Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton was born on January 11, 1755, or 1757, in Charlestown, the capital of Nevis in the British Leeward Islands, where he spent his childhood. Hamilton and his older brother, James Jr., were born out of wedlock to Rachel Lavien (née Faucette), a married woman of half-British and half-Huguenot descent, and James A. Hamilton, a Scotsman and the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, the laird of Grange, Ayrshire. His maternal grandfather was John Faucette (born c. 1680–1684), a French Huguenot, planter and medical doctor born in the Saintonge province of France who had settled on the British west indies island of Nevis, after the 1685 Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. Together, they had one son, Peter. However, Rachel Lavien left her husband and first son in 1750, traveling to Saint Kitts, where she met James Hamilton. Alexander supplemented his education with a family library of 34 books. James Hamilton later abandoned Rachel Lavien and their two sons, ostensibly to "spar[e] [her] a charge of bigamy...after finding out that her first husband intend[ed] to divorce her under Danish law on grounds of adultery and desertion." In probate court, Lavien's "first husband seized her estate" The brothers were briefly taken in by their cousin Peter Lytton. However, Lytton took his own life in July 1769, leaving his property to his mistress and their son, and the propertyless Hamilton brothers were subsequently separated. Hamilton became a clerk at Beekman and Cruger, a local import-export firm that traded with the Province of New York and New England. Though still a teenager, Hamilton proved capable enough as a trader to be left in charge of the firm for five months in 1771 while the owner was at sea. He remained an avid reader, and later developed an interest in writing and a life outside Saint Croix. He wrote a detailed letter to his father regarding a hurricane that devastated Christiansted on August 30, 1772. The Presbyterian Reverend Hugh Knox, a tutor and mentor to Hamilton, submitted the letter for publication in the Royal Danish-American Gazette. Biographer Ron Chernow found the letter astounding because "for all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous [that a] self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto" and that a teenage boy produced an apocalyptic "fire-and-brimstone sermon" viewing the hurricane as a "divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity." The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education. In October 1772, Hamilton arrived by ship in Boston and then proceeded to New York City, where he boarded with Hercules Mulligan, the Irish-born brother of a trader known to Hamilton's benefactors. Mulligan assisted Hamilton in selling the cargo that Hamilton was to use to pay for his education and support. Hamilton sought to fill gaps in his education in preparation for college, and later that year began to attend Elizabethtown Academy, a preparatory school run by Francis Barber in Elizabeth, New Jersey. While there, he was introduced to William Livingston, a local leading intellectual and revolutionary who influenced him, and he boarded with the Livingstons while studying. In fall 1773, Hamilton returned to New York and entered Mulligan's alma mater, King's College (now Columbia University). Hamilton began as a private student and boarded again with Mulligan until he matriculated into the college the following year, in May 1774. His college roommate and lifelong friend Robert Troup spoke glowingly of Hamilton's clarity in concisely explaining the Patriot case against the British during the American Revolution in what was Hamilton's first public appearance, on July 6, 1774. As King's College students, Hamilton, Troup, and four other undergraduates formed an unnamed literary society that is regarded as a precursor to what is now the Philolexian Society. Later in 1774, Church of England clergyman Samuel Seabury in New York published a series of pamphlets promoting the Loyalist cause, seeking to provoke fear in the Thirteen Colonies, which he hoped would discourage them from uniting against the British. Hamilton countered anonymously with his first published political writings, A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress and The Farmer Refuted. He published two additional pieces attacking the Quebec Act, and may have also authored the 15 anonymous installments of "The Monitor" for Holt's New York Journal. Hamilton supported the revolutionary cause before the war began, but he disapproved of mob violence against the Loyalists. On May 10, 1775, he was credited with saving King's College president Myles Cooper, a Loyalist, from an angry mob by speaking to the crowd long enough to allow Cooper to escape. Hamilton was forced to discontinue his studies before graduating when the college closed its doors during the British occupation of New York City and his subsequent military service. ==Revolutionary War (1775–1782)==

Early military career In 1775, following the outbreak of the Revolutionary War with the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Hamilton and other King's College students joined a New York volunteer militia company, the Corsicans, whose name reflected the Corsican Republic that was suppressed six years earlier and which young American patriots regarded as a political model to be emulated. Hamilton drilled with the company before classes in the graveyard of nearby St. Paul's Chapel, studied military history and tactics on his own, and was soon elected an officer. Under fire from HMS Asia, and coordinating with Hercules Mulligan and the Sons of Liberty, he led his newly renamed unit, the "Hearts of Oak," on a successful raid for British cannons in the Battery. The seizure of the cannons resulted in the unit being re-designated an artillery company. Through his connections with influential New York patriots, including Alexander McDougall and John Jay, Hamilton was commissioned by the revolutionary government to raise the New York Provincial Company of Artillery of 60 men in 1776, and was then appointed captain. The company took part in the campaign of 1776 in and around New York City; as rearguard of the Continental Army's retreat up Manhattan, serving at the Battle of Harlem Heights shortly after, and at the Battle of White Plains a month later. At the Battle of Trenton, the company was stationed at the high point of town at the intersection of present-day Warren and Broad streets to keep the Hessians pinned down in their barracks. 