Editing Alexander Hamilton

{{Short description|American Founding Father (1755/1757–1804)}}
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{{Use American English|date=November 2020}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Alexander Hamilton
| image               = John Trumbull - Alexander Hamilton - Google Art Project.jpg
| caption             = Posthumous portrait by [[John Trumbull]], 1806,<ref>{{cite web |title=Alexander Hamilton |url=https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.79.216?destination=portraits |website=National Portrait Gallery |access-date=February 2, 2023 |archive-date=January 31, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230131181516/https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.79.216?destination=portraits |url-status=live}}</ref> from [[Alexander Hamilton (Ceracchi)|a life bust]] by [[Giuseppe Ceracchi]], 1794
| order               = 1st
| office              = United States Secretary of the Treasury
| president           = [[George Washington]]
| term_start          = September 11, 1789
| term_end            = January 31, 1795
| predecessor         = ''Office established''
| successor           = [[Oliver Wolcott Jr.]]
| order1              = 8th
| office1             = Senior Officer of the United&nbsp;States&nbsp;Army
| president1          = [[John Adams]]
| term_start1         = December 14, 1799
| term_end1           = June 15, 1800
| predecessor1        = George Washington
| successor1          = [[James Wilkinson]]<!-- {{citation needed|date=November 2022}} -->
| office2             = Delegate to the {{awrap|[[Congress of the Confederation]]}} {{awrap|from New York}}
| term_start2         = November 3, 1788
| term_end2           = March 2, 1789<!-- {{citation needed|date=November 2022}} -->
| predecessor2        = [[Egbert Benson]]<!-- {{citation needed|date=November 2022}} -->
| successor2          = ''Seat abolished''
| term_start3         = November 4, 1782
| term_end3           = June 21, 1783<!-- {{citation needed|date=November 2022}} -->
| predecessor3        = ''Seat established''
| successor3          = ''Seat abolished''
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1755|1|11|mf=yes}} or 1757{{efn|name=birthyear}}
| birth_place         = {{nowraplinks|[[Charlestown, Nevis|Charlestown]], [[Colony of Nevis]], [[British Leeward Islands]]}}
| death_date          = {{death date and given age|1804|7|12|47 or 49|mf=yes}}
| death_place         = New York City, U.S.
| death_cause         = [[Burr–Hamilton duel|Gunshot wound]]
| resting_place       = [[Trinity Church Cemetery]]
| nationality         = American
| party               = [[Federalist Party|Federalist]]
| spouse              = {{marriage|[[Elizabeth Schuyler]]|December 14, 1780}}
| children            = {{hlist|[[Philip Hamilton|Philip]]|[[Angelica Hamilton|Angelica]]|[[Alexander Hamilton Jr.|Alexander]]|[[James Alexander Hamilton|James]]|[[John Church Hamilton|John]]|[[William S. Hamilton|William]]|[[Eliza Hamilton Holly|Eliza]]|[[Philip Hamilton (the second)|Philip]]}}
| relatives           = [[Hamilton family]]
| education           = [[Columbia College (New York)|King's College]] <br /> [[Columbia College (New York)|Columbia College]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]])
| signature           = Alexander Hamilton Signaturert.svg
| allegiance          = {{ubl|New York (1775–1777)|United States (1777–1800)}}
| branch              = {{ubli|[[New York Provincial Company of Artillery]]|[[Continental Army]]|[[United States Army]]}}
| serviceyears        = {{ubl|1775–1776 (militia)|1776–1782|1798–1800}}
| rank                = [[Major general (United States)|Major general]]
| commands            = U.S. Army Senior Officer
| battles             = {{Tree list}}
* [[American Revolutionary War]]
** [[Battle of Harlem Heights]]
** [[Battle of White Plains]]
** [[Battle of Trenton]]
** [[Battle of Princeton]]
** [[Battle of Brandywine]]
** [[Battle of Germantown]]
** [[Battle of Monmouth]]
** [[Siege of Yorktown]]
* [[Quasi-War]]
{{Tree list/end}}
}}

