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Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 – July 12, 1804) was an American statesman, journalist, and lawyer. He is credited as being America's greatest constitutional lawyer, and successfully defended the U.S. Constitution to skeptical New Yorkers as the principal author of the Federalist Papers. He also put the new United States of America onto a sound economic footing as its first and most influential Secretary of the Treasury, establishing a National bank, public credit, the "permanent debt theory" and the foundations for a mixed economy and stock and commodity exchanges.

Early years

Alexander Hamilton was born on the West Indies island of Nevis, the son of James Hamilton, a struggling businessman from Scotland, and Rachel Fawcet Lavien, who was then married to another man. His father abandoned the family, and his mother died when Hamilton was in his early teens. As a teenager, a letter he wrote to the local paper caused such a sensation that community leaders raised money to fund his passage to America. He settled in New York in 1772 for formal education, beginning with grammar school. Later he attended King's College, now Columbia College at Columbia University.

Hamilton posessed talents of the highest order. At the start of his teenage years, Hamilton was an impoverished orphan with no family connections, working as a clerk on the island of St. Croix in the caribbean. By the closing of his Teenage years, Alexander Hamilton was in America, General George Washington's most trusted aide-de-camp, an accomplished Artillery captain, and a published pampheleteer of renown in his own state of New York. It was while on the battlefield however that Hamilton began formulating the ideas on government and economics that would make him a historic figure.

He left Washington to take command of an infantry regiment that took part in the siege of Yorktown. At the age of 25, he served as a member of the Continental Congress from 1782-1783, then retired to open his own law office in New York City. His public career resumed when he attended the Annapolis Convention as a delegate in 1786.

He also served in the New York State Legislature and attended the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. Throughout the convention's proceedings, Hamilton, who was a federalist, argued consistently for a strong central government, including a king-like, though not hereditary, president, and an upper house based on the House of Lords. Hamilton opposed equal representation in the Senate, saying the idea "shocks too much the ideas of justice and every human feeling" and wanted Senators to serve for life, subject to good behavior. Hamilton also strongly advocated the abolition of slavery.

Although the document finally produced by the convention was less centralist than Hamilton proposed, and the tenures of those exercising power were shorter than he desired, Hamilton was active in the successful campaign for its ratification in New York. In this endeavour Hamilton made the largest single contribution to the authorship of the Federalist Papers.

Hamilton served another term in 1788 in what proved to be the last time the Continental Congress met under the new Articles of Confederation.

Secretary of the Treasury

On the recommendation of Robert Morris, with whom Hamilton had discussed economics as an aide-de-camp, President George Washington appointed Hamilton to be the first Secretary of the Treasury when the first Congress passed an Act establishing the Treasury Department. He served in that post from September 11, 1789 until September 8, 1798 It is for his tenure as Secretary of the Treasury that Hamilton is considered one of America's greatest statesman.

Hamilton's term as Secretary of the Treasury was marked by bold innovation, statesmanlike planning, and masterful reports. In office for barely a month, he proposed the idea of a seagoing branch of the military to secure the tax revenue against contraband shipments. The following summer, the Congress authorized a Revenue Marine force of ten cutters, the precursor to the United States Coast Guard. He also played a crucial role in creating the United States Navy (the Naval Act of 1794).

He published Report on the Public Credit in January 1790, which was a milestone in American financial history, marking the end of an era of bankruptcy and repudiation. The plan provided for the assumption of both the domestic and the foreign debts. Both James Madison and Thomas Jefferson strongly opposed Hamilton's plan, but it passed overwhelmingly.

He advocated the assumption of the debts of the States by the Federal Government. Madison and Jefferson also opposed this plan, but they settled the contest in a private meeting on July 21, 1790. During this meeting, Hamilton agreed to the future location of the nation's capital on the Potomac River, in return for Jefferson's support of assumption.

