Alexander Hamilton History 398 Dr.

Rodgers Submitted April 25, 2007 by Mark Ota The story of Alexander Hamilton is as much a story of the birth of the United States as it is about the man himself. From a developing nation made up of immigrants came a man from a foreign island and this man helped shape a new army, then government, then attempted to put his vision of economic and banking policy into play. This policy went against almost every belief that Thomas Jefferson had, setting the stage for a historic internal struggle that in its own right rivals the American Civil War in the shaping of how our government functions. Much has been written about the HamiltonJefferson conflict, and when read in the state of presentism it would be easy to label both men fanatical in their actions. Yet the situation as it unfolded was as important to the new nation as it was to the people involved. The world was perceived as watching as to whether this great experiment in democracy would flourish as an inspiration to all or implode from its own critical mass of debate and conflict. The level of commitment on both sides stemmed from the fact that both parties believed that they were the true standard bearer of republican ideals. The questions of how strong a central government should be and its level of involvement in state and local policy are still causing debate to this day. The fact that the United States eventually evolved into Hamiltons idea of government and finance underscores this great mans vision, and shows just how far ahead of his time he truly was. This great American was born an English subject, under the reign of an English king, on a British colony. The

2 island of Nevis in the West Indies is purportedly Hamiltons birth place, although this location and the exact date of his birth cannot be documented. Historians have placed the year at either 1755 or 1757, but most agree on the date of January 11. 1 This and the fact that his parents had him out of wedlock would haunt Alexander his entire life. What is known is that the young Hamilton spent his early years on Nevis as the son of a nonaristocratic white divorced woman. The island grew sugar to sweeten English tea, and since the native population and white settlers of Nevis wanted no part in the backbreaking work of planting, harvesting, and processing the sugar cane, slaves were brought in to do the work instead. To understand the slave activity in

Nevis, one must understand the geography of the area. Located only 17 degrees above the equator, the heat is oppressive and the slaves often worked naked in the fields, under the cruelest of conditions. Public punishment of unruly slaves was a common sight, and as a curious child Hamilton was sure to have witnessed repeated acts of floggings, severing of limbs for striking a white man of any class, hangings, and any other acts that occurred. This coupled with the physical exertion associated with the raising of sugar cane caused a turnover rate of slaves due to attrition that necessitated a steady influx of slaves to replace the ones that ended their lives in the fields. Alexanders mother had inherited three slaves and rented them out to help raise him and his older brother James. Being so intimately familiar with slavery as the abomination it really was, not the version the planters presented, it is no wonder that a passionate intellectual like Hamilton would become an abolitionist of the highest order, far more than the other founding fathers.2
1

In his 1979 book, Forrest McDonald authoritatively states Hamiltons birth date as Jan. 11, 1757. McDonald, Forrest. Alexander Hamilton. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1979). 7. However, in 2004 Ron Chernow, after noting the controversy over the date, sets it at Jan. 11, 1755. Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. (New York: Penguin Press. 2004). 16-17. 2 The constant violence on Nevis is described by Chernow and states: Island life contained enough bloodcurdling scenes to darken Hamiltons visions for life, instilling an ineradicable pessimism about

3 The early education that Alexander received was at the hands of a Jewess, and he could speak fluent French at a young age, which would serve him well in later years. When Alexander was ten his family moved to St. Croix, and soon thereafter his father disappeared from their lives. Alexander got a job as a clerk at Beekman and Cruger, a mercantile firm on the island that supplied his mother with the goods that she sold out of the house to support herself and her sons. The next few years were ones of extreme distress for Alexander and James. In their mothers past was an exhusband who still harbored a grudge against her and had actually had her imprisoned once in an attempt to make her submit to his will. He obtained a divorce decree that specified Rachel could under no circumstances remarry. This man, Johann Michael Lavien, referred to James and Alexander as whore-children and wanted to ensure that his son Peter would have any inheritance due. Chernow summarizes the events that occur to Alexander and James: Let us pause briefly to tally the grim catalog of disasters that had befallen