194 British soldiers walked out of the building and laid down their arms, ending the battle in an American victory. George Washington's staff Hamilton was invited to become an aide to Continental Army general William Alexander, Lord Stirling, and another general, perhaps Nathanael Greene or Alexander McDougall. He declined these invitations, believing his best chance for improving his station in life was glory on the Revolutionary War's battlefields. Hamilton eventually received an invitation he felt he could not refuse: to serve as George Washington's aide with the rank of lieutenant colonel. Washington believed that "Aides de camp are persons in whom entire confidence must be placed and it requires men of abilities to execute the duties with propriety and dispatch." Hamilton served four years as Washington's chief staff aide. He handled letters to the Continental Congress, state governors, and the most powerful generals of the Continental Army. He drafted many of Washington's orders and letters under Washington's direction, and he eventually issued orders on Washington's behalf over his own signature. Hamilton was involved in a wide variety of high-level duties, including intelligence, diplomacy, and negotiation with senior army officers as Washington's emissary. While stationed at the army's winter headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey from December 1779 to March 1780, Hamilton met Elizabeth Schuyler, a daughter of General Philip Schuyler and Catherine Van Rensselaer. They married on December 14, 1780, at the Schuyler Mansion in Albany, New York. They had eight children, Philip, Angelica, Alexander, James, John, William, Eliza, and another Philip. During the Revolutionary War, Hamilton became the close friend of several fellow officers. His letters to the Marquis de Lafayette and to John Laurens, employing the sentimental literary conventions of the late 18th century and alluding to Greek history and mythology, have been read by Jonathan Ned Katz as revelatory of a homosocial or even homosexual relationship. Biographer Gregory D. Massey amongst others, by contrast, dismisses all such speculation as unsubstantiated, describing their friendship as purely platonic camaraderie instead and placing their correspondence in the context of the flowery diction of the time. Field command While on Washington's staff, Hamilton long sought command and a return to active combat. As the war drew nearer to an end, he knew that opportunities for military glory were diminishing. On February 15, 1781, Hamilton was reprimanded by Washington after a minor misunderstanding. Although Washington quickly tried to mend their relationship, Hamilton insisted on leaving his staff. He officially left in March, and settled with his new wife Elizabeth Schuyler close to Washington's headquarters. He continued to repeatedly ask Washington and others for a field command. Washington continued to demur, citing the need to appoint men of higher rank. This continued until early July 1781, when Hamilton submitted a letter to Washington with his commission enclosed, "thus tacitly threatening to resign if he didn't get his desired command." On July 31, Washington relented and assigned Hamilton as commander of a battalion of light infantry companies of the 1st and 2nd New York Regiments and two provisional companies from Connecticut. In the planning for the assault on Yorktown, Hamilton was given command of three battalions, which were to fight in conjunction with the allied French troops in taking Redoubts No. 9 and No. 10 of the British fortifications at Yorktown. Hamilton and his battalions took Redoubt No. 10 with bayonets alone so as not to risk accidental gunfire and discovery in a nighttime action, as planned. The French also suffered heavy casualties and took Redoubt No. 9. These actions forced the British surrender of an entire army at Yorktown, marking the de facto end of the war, although small battles continued for two more years until the signing of the Treaty of Paris and the departure of the last British troops. ==Return to civilian life (1782–1789)==

Congress of the Confederation After Yorktown, Hamilton returned to New York City and resigned his commission in March 1782. He passed the bar in July after six months of self-directed education and, in October, was licensed to argue cases before the Supreme Court of New York. He also accepted an offer from Robert Morris to become receiver of continental taxes for the New York state. Hamilton was appointed in July 1782 to the Congress of the Confederation as a New York representative for the term beginning in November 1782. Before his appointment to Congress in 1782, Hamilton was already sharing his criticisms of Congress. He expressed these criticisms in his letter to James Duane dated September 3, 1780: "The fundamental defect is a want of power in Congress ... the confederation itself is defective and requires to be altered; it is neither fit for war, nor peace." While on Washington's staff, Hamilton had become frustrated with the decentralized nature of the wartime Continental Congress, particularly its dependence upon the states for voluntary financial support that was not often forthcoming. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress had no power to collect taxes or to demand money from the states. This lack of a stable source of funding had made it difficult for the Continental Army both to obtain its necessary provisions and to pay its soldiers. During the war, and for some time after, Congress obtained what funds it could from subsidies from the King of France, European loans, and aid requested from the several states, which were often unable or unwilling to contribute. An amendment to the Articles had been proposed by Thomas Burke, in February 1781, to give Congress the power to collect a five percent impost, or duty on all imports, but this required ratification by all states; securing its passage as law proved impossible after it was rejected by Rhode Island in November 1782. James Madison joined Hamilton in influencing Congress to send a delegation to persuade Rhode Island to change its mind. Their report recommending the delegation argued the national government needed not just some level of financial autonomy, but also the ability to make laws that superseded those of the individual states. Hamilton transmitted a letter arguing that Congress already had the power to tax, since it had the power to fix the sums due from the several states; but Virginia's rescission of its own ratification of this amendment ended the Rhode Island negotiations. Congress and the army While Hamilton was in Congress, discontented soldiers began to pose a danger to the young United States. Most of the army was then posted at Newburgh, New York. Those in the army were funding much of their own supplies, and they had not been paid in eight months. Furthermore, after Valley Forge, the Continental officers had been promised in May 1778 a pension of half their pay when they were discharged. By the early 1780s, due to the structure of the government under the Articles of Confederation, it had no power to tax to either raise revenue or pay its soldiers. In 1782, after several months without pay, a group of officers organized to send a delegation to lobby Congress, led by Captain Alexander McDougall. The officers had three demands: the army's pay, their own pensions, and commutation of those pensions into a lump-sum payment if Congress were unable to afford the half-salary pensions for life. Congress rejected the proposal. Hamilton suggested using the Army's claims to prevail upon the states for the proposed national funding system. The Morrises and Hamilton contacted General Henry Knox to suggest he and the officers defy civil authority, at least by not disbanding if the army were not satisfied. Hamilton wrote Washington to suggest that Hamilton covertly "take direction" of the officers' efforts to secure redress, to secure continental funding but keep the army within the limits of moderation. Washington wrote Hamilton back, declining to introduce the army. After the crisis had ended, Washington warned of the dangers of using the army as leverage to gain support for the national funding plan. On March 15, Washington defused the Newburgh situation by addressing the officers personally.