributed more to the formation of Hamilton's political outlook than his experience at Valley Forge. While General Howe and his army were living large in Philadelphia, Washington's forces wintered at the desolate but easily defendable encampment. Washington's appeal to congress for supplies yielded little more than suggestions that they scavenge the countryside for what they needed. While he helplessly watched soldiers starve and the talk of conspiracies loomed against Washington, Hamilton came to the conclusion that congress was too preoccupied with state interests to function properly, and began forming his opinions on strong central government.
Headquarters was swimming with foreign mercenaries who would likely share the shameful situation at Valley Forge with their countrymen. The United States would be a laughing stock, Hamilton worried, which no other country, especially France with whom they were negotiating an alliance, would want to waste resources to help militarily or monetarily. If congress was powerless to raise and appropriate money to supply its own army, what was it good for? Not content to simply ask questions, Hamilton began formulating a plan of what needed to be done to improve the working of the central government, and thus preserve the nation.
The French finally officially recognized the United States as an independent nation, and pledged military support. As Hamilton was fluent in French, Washington entrusted him as interpreter between himself and French Admiral D'Estaing as they planned the Franco-American campaign. In June of 1778, Washington's strategy of harassment strikes on the British eventually brought both armies into battle at Monmouth courthouse. Hamilton rode with Washington to the much needed victory at Monmouth as it raised the morale of his troops who were still reeling from their experience at Valley Forge.
Hamilton's meteoric rise to power from out of nowhere fueled a fair share of disdain by some. Most of Washington's communications were written in Hamilton's hand - and when someone wanted to get to Washington, they knew their best route was through Hamilton. A dashing, elegant blonde, who was also brilliant and witty, Hamilton won the hearts of both men and women with his social charm, and was highly respected for his intellect and intensity at work. Everyone who came in contact with him considered him extraordinary. He was, as some may have said, "Larger than Life", and as such, when Hamilton did not inspire affection, he often incited fierce jealousy.
Congress, always wary of plots and already fearful of Washington's growing power and popularity as the war dragged on, began to focus on Hamilton, whom they saw as a shadowy figure with enough influence to sway the incorruptible Washington to fulfill whatever equally shadowy agenda they ascribed to him. When they began inquiring into Hamilton's background, they found out that he was not from a respected American family, nor even an American by birth.
Hamilton met and fell in love with Elizabeth Schuyler in 1780 during winter camp at Morristown. The Schyuler family was one of the wealthy Dutch dynasties of New York. Elizabeth's father, Major General Philip Schuyler, was acquainted with Hamilton and delighted with the match, despite the fact that Hamilton was penniless. Not inconsiderable was the fact that the marriage would be a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Early in 1781 Hamilton and Washington got into an argument which ended in Hamilton telling him to "go fly a kite" just before storming out of the office. Washington swallowed his pride and made overtures to Hamilton, but Hamilton remained impervious. He and Washington dealt with business by dashing off icy letters to each other for a while and in April he handed in his official resignation as Washington's aide-de-camp.
Hamilton began studying law in Albany, just after Robert Morris had appointed him Continental receiver of taxes for the state of New York in 1782. Within six months Hamilton had completed the three year law course, passed his examinations, and was admitted to the New York bar. That same year, he was also appointed as delegate to the Continental Congress.
By late 1783, Alexander Hamilton was busy representing loyalists from his private law practice on Wall Street. The Trespass and Confiscation Acts, which, respectively, enabled patriots who fled the city to sue loyalists who had occupied their property in the interim for rent and damages, and refused loyalists the return of property confiscated during the war. Hamilton's reasons for defending loyalists were many, and consistent with his vision for the future of the United States.
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. His public career resumed when he attended the Annapolis Convention as a delegate in 1786 and drafted its resolution for a Constitutional convention.
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. Early in the Convention he made a speech proposing a monarchical government for the United States. As one of his most eloquent speeches, he asserted the ideal form of government would represent 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.
Hamilton took the lead in 1778 for the successful ratification of the U.S. Constitution in New York, a crucial victory. He recruited John Jay and James Madison to write a defense of the proposed Constitution, now known as The Federalist Papers, but he made the largest contribution, writing 51 of the 85 that were published. Hamilton's essays were influential in many states 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.
President George Washington appointed Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury in 1789 and within a year, Hamilton submitted five reports that amounted to a financial revolution for the American Economy. In one report, he made the proposal to have 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 Speaker of the House of Representatives 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.
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, passed legislative opposition and became law.
In one of the five reports Hamilton submitted to Congress was a liberally construed formulation of a General Welfare clause, and in another, he counters Jefferson's vision of an Agrarian American nation of farmers and gives a clear vision for an industrial economy, subservient to manufacturing interests. The complete Hamiltonian program replaced the chaotic financial system of the confederation era with an apparatus to provide 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. At the time, whiskey was commonly made and used often in place of currency by most of the communities in Western Pennsylvania and western Virginia.
In 1794, Hamilton had a torrid affair with Maria Reynolds. Her husband, James, blackmailed Hamilton by threatening to tell his 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 finger a top level official for corruption. When rumors began spreading, Hamilton shocked his family and supporters by publishing a narrative of the affair in detail, thus permanently injuring his reputation. Hamilton resigned as Secretary of the Treasury in 1795.
Hamilton's retirement did not remove him from public life. With the resumption of his private law practice, he remained close to Washington as an adviser and friend. Hamilton influenced Washington in the composition of his Farewell Address. During his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton helped found the United States Mint, the First National Bank, the United States Coast Guard, and an elaborate system of duties, tariffs, and excises. Afterwards, George Washington and members of his Cabinet often consulted with him privately.
Alexander Hamilton's Presidential Portrait has adorned the face of the 10 Dollar Bill with the U.S. Treasury on the reverse, from 1929 to present. A fitting commemoration for America's first banker, which devised a national economic foundation which has proven to scale with the growth of the economy.