US statesman and political thinker, born in Nevis, British West Indies. The son of a Scottish merchant and a French Huguenot mother who died when he was 11, he went to work in a store that same year because his father's business was failing. He showed an early talent for writing and an ambition to gain an education, so aunts sent him to America (1772), and he entered King's College (now Columbia University) in 1773. Although always a moderate in his political views, he soon aligned himself with the anti-British patriots, writing lengthy pamphlets that left many amazed at the knowledge and writing skills of a 17-year-old.
With the outbreak of the American Revolution, he joined the army, and by early 1776 was fighting under George Washington's command. By March 1777 he was Washington's secretary and aide-de-camp, and soon assumed considerable responsibilities that extended well beyond organizing Washington's communications and affairs, setting forth plans to reorganize not only the present army but the government that would follow the fighting. After a minor quarrel with Washington, he got himself reassigned to head an infantry regiment that he led at the siege of Yorktown. After a term in the Continental Congress (17823), he went into private law practice in New York City. As one of New York's delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia (1787), he did not exercise much influence, as his ideas on the organization of a government were too conservative, but he signed the new constitution, and in October he published the first of the so-called Federalist papers endorsing the new government. (Of the 85 papersactually open letters, most signed by Publiushe wrote 51 and collaborated with James Madison on 3 others; Madison and John Jay wrote the remaining 31.) Hamilton also played a most crucial role in applying the power of his oratory and arguments to persuade New York State to adopt the Constitution. Selected by Washington as the first secretary of the treasury (178995), he proceeded boldly to structure the new nation's fiscal system, setting up a national bank and national mint and taking on the national debt.
But the very aggressiveness that served to strengthen the new government also contributed to the divisiveness, particularly between Thomas Jefferson and himself, that led to the emergence of two opposing political parties, the Federalists led by Hamilton and the Democratic-Republicans led by Jefferson. Hamilton resigned in 1795 and returned to private law practice in New York City, and remained recognized as head of the Federalists, but when Jefferson and Aaron Burr ended up in a tie in the presidential election of 1800, Hamilton used his influence to get the House of Representatives to choose Jefferson because he believed Burr to be a dangerous man. In 1804 Hamilton then used his influence to help defeat Burr's candicacy for the governorship of New York. Burr then challenged Hamilton to a duel, and although he was opposed to duelling, his own son having been killed in one in 1801, he met Burr early in the morning of 11 July at Weehawken, NJ; Hamilton fired into the air but Burr mortally wounded Hamilton, who died the next day.
Widely admired for his intellect, Hamilton was less popular for a certain arrogance in pursuit of his own beliefs. And if some of his ideas now seem less than congenial, especially his outspoken distrust of common people, he was probably the right man in the right place at the right time, giving form to many of the elements that allowed for the endurance of the government of the United States of America.
Alexander Hamilton|
Portrait of Alexander Hamilton by Daniel Huntington c.1865, based on a full length portrait painted by John Trumball |
|
| 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury | |
|---|---|
| In office | |
| September 11, 1789 – January 31, 1795 | |
| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | None |
| Succeeded by | Oliver Wolcott, Jr. |
| Born |
January 11, 1755 or 1757 Nevis, British West Indies |
| Died |
July 12, 1804 New York City, New York |
| Political party | The Federalist Party founder |
| Spouse | Betsey [Elizabeth] Shuyer Hamilton |
| Profession | Secretary of Treasury |
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757 — July 12, 1804) was an American politician, leading statesman, financier, intellectual, military officer, and founder of the Federalist party.
He was the first Secretary of the Treasury and had much influence over the rest of the Government and the formation of policy, including foreign policy.
Hamilton created the Federalist party, the first American political party, which he built up using patronage, networks of elite leaders, and aggressive newspaper editors. Hamilton retired from the Treasury in 1795 to practice law but returned to the public arena in December, 1798 as organizer of a new army; Hamilton also used it to threaten political foes in Virginia.
Hamilton once proposed the concept of elective monarchial republicanism in a speech at the Continental Congress , as recorded briefly in notes taken by James Madison, although he came to doubt its possibility after the election of Jefferson. The later Whig and Republican parties adopted many of Hamilton's themes, but his negative reputation after 1800 did not allow them to acknowledge his role until his style of nationalism became dominant again about 1900, when Progressives such as Theodore Roosevelt and Herbert Croly, as well as conservative Henry Cabot Lodge, revived his reputation.
Early years
Alexander Hamilton was born on the West Indies island of Nevis to James Hamilton, the fourth son of a Scottish laird, and Rachel Fawcett Lavien, of part French Huguenot descent. Hamilton's mother had been married to Johann Michael Lavien on the island of St. Croix. this is Hamilton's version, which may be a Sephardic spelling of Levine.) The couple may have lived apart from one another under an order of legal separation;
There is some uncertainty as to the year of Hamilton's birth; Most historians now use January 11, 1755, as Hamilton's birthday, although there is disagreement.