—that again required the consent of all the states; it also approved a commutation of the officers' pensions to five years of full pay. Rhode Island again opposed these provisions, and Hamilton's robust assertions of national prerogatives in his previous letter were widely held to be excessive. In June 1783, a different group of disgruntled soldiers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, sent Congress a petition demanding their back pay. When they began to march toward Philadelphia, Congress charged Hamilton and two others with intercepting the mob. Frustrated with the weakness of the national government, Hamilton while in Princeton, drafted a call to revise the Articles of Confederation. This resolution contained many features of the future Constitution of the United States, including a strong federal government with the ability to collect taxes and raise an army. It also included the separation of powers into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches. When the British left New York in 1783, he practiced there in partnership with Richard Harison. He specialized in defending Tories and British subjects, as in Rutgers v. Waddington, in which he defeated a claim for damages done to a brewery by the Englishmen who held it during the military occupation of New York. He pleaded for the mayor's court to interpret state law consistent with the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which had ended the Revolutionary War. Long dissatisfied with the Articles of Confederation as too weak to be effective, Hamilton played a major leadership role at the 1786 Annapolis Convention. He drafted its resolution for a constitutional convention, and in doing so brought one step closer to reality his longtime desire to have a more effectual, more financially self-sufficient federal government. As a member of the legislature of New York, Hamilton argued forcefully and at length in favor of a bill to recognize the sovereignty of the State of Vermont, against numerous objections to its constitutionality and policy. Consideration of the bill was deferred to a later date. From 1787 to 1789, Hamilton exchanged letters with Nathaniel Chipman, a lawyer representing Vermont. After the Constitution of the United States went into effect, Hamilton said, "One of the first subjects of deliberation with the new Congress will be the independence of Kentucky, for which the southern states will be anxious. The northern will be glad to send a counterpoise in Vermont." Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791. In 1788, he was awarded a Master of Arts degree from his alma mater, the former King's College, now reconstituted as Columbia College. It was during this post-war period that Hamilton served on the college's board of trustees, playing a part in the reopening of the college and placing it on firm financial footing. Constitution and The Federalist Papers in 1787 In 1787, Hamilton served as assemblyman from New York County in the New York State Legislature and was chosen as a delegate at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia by his father-in-law Philip Schuyler. Even though Hamilton had been a leader in calling for a new Constitutional Convention, his direct influence at the Convention itself was quite limited. Governor George Clinton's faction in the New York legislature had chosen New York's other two delegates, John Lansing Jr. and Robert Yates, and both of them opposed Hamilton's goal of a strong national government. Thus, whenever the other two members of the New York delegation were present, they decided New York's vote, to ensure that there were no major alterations to the Articles of Confederation. According to Madison's notes, Hamilton said in regards to the executive, "The English model was the only good one on this subject. The hereditary interest of the king was so interwoven with that of the nation, and his personal emoluments so great, that he was placed above the danger of being corrupted from abroad... Let one executive be appointed for life who dares execute his powers." Hamilton argued, "And let me observe that an executive is less dangerous to the liberties of the people when in office during life than for seven years. It may be said this constitutes as an elective monarchy ... But by making the executive subject to impeachment, the term 'monarchy' cannot apply ..." During the convention, Hamilton constructed a draft for the Constitution based on the convention debates, but he never presented it. This draft had most of the features of the actual Constitution. In this draft, the Senate was to be elected in proportion to the population, being two-fifths the size of the House, and the president and senators were to be elected through complex multistage elections, in which chosen electors would elect smaller bodies of electors; they would hold office for life, but were removable for misconduct. The president would have an absolute veto. The Supreme Court was to have immediate jurisdiction over all lawsuits involving the United States, and state governors were to be appointed by the federal government. At the end of the convention, Hamilton was still not content with the final Constitution, but signed it anyway as a vast improvement over the Articles of Confederation, and urged his fellow delegates to do so also. Since the other two members of the New York delegation, Lansing and Yates, had already withdrawn, Hamilton was the only New York signer to the United States Constitution. Clinton's faction wanted to amend the Constitution, while maintaining the state's right to secede if their attempts failed, and members of Hamilton's faction were against any conditional ratification, under the impression that New York would not be accepted into the Union. During the state convention, New Hampshire and Virginia becoming the ninth and tenth states to ratify the Constitution, respectively, had ensured any adjournment would not happen and a compromise would have to be reached. Hamilton's arguments used for the ratifications were largely iterations of work from The Federalist Papers, and Smith eventually went for ratification, though it was more out of necessity than Hamilton's rhetoric. The Federalist Papers Hamilton recruited John Jay and James Madison to write The Federalist Papers, a series of essays, to defend the proposed Constitution. He made the largest contribution to that effort, writing 51 of the 85 essays published. Hamilton supervised the entire project, enlisted the participants, wrote the majority of the essays, and oversaw the publication. During the project, each person was responsible for their areas of expertise. Jay covered foreign relations. Madison covered the history of republics and confederacies, along with the anatomy of the new government. Hamilton covered the branches of government most pertinent to him: the executive and judicial branches, with some aspects of the Senate, as well as covering military matters and taxation. The papers first appeared in The Independent Journal on October 27, 1787. Hamilton's highlights included discussion that although republics have been culpable for disorders in the past, advances in the "science of politics" had fostered principles that ensured that those abuses could be prevented, such as the division of powers, legislative checks and balances, an independent judiciary, and legislators that were represented by electors (No. 7–9). Hamilton also wrote an extensive defense of the constitution (No. 23–36), and discussed the Senate and executive and judicial branches (No. 65–85). Hamilton and Madison worked to describe the anarchic state of the confederation (No. 15–22), and the two have been described as not being significantly different in thought during this time period—in contrast to their stark opposition later in life. Subtle differences appeared with the two when discussing the necessity of standing armies. ==First U.S. secretary of the treasury (1789–1795)==