these two boys between 1765 and 1769: their father had vanished, their mother had died, their cousin and supposed protector had committed bloody suicide, and their aunt, uncle, and grandmother had all died. James, sixteen, and Alexander, fourteen, were now left alone, largely friendless and penniless. At every step of their rootless, topsy-turvy existence, they had been surrounded by failed, broken, embittered people. Their short lives had been shadowed by a stupefying sequence of bankruptcies, marital separations, deaths, scandals, and disinheritance. Such repeated shocks must have stripped Alexander of any sense that life was fair, that he existed in a benign universe, or that he could ever count on help from anyone. That this childhood produced such a strong, productive, self-reliant

human nature that infused all his writing. Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. (New York: Penguin Press. 2004). 19.

4 human being-that this fatherless adolescent could have ended up a founding father of a country he had not yet even seen-seems little short of miraculous. Because he maintained perfect silence about his unspeakable past, never exploiting it to puff his later success, it was impossible for his contemporaries to comprehend the exceptional nature of his personal triumph. What we know of Hamiltons childhood has been learned almost entirely during the past century.(26-27) The nature of his character was tempered in the forge of his experiences. The boy who would become famous (or infamous) in time had a dream of greater things beyond St. Croix, and had managed to assemble a modest collection of books to help him explore another life elsewhere, away from the beautiful island with the ugly-acting people. Alexander was a romanticist to the core, which at times caused rash action or words due to his passionate nature, which would cause almost continuous conflict with his peers later and eventually contribute to his death. His insatiable thirst for knowledge drove him as few others. His continued employment at Beekman & Cruger, through all of his personal trials, gave him valuable experience in the matters of trade and economics and in the owners absence one autumn he conducted all business for the firm by himself. He became comfortable dealing with sea captains and traders alike, and people came to notice his potential. One of these people was a man by the name of Hugh Knox, a Presbyterian minister who arrived on St.Croix in the spring of 1772. Reverend Knox was Princeton educated, and considered it a calling to find intelligent people living in obscurity. He took notice of young Alexander and soon plans were being made for a formal education. The obvious college was Princeton, known for its tough entrance examination. Hamilton was greatly influenced by Knox, who reinforced his morals and instilled deep religious belief.

5 The Reverend Knox belonged to the Calvinist sect known as the New Sides, who believed in moral regeneration, as opposed to determinism, and personal responsibility.3 Hamiltons hatred for slavery was honed by Knox, teaching him that slavery was the root cause of many other evils. Having set these ideals in Hamiltons character, Knox had friends in New Jersey with whom Alexander could stay while he attended Elizabethtown Academy to prepare for the rigorous entrance requirements of Princeton. It is ironic that a natural disaster was instrumental in dramatically changing Hamiltons fortunes. The hurricane that hit St. Croix on August 31, 1772 was one of unprecedented fury and caused almost complete destruction. In addition to being struck by the storm, Nevis was struck by an earthquake that same day, and fifteen foot tidal waves were reported.4 Hamilton, awed by the scope of the destruction, viewed this disaster as a form of divine retribution for the evil and decadent nature of the islands. This prompted Hamilton to describe the storm and its disastrous aftermath in a letter to his father. It is not known if this correspondence between son and estranged father was a two-way street six years after disappearing from Alexanders life. What is known is that Hamilton at some point showed this letter to Knox, who was so impressed by the power of Hamiltons writing that he convinced the young author to publish the letter, unsigned, in the Royal Danish American Gazette, with Knox providing an introduction as to the circumstances of the anonymous nature of the letter. McDonald describes the letter: Hamiltons famous letter about the storm

astounds the reader for two reasons. For all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous
3

McDonald describes the Calvinist beliefs and says of Hamiltons exposure to them: in a manner of speaking, the fifteen-year-old Hamilton fell in with a group of revolutionaries. McDonald, Forrest. Alexander Hamilton. (New York: W.W. Norton & Co. 1979). 10-11. 4 The devastation was so widespread that an appeal for food was launched in the North American colonies to avert the anticipated famine. Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. (New York: Penguin Press. 2004). 36.