Hamilton was always sensitive about his illegitimate birth. His father abandoned his two sons in the course of breaking with Hamilton's mother. She died in 1768, leaving Hamilton effectively orphaned. A short time afterwards, Rachel's son from her first marriage appeared in Nevis, and (legally) confiscated the few valuables Hamilton's mother had owned, including several valuable silver spoons. Hamilton never saw him again, but years later received his death notice and a small amount of money.
Hamilton's business career began in 1768 at the counting house of Nicholas Cruger. Cruger took a trip off-island in 1771-72, leaving young Hamilton in charge of business affairs for five months. He opened his library to Hamilton and preached about the practical evils produced by slavery. He influenced Hamilton greatly; some biographers derive Hamilton's opposition to slavery from Knox. In September, Knox, who also edited the local paper, published a remarkable letter by Hamilton describing and moralizing about a devastating hurricane.
Education
In 1773, Hamilton attended a college-preparatory program with Francis Barber at Elizabethtown, New Jersey.
When Anglican clergyman Samuel Seabury published a series of pamphlets promoting the Tory cause with conviction, Hamilton struck back with his first political writings, A Full Vindication of the measures of Congress, and The Farmer Refuted written in 1774. Nevertheless, Hamilton is said to have preferred civil debate over revolutionary fervor; the report that he saved King's College president and Tory sympathizer Myles Cooper from an angry mob by persuasion alone is generally accepted
Military career
Hamilton joined a volunteer militia company called the Hearts of Oak in 1775 after the first engagements with British troops in Boston, and drilled with the company (which included other King's students) before classes in the graveyard of nearby St. Paul's Chapel. Hamilton achieved the rank of lieutenant, studied military history and tactics on his own and, under fire from the HMS Asia, 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.
He joined Washington's staff in March 1777 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel and for four years served in effect as his chief of staff. During the war Hamilton became close friends with several fellow officers, including John Laurens and the Marquis de Lafayette.
Hamilton repeatedly sought independent command, especially of small units.
Relationship with John Laurens
Some historians contend that Hamilton had a homosexual relationship with John Laurens while both were aide-de-camps to Washington. These reports are based upon letters Hamilton wrote to Laurens shortly after Laurens left Washington to his home state of South Carolina in an effort to persuade the legislature to recruit African American troops to fight the British. The first correspondence that we have appears to be a response from Hamilton to Laurens, written in December, 1779.
The letter says, in part: “Cold in my professions, warm in my friendships, I wish, my Dear Laurens, it might be in my power, by action rather than words to convince you that I love you. But as you have done it, and as we are generally indulgent to those we love, I shall not scruple to pardon the fraud you have committed, on condition that for my sake, if not for your own, you will always continue to merit the partiality, which you have artfully instilled into me.”
In the same letter, however, Hamilton asks 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.
In preparing a biography, Hamilton's family redacted parts of the letters the two sent one another. Hamilton was apparently never as emotionally open with any other man in his lifetime, but he knew no other comrade or peer in age, rank, and common war experience to share a deep platonic relationship with.
The two are pictured together in John Trumbull's "Surrender of Lord Cornwallis” and were featured together on a bicentennial US Stamp, issued May 19, 1976. For years, it was rumored to depict Hamilton and Laurens congratulating each other after capturing the British redoubt at Yorktown, and served a popular gay rendezvous.
Under the Confederation
After the war, he served as a member of the Congress of the Confederation from 1782 to 1783, and then he retired to open his own law office in New York City.
In 1784, he founded the Bank of New York, now the oldest ongoing banking organization in the United States, and was also instrumental, along with John Jay, in the revitalization of King's College, which had been severely crippled by the war and discredited for its Tory affiliations, as Columbia College.
Constitution and the Federalist Papers
In 1787, he served 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 at the time was dominated by Clintonians (under George Clinton) in opposition of a strong national government. Not long into the convention, the two other New York delegates left the convention in protest, and 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.
His ideal form of government would represent all the interest groups but have a hereditary monarch to decide policy.
During the convention, he constructed a draft on the basis of the debates which he did not actually present.
Hamilton was satisfied with the proposed U.S. Constitution, and became a stalwart promoter. Hamilton 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 single contribution (writing 51 of the 85 that were published). Hamilton is considered the leading interpreter of the Constitution, and his essays and arguments were influential in that state and others during the debates over ratification.
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.
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. The disagreements between Jefferson and Hamilton extended to other proposals Hamilton made to Congress, and they grew especially bitter, with Hamilton's followers calling themselves Federalists and Jefferson's calling themselves republicans. These divisions are the first manifestations of political parties in the U.S.
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.
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. 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 discusses some problems relating to Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, while borrowing from Smith's theory at the same time.
Apart from these, Hamilton helped found the United States Mint, the First National Bank, the U.S. Coast Guard, and an elaborate system of duties, tariffs, and excises. The complete Hamiltonian program is considered by many scholars to have amounted to a swift, five-year financial revolution that replaced the chaotic financial system of the confederation era with a modern apparatus to give investors the confidence necessary for them to invest in government bonds. His overall financial program is now acknowledged to have strengthened the Federal government considerably, a central objective in Hamilton's nationalist vision.
