Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton, (b. January 11,
1755/57, Nevis, British West Indies—d.
July 12, 1804, New York, New York,
U.S.), New York delegate to the
Constitutional Convention (1787), major
author of the Federalist papers, and
first secretary of the Treasury of the
United States (1789–95), who was the
foremost champion of a strong central
government for the new United States. He
was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr.
Early
life
Hamilton’s father was James Hamilton, a
drifting trader and son of Alexander
Hamilton, the laird of Cambuskeith,
Ayrshire, Scotland; his mother was
Rachel Fawcett Lavine, the daughter of a
French Huguenot physician and the wife
of John Michael Lavine, a German or
Danish merchant who had settled on the
island of St. Croix in the Danish West
Indies. Rachel probably began living
with James Hamilton in 1752, but Lavine
did not divorce her until 1758.
In 1765
James Hamilton abandoned his family.
Destitute, Rachel set up a small shop,
and at the age of 11 Alexander went to
work, becoming a clerk in the
countinghouse of two New York merchants
who had recently established themselves
at St. Croix. When Rachel died in 1768,
Alexander became a ward of his mother’s
relatives, and in 1772 his ability,
industry, and engaging manners won him
advancement from bookkeeper to manager.
Later, friends sent him to a preparatory
school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and
in the autumn of 1773 he entered King’s
College (later Columbia) in New York.
Intensely ambitious, he became a serious
and successful student, but his studies
were interrupted by the brewing revolt
against Great Britain. He publicly
defended the Boston Tea Party, in which
Boston colonists destroyed several tea
cargoes in defiance of the tea tax. In
1774–75 he wrote three influential
pamphlets, which upheld the agreements
of the Continental Congress on the
nonimportation, nonconsumption, and
nonexportation of British products and
attacked British policy in Quebec. Those
anonymous publications—one of them
attributed to John Jay and John Adams,
two of the ablest of American
propagandists—gave the first solid
evidence of Hamilton’s precocity.
American Revolution
In March 1776, through the influence of
friends in the New York legislature,
Hamilton was commissioned a captain in
the provincial artillery. He organized
his own company and at the Battle of
Trenton, when he and his men prevented
the British under Lord Cornwallis from
crossing the Raritan River and attacking
George Washington’s main army, showed
conspicuous bravery. In February 1777
Washington invited him to become an
aide-de-camp with the rank of lieutenant
colonel. In his four years on
Washington’s staff he grew close to the
general and was entrusted with his
correspondence. He was sent on important
military missions and, thanks to his
fluent command of French, became liaison
officer between Washington and the
French generals and admirals.
Eager
to connect himself with wealth and
influence, Hamilton married Elizabeth,
the daughter of General Philip Schuyler,
the head of one of New York’s most
distinguished families. Meantime, having
tired of the routine duties at
headquarters and yearning for glory, he
pressed Washington for an active command
in the field. Washington refused, and in
early 1781 Hamilton seized upon a
trivial quarrel to break with the
general and leave his staff.
Fortunately, he had not forfeited the
general’s friendship, for in July
Washington gave him command of a
battalion. At the siege of Cornwallis’s
army at Yorktown in October, Hamilton
led an assault on a British stronghold.
Early political activities
In letters to a member of Congress and
to Robert Morris, the superintendent of
finance, Hamilton analyzed the financial
and political weaknesses of the
government. In November 1781, with the
war virtually over, he moved to Albany,
where he studied law and was admitted to
practice in July 1782. A few months
later the New York legislature elected
him to the Continental Congress. He
continued to argue in essays for a
strong central government, and in
Congress from November 1782 to July 1783
he worked for the same end, being
convinced that the Articles of
Confederation were the source of the
country’s weakness and disunion.
In 1783
Hamilton began to practice law in New
York City. He defended unpopular
loyalists who had remained faithful to
the British during the Revolution in
suits brought against them under a state
law called the Trespass Act. Partly as a
result of his efforts, state acts
disbarring loyalist lawyers and
disfranchising loyalist voters were
repealed. In that year he also won
election to the lower house of the New
York legislature, taking his seat in
January 1787. Meanwhile, the legislature
had appointed him a delegate to the
convention in Annapolis, Maryland, that
met in September 1786 to consider the
commercial plight of the Union. Hamilton
suggested that the convention exceed its
delegated powers and call for another
meeting of representatives from all the
states to discuss various problems
confronting the nation. He drew up the
draft of the address to the states from
which emerged the Constitutional
Convention that met in Philadelphia in
May 1787. After persuading New York to
send a delegation, Hamilton obtained a
place for himself on the delegation.
