Biography of Alexander Hamilton
alexander hamiltondelegate to the Constitutional Convention and principal author of the Federalist Papers, was the first United States Secretary of the Treasury.
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Alexander Hamilton was born around January 11, 1755 or 1757 (the exact date is unknown), on the island of Nevis, in the British West Indies.
In 1777, Hamilton became the aide to General George Washington. In 1788, he convinced New Yorkers to ratify the United States Constitution. He later served as the nation’s first Secretary of the Treasury, from 1789 to 1795.
On July 12, 1804, in New York City, Hamilton died of a gunshot wound sustained during a duel with Aaron Burr.
Early life
Founding father Alexander Hamilton was born around January 11, 1755 or 1757 (exact date unknown), on the island of Nevis in the British West Indies.
Hamilton’s parents were Rachel Fawcett Lavien, of British and French Huguenot descent, and James Hamilton, a Scottish merchant.
At the time of Alejandro’s birth, Raquel was married to John Lavien, a much older merchant whom her parents had pressured her into marrying as a teenager.
They had a son, Peter together. Lavien was abusive towards Rachel and she had spent almost all the money she had inherited from her when her father died in 1745. During her tumultuous relationship, under Danish law, she even had her imprisoned for several months for adultery. .
When she was released, instead of returning to her husband and son, the independent Rachel fled the troubled marriage and moved to St. There she met and moved in with James Hamilton, with whom she had another son, James, Alexander’s older brother, who was born in 1753.
After returning to Santa Cruz, James Sr. abandoned the family when Alexander was a child, leaving Rachel and her children impoverished.
John Adams would one day characterize Hamilton’s rise from humble beginnings by describing the young Hamilton as «the bratty bastard of a Scottish peddler».
Determined to improve his lot in life, Hamilton took his first job at the tender age of 11, not long after his father left.
But the family soon suffered another sad blow. After working tirelessly to make ends meet, his mother fell ill and died in 1768 at the age of 38.
Working as a bookkeeper at a mercantile in Santa Cruz, the bright and ambitious young man quickly impressed his employer. Through this early experience, Alexander Hamilton was first exposed to international trade (including the importation of slaves) and learned about the business of money and trade.
Hamilton’s boss, a businessman named Nicolas Cruger, so valued Hamilton’s acumen when it came to accounting that he and other businessmen pooled their resources with a minister and newspaper publisher named Hugh Knox to send Hamilton to United States to receive an education.
Hamilton had impressed Knox with an eloquent letter he had written describing a ferocious hurricane that had struck the island in 1772.
In 1773, when he was about 16 years old, Hamilton arrived in New York, where he enrolled at King’s College (later renamed Columbia University).
Despite his gratitude to his generous patrons, with the American colonies on the brink of revolution, Hamilton was drawn more to political involvement than to academics.
In 1774, he wrote his first political article championing the patriots’ cause against the interests of British loyalists.
A quick learner, Hamilton considered himself capable of becoming a self-made man. Intent on learning through practical experience, he left King’s College before graduating to join the Patriots in their protest of British-imposed taxes and trade regulations.
Military career
In 1775, when the Revolutionary War began, Hamilton joined the New York Provincial Artillery Company and fought in the battles of Long Island, White Plains, and Trenton.
In 1777, after Hamilton had fought in that year’s battles at Brandywine Creek, Germantown, and Princeton, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army.
During his early service in the fight for American independence, he caught the eye of General George Washington, who made Hamilton his trusted aide and adviser. Over the next five years, Hamilton put his writing skills to use.
He wrote letters critical of Washington, and composed numerous reports on the strategic reform and restructuring of the Continental Army. Around the same time, Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler, who came from a wealthy New York family.
Increasingly restless in his desk job, in 1781 Hamilton convinced Washington to let him try some battlefield action. With Washington’s permission, Hamilton led a victorious charge against the British at the Battle of Yorktown.
Cornwallis’s surrender during this battle would ultimately lead to two important negotiations in 1783: the Treaty of Paris between the United States and Great Britain, and two treaties signed at Versailles between France and Great Britain and Spain.