6 that a seventeen-year-old self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto. Clearly, Hamilton was highly literate and already had a considerable fund of verbal riches(37) But the description was also notable for the

way Hamilton viewed the hurricane as a divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity.(37) This letter had an astounding effect

on Hamiltons future. The sensation that resulted from publication had even the governor of St. Croix wanting to know who the author of such brilliance was. The local business owners established a subscription fund to finance Alexanders education in America, and sometime in late 1772 early 1773 he sailed to America. His studies at Elizabethtown Academy, which would normally take 2-3 years to complete, were concluded in less than a year. His application to Princeton was accepted, but a snag developed when Hamilton added a caveat to the conditions of his enrollment that he be allowed to attend any class he thought necessary and progress at his own accelerated pace. The board of regents rejected his proposal. A young Aaron Burr had applied at age 11 and was admitted at 13 as a sophomore. James Madison had completed a bachelors degree in 2 years instead of 3, but the effect on his health was so debilitating that he had to stay in Princeton an additional year after he graduated to recuperate. Taking this rejection in stride, Hamilton applied to Kings College in New York under the same conditions and was accepted. The placement of Hamilton in New York, the Tory stronghold in the colonies, on the eve of revolution was another chance occurrence that seemed to fill his life. He was exposed to both sides of the impending struggle, and finally was caught in the wave of revolutionary fervor and became involved in politics. On the afternoon of July 6, 1774 a mass gathering of a society called the Sons of Liberty was wanting to boycott English goods, and Hamilton, whether by

7 request or design, addressed the crowd. His speech so stunned the crowd that he was instantly elevated to a hero of the cause. This set the stage for his headlong foray into the revolution to come and his appearance on the American political scene. While at Kings he continued his studies as his output of political writings increased in number and gained him even greater notice. He penned many articles anonymously or under another name, but his writing prowess was showing through and his renown as a writer increased. As a member of a volunteer militia his first action was that of recovering guns from Ft. George on the tip of the Battery and moving these heavy artillery pieces to the common at Kings, removing them from the threat of British capture. This feat was accomplished under the fire of a British warship and Hamilton portrayed coolness under fire that impressed his fellow volunteers. On March 14, 1776 Hamilton accepted a commission as a Captain of an artillery company. Part of the deal was that Hamilton had to muster 30 men on his own, and soon he had 68 men under his command. He would use his allowance from his education fund to pay and equip his men and made sure they were fed well. It was his wartime experiences were he first became disillusioned with the methods of the new government and sought new ways to change it. The infamous winter at Valley Forge were soldiers froze and starved while congress dragged their feet in supplying the army left a lasting impression. The young Captain caught the eye of George Washington and was appointed his aide. Hamilton was to become a close confidant of Washington, but as a result of this closeness he was also in proximity of Washingtons mercurial temper. At the receiving end of one of these tirades, Hamilton resigned as aide and returned to command a New York light infantry battalion, more in with keeping with his ambition and dreams of glory. Hamilton would soon get his chance. On October 6th, 1781, Hamiltons unit helped

8 contain Cornwallis and the British Army at Yorktown, Virginia. The French and American armies laid siege to Yorktown, and by the 14th the only defenses remaining between the British and American/French forces were two artillery strongpoints. That afternoon it was decided that the redoubts were suitably weakened to be taken by frontal assault. After a frantic appeal to Washington directly, Hamilton was allowed to command the main thrust of the attack with his 320 men. Hamilton, under extreme enemy fire, personally led the charge with his men to take the position and in short order they overran the redoubt. Cornwallis surrendered two days later, and Hamilton saw the war end with his wish for glory fulfilled. The disillusionment that Hamilton experienced in his

