Founding Fathers At-A-Glance: Alexander Hamilton

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Founding Fathers At-A-Glance

Alexander Hamilton



Alexander Hamilton was born on the island of Nevis in the West Indies on January 11, in either 1755 (as probate papers from his mother's death in 1768 suggest) or 1757 (as he claimed on records from his college years, more on this ambiguity later). Alexander Hamilton was indeed a "bastard child" as often accused by detractors such as John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. His father, James Hamilton, was a merchant and fourth son of a Scottish Laird. Rachel Fawcett Lavien, his mother of French Huguenot descent, was legally separated from Johann Michael Liven but, due to laws of the day, denied the right to an official divorce. As a result, her relationship with James Hamilton was rendered illicit and the two children born out of that relationship illegitimate, a stigma which would haunt Hamilton for the rest of his life.

James Hamilton abandoned his illegitimate family in 1765 on the island of St. Croix and Rachel died of a fever in 1768, effectively orphaning Hamilton. The same year young Alexander went to work as a clerk for Nicholas Kruger, who would show immense faith in the boy when he left him in charge of the counting house business for six months while he was off the island in 1771 to 1772. The young Hamilton would show a flair for management during this period, helping to expand the business.

In May of 1772 he would meet a Presbyterian minister by the name of Hugh Knox, who would open his library to Alexander and is often regarded as the root of Hamilton's lifelong opposition to slavery. Knox, editor of the local paper, would publish the most important document of Hamilton's youth in September of the same year: a letter describing a ferocious hurricane which stuck the island that year. In response to the letter the people of the island, ostensibly led by the duo of Knox and Cruger, took pity upon the orphan and raised the funds to send him to the North American mainland for a proper education.

Hamilton attended a preparatory school in Elizabeth, New Jersey during 1773 in preparation for attending Princeton University. Princeton refused to allow Hamilton an accelerated curriculum, according to some because James Madison had nearly killed himself with overwork as he flew through the four year Princeton curriculum in barely two years. Hamilton would instead attend King's College (today known as Columbia University) in New York City, where he would become enthralled in the revolutionary fervor and produce his first recorded political writings, Full Vindication of the measures of Congress and The Farmer Refuted, as well as fourteen anonymous installments of "The Monitor" for Holt's New York Journal.

It is during this period that discrepancy in Hamilton's age becomes an issue. It has been surmised by some biographers that Hamilton changed his birth year to make himself younger so that he would not be the "elder student" in his college class. Much as he was sensitive about his illegitimate birth, he also seemed very concerned about appearing slow to his classmates (an ironic worry, perhaps, as Hamilton was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant of the Founders, speaking purely in terms of book learning).

In 1775 Hamilton volunteered for an artillery unit in the nascent Continental Army and so enamored his peers that the 19 year old (by his own avowed birth date) was elected Captain of the Artillery in early 1776 with the help of other influential New York patriots John Jay and Alexander McDougall. His company would fight the Battle of Harlem Heights during the retreat from New York City by Washington's army, catching the General's eye and joining his staff as an aide with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in March of 1777. He would spend four years as, in effect, Washington's chief of staff during which time the two men would develop a close relationship, built upon mutual respect and confidence as much as personal attachment. Hamilton would, however, continue to desire battle and seize the opportunity to resign his post as chief of staff over a relatively minor reprimand in 1781, returning to command of a light infantry regiment that would take Redoubt #10 of the British fortifications at the Battle of Yorktown.

Following the war Hamilton served as a member of the Confederate Congress in 1782 and 1783 before opening his own law practice in New York City, where he quickly became known as one of the most formidable jurists in the city (despite never officially graduating from King's College) and argued cases which would lay the groundwork for eventual landmark decisions by the Courts such as Judicial Review. In 1784 Hamilton established the Bank of New York, the oldest still-functioning banking establishment in the United States, and revitalized King's College with the help of John Jay, rechristening it as Columbia College.

Hamilton returned to public life in 1786 as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention in 1786. The Convention itself was an abysmal failure, but out of it came a resolution crafted by Hamilton and Virginian James Madison calling for a convention the following year in Philadelphia to address the failures of the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention which followed the next year saw relatively little of Hamilton, since New York's governor opposed the Convention and thus handcuffed Hamilton with co-delegates instructed to oppose any changes, but Alexander Hamilton provided several speeches which would later be interpreted and reinterpreted by critics and supporters alike to suggest the level of centralization Hamilton truly desired.

Following the Convention Hamilton conceived a propaganda campaign to get the Constitution ratified in New York: a series of essays examining in-depth the need for and aspects of the Constitution. Written in collaboration with James Madison and John Jay (who replaced Hamilton's original choice, Constitution-writer Gouvernour Morris) at a feverish pace, the Federalist Papers are today considered the most cogent and complete exegesis of the United States Constitution ever written. Hamilton would pen the majority of the papers, 51 of the 85, while maintaining a full-time legal practice in New York City.

As a side note, the Constitution states in the article regarding the Presidency: No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President. It is often theorized that the clause regarding citizenship at the time of adoption was included exclusively for Hamilton in the event he desired the Presidency, as he was not a natural born citizen.

In 1788 Hamilton would serve a final time in the Confederate Congress, which would prove to be the last government under the Articles of Confederation. Following Washington's election as the first President Hamilton was tapped as Secretary of the Treasury on the advice of financier Robert Morris, a position which Hamilton would remain in from September 11, 1789 until January 31, 1795. In that time Hamilton succeeded in building the foundation upon which America's future financial success would be built, establishing the Bank of the United States, rebuilding the credit of the nation ruined during the Revolution, and helping build the financial instruments and markets that would develop into the modern American financial system.

His tenure was not without turmoil or detractors, the strongest of these detractors being Thomas Jefferson and one-time ally James Madison. The disagreement between Jefferson and Hamilton would spawn the first political parties in the United States, with Hamilton leading the urban Federalist Party (and derisively named "King of the Federals" by his critics) and Jefferson heading the agrarian Democratic-Republicans. He was also the originator of the government official sex scandal, very publicly admitting an affair with Maria Reynolds, choosing to allow his personal reputation be tarnished rather than his professional. Despite this his wife, Elizabeth (daughter of Revolutionary General Phillip Schuyler), would remain faithful to him and his memory until the day she died.

Hamilton would become embroiled in a propaganda war in the papers of the time with Democratic-Republicans. In one of his most hypocritical moves, Hamilton applauded the use of the Alien and Sedition Acts to censor opposition to the Federalist Party under the Adams Presidency, despite himself being an "alien" and engaging in exactly the sort of muckraking editorializing that was being shut down by the executive branch when it spoke against the Federalists.

Ultimately Hamilton's written broadsides would land him in a duel with Vice President Aaron Burr, where he was mortally wounded after throwing away his own shot on July 11, 1804. He would die of his wounds the next day and his memorial services rivaled in size and grandeur those of a President. Gouvernour Morris would provide the eulogy to Hamilton, and he would ultimately be buried in New York City.

QUICK FACTS TO KNOW:
- Born on Nevis in the West Indies, 1755 or 1757.
- Attended King's College (today Columbia University).
- Aid to General Washington during the Revolution.
- Delegate to the Constitutional Convention and primary author of the Federalist Papers.
- First Secretary of Treasury under Washington, responsible for the establishment of the first National Bank.
- Father and first head of the Federalist Party.
- Killed by Aaron Burr in a duel, 1804.

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Excellent sources on Alexander Hamilton:

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis
Young Patriots by Charles Cerami
Financial Founding Fathers by Robert Wright and David Cowen