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Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755/7 - July 12, 1804) was an American statesman. He is credited with successfully defending the US 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 central bank, public credit, and the foundations for a mixed economy and stock and commodity exchanges.
Early years
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, which is now Columbia University.
Hamilton's great genius revealed itself early. While in his teens, he took a firm stand on the side of the patriots, and became a leader in the movement advocating independence. Before he was 20, Hamilton commanded artillery troops in several important battles in the American Revolutionary War, and from 1777 to 1781, served as aide-de-camp to General Washington.
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 an upper house with members appointed for life rather than subject to re-election. Although the document finally produced by the convention was less centralist than Hamilton proposed, he was active in the successful campaign for its ratification as the Constitution of the United States on March 4, 1789. 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, President George Washington appointed him 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 January 31, 1795.
As Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton's term 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 revenue against contraband. 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 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 assumption by the Federal Government of the debts of the States. 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 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.
Latter years and the duel
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 was one of a number of factors arousing Burr's anger. In 1804, a newspaper referred to a "despicable opinion" Hamilton had expressed about Burr. Burr demanded an apology; Hamilton refused. 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, Hamilton was shot, the bullet entering below the chest. He died the next day and was interred in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan.
Hamilton and modern politics
Hamilton's legacy on the current political landscape remains controversial. He was a strong supporter of the Federal Constitutional system of government. An opposing force during his time was the Jeffersonians and their view that the states were independent entities not inferior to the Federal Government.
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 want to replace Hamilton with Ronald Reagan’s portrait, as a symbol of the right-wing desire to move away from the federal system of government Hamilton favored.
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)
| Preceded by: None |
United States Secretary of the Treasury | Succeeded by: Oliver Wolcott, Jr. |