war years were to have a profound effect on his political beliefs and influence his decision making for the rest of his life. The other Founding Fathers for the most part shared some vision of an agrarian nation of gentlemen farmers with little or no intervention from the federal government. Hamilton had witnessed the power that these farmers wielded by their refusing to sell crops to the Army quartermasters, and then selling them to brokers at a higher price. The farmers were making large profits from their crops while the Army was continually short of food. The soldiers had not been paid; some in years, and the Continental Congress was dragging its feet in procuring the funds necessary to finance the growing war debt. And to add to this, the states posed almost as much threat to the fledgling union as the British did. The call for troops and money was falling way short of what was promised, and revolutionary fervor was shoved aside for special interests for individual states, and political squabbling. Lastly, Hamilton was the most disgusted with the nature of the American citizen, who seemed to expect the French Army, when it arrived, to shoulder the burden of the fighting with little or no casualties for the colonists.

9 These realizations gave Hamilton a pessimistic and quite real assessment of what he felt the new government must do to survive. What was needed was a federal government that took an active part in the formation and maintenance of strong financial and judicial systems, with global commerce a necessity to build an economy strong enough to provide the country with a standing army and navy staffed with professional soldiers and sailors, purpose trained and continually ready to defend the nation. He also believed that greed was a trait that had to be taken into account when developing financial policy, and that the proverbial carrot dangled in front of the wealthy elite would aid in their investing in the country Corruption in all of its subtle varieties was also a fact of life in conducting business and politics, and although the romanticist Hamilton once held republican ideals dear to his heart, he became hardened to the realities of life and the fact that each state would act in its own behalf at the expense of the country.5 Hamilton turned his attention to the study of law after leaving the army. He seems to have been shoved aside in multiple promotions and/or assignments and felt his career stagnating. He knew to bring about true change in the federal government and help in its formation that he would have to master the unique and labyrinthine language of jurisprudence. He approached this phase of his education with the now familiar frenetic pace. The voluminous reading involved and memorization necessary to obtain a law degree was accomplished not at a law school (there werent any), but by basically paying a lawyer to work for him and read and study in your off time. In 1782 the New York the minimum period for this apprenticeship was three years, until in January the state supreme court suspended the three-year requirement for men who could prove that they had been studying
5

Having failed to discharge their duties, the states would henceforth be a perennial object of Hamiltons political enmity. He devoted much of the rest of his public service career to weakening their pernicious stranglehold on political power in the new republic. Staloff, Darren. Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding. (New York: Hill and Wang. 2005). 71.

10 law and interrupted their studies to serve their country during the war. The applicants would have to pass a rigorous exam to be administered no later than the end of the courts April term. Hamilton had read law while he attended Kings College and while he technically met the qualifications, he could not be ready in four months. He applied in Albany to the Court for an extension until October, which they granted. By July he was admitted to the bar as an attorney, and by October 26th he was admitted to practice before the supreme court as well as just prepare briefs and motions. He did this in nine months basically from a cold start in his knowledge of the law. Just another in a series of astounding achievements in his meteoric rise to fame, his boyhood ambitions finally being realized. Hamilton set up practice in New York City and his name was now recognized as a rising star in the legal profession. This name recognition landed him lucrative assignments and cases as well as the smaller ones. He gained notoriety and public ridicule when he successfully won a settlement for a known Tory. He also helped found the Bank of New York, which opened without a state charter in July 1784. He became familiar with the intricacies of banking and although he failed to convince the New York legislators to participate with government funds, he learned valuable lessons that would serve him when he sensed the opportune time. In the

Federalist papers, we shall examine some excerpts from Hamiltons writing that explain what his idea of interpreting the Constitution was, and how it directly stood in opposition to the Jeffersonian idea of government. In Federalist No.1, Hamilton identifies what he perceives as: Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of

11 men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments This jealously guarded turf will indeed prove to be one of the bastions Hamilton will face. He goes on to describe: that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.6 It can be inferred from this that Hamilton clearly understood the federal government must actively contain the power of the States and that people should be suspicious of the motives of those that labor so intensively to champion the idea of states rights When he was later appointed to Washingtons cabinet, his views soon came to the attention of Jefferson, and the rift between them ensued in short order. In Federalist No. 8, Hamilton sums up in one statement his opinion of the intent of the Constitution: Standing armies, it is said, are not provided against in the new Constitution; and it is therefore inferred that they may exist under it.7 This concept of inferred power of the federal government was his reasoning in many of his attempts to establish a national bank to stimulate commerce and control the power of the States by centralizing the financial policy making to benefit all thirteen States. The planters were abhorred by the concept of a non-agrarian nation run closely by a strong and active federal government, and based on an economy that promotes commerce and manufacturing. In Federalist No. 13, Hamilton explains his thoughts on finance:

6 7

Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist No. 1. Hamilton, Alexander. Federalist No.8.

