Alexander Hamilton Biography

Alexander Hamilton was an American leader, politician, legal scholar, military commander, lawyer, banker, and economist who lived from January 11, 1755, or 1757 until July 12, 1804. He was a founder of the United States of America. He was the founder of the nation's financial system, its Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, and the New York Post newspaper, as well as a prominent translator and proponent of the United States Constitution. Hamilton, as the first secretary of the Treasury, was the driving force behind George Washington's economic policy. 

He was the driving force behind the federal government's support of state debts, as well as the nation's first two de facto central banks, the Bank of North America and the First Bank of the United States, a tariff system, and good trade relations with the United Kingdom. A strong central government led by a strong executive branch, a strong commercial sector, support for manufacturing, and a strong military were all part of his agenda. The most famous Alexander Hamilton biography is Ron Chernow’s Biography.

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Alexander Hamilton Parents

Alexander Hamilton is the second son. James Hamilton, his father, was a Scot. He had traveled to the West Indies in the hopes of making a fortune in business, but he had failed miserably. Rachel Faucette, of French Huguenot ancestry, abandoned her husband and son in the early 1750s and moved in with James Hamilton. Her spouse divorced her after calling her a whore. Although the scenario was not unusual in the islands at the time, Alexander Hamilton's illegitimacy humiliated him and sparked imaginative theories about his origin, including the idea that his real father was George Washington, who was said to have met Rachel in Barbados.

Alexander Hamilton Early Life

Alexander Hamilton was born in Charlestown, the capital of the Leeward Islands' island of Nevis, where he spent part of his childhood. Alexander Hamilton’s early life was spent in Charlestown. Hamilton's mother had previously married Johann Michael Lavien, a Danish or German trader, on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, which were then governed by Denmark. Peter Lavien was their only child. Faucette left her first kid and husband in 1750 and sailed to Saint Kitts, where she met James Hamilton. Hamilton and Faucette married and relocated to Nevis, where she had inherited a seaside parcel in town from her father. Despite his youth, Hamilton proved to be a good trader, and in 1771 he was left in command of the firm for five months while the owner was at sea. He continued to read voraciously and subsequently developed a passion for writing. He began to yearn for a life away from the island where he resided. He wrote a thorough account of a hurricane that hit Christiansted on August 30, 1772, in a letter to his father.

Alexander Hamilton Education

Alexander and James Hamilton Jr. attended a private school with a Jewish headmistress and received "special tutoring" and classes. Alexander augmented his education with 34 books from his family's library. Hamilton arrived in Boston by ship in October 1772 and travelled to New York City from there. He stayed with Hercules Mulligan, an Irishman who, as the brother of a trader known to Hamilton's donors, helped Hamilton sell goods to pay for his education and maintenance.

Hamilton began filling gaps in his education at the Elizabethtown Academy, a preparatory school founded by Francis Barber in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, in 1773, in preparation for college studies. He was influenced by William Livingston, a prominent local thinker, and rebel, with whom he shared a home for a while. When the college closed its doors during the British occupation of the city, Hamilton was obliged to stop his studies before graduating.

Alexander Hamilton works

Revolutionary War:

After the initial American-British battles at Lexington and Concord in 1775, Hamilton and other King's College students joined the Corsicans, a New York voluntary militia company that was eventually renamed or rebuilt as the Hearts of Oak. He drilled with the company in the adjoining St. Paul's Chapel graveyard before school. Hamilton did his research into military history and tactics and was quickly nominated for promotion.

Congress and Army:

Disgruntled soldiers began to represent a threat to the new United States when Hamilton was in Congress. The army was then stationed at Newburgh, New York, for the most part. Army personnel were responsible for much of their supplies and had not been paid in eight months. Furthermore, following Valley Forge, the Continental officers were promised a half-pay pension when they were discharged in May 1778. 

Because of the Articles of Confederation's constitution, the government had no power to tax to raise income or pay its soldiers by the early 1780s. After several months without pay, a group of officers, commanded by Capt. Alexander McDougall formed a delegation to persuade Congress in 1782. The officers wanted the Army's pay, their pensions, and a lump-sum payment if Congress couldn't afford the half-salary pensions for life. The plan was rejected by Congress.

Return to New York:

In 1783, Hamilton resigned from Congress. He practised law in New York with Richard Harison after the British left in 1783. In Rutgers v. Waddington, he defeated a claim for damages caused to a brewery by Englishmen who held it during the military occupation of New York. He argued that the Mayor's Court should interpret state law following the Treaty of Paris, which concluded the Revolutionary War in 1783. 

He formed the Bank of New York in 1784, which is one of America's oldest still-operational banks. He took a prominent leadership role at the Annapolis Convention in 1786, long dissatisfied with the Articles of Confederation as being too weak to be effective. He prepared the resolution calling for a constitutional convention, bringing his long-held dream of a more effective, financially self-sufficient federal government one step closer to reality.

How Did Alexander Hamilton Die?

The duel, which began at daybreak on July 11, 1804, in Weehawken, New Jersey, pitted Hamilton against Burr. Hamilton was seriously injured when both men drew their weapons and fired, but Hamilton's bullet missed Burr. Hamilton was injured and returned to New York City, where he died the following day, July 12, 1804. Hamilton's burial can be found in the Trinity Church cemetery in Manhattan, New York City.

Alexander Hamilton Facts:

• Hamilton served with distinction in the Revolutionary War: as a volunteer, he rose through the ranks to become General George Washington's aide de camp, or right-hand man. At the Battle of Yorktown, Hamilton personally led an attack and charge on a British redoubt.

• Hamilton was mostly self-taught as a lawyer: after relinquishing his military commission in 1782, he was able to study the law and pass a legal examination in less than six months. 

• He worked with James Madison and other Founders to hold the Annapolis Convention in September 1786, in response to his dissatisfaction with the weak Confederation Congress and the Articles of Confederation.

• Hamilton's writing abilities allowed him to escape the Caribbean: Hamilton's letter to his father regarding a hurricane that hit Saint Croix was reprinted in the Royal Danish American Gazette in August 1772. The villagers were so thrilled that they started a fund to send Hamilton to a British North American colony institution.

• Hamilton served with distinction in the Revolutionary War: as a volunteer, he rose through the ranks to become General George Washington's aide de camp, or right-hand man. At the Battle of Yorktown, Hamilton personally led an attack and charge on a British redoubt.

• He worked with James Madison and other Founders to hold the Annapolis Convention in September 1786, in response to his dissatisfaction with the weak Confederation Congress and the Articles of Confederation.