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Alexander Hamilton was born on the island of Nevis, in the British West Indies, probably on January 11, 1755 (or 1757). He was the illegitimate son of a Scottish trader, who abandoned his family in St. Croix in 1765. At the age of 11, Hamilton went to work in a countinghouse, where he so impressed his employers that they sent him to New York to be educated. In 1773 he entered King’s College (now Columbia) and soon began writing in favor of colonial causes against the crown. In the Revolutionary War, he served as aide-de-camp to George Washington, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1780 he married Elizabeth Schuyler, who belonged to a prominent New York family. After studying law, Hamilton served as a delegate to the Continental Congress, to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, and to the New York ratifying convention in 1788. He wrote about two-thirds of the 85 essays of “The Federalist,” in 1787–88, supporting adoption of the newly drafted Constitution. When Washington became president in 1789, he appointed Hamilton the first secretary of the Treasury. He became a leader of the emerging Federalist party, won establishment of a national bank, and supported friendship with Britain, rather than France, through Jay’s Treaty in 1794. His letter of July 30, 1796, contains a draft used by Washington for his Farewell Address. Hamilton kept Aaron Burr from becoming president in 1800 and governor of New York in 1804; after Burr wounded him in a duel, Hamilton died on July 12, 1804.
Morton J. Frisch is a professor of political science at Northern Illinois University and is the author of “Franklin D. Roosevelt: The Contribution of the New Deal to American Political Thought and Practice.” He is also a coeditor of “American Political Thought: The Philosophic Dimensions of American Statesmanship” and “The Political Thought of American Statesmen: Selected Writings and Speeches.” |