Hamilton's reports are not the only noteworthy elements of his Treasury tenure. Hamilton paid attention to how a government implemented policy, as much as what policy it implemented. "Administration," said Hamilton, "this is the true touchstone." James Madison later said:
"I deserted Colonel Hamilton, or rather Colonel H.
While Hamilton never penned a full theory of public administration, his practices in the domain reflect his recurring concern with energy and enterprise. Hamilton worked this principle into the government through his own administration of the Treasury Department and as advisor to President Washington.
As a principal sources of revenue, Hamilton's system imposed an excise tax on whiskey.
Founding the Federalist Party
Hamilton created the Federalist Party and dominated it until 1800. As early as 1790, Hamilton started putting together a nationwide coalition, using the contacts he had made in the Army and the Treasury. By 1792 or 1793 newspapers started calling Hamilton supporters "Federalists" and the opponents "democrats" or "republicans". Hamilton systematically set up a Federalist newspaper network, recruiting and subsidizing editors like Noah Webster and John Fenno;
By 1793, the opposition started forming its own national party—which had no clear name at the time but has since been called the Democratic Republicans—led by Jefferson and Madison. 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 tended to the opposite position.
The Federalist and Democratic-Republican newspapers of the 1790s traded "rancorous and venomous abuse." John Fenno had founded the Gasette of the United States in 1789, on Hamilton's side; The Democratic Republicans attacked Hamilton as a monarchist who betrayed America's true values; His arrogance was like X erxes, who flogg’d the disobedient sea, A dultery his smallest crime
Industrialist
Hamilton was among the first to predict an industrial future.
Out of the Cabinet
Affair
In 1794, Hamilton became intimately involved in an affair with Maria Reynolds that badly damaged his reputation. Reynolds's husband, James, blackmailed Hamilton for money by threatening to tell Hamilton's wife, Eliza. When they visited Hamilton with their suspicions (believing 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. 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.
1796 presidential election
Hamilton's resignation as Secretary of the Treasury in 1795 did not remove him from public life. Hamilton influenced Washington in the composition of his Farewell Address, and Washington often consulted with him, as did members of his Cabinet.
In the election of 1796, each of the presidential Electors had two votes, which they were to cast for different men;
Hamilton, however, disliked Adams and saw an opportunity. 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 because, from the non-partisan point of view, his services and seniority were much greater than Pinckney's. Relations between Hamilton and Washington's successor, John Adams, however, were frequently strained. Adams 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.
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. 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. 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;
In September, Hamilton wrote a pamphlet (Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. 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.
So Jefferson had beaten Adams; (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. Even though Hamilton did not like Jefferson and disagreed with him on many issues, he was quoted as saying, "At least Jefferson was honest." 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: [Mitchell vol 1 p 199]:
"She must be young—handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape) Sensible (a little learning will do)—well bred.
Hamilton however found his own bride.
Hamilton grew extremely close to Eliza's sister Angelica Church, who was married to John Barker Church, a Member of Parliament.
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." After Hamilton's death, she co-founded New York's first private orphanage, the New York Orphan Asylum Society.
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 from a dinner party in upstate New York, during which Hamilton, discussing Burr, said he could reveal "an even more despicable opinion" of Colonel Burr. Hamilton refused on the grounds that he could not recall the instance.
It was 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 bank of the Hudson River on a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey. It was a common dueling site at which two years earlier Hamilton's eldest son, Philip, had been killed in a duel with a prominent Jeffersonian whom he had publicly insulted in a Manhattan theater.
At dawn, the duel began, and Vice President Aaron Burr shot Hamilton. Hamilton's shot broke a tree branch directly above Burr's head. The circumstances of the duel, and Hamilton's actual intentions, are still disputed. The next day they measured and triangulated the shooting (both men were the same height) and determined that Hamilton, probably more nervous than Burr, had fired from the hip. The same guns were used in Philip Hamilton's duel and still exist today.
If a duelist decided not to aim at his opponent there was a well-known procedure, obvious to everyone present, for doing so. Hamilton did not follow this procedure. Years later, when told that Hamilton may have misled him at the duel, the ever-laconic Burr replied, "Contemptible—if true."
After considerable suffering, Hamilton died the next day and was buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan (Hamilton was Episcopalian). 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.
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 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. 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." 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. 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.
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, but after the death of Ronald Reagan, some suggested replacing Hamilton with Reagan. Hamilton also appears on the $500 Series EE Savings Bond.
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.
On slavery
In the nineteenth century, Hamilton earned 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"; 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.
During the Revolutionary War, there was a series of proposals to arm slaves, free them, and compensate their masters. 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.
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; 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 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;
He may have owned household slaves himself (the evidence for this is indirect; Historian James Horton concludes that Hamilton's racial views, while not entirely egalitarian, were relatively progressive for his day.
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.
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 main administration building of the Coast Guard Academy is named Hamilton Hall, because he founded the Coast Guard.
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