on the south patio of the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C. In 1789, Washington—who had become the first president of the United States—appointed Hamilton to be his cabinet's secretary of the treasury on the advice of Robert Morris, Washington's initial pick. On September 11, 1789, Hamilton was nominated and confirmed in the Senate and sworn in the same day as the first United States secretary of the treasury. Report on Public Credit Before the adjournment of the House in September 1789, they requested Hamilton to make a report on suggestions to improve the public credit by January 1790. Hamilton had written to Morris as early as 1781, that fixing the public credit will win their objective of independence. While writing the report he also sought out suggestions from contemporaries such as John Witherspoon and Madison. Although they agreed on additional taxes such as distilleries and duties on imported liquors and land taxes, Madison feared that the securities from the government debt would fall into foreign hands. Hamilton felt the money from the bonds should not go to the soldiers who had shown little faith in the country's future, but the speculators that had bought the bonds from the soldiers. The process of attempting to track down the original bondholders along with the government showing discrimination among the classes of holders if the war veterans were to be compensated also weighed in as factors for Hamilton. As for the state debts, Hamilton suggested consolidating them with the national debt and label it as federal debt, for the sake of efficiency on a national scale. When the report was submitted to the House of Representatives, detractors soon began to speak against it. Some of the negative views expressed in the House were that the notion of programs that resembled British practice were wicked, and that the balance of power would be shifted away from the representatives to the executive branch. William Maclay suspected that several congressmen were involved in government securities, seeing Congress in an unholy league with New York speculators. Another issue in which Hamilton played a role was the temporary location of the capital from New York City. Tench Coxe was sent to speak to Maclay to bargain about the capital being temporarily located to Philadelphia, as a single vote in the Senate was needed and five in the House for the bill to pass. extensive studies on the Bank of England, the blunders of the Bank of North America and his experience in establishing the Bank of New York. Hamilton suggested that Congress should charter the national bank with a capitalization of $10 million, one-fifth of which would be handled by the government. Since the government did not have the money, it would borrow the money from the bank itself, and repay the loan in ten even annual installments. The bank was to be governed by a twenty-five-member board of directors that was to represent a large majority of the private shareholders, which Hamilton considered essential for his being under a private direction. and those of the agrarian lifestyle would not benefit from it. Madison warned the Pennsylvania congress members that he would attack the bill as unconstitutional in the House, and followed up on his threat. Madison argued his case of where the power of a bank could be established within the Constitution, but he failed to sway members of the House, and his authority on the constitution was questioned by a few members. While Hamilton's vision laid the groundwork for a structured financial system, the concept of centralized banking has remained one of the most polarizing economic debates in American history, garnering both staunch criticism and fervent support from economists and the public alike. Establishing the mint In 1791, Hamilton submitted the Report on the Establishment of a Mint to the House of Representatives. Many of Hamilton's ideas for this report were from European economists, resolutions from the 1785 and 1786 Continental Congress meetings, and people such as Robert Morris, Gouverneur Morris and Thomas Jefferson. Because the most circulated coins in the United States at the time were Spanish currency, Hamilton proposed that minting a United States dollar weighing almost as much as the Spanish peso would be the simplest way to introduce a national currency. Hamilton differed from European monetary policymakers in his desire to overprice gold relative to silver, on the grounds that the United States would always receive an influx of silver from the West Indies. he ultimately issued a bimetallic currency at a fixed 15:1 ratio of silver to gold. Hamilton proposed that the U.S. dollar should have fractional coins using decimals, rather than eighths like the Spanish coinage. This innovation was originally suggested by Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris, with whom Hamilton corresponded after examining one of Morris's Nova Constellatio coins in 1783. He also desired the minting of small value coins, such as silver ten-cent and copper cent and half-cent pieces, for reducing the cost of living for the poor. One of his main objectives was for the general public to become accustomed to handling money on a frequent basis. In response, Hamilton proposed to Congress to enact a naval police force called revenue cutters in order to patrol the waters and assist the custom collectors with confiscating contraband. This idea was also proposed to assist in tariff controlling, boosting the American economy, and promote the merchant marine. Concerning some of the details of the System of Cutters, Hamilton wanted the first ten cutters in different areas in the United States, from New England to Georgia. Each of those cutters was to be armed with ten muskets and bayonets, twenty pistols, two chisels, one broad-ax and two lanterns. The fabric of the sails was to be domestically manufactured; In response of diversifying revenues, as three-fourths of revenue gathered was from commerce with Great Britain, Hamilton attempted once again during his Report on Public Credit when presenting it in 1790 to implement an excise tax on both imported and domestic spirits. The taxation rate was graduated in proportion to the whiskey proof, and Hamilton intended to equalize the tax burden on imported spirits with imported and domestic liquor. Although the inspectors were not allowed to search houses and warehouses, they were to visit twice a day and file weekly reports in extensive detail. Strong opposition to the whiskey tax by cottage producers in remote, rural regions erupted into the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794; in Western Pennsylvania and western Virginia, whiskey was the basic export product and was fundamental to the local economy. In response to the rebellion, believing compliance with the laws was vital to the establishment of federal authority, Hamilton accompanied to the rebellion's site President Washington, General Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee, and more federal troops than Washington had usually commanded during the Revolution. This overwhelming display of force intimidated the leaders of the insurrection, ending the rebellion virtually without bloodshed. Manufacturing and industry , which Hamilton envisioned using to power new factories Hamilton's next report was his Report on Manufactures. Although he was requested by Congress on January 15, 1790, for a report for manufacturing that would expand the United States' independence, the report was not submitted until December 5, 1791. In response to the agrarian detractors, Hamilton stated that the agriculturists' interest would be advanced by manufactures, and that agriculture was just as productive as manufacturing. Among the ways that