Hamilton went to Philadelphia as an
uncompromising nationalist who wished to
replace the Articles of Confederation
with a strong centralized government,
but he did not take much part in the
debates. He served on two important
committees, one on rules in the
beginning of the convention and the
other on style at the end of the
convention. In a long speech on June 18,
he presented his own idea of what the
national government should be. Under his
plan, the national government would have
had unlimited power over the states.
Hamilton’s plan had little impact on the
convention; the delegates went ahead to
frame a constitution that, while it gave
strong power to a federal government,
stood some chance of being accepted by
the people. Since the other two
delegates from New York, who were strong
opponents of a Federalist constitution,
had withdrawn from the convention, New
York was not officially represented, and
Hamilton had no power to sign for his
state. Nonetheless, even though he knew
that his state wished to go no further
than a revision of the Articles of
Confederation, he signed the new
constitution as an individual.
Opponents in New York quickly attacked
the Constitution, and Hamilton answered
them in the newspapers under the
signature Caesar. Since the Caesar
letters seemed not influential, Hamilton
turned to another classical pseudonym,
Publius, and to two collaborators, James
Madison, the delegate from Virginia, and
John Jay, the secretary of foreign
affairs, to write The Federalist, a
series of 85 essays in defense of the
Constitution and republican government
that appeared in newspapers between
October 1787 and May 1788. Hamilton
wrote at least two-thirds of the essays,
including some of the most important
ones that interpreted the Constitution,
explained the powers of the executive,
the senate, and the judiciary, and
expounded the theory of judicial review
(i.e., the power of the Supreme Court to
declare legislative acts
unconstitutional and, thus, void).
Although written and published in haste,
The Federalist was widely read, had a
great influence on contemporaries,
became one of the classics of political
literature, and helped shape American
political institutions. In 1788 Hamilton
was reappointed a delegate to the
Continental Congress from New York. At
the ratifying convention in June, he
became the chief champion of the
Constitution and, against strong
opposition, won approval for it.
Hamilton’s financial program
When President Washington in 1789
appointed Hamilton the first secretary
of the Treasury, Congress asked him to
draw up a plan for the “adequate support
of the public credit.” Envisaging
himself as something of a prime minister
in Washington’s official family,
Hamilton developed a bold and masterly
program designed to build a strong
union, one that would weave his
political philosophy into the
government. His immediate objectives
were to establish credit at home and
abroad and to strengthen the national
government at the expense of the states.
He outlined his program in four notable
reports to Congress (1790–91).
In the
first two, Reports on the Public Credit,
which he submitted on January 14, 1790,
and December 13, 1790, he urged the
funding of the national debt at full
value, the assumption in full by the
federal government of debts incurred by
the states during the Revolution, and a
system of taxation to pay for the
assumed debts. His motive was as much
political as economic. Through payment
by the central government of the states’
debts, he hoped to bind the men of
wealth and influence, who had acquired
most of the domestically held bonds, to
the national government. But such
powerful opposition arose to the funding
and assumption scheme that Hamilton was
able to push it through Congress only
after he had made a bargain with Thomas
Jefferson, who was then secretary of
state, whereby he gained Southern votes
in Congress for it in exchange for his
own support in locating the future
national capital on the banks of the
Potomac.
Hamilton’s third report, the Report on a
National Bank, which he submitted on
December 14, 1790, advocated a national
bank called the Bank of the United
States and modeled after the Bank of
England. With the bank, he wished to
solidify the partnership between the
government and the business classes who
would benefit most from it and further
advance his program to strengthen the
national government. After Congress
passed the bank charter, Hamilton
persuaded Washington to sign it into
law. He advanced the argument that the
Constitution was the source of implied
as well as enumerated powers and that
through implication the government had
the right to charter a national bank as
a proper means of regulating the
currency. This doctrine of implied
powers became the basis for interpreting
and expanding the Constitution in later
years. In the Report on Manufactures,
the fourth, the longest, the most
complex, and the most farsighted of his
reports, submitted on December 5, 1791,
he proposed to aid the growth of infant
industries through various protective
laws. Basic to it was his idea that the
general welfare required the
encouragement of manufacturers and that
the federal government was obligated to
direct the economy to that end. In
writing his report, Hamilton had leaned
heavily on The Wealth of Nations,
written in 1776 by the Scottish
political economist Adam Smith, but he
revolted against Smith’s laissez-faire
idea that the state must keep hands off
the economic processes, which meant that
it could provide no bounties, tariffs,
or other aid. The report had greater
appeal to posterity than to Hamilton’s
contemporaries, for Congress did nothing
with it.