'''Alexander Hamilton''' (January 11, 1755 or 1757{{efn|name=birthyear|It is unclear whether Hamilton was born in 1755 or 1757.<ref name=chernow17/><ref name=Logan2018>{{cite news |last=Logan |first=Erin B. |title=Alexander Hamilton, immigrant and statesman, dies at 47 – or 49 |date=July 12, 2018 |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/07/12/alexander-hamilton-immigrant-and-statesman-dies-at-47-or-49/ |access-date=September 5, 2018 |archive-date=September 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180909093244/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/07/12/alexander-hamilton-immigrant-and-statesman-dies-at-47-or-49/ |url-status=live}}</ref> Most historical evidence supports the idea that he was born in 1757.<ref name=Brookhiser16>{{cite book |last=Brookhiser |first=Richard |title=Alexander Hamilton, American |page=16 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-4391-3545-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KNqw3yCfG5YC&pg=PA16}}</ref><ref name=Newton19>Newton (2015), [https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA19 pp. 19–30].</ref> Hamilton celebrated his birthday on January 11. In his later life, he tended to give his age in round figures. Historians accepted 1757 as his birth year until the 1930s when additional documentation was published, including a 1768 probate paper from Saint Croix listing him as thirteen years old. Since then, some historians favored 1755.<ref name=chernow17>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/17 p. 17].</ref> If he was born in 1757, the probate paper may have included an error or Hamilton may have given his age as thirteen to appear older and more employable. Historians have pointed out other inaccuracies in the paper, demonstrating its unreliability.<ref name=Brookhiser16/>}}{{spaced ndash}}July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and [[Founding Fathers of the United States|Founding Father]] who served as the first [[U.S. secretary of the treasury]] from 1789 to 1795 during the [[Presidency of George Washington|presidency]] of [[George Washington]], the first [[president of the United States]].

Born out of [[wedlock]] in [[Charlestown, Nevis]], Hamilton was orphaned as a child and taken in by a prosperous merchant. He was given a scholarship and pursued his education at [[Columbia College, Columbia University|King's College]] (now [[Columbia University]]) in New York City where, despite his young age, he was an anonymous but prolific and widely read [[pamphleteer]] and advocate for the [[American Revolution]]. He then served as an [[artillery]] officer in the [[American Revolutionary War]], where he saw military action against the [[British Army during the American Revolutionary War|British Army]] in the [[New York and New Jersey campaign]], served for four years as [[aide-de-camp]] to [[Continental Army]] commander in chief [[George Washington]], and fought under Washington's command in the war's climactic battle, the [[Siege of Yorktown]], which secured American victory in the war and with it the independence of the [[United States]].

After the Revolutionary War, Hamilton served as a delegate from [[New York (state)|New York]] to the [[Congress of the Confederation]] in [[Philadelphia]]. He resigned to practice law and founded the [[BNY|Bank of New York]]. In 1786, Hamilton led [[Annapolis Convention (1786)|the Annapolis Convention]], which sought to strengthen the power of the loose [[confederation]] of independent states under the limited authorities granted it by the [[Articles of Confederation]]. The following year he was a delegate to the [[Philadelphia Convention]], which drafted the [[U.S. Constitution]] creating a more centralized [[Federation|federal]] national government. He then authored 51 of the 85 installments of ''[[The Federalist Papers]]'', which proved persuasive in securing its ratification by the states.

As a trusted member of President Washington's first [[Cabinet of the United States|cabinet]], Hamilton served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury. He envisioned a central government led by an energetic [[Executive (government)|executive]], a strong national defense, and a more diversified economy with significantly expanded industry. He successfully argued that the [[implied powers]] of the U.S. Constitution provided the legal basis to create the [[First Bank of the United States]], and assume the states' war debts, which was funded by a tariff on imports and a [[whiskey tax]]. Hamilton opposed American entanglement with the succession of unstable [[French Revolution|French Revolutionary governments]]. In 1790, he persuaded the [[U.S. Congress]] to establish the [[United States Revenue Cutter Service|U.S. Revenue Cutter service]] to protect American shipping. In 1793, he advocated in support of the [[Jay Treaty]] under which the U.S. resumed friendly trade relations with the [[British Empire]]. Hamilton's views became the basis for the [[Federalist Party]], which was opposed by the [[Democratic-Republican Party]], led by [[Thomas Jefferson]]. Hamilton and other Federalists supported the [[Haitian Revolution]], and Hamilton helped draft [[Haiti]]'s constitution in 1801.

After resigning as the nation's Secretary of the Treasury in 1795, Hamilton resumed his legal and business activities and helped lead the abolition of the [[Atlantic slave trade]]. In the [[Quasi-War]], fought at sea between 1798 and 1800, Hamilton called for mobilization against [[French First Republic|France]], and President [[John Adams]] appointed him major general. The [[U.S. Army]], however, did not see combat in the conflict. Outraged by Adams' response to the crisis, Hamilton opposed his [[1800 United States presidential election|1800 presidential re-election]]. Jefferson and [[Aaron Burr]] tied for the presidency in the [[United States Electoral College|electoral college]] and, despite philosophical differences, Hamilton endorsed Jefferson over Burr, whom he found unprincipled. When Burr [[1804 New York gubernatorial election|ran for Governor of New York in 1804]], Hamilton again opposed his candidacy, arguing that he was unfit for the office. Taking offense, [[Burr–Hamilton duel|Burr challenged Hamilton to a pistol duel]], which took place in [[Weehawken, New Jersey]], on July 11, 1804. Hamilton was mortally wounded and immediately transported back across the [[Hudson River]] in a delirious state to the home of [[William Bayard Jr.]] in [[Greenwich Village]], New York, for medical attention. The following day, on July 12, 1804, Hamilton succumbed to his wounds.