the government should assist manufacturing, Hamilton argued for government assistance to "infant industries" so they can achieve economies of scale, by levying protective duties on imported foreign goods that were also manufactured in the United States, for withdrawing duties levied on raw materials needed for domestic manufacturing, Congress shelved the report without much debate, except for Madison's objection to Hamilton's formulation of the general welfare clause, which Hamilton construed liberally as a legal basis for his extensive programs. In 1791, Hamilton, along with Coxe and several entrepreneurs from New York City and Philadelphia formed the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures, a private industrial corporation. In May 1792, the directors decided to examine the Great Falls of the Passaic River in New Jersey as a possible location for a manufacturing center. On July 4, 1792, the society directors met Philip Schuyler at Abraham Godwin's hotel on the Passaic River, where they led a tour prospecting the area for the national manufactory. It was originally suggested that they dig mile-long trenches and build the factories away from the falls, but Hamilton argued that it would be too costly and laborious. The location at Great Falls of the Passaic River in New Jersey was selected due to access to raw materials, it being densely inhabited, and having access to water power from the falls of the Passaic. The profits were to derive from specific corporates rather than the benefits to be conferred to the nation and the citizens, which was unlike the report. Hamilton also suggested the first stock to be offered at $500,000 and to eventually increase to $1 million, and welcomed state and federal government subscriptions alike. In spite of Hamilton's efforts to mend the disaster, the company folded. However, in 1794, policy toward Britain became a major point of contention between the two parties. Hamilton and the Federalists wished for more trade with Britain, the largest trading partner of the newly formed United States. The Republicans saw monarchist Britain as the main threat to republicanism and proposed instead to start a trade war. The Jay Treaty passed the Senate in 1795 by exactly the required two-thirds majority. The treaty resolved issues remaining from the Revolution, averted war, and made possible ten years of peaceful trade between the United States and Britain. Several European states had formed the Second League of Armed Neutrality against incursions on their neutral rights; the cabinet was also consulted on whether the United States should join the alliance and decided not to. It kept that decision secret, but Hamilton revealed it in private to George Hammond, the British minister to the United States, without telling Jay or anyone else. His act remained unknown until Hammond's dispatches were read in the 1920s. This revelation may have had limited effect on the negotiations; Jay did threaten to join the League at one point, but the British had other reasons not to view the alliance as a serious threat. Resignation from public office Hamilton's wife suffered a miscarriage while he was absent during his armed repression of the Whiskey Rebellion. In the wake of this, Hamilton tendered his resignation from office on December 1, 1794, giving Washington two months' notice, Before leaving his post on January 31, 1795, Hamilton submitted the Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit to Congress to curb the debt problem. Hamilton grew dissatisfied with what he viewed as a lack of a comprehensive plan to fix the public debt. He wished to have new taxes passed with older ones made permanent and stated that any surplus from the excise tax on liquor would be pledged to lower public debt. His proposals were included in a bill by Congress within slightly over a month after his departure as treasury secretary. Some months later, Hamilton resumed his law practice in New York to remain closer to his family. After Jay resigned as Chief Justice in June 1795 to become Governor of New York, Attorney General William Bradford implored Hamilton to take the position, but Hamilton declined to focus on New York state politics. Emergence of political parties Hamilton's vision was challenged by Virginia agrarians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who formed the Democratic-Republican Party. They favored strong state governments based in rural America and protected by state militias as opposed to a strong national government supported by a national army and navy. They denounced Hamilton as insufficiently devoted to republicanism, too friendly toward corrupt Britain and the monarchy in general, and too oriented toward cities, industry and banking. The two-party system began to emerge as political parties coalesced around competing interests. A congressional caucus, led by Madison, Jefferson, and William Branch Giles, began as an opposition group to Hamilton's financial programs. Hamilton and his allies began to call themselves the Federalists. Hamilton assembled a nationwide coalition to garner support for the administration, including the expansive financial programs Hamilton had made administration policy and especially the president's policy of neutrality in the European war between Britain and France. Hamilton publicly denounced French minister Genêt, who commissioned American privateers and recruited Americans for private militias to attack British ships and colonial possessions of British allies. Eventually, even Jefferson joined Hamilton in seeking Genêt's recall. If Hamilton's administrative republic was to succeed, Americans had to see themselves first as citizens of a nation and experience an administration that proved firm and demonstrated the concepts found within the Constitution. The Federalists did impose some internal direct taxes, but they departed from most implications of Hamilton's administrative republic as risky. The Republicans opposed banks and cities and favored the series of unstable revolutionary governments in France. They built their own national coalition to oppose the Federalists. Both sides gained the support of local political factions, and each side developed its own partisan newspapers. Noah Webster, John Fenno, and William Cobbett were energetic editors for the Federalists, while Benjamin Franklin Bache and Philip Freneau were fiery Republican editors. All of their newspapers were characterized by intense personal attacks, major exaggerations, and invented claims. In 1801, Hamilton established a daily newspaper, the New York Evening Post, and brought in William Coleman as its editor. Hamilton's and Jefferson's incompatibility was heightened by the unavowed wish of each to be Washington's principal and most trusted advisor. An additional partisan irritant to Hamilton was the 1791 United States Senate election in New York, which resulted in the election of Democratic-Republican candidate Aaron Burr over Federalist candidate Philip Schuyler, the incumbent and Hamilton's father-in-law. Hamilton blamed Burr personally for this outcome, and negative characterizations of Burr began to appear in his correspondence thereafter. The two men did work together from time to time thereafter on various projects, including Hamilton's army of 1798 and the Manhattan Water Company. ==1796 presidential election==