Hamilton's perceptive and creative mind, coupled with his driving ambition to set his ideas in motion, resulted in many proposals to the Congress. His proposals included a plan including import duties and excise taxes for raising revenue, funding of the revolutionary debt, and suggestions on naval laws. He also developed plans for a Congressional charter for the First Bank of the United States, and for placing the revenues on firm ground.

Strong opposition to collection efforts of his excise tax on spirits erupted into the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1794. Hamilton felt that compliance with the laws was very urgent. He accompanied General "Light Horse Harry" Lee and his troops part of the way in an advisory capacity to help put down the insurrection.

During Washington's first term in office, his secretary of Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, put forth a plan to deal with the immense national debt (which consisted of the foreign, domestic & state debts). The first part of his plan was to pay off the entire foreign debt in order to help restore our national credit. The second part of his plan was funding-to pay off the entire domestic debt in full to current holders of the bonds. This would help insure that the "aristocracy of wealth and talent" had a stake in the success of the new government. Assumption was for the federal government to assume the state debts which would work to take power away from the states and put it in the hands of the central government.. Hamilton also asked for a whiskey tax and a high import tax to help pay for the debt. Congress gave him the whiskey tax but not the import tax which was the only part of the plan Hamilton did not receive. Finally, Hamilton asked for the creation of a national bank to help the government fulfill their financial obligations. Hamilton's financial plan is significant not only for its attempt (mostly successful) to restore the nation's credit and deal with its financial difficulties, but also because it resulted in the first national political parties.

Hamilton as industrialist

Hamilton was among the first to recognize the larger transformations of industry and capitalism of his era, in particular the trend to larger-scale manufacturing financed through credit institutions. In 1778 he had visited the Great Falls of the Passaic River in northern New Jersey and had envisioned that the falls could one day be harnessed to provide power for a manufacturing center on the site. As Secretary of Treasury, he put this plan into motion, helping to found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures, a private corporation which would use the power of the falls to operate fills. Although company did not succeed in its original purpose, it leased the land around the falls to other mill ventures and continued operate for over a century and a half. The city which grew on the spot of Hamilton's vision, Paterson, New Jersey became one of the most important manufacturing centers successsively for cotton, steel, and then silk, until its decline after World War II.

The Maria Reynolds affair and rivalry with Aaron Burr

One scandal damaged Alexander Hamilton's reputation as Secretary of the Treasury, and prevented his further elevation in American politics. In 1794, he became intimately involved with Maria Reynolds, a woman whose husband subsequently blackmailed the Secretary for money, while still permitting sexual liaisons between Hamilton and his wife. When James Reynolds was arrested for counterfeiting, he contacted several prominent Jeffersonians, most notably James Monroe. When they visited Hamilton with their suspicions of malfeasance, he stressed his innocence, while admitting to an affair with Maria Reynolds. Monroe promised to keep details from public knowledge, but Thomas Jefferson had no such compunctions. Hamilton was forced to publish a confession of his affair, which shocked his family and supporters. A duel with Monroe over his supposed breach was averted by none other than Senator Aaron Burr.

Ironically, attorney Aaron Burr would later represent Maria Reynolds in her divorce lawsuit, leading some to suspect he set Hamilton up. However, Hamilton's relationship with Burr had been cordial during their years as New York lawyers; in fact, their families often met for social occasions. When Burr defeated Hamilton's father-in-law, Philip Schuyler in the 1791 Senate race, Hamilton began a secret campaign to destroy his opportunistic rival, who had sought the Presidential nomination in 1796, and would do so again in 1800.

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 advisor and friend and he is believed to have influenced Washington in the latter's composition of his Farewell Address. Relations between Hamilton and Washington's successor, John Adams, were frequently strained and Hamilton's attempts to frustrate Adams' adoption as presidential candidate of the Federalist Party split the party and contributed to the victory of the Jeffersonian Republicans in the election of 1800.