Scholars generally regard Hamilton as an astute and intellectually brilliant administrator, politician, and financier who was sometimes impetuous. His ideas are credited with influencing the founding principles of American finance and [[Federal government of the United States|government]]. In 1997, historian [[Paul Johnson (writer)|Paul Johnson]] wrote that Hamilton was a "genius—the only one of the Founding Fathers fully entitled to that accolade—and he had the elusive, indefinable characteristics of genius."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Johnson |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Johnson (writer) |url=https://mymission.lamission.edu/userdata/dennisda/docs/Paul%20Johnson%20A%20History%20Of%20The%20American%20People.pdf |title=A History of the American People |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-06-093034-9 |location=New York |page=151}}</ref>

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==Early life and education==
Hamilton was born on January 11, 1755, or 1757,{{efn|name=birthyear}} in [[Charlestown, Nevis|Charlestown]], the capital of [[Nevis]] in the [[British Leeward Islands]], where he spent his childhood. Hamilton and his older brother, James Jr.,<ref name=ramsing>{{cite journal |first=Holger Utke |last=Ramsing |title=Alexander Hamilton |journal=Personalhistorisk Tidsskrift |language=da |year=1939 |pages=225–270}}</ref> were born out of wedlock to Rachel [[Johann Michael Lavien|Lavien]] ([[née]] Faucette),{{efn|Primary sources disagree on the spelling of Hamilton's mother's surname.<ref name=Newton2019-115>{{cite book |last=Newton |first=Michael E. |title=Discovering Hamilton: New Discoveries in the Lives of Alexander Hamilton, His Family, Friends, and Colleagues, from Various Archives Around the World |url={{GBurl|5oOiDwAAQBAJ |p=115}} |year=2019 |publisher=Eleftheria Publishing |isbn=978-0-9826040-4-5 |page=115}}</ref> Hamilton's grandfather signed his name "John Faucett" on a legal document dated May 31, 1720, which some historians consider authoritative.<ref name=Newton2019-28>Newton (2019), [{{GBurl|5oOiDwAAQBAJ|p=28}} p. 28].</ref> Hamilton himself spelled the surname as Faucette in a letter dated August 26, 1800, which was corrected to Faucett in a footnote by the editor of Hamilton's papers.<ref name=HamPapers1800>{{cite web |last=Hamilton |first=Alexander |title=From Alexander Hamilton to William Jackson |type=Letter |date=August 26, 1800 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0068#ARHN-01-25-02-0068-fn-0004 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=February 4, 2021 |archive-date=March 31, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210331120905/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-25-02-0068#ARHN-01-25-02-0068-fn-0004 |url-status=live}} Archived from {{cite book |title=The Papers of Alexander Hamilton |volume=25 |orig-year=July 1800 – April 1802 |editor-first=Harold C. |editor-last=Syrett |editor-link=Harold Syrett |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1977 |pages=88–91 & n.4 |isbn=9780231089241 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rbL7xJhUIVoC&q=faucett&pg=PA91 |access-date=February 4, 2021 |archive-date=November 23, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231123161839/https://books.google.com/books?id=rbL7xJhUIVoC&pg=PA91&dq=%22faucett%22&q=faucett |url-status=live}}</ref> Hamilton's son, [[John Church Hamilton|John]], wrote Faucette.<ref name="Hamilton1879">{{cite book |first=John Church |last=Hamilton |title=Life of Alexander Hamilton: A History of the Republic of the United States of America, as Traced in His Writings and in Those of His Contemporaries |url={{GBurl|1FQSAAAAYAAJ |p=41}} |year=1879 |publisher=Houghton, Osgood and Company |page=41}}</ref> [[Ron Chernow]] and many early historians followed Hamilton by writing Faucette,<ref name=chernow8-9>Chernow, pp. [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/8/mode/2up 8–9]</ref> while another group of historians adopted the anglicized name Fawcett, reflecting an absence of consensus.<ref name=Newton2015-10>{{cite book |last=Newton |first=Michael E. |title=Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years |url={{GBurl|9GvpCQAAQBAJ |p=10}} |year=2015 |publisher=Eleftheria |isbn=978-0-9826040-3-8 |page=10}}</ref>}} a married woman of half-British and half-[[Huguenot]] descent,{{efn|Although there are persistent claims that Hamilton's mother was of mixed race, this is not substantiated by any verifiable evidence. Rachel Faucette was listed as white on tax rolls.<ref name=chernow9-734>Chernow, pp. [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/9 9], [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/734 734–35].</ref><ref name="Owens2004">{{Cite news |last=Owens |first=Mitchell |date=January 8, 2004 |title=Surprises in the Family Tree |pages=Appended correction dated January 15, 2004 |no-pp=y |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/garden/surprises-in-the-family-tree.html |access-date=November 15, 2016 |quote=While there have been suggestions that the mother, Rachel Faucett or Fawcett—and therefore Hamilton himself—was of mixed ancestry, it is not an established fact. |archive-date=January 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170120064220/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/08/garden/surprises-in-the-family-tree.html? |url-status=live}}</ref>}}<ref>[[#chernow|Chernow, 2005]], p. 8.</ref> and James A. Hamilton, a Scotsman and the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, the [[laird]] of [[Grange, Ayrshire]].<ref name="Randall1">{{cite book |title=Practical Proceedings in the Supreme Court of the State of New York |first=Alexander |last=Hamilton |contribution=Foreword |contributor-first=Willard Sterne |contributor-last=Randall |page=ix |year=2004 |publisher=New York Law Journal}}</ref>