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. Hamilton influenced Washington in the composition of his farewell address by writing drafts for Washington to compare with the latter's draft, although when Washington contemplated retirement in 1792, he had consulted Madison for a draft that was used in a similar manner to Hamilton's. In the election of 1796, under the Constitution as it stood then, each of the presidential electors had two votes, which they were to cast for different men from different states. The one who received the most votes would become president, the second-most, vice president. This system was not designed with the operation of parties in mind, as they had been thought disreputable and factious. The Federalists planned to deal with this by having all their electors vote for John Adams, then vice president, and all but a few for Thomas Pinckney. Adams resented Hamilton's influence with Washington and considered him overambitious and scandalous in his private life; Hamilton compared Adams unfavorably with Washington and thought him too emotionally unstable to be president. Hamilton took the election as an opportunity: he urged all the northern electors to vote for Adams and Pinckney, lest Jefferson get in; but he cooperated with Edward Rutledge to have South Carolina's electors vote for Jefferson and Pinckney. If all this worked, Pinckney would have more votes than Adams, Pinckney would become president, and Adams would remain vice president, but it did not work. The Federalists found out about it and northern Federalists voted for Adams but not for Pinckney, in sufficient numbers that Pinckney came in third and Jefferson became vice president. Adams resented the intrigue since he felt his service to the nation was much more extensive than Pinckney's. ==Reynolds affair==

, a Democratic-Republican congressman and Hamilton's political rival In summer 1797, Hamilton became the first major American politician publicly involved in a sex scandal. Six years earlier, in summer 1791, 34-year-old Hamilton became involved in an affair with 23-year-old Maria Reynolds. According to Hamilton, Maria approached him at his house in Philadelphia, claiming that her husband James Reynolds was abusive and had abandoned her, and she wished to return to her relatives in New York but lacked the means. James Reynolds was aware of his wife's infidelity, and likely orchestrated it from the beginning. He continually supported their relationship to extort blackmail money regularly from Hamilton. The common practice of the day for men of equal social standing was for the wronged husband to seek retribution in a duel. But Reynolds, of a lower social status and realizing how much Hamilton had to lose if his activity was made public, resorted to extortion. After an initial request of $1,000, with which Hamilton complied, Reynolds invited Hamilton to renew his visits to his wife "as a friend" only to extort forced "loans" after each visit that, most likely in collusion, Maria solicited with her letters. In the end, the blackmail payments totaled over $1,300 including the initial extortion. and he welcomed and strictly complied with James Reynolds' eventual request to end the affair. In November 1792, James Reynolds and his associate Jacob Clingman were arrested for counterfeiting and speculating in Revolutionary War veterans' unpaid back wages. Clingman was released on bail and relayed information to Democratic-Republican congressman James Monroe that Reynolds had evidence incriminating Hamilton in illicit activity as Treasury Secretary. Monroe consulted with congressmen Muhlenberg and Venable on what actions to take and the congressmen confronted Hamilton on December 15, 1792. Muhlenberg, and Venable, asking them to confirm that there was nothing that would damage the perception of his integrity while Secretary of Treasury. All but Monroe complied with Hamilton's request. This led to Hamilton and Monroe engaging in an argument that almost culminated in a duel, before the conflict was averted by Aaron Burr. Hamilton then published a 100-page booklet, later usually referred to as the Reynolds Pamphlet, and discussed the affair in indelicate detail for the time. Hamilton's wife Elizabeth eventually forgave him, but never forgave Monroe. Although Hamilton faced ridicule from the Democratic-Republican faction, he maintained his availability for public service. ==Quasi-War==

During the military build-up preceding the Quasi-War with France, and with the strong endorsement of Washington, Adams reluctantly appointed Hamilton a major general of the army. At Washington's insistence, Hamilton was made the senior major general prompting Henry Knox, who had served as United States Secretary of War and years earlier in wartime as a Continental Army major general, to decline the appointment to serve as Hamilton's junior believing it would be degrading to rank beneath him. Hamilton served as inspector general of the United States Army from July 18, 1798, to June 15, 1800. Because Washington was unwilling to leave Mount Vernon unless it were to command an army in the field, Hamilton was the de facto head of the army, to Adams's considerable displeasure. If full-scale war broke out with France, Hamilton argued that the army should conquer the North American colonies of France's ally, Spain, bordering the United States. Hamilton was prepared to march the army through the Southern United States if necessary. To fund the army, Hamilton wrote regularly to Oliver Wolcott Jr., his successor at the treasury, Representative William Loughton Smith, and U.S. senator Theodore Sedgwick. He urged them to pass a direct tax to fund the war. Smith resigned in July 1797, as Hamilton complained to him for slowness, and urged Wolcott to tax houses instead of land. The eventual program included taxes on land, houses, and slaves, calculated at different rates in different states and requiring assessment of houses, and a stamp act like that of the British before the Revolution, though this time Americans were taxing themselves through their own representatives. This provoked resistance in southeastern Pennsylvania nevertheless, led primarily by men such as John Fries who had marched with Washington against the Whiskey Rebellion. Hamilton aided in all areas of the army's development, and after Washington's death he was by default the senior officer of the United States Army from December 14, 1799, to June 15, 1800. The army was to guard against invasion from France. Adams, however, derailed all plans for war by opening negotiations with France that led to peace. There was no longer a direct threat for the army Hamilton was commanding to respond to. Adams discovered that key members of his cabinet, namely Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and Secretary of War James McHenry, were more loyal to Hamilton than himself; Adams fired them in May 1800. ==1800 presidential election==

, Hamilton's foe Aaron Burr was shut out of President Jefferson's administration and the Democratic-Republican Party. In November 1799, the Alien and Sedition Acts had left one Democratic-Republican newspaper functioning in New York City. When the last newspaper, the New Daily Advertiser, reprinted an article saying that Hamilton had attempted to purchase the Philadelphia Aurora to close it down, and said the purchase could have been funded by "British secret service money". Hamilton urged the New York Attorney General to prosecute the publisher for seditious libel, and the prosecution compelled the owner to close the paper. In the 1800 presidential election, Hamilton worked to defeat both the Democratic-Republicans and also his party's own nominee, John Adams. Adams was running this time with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, the elder brother of former vice presidential candidate Thomas. Hamilton toured New England, again urging northern electors to hold firm for Pinckney in the renewed hope of making Pinckney president; and he again intrigued in South Carolina. It was for that reason, along with the fact that Burr was a northerner and not a Virginian, that many Federalist representatives voted for him. Hamilton wrote many letters to friends in Congress to convince the members to see otherwise. However, according to several historians, the Federalists had rejected Hamilton's diatribe as reasons to not vote for Burr. Ron Chernow, alternatively, claimed that Hamilton "squelched" Burr's chance at becoming president. When it became clear that Jefferson had developed his own concerns about Burr and would not support his return to the vice presidency, ==Duel with Burr and death==