Establishment of political parties
A result of the struggle over Hamilton’s
program and over issues of foreign
policy was the emergence of national
political parties. Like Washington,
Hamilton had deplored parties, equating
them with disorder and instability. He
had hoped to establish a government of
superior persons who would be above
party. Yet he became the leader of the
Federalist Party, a political
organization in large part dedicated to
the support of his policies. Hamilton
placed himself at the head of that party
because he needed organized political
support and strong leadership in the
executive branch to get his program
through Congress. The political
organization that challenged the
Hamiltonians was the Republican Party
(later Democratic-Republican Party)
created by James Madison, a member of
the House of Representatives, and
Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. In
foreign affairs the Federalists favoured
close ties with England, whereas the
Republicans preferred to strengthen the
old attachment to France. In attempting
to carry out his program, Hamilton
interfered in Jefferson’s domain of
foreign affairs. Detesting the French
Revolution and the egalitarian doctrines
it spawned, he tried to thwart
Jefferson’s policies that might aid
France or injure England and to induce
Washington to follow his own ideas in
foreign policy. Hamilton went so far as
to warn British officials of Jefferson’s
attachment to France and to suggest that
they bypass the secretary of state and
instead work through himself and the
president in matters of foreign policy.
This and other parts of Hamilton’s
program led to a feud with Jefferson in
which the two men attempted to drive
each other from the cabinet.
When
war broke out between France and England
in February 1793, Hamilton wished to use
the war as an excuse for jettisoning the
French alliance of 1778 and steering the
United States closer to England, whereas
Jefferson insisted that the alliance was
still binding. Washington essentially
accepted Hamilton’s advice and in April
issued a proclamation of neutrality that
was generally interpreted as
pro-British.
At the
same time, British seizure of U.S. ships
trading with the French West Indies and
other grievances led to popular demands
for war against Great Britain, which
Hamilton opposed. He believed that such
a war would be national suicide, for his
program was anchored on trade with
Britain and on the import duties that
supported his funding system. Usurping
the power of the State Department,
Hamilton persuaded the president to send
John Jay to London to negotiate a
treaty. Hamilton wrote Jay’s
instructions, manipulated the
negotiations, and defended the unpopular
treaty Jay brought back in 1795, notably
in a series of newspaper essays he wrote
under the signature Camillus; the treaty
kept the peace and saved his system.
Out of the cabinet
Lashed by criticism, tired and anxious
to repair his private fortune, Hamilton
left the cabinet on January 31, 1795.
His influence, as an unofficial adviser,
however, continued as strong as ever.
Washington and his cabinet consulted him
on almost all matters of policy. When
Washington decided to retire, he turned
to Hamilton, asking his opinion as to
the best time to publish his farewell.
With his eye on the coming presidential
election, Hamilton advised withholding
the announcement until a few months
before the meeting of the presidential
electors. Following that advice,
Washington gave his Farewell Address in
September 1796. Hamilton drafted most of
the address, and some of his ideas were
prominent in it. In the election,
Federalist leaders passed over
Hamilton’s claims and nominated John
Adams for the presidency and Thomas
Pinckney for the vice presidency.
Because Adams did not appear devoted to
Hamiltonian principles, Hamilton tried
to manipulate the electoral college so
as to make Pinckney president. Adams won
the election, and Hamilton’s intrigue
succeeded only in sowing distrust within
his own party. Hamilton’s influence in
the government continued, however, for
Adams retained Washington’s cabinet, and
its members consulted Hamilton on all
matters of policy, gave him confidential
information, and in effect urged his
policies on the president.
When
France broke relations with the United
States, Hamilton stood for firmness,
though not immediate war; however, after
the failure of a peace mission that
President Adams had sent to Paris in
1798, followed by the publication of
dispatches insulting to U.S.
sovereignty, Hamilton wanted to place
the country under arms. He even believed
that the French, with whom the United
States now became engaged in an
undeclared naval war, might attempt to
invade the country. Hamilton sought
command of the new army, though
Washington would be its titular head.