These treaties and several others comprise the collection of peace agreements known as the Peace of Paris, which officially marks the end of the American Revolutionary War.
While serving as an adviser to George Washington, Hamilton had become aware of the weaknesses of Congress, including jealousy and resentment between states, which Hamilton claimed stemmed from the Articles of Confederation. (He believed that the Articles—considered America’s first informal constitution—separated rather than unified the nation.)
Hamilton left his advisory position in 1782, convinced that establishing a strong central government was the key to achieving American independence. It would not be the last time that Hamilton worked for the United States Army.
In 1798, Hamilton was appointed inspector general and second in command, as the United States prepared for a possible war with France. In 1800, Hamilton’s military career came to a sudden halt when the United States and France reached a peace agreement.
Law career
Hamilton left his position as adviser to George Washington to study law. After completing a brief apprenticeship and passing the exam, he established a practice in New York City.
Most of Hamilton’s early clients were the unpopular British Loyalists, who continued to swear allegiance to the King of England.
When British forces seized power over New York state in 1776, many New York rebels fled the area, and British loyalists, many of whom had traveled from other states and sought protection during that time, began to occupy abandoned houses and businesses.
When the War of Independence ended almost a decade later, many rebels again found their houses occupied, and sued the Loyalists for compensation (for using and/or damaging their property). Hamilton defended the Loyalists against the rebels.
In 1784, Hamilton faced the case of Rutgers v. Waddington, which involved the rights of the Loyalists.
It was a landmark case for the American justice system, as it led to the creation of the judicial review system.
That same year he accomplished another historic feat, when he helped found the Bank of New York. By defending Loyalists, Hamilton instituted new principles of due process.
Hamilton took on another 45 trespassing cases, and proved instrumental in the eventual repeal of the Trespassing Act, which had been established in 1783 to allow rebels to collect damages from Loyalists who had occupied their homes and business.
Being a lawyer took Hamilton further into politics, as he used his profession as a vehicle to achieve his political goals.
After serving as Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795, he returned to his law practice in Manhattan, distinguishing himself as one of the most prestigious lawyers in the city.
Throughout his legal career, Hamilton remained actively involved in public and political affairs, ranking among the most sought-after advisers to United States presidents.
Politic and government
Hamilton’s political agenda involved the establishment of a stronger federal government under a new Constitution. In 1787, while serving as a delegate from New York, he met in Philadelphia with other delegates to discuss how to fix the Articles of Confederation, which were so weak that they could not persist in keeping the Union intact.
During the meeting, Hamilton expressed his opinion that a reliable and continuous source of income would be crucial to developing a more powerful and resilient central government.
Hamilton did not have a great influence on the writing of the Constitution, but he was very influential in its ratification or approval. In collaboration with James Madison and John Jay, Hamilton wrote 51 of the 85 essays under the collective title The Federalist (later known as The Federalist Papers). In essays, he skillfully explained and defended the newly drafted Constitution before it was passed.
In 1788, at the New York Ratification Convention in Poughkeepsie, where two-thirds of the delegates opposed the Constitution, Hamilton was a powerful advocate for ratification, effectively arguing against anti-Federalist sentiment. His efforts succeeded when New York agreed to ratify, and the remaining eight states followed his lead.
When George Washington was elected President of the United States in 1789, he appointed Alexander Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury.
At the time, the nation was facing large external and internal debt due to expenses incurred during the American Revolution.
Always in favor of a strong central government, during his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton ran into other cabinet members who feared that a central government would have so much power.
Lacking state loyalties, Hamilton came to reject New York’s chance to host the nation’s capital in favor of securing support for his economic program, dubbed the «dinner table deal.»
Hamilton believed that the Constitution gave him the authority to create economic policies that would strengthen the central government.
His proposed fiscal policies initiated the payment of federal war bonds if the federal government assumed the debts of the states, instituted a federal system of tax collection, and would help the United States establish credit with other nations.
State loyalists were outraged by Hamilton’s suggestions, until an agreement was reached during a conversation between Hamilton and Madison on June 20, 1790.
Hamilton was of…