in Weehawken, New Jersey in Lower Manhattan Soon after Lewis' gubernatorial victory, the Albany Register published Charles D. Cooper's letters, citing Hamilton's opposition to Burr and alleging that Hamilton had expressed "a still more despicable opinion" of the vice president at an Upstate New York dinner party. Cooper claimed that the letter was intercepted after relaying the information, but stated he was "unusually cautious" in recollecting the information from the dinner. Sensing an attack on his honor, and recovering from his defeat, Burr demanded an apology in the form of a letter. Hamilton wrote a letter in response and ultimately refused because he could not recall the instance of insulting Burr. Hamilton was also accused of recanting Cooper's letter out of cowardice. As evidence of the importance that honor held in Hamilton's value system, historians observe that Hamilton previously was a party to seven "affairs of honor" as a principal, and to three as an advisor or second. Such affairs of honor were often concluded prior to reaching the final stage of a duel. His desire to be available for future political matters also played a factor. A week before the duel, Hamilton and Burr both attended an annual Independence Day dinner held by the Society of the Cincinnati. Separate accounts confirm that Hamilton was uncharacteristically effusive while Burr was, by contrast, uncharacteristically withdrawn. Accounts also agree that Burr became roused when Hamilton, again uncharacteristically, sang a favorite song, which recent scholarship indicates was "How Stands the Glass Around", an anthem sung by military troops about fighting and dying in war. The duel began at dawn on July 11, 1804, along the west bank of the Hudson River on a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey. Both opponents were rowed over from Manhattan separately from different locations, since the location of the duel was not accessible from the west due to the steepness of the adjoining cliffs. Coincidentally, the duel took place relatively close to the location of the duel that had ended the life of Hamilton's eldest son, Philip Hamilton, three years earlier. Lots were cast for the choice of position and which second should start the duel. Both were won by Hamilton's second, who chose the upper edge of the ledge for Hamilton facing the city and the rising sun to the east. After the seconds measured the paces, Hamilton, according to both William P. Van Ness and Burr, raised his pistol "as if to try the light" and had to wear his glasses to prevent his vision from being obscured. Hamilton also refused the more sensitive hairspring setting for the dueling pistols offered by Nathaniel Pendleton, and Burr was unaware of the option. disagreed on which man fired first in the duel. Soon after, they measured and triangulated the shooting, but could not determine from which angle Hamilton had fired. Biographer Ron Chernow contends that, after taking deliberate aim, Burr fired second. Biographer James Earnest Cooke, however, believes that Burr took careful aim and shot first, and Hamilton fired while falling after being struck by Burr's bullet. The shot hit Hamilton in the lower abdomen above his right hip. The ball ricocheted off Hamilton's second or third false rib, fracturing it and causing considerable damage to his internal organs, particularly his liver and diaphragm, before becoming lodged in his first or second lumbar vertebra. The paralyzed Hamilton was immediately attended by the same surgeon who tended to Hamilton's son Philip. Hamilton was ferried to Greenwich Village and the boarding house of his friend William Bayard Jr., who was waiting on the dock. On his deathbed, Hamilton asked the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Benjamin Moore, to give him holy communion. After leaving, Moore was persuaded to return that afternoon by the urgent pleas of Hamilton's friends. After hearing Hamilton's solemn assurance that he repented his role in the duel, Moore gave him communion. at Bayard's home just below present-day Gansevoort Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. The city fathers halted all business at noon two days later for Hamilton's funeral. The procession route of about two miles organized by the Society of the Cincinnati had so many participants of every class of citizen that it took hours to complete and was widely reported nationwide by newspapers. Moore conducted Hamilton's funeral service at Trinity Church at present-day 89 Broadway in Manhattan. Hamilton was buried in the church's cemetery. ==Religion==

Religious faith As a youth in the West Indies, Hamilton was an orthodox and conventional Presbyterian of the New Lights; he was mentored there by a former student of John Witherspoon, a moderate of the New School. He wrote two or three hymns, which were published in the local newspaper. Robert Troup, his college roommate, noted that Hamilton was "in the habit of praying on his knees night and morning". and was Episcopalian. Historian Ron Chernow wrote: When the Constitutional Convention opened in Philadelphia in May 1787, stories circulated that Hamilton made two quips about God at the convention. Asked by a Presbyterian minister why God was not referenced in the Constitution, Hamilton responded "Indeed, Doctor, we forgot it." When Benjamin Franklin asked that each session of the Constitutional Convention be opened with prayer, Hamilton is reported to have replied that there was no need for "foreign aid". During the French Revolution, Hamilton displayed a utilitarian approach to using religion for political ends, including maligning Thomas Jefferson as "the atheist", and insisting that Christianity and Jeffersonian democracy were incompatible. Relationship with Jews and Judaism Hamilton's birthplace had a large Jewish community, comprising roughly a quarter of Charlestown's white population by the 1720s. Hamilton exhibited a respect for Jews, which was described as "a lifelong reverence." He believed that Jewish achievement was a result of divine providence: Based primarily on the phonetic similarity of Lavien to a common Jewish surname, it has been suggested that Johann Lavien, the first husband of Hamilton's mother, was Jewish or of Jewish descent. On this contested foundation, it was rumored that Hamilton himself was born Jewish, a claim that gained some popularity early in the 20th century and which was given serious consideration in 2021 by Andrew Porwancher. The belief that Lavien was Jewish was popularized by Gertrude Atherton in her 1902 novel The Conqueror, a fictionalized biography of Hamilton which made the earliest known written assertion that Hamilton was Jewish. The consensus of mainstream scholars and historians, however, is that Hamilton was not Jewish. ==Legacy==

