Hamilton, Alexander

Hamilton, Alexander (1755–1804), was born in the Leeward Islands, the illegitimate son of a Scottish merchant. A letter he wrote to the local newspaper describing a West Indian hurricane won popular attention and led to his aunt's sending him to be educated at Elizabethtown, N.J., and at King's College. Unsettled political conditions interrupted his education, and although he was only 17, he published two anonymous pamphlets, A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress (1774) and The Farmer Refuted (1775), answering the arguments of Samuel Seabury and brilliantly defending the patriot position and justifying the appeal to arms. During the Revolutionary War he served as captain, lieutenant colonel, and aide‐de‐camp to Washington. After the victory he was appointed receiver‐general of continental taxes, was elected to the Continental Congress (1782–83), practiced law in New York, and served as a delegate to the Annapolis Convention (1786).

As a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention he considered its accomplishments in many ways unsatisfactory, but as an advocate of strong centralized government he worked for the ratification of the Constitution, especially as the principal author of The Federalist (1787–88). As the first secretary of the treasury (1789–95), he presented a series of influential reports. These included: (1) issued January 14, 1790, proposing that the national government take over state debts incurred in aid of the Revolution, and that both national and state debts be refunded at par; (2) issued December 13, 1790, advising that an excise tax be levied to provide revenue for the government; (3) issued the next day, recommending the establishment of a bank of the U.S., modeled on the national bank of England; and(4) issued December 5, 1791, a Report on Manufactures, advocating a protective tariff for military self‐sufficiency and the preservation of the home market. In the last, he pointed out that, as long as the U.S. remained an exclusively agricultural country, it would depend upon uncertain foreign markets for the sale of its goods. He therefore urged the encouragement of manufacturing to provide a reliable market, and the protection of infant industries by import duties or bounties. These measures tended to strengthen the federal government at the expense of states, and to ally it with monied interests, a policy known as the Hamiltonian system, as opposed to the agrarian system of Jefferson and his followers.

Resigning from the cabinet, Hamilton declined the office of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and returned instead to law practice. In 1798, when war threatened with France, he became a general, second in command to Washington. After peaceful settlement of the dispute, he was a bitter critic of Adams. In New York politics, he was twice instrumental in defeating the political aspirations of Aaron Burr, and in 1800 he supported his old political enemy Jefferson against Burr for President. Embittered by these attacks, Burr challenged him to a duel, as a result of which Hamilton died.

Among the many novels in which he appears are Gertrude Atherton's The Conqueror, Jeremiah Clemen's The Rivals, Howard Fast's The Unvanquished, and P. L. Ford's Janice Meredith. Hamilton's Papers were published in 26 volumes (1961–79).