Hamilton's role in ensuring the subsequent selection of Jefferson as President in preference to Aaron Burr marked his first bold stroke against his erstwhile friend. Burr sought the New York governorship in 1804, first running as a Federalist, then as an independent. One newspaper referred to a "despicable opinion" that a Dr. Charles D. Cooper attributed to Hamilton about Burr. Scenting a chance to regain political honor, Aaron Burr demanded an apology. Hamilton refused, on grounds he could not recall the instance the newspaper mentioned. A duel was arranged for July 11, on a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey, the same place where Hamilton's son Phillip had lost a duel over three years earlier, defending his father's honor. At dawn, the duel began. Hamilton, who had come to oppose dueling following his son's death, may have fired his shot into the air. Others have speculated he could have misfired his pistol, one of a pair that belonged to his family. Regardless, Burr shot Hamilton, the bullet entering below the chest. He died the next day and was interred in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan.

Burr fled New York under charges of murder and later of treason. He died in 1836, having squandered his fortune, and having become almost universally reviled because of his 1807 conspiracy trial. General James Wilkinson had also approached Hamilton repeatedly with plans for filibuster expeditions along the Spanish frontier.

Hamilton and modern politics

Hamilton's legacy is manyfold. Arguably, he set the path for American economic and military greatness, though the benefits might be argued. His most important contribution however, was establishing the supremacy of the executive branch of American Government over the legislative and the judicial. At the moment of founding, it was not clear at all to the founders whether the Executive should wield most of the power, especially when it came to the creation of policy, which was supposed to be a legislative task. From the start however, Hamilton set a hugely consequential precedent as a cabinet member of the Executive, by dreaming up a federal program, writing them in form of Reports, pushing for their approval by apearing in person to argue them on the floor of congress, and by implementing them. Hamilton did this brilliantly, and forcefully, setting a high standard for administrative competence in the Executive. In the whole of Hamilton's policy making, the legislature was a passive observer, ultimately approving his projects with little left for it to do.

Another legacy from Hamilton, which in his time was regarded as being a precedent of "vast consequence" by James Madison, the father of the Constitution, was Hamilton's own interpretation of the Constitution. The document was framed by lawyers mostly, who believed that they had clearly enumerated what could, and what could not be done. The constitution was a document whereby statesmen could govern within succinctly defined borders.

Not so according to Hamilton, who had to resort to a historic argument to justify his National Bank, and the provisions in some of his Reports. Hamilton's Argument to justify his National Bank was that, the Constitution outlined the ends of society, justifying the means if they were necessary to achieve those ends (see Preamble to the United States Constitution.) His National bank was perfectly constitutional therefore, since it was a crucial component of a project to finance government expenditures. Hamilton's view was termed loose-contruction, while the interpretation of the constitution desired by James Madison, and Thomas Jefferson is known as Strict-construction. Many Scholars believe that, had Hamilton's view failed, and Madison's prevailed, the Constitution might have become a dead letter.

Hamilton’s portrait began to appear on money during the Civil War, when he appeared on the $2, $5, $10, and $50 notes, which was symbolic of his ideological opposition to the ideas of the Confederacy.

Hamilton's portrait appears on the U.S. $10 bill. Some conservatives want to replace Hamilton with Ronald Reagan’s portrait.

External Link

• Alexander Hamilton's Report on a National Bank

Biographies

• Alexander Hamilton: A Biography by Forrest McDonald (1979, ISBN 039330048X)
• Alexander Hamilton, American by Richard Brookhiser (1999, ISBN 0684839199)
• Alexander Hamilton: A Life by Willard Sterne Randall (2003, ISBN 0060195495)
• Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow (2004, ISBN 1594200092)
• The Young Hamilton: A Biography by James Thomas Flexner (1997, ISBN 0823217906)
• Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth by Stephen F. Knott (2002, ISBN 0700611576)
• Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America by Thomas Fleming (2000, ISBN 0465017371)

Writings

• Hamilton: Writings by Alexander Hamilton (2001, ISBN 1931082049)

Hamilton

• 1755 births
• 1804 deaths