Constitution Hamilton's interpretations of the Constitution, which are set forth in The Federalist Papers, remain highly influential, and continue to be cited in scholarly studies and court decisions. Although the Constitution was ambiguous as to the exact balance of power between national and state governments, Hamilton consistently took the side of greater federal power at the expense of the states, which placed him at odds with Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers. Jefferson especially opposed Hamilton's support of a de facto central bank, which Hamilton believed was permissible under Congress's constitutional authority to issue currency, regulate interstate commerce, and do anything else that would be "necessary and proper" to enact the provisions of the Constitution. Jefferson, however, took a differing view. Parsing text carefully, Jefferson argued that no specific authorization for the establishment of a national bank existed. The controversy between the two was addressed in McCulloch v. Maryland, which largely adopted Hamilton's view, granting the federal government broad freedom to select the best means to execute its constitutionally enumerated powers and confirmed the doctrine of implied powers. Hamilton's policies have proven greatly influential on the development of the U.S. government. His constitutional interpretation, particularly of the Necessary and Proper Clause, set precedents for federal authority that are still cited by courts and are considered an authority on constitutional interpretation. French diplomat Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, who spent 1794 in the United States, wrote, "I consider Napoleon, Fox, and Hamilton the three greatest men of our epoch, and if I were forced to decide between the three, I would give without hesitation the first place to Hamilton," adding that Hamilton understood the problems of European conservatives trying to adapt to a liberalizing world. Both John Adams and Jefferson, however, viewed Hamilton as unprincipled and dangerously aristocratic. Hamilton's reputation was mostly negative in the Jeffersonian democracy and Jacksonian democracy eras. During the Jeffersonian era, Hamilton was criticized as a centralizer, sometimes to the point of accusing him of being a proponent of monarchy. Conversely, during the later Progressive Era, such figures as Herbert Croly, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt praised Hamilton's leadership as a proponent of a strong national government. In the 19th and 20th centuries several Republicans wrote laudatory biographies on Hamilton prior to entering politics. According to Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz, Hamilton has been generally viewed favorably among contemporary scholars, who portray him as a visionary architect of a modern liberal capitalist economy and of a dynamic federal government headed by an energetic executive. Conversely, these modern scholars favoring Hamilton portray Jefferson and his allies as relatively naïve and dreamy idealists. Ron Chernow in his 2004 biography of Hamilton acknowledged that, while there is "no definite proof" that Hamilton personally owned slaves, "oblique hints" in Hamilton's papers allow the possibility that "he and Eliza may have owned one or two household slaves." Hamilton handled slave transactions as the legal representative of his own family members, and his grandson, Allan McLane Hamilton, interpreted some of these journal entries as being purchases for himself. In 1840, however, his son John maintained that his father "never owned a slave; but on the contrary, having learned that a domestic whom he had hired was about to be sold by her master, he immediately purchased her freedom." Hamilton expressed support for limited emancipation during the American Revolutionary War, when he endorsed a plan to recruit enslaved men to serve in the Continental Army. As a necessary inducement, Hamilton wrote, the enslaved recruits should be promised their freedom upon enlistment. He dismissed objections that enslaved men were "too stupid" to fight well, arguing that their "want of cultivation" and "habit of subordination" made them ideal soldiers. Whereas officers should be "men of sense and sentiment," good enlisted men were unthinking "machines," a role to which white men, unaccustomed to a "life of servitude," were comparatively less suited than persons who had been enslaved. In 1785, he joined his close associate John Jay and more than 30 fellow New Yorkers in founding the New York Manumission Society. The Society lobbied successfully for legislation to gradually abolish slavery in New York. In his letter recommending the enlistment of Black soldiers in the Continental Army, Hamilton rejected the racial essentialism found in the contemporaneous writings of Jefferson and other leading white intellectuals, asserting "their natural faculties are as good as ours." He never advocated for the colonization of free people of color outside the United States, which many contemporaries considered essential to any plan for emancipation. In the 1790s, Hamilton's political agenda sometimes came into conflict with proslavery interests. When the enslaved population of Saint-Domingue rose up against their French enslavers, Hamilton and other Federalists supported the revolutionaries and urged closer economic and diplomatic ties with new nation of Haiti. Economics since 1928. Hamilton has been portrayed as the patron saint Hamilton's ideas and work influenced 19th century German economist Friedrich List and Henry Charles Carey, who served as Abraham Lincoln's chief economic advisor during the Lincoln administration. In fall 1781, Hamilton firmly supported government intervention in favor of business after the manner of Jean-Baptiste Colbert. In contrast to the British policy of international mercantilism, which he believed skewed benefits to colonial and imperial powers, Hamilton was a pioneering advocate of protectionism. He is credited with the idea that industrialization was only possible with tariffs that protected the "infant industries" of an emerging nation. The dominance of executive leadership in the formulation and carrying out of policy was, in Hamilton's view, essential to resist the deterioration of a republican government. As evidence of Hamilton's global influence, some scholars have compared Hamilton's recommendations to the development of Meiji Japan. ==In popular culture==

performing the title role in the musical Hamilton in April 2016 Hamilton has appeared as a significant figure in popular works of historical fiction, including many that focused on other American political figures of his time. In comparison to other Founding Fathers, however, Hamilton attracted relatively little attention in American popular culture in the 20th century. In 2015, he gained significant mainstream attention with the debut of the Broadway musical Hamilton, which is based on a biography by Ron Chernow. Lin-Manuel Miranda played Hamilton in the Original Broadway Cast. The musical was described by The New Yorker in February 2015 as "an achievement of historical and cultural reimagining. In Miranda's telling, the headlong rise of one self-made immigrant becomes the story of America." The Off-Broadway production of Hamilton won the 2015 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical and seven other Drama Desk Awards. In 2016, Hamilton received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and set a record for Tony Award nominations with 16, winning 11, including Best Musical. During the Obama administration, a plan to replace Hamilton on the ten-dollar bill was shelved due partly to the musical's popularity. On July 3, 2020, Disney+ released the movie Hamilton, an authorized film of the Broadway stage production performed by the original cast. ==References==