12 As CONNECTED with the subject of revenue, we may with propriety consider that of economy. The money saved from one object may be usefully applied to another, and there will be so much the less to be drawn from the pockets of the people. He goes on to conclude that: Nothing can be more evident than that the thirteen States will be able to support a national government better than one half, or one third, or any number less than the whole. This reflection must have great weight in obviating that objection to the proposed plan, which is founded on the principle of expense; an objection, however, which, when we come to take a nearer view of it, will appear in every light to stand on mistaken ground. These ideas caused Jefferson to take a serious look at Hamilton and his policies. Hamilton, after he was appointed to Washingtons cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury, immediately went to work implementing his ideas. It must be understood the amount of power that was afforded to Hamilton, being one of only three cabinet members and the one that had the largest amount of resources available to him. With almost carte blanche authority in affairs of finance granted him by Washington, he formed the first Bank of the United States which issued paper money for credits owed and served as a repository for public funds. The very idea of such an involved governmental presence in public finance convinced Jefferson (and Hamiltons Federalist co-author James Madison) that Hamiltons spreading ideology must be stopped before the era of the gentleman farmers reached its full fruition, having properly and fully exploited all of its slaves and its influence on the American people, before it could start.8 As Secretary of State, Jefferson could not rein in Hamiltons implementation of his radical policies, and viewed Hamilton
8

Hamilton is really functioning much more as the first prime minister of the country. Just to say first Treasury Secretary doesnt capture the scope of his powers. PBS, Think Tank, How Alexander Hamilton Shaped America, Part One, 15 July 2004,http://www.pbs.org/thinktank/transcript 1155.html(18February 2007)

13 as a threat of the highest order to Jeffersonian ideals. This basic conflict of ideals and the struggle between these two men punctuated the remainder of Hamiltons short life. The attacks became more frequent against Hamilton, and the issue of his birth was flaunted in his face by his opponents. Staloff summarizes the range of emotions that Hamilton evoked in the people around him: More than any figure of the American founding, Alexander Hamilton evoked extreme passions. Friends and supporters admired him with a reverence bordering on hero worship. Adversaries loathed him with a hatred that was truly visceral. Thomas Jefferson saw him as a contagion of corruption, whose public career was a tissue of machinations against the liberty of the country. John Adams dismissed him as an insolent coxcomb and the bastard brat of a scotch pedlar. Yet even his enemies acknowledged his greatness.(45) The fact that

two great men such as Hamilton and Jefferson could not agree on policy helped spur the two-party system into existence. There seemed to be no point of commonality, and once Jefferson was elected President, he continued the work of Adams in trying to rid themselves of Hamilton. In a final twist of fate, the Vice-President under Jefferson, Aaron Burr, would end Hamiltons life on July 12, 1804, after fighting a duel with him the day before. In this fashion the Jeffersonian way of government prevailed longer than it would have, which stifled development of international trade and domestic finance until later in the nineteenth century, when it was realized that Hamiltons ideas and policies were the solution. The meteoric

rise and fall of this great man had all the elements that were necessary to place him in the minds of men to this day. The brilliance, the audacity, the scandal, and all the other events

14 and attributes of this man are forever intertwined with the birth of this nation, and it is perhaps fitting that now, so far in the future from his time on earth, he seems to be recognized for the visionary that he truly was. Although Alexander the man was small in stature and often sickly, Alexander the memory stands tall among the giants of history and will never weaken.