Adams resisted Hamilton’s desires, but
in September 1798 Washington forced him
to make Hamilton second in command of
the army, the inspector general, with
the rank of major general. Adams never
forgave Hamilton for this humiliation.
Hamilton wanted to lead his army into
Spain’s Louisiana and the Floridas and
other points south but never did.
Through independent diplomacy, Adams
kept the quarrel from spreading and at
the order of Congress disbanded the
provisional army. Hamilton resigned his
commission in June 1800. Meantime Adams
had purged his cabinet of those he
regarded as “Hamilton’s spies.”
In
retaliation, Hamilton tried to prevent
Adams’s reelection. In October 1800 he
privately circulated a personal attack
on Adams, The Public Conduct and
Character of John Adams, Esq., President
of the United States. Aaron Burr of New
York, the Republican candidate for vice
president and Hamilton’s political
enemy, obtained a copy and had it
published. Hamilton was then compelled
to acknowledge his authorship and to
bring his quarrel with Adams into the
open, a feud that revealed an
irreparable schism in the Federalist
Party. Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr
won the election, but, because both had
received the same number of electoral
votes, the choice between them for
president was cast into the House of
Representatives. Hating Jefferson, the
Federalists wanted to throw the election
to Burr. Hamilton helped to persuade
them to select Jefferson instead. By
supporting his old Republican enemy, who
won the presidency, Hamilton lost
prestige within his own party and
virtually ended his public career.
The Burr quarrel
In 1801 Hamilton built a country house
called the Grange on Manhattan island
and helped found a Federalist newspaper,
the New York Evening Post, the policies
of which reflected his ideas. Through
the Post he hailed the purchase of
Louisiana in 1803, even though New
England Federalists had opposed it. Some
of them talked of secession and in 1804
began to negotiate with Burr for his
support. Almost all the Federalists but
Hamilton favoured Burr’s candidacy for
the governorship of New York state.
Hamilton urged the election of Burr’s
Republican opponent, who won by a close
margin, but it is doubtful that
Hamilton’s influence decided the
outcome. In any event, Hamilton and Burr
had long been enemies, and Hamilton had
several times thwarted Burr’s ambitions.
In June 1804, after the election, Burr
demanded satisfaction for remarks
Hamilton had allegedly made at a dinner
party in April in which he said he held
a “despicable opinion” of Burr. Hamilton
held an aversion to dueling, but as a
man of honour he felt compelled to
accept Burr’s challenge. The two
antagonists met early in the morning of
July 11 on the heights of Weehawken, New
Jersey, where Hamilton’s eldest son,
Philip, had died in a duel three years
before. Burr’s bullet found its mark,
and Hamilton fell. Hamilton left his
wife and seven children heavily in debt,
which friends helped to pay off.
Assessment
Hamilton was a man both of action and of
ideas, but all his ideas involved action
and were directed toward some specific
goal in statecraft. Unlike Benjamin
Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, he did not
have a broad inquisitive mind, nor was
he speculative in his thinking in the
philosophical sense of seeking
intangible truths. He was ambitious,
purposeful, a hard worker, and one of
America’s administrative geniuses. In
foreign policy he was a realist,
believing that self-interest should be
the nation’s polestar; questions of
gratitude, benevolence, and moral
principle, he held, were irrelevant.
What
renders him fascinating to biographers
are the streaks of ambition, jealousy,
and impulsiveness that led him into
disastrous personal clashes—the rupture
with Washington in 1781, which luckily
did him no harm; an adulterous affair in
1791, which laid him open to blackmail;
the assault on Adams that doomed
Federalist prospects in 1800; and
perhaps even the duel in which he died.
The union of a mind brilliantly tuned to
the economic future with the temperament
of a Hotspur is rare.
Most of
all, Hamilton was one of America’s first
great nationalists. He believed in an
indivisible nation where the people
would give their loyalty not to any
state but to the nation. Although a
conservative, he did not fear change or
experimentation. The conservatism that
led him to denounce democracy as hostile
to liberty stemmed from his fear that
democracy tended to invade the rights of
property, which he held sacred. His
concern for property was a means to an
end. He wished to make private property
sacred because upon it he planned to
build a strong central government, one
capable of suppressing internal
disorders and assuring tranquillity. His
economic, political, military, and
diplomatic schemes were all directed
toward making the Union strong.
Hamilton’s most enduring monument was
the Union, for much of it rested on his
ideas.
Alexander DeConde