Prior to Alexander's birth, in 1745, Rachel Lavien married [[Johann Michael Lavien|Johann Lavien]] in [[Saint Croix]].<ref name=chernow10-12>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/10 pp. 10–12].</ref> 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.<ref name=chernow10-12/> Hamilton and Lavien moved together to Nevis, her birthplace, where she had inherited a seaside lot in town from her father.<ref name=chernow17/> While their mother was living, Alexander and James Jr. received individual tutoring<ref name=chernow17/> and classes in a private school led by a Jewish headmistress.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewisohn |first=Florence |author2=American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of the Virgin Islands |title='What so proudly we hail': the Danish West Indies and the American Revolution |publisher=American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of the Virgin Islands |publication-place=[St. Thomas, U.S.V.I.] |year=1975 |oclc=2150775 |pages=17–30}}</ref> Alexander supplemented his education with a family library of 34 books.<ref name=chernow24>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/24 p. 24].</ref>

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."<ref name="Randall1"/> Lavien then moved with their two children back to Saint Croix, where she supported them by managing a small store in [[Christiansted]]. Both his mother and Hamilton contracted [[yellow fever]]. On February 19, 1768, Hamilton's mother died from the disease, leaving him orphaned.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brockenbrough |first=Martha |date=2017 |page=19 |title=Alexander Hamilton, Revolutionary |publisher=Feiwel & Friends |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FKAvDwAAQBAJ |isbn=978-1-250-12319-0}}</ref> His mother's death may have had a severe emotional impact on Hamilton.<ref>e.g., Flexner, ''passim''.</ref> In [[probate court]], Lavien's "first husband seized her estate"<ref name="Randall1"/> and obtained the few valuables that she had owned, including some household silver. Many items were auctioned off, and a friend purchased the family's books, returning them to Hamilton.<ref name=chernow25-30>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/25 pp. 25–30].</ref>

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.<ref name=chernow25-30/> James Jr. apprenticed with a local carpenter, while Alexander was given a home by Thomas Stevens, a merchant from Nevis.<ref>{{cite web |first=William |last=Cissel |title=''The West Indian Founding Father, 2004'' |url=http://www.virginislandspace.org/Division%20of%20Libraries/cisselpaper.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.virginislandspace.org/Division%20of%20Libraries/cisselpaper.pdf |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Hamilton became a clerk at Beekman and Cruger, a local import-export firm that traded with the [[Province of New York]] and [[New England Colonies|New England]].<ref>Chernow, [{{GBurl|4z5eL5SGjEoC|p=29}} p. 29].</ref> 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.<ref name=Founders1771>{{cite web |title=To Alexander Hamilton from Walton and Cruger, [19 October 1771] |type=Letter |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-0004 |no-pp=y |page=fn. 1 |access-date=July 29, 2020 |archive-date=July 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729040747/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-01-02-0004 |url-status=live}} Archived from {{cite book |title=The Papers of Alexander Hamilton |volume=1 |orig-year=1768–1778 |editor-first=Harold C. |editor-last=Syrett |editor-link=Harold Syrett |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1961 |page=8 n.1}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_by_Alexander_Hamilton_on_the_hurricane_of_August_1772 |title=Letter on the hurricane of August 1772 |access-date=January 8, 2022 |archive-date=January 8, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220108135550/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_by_Alexander_Hamilton_on_the_hurricane_of_August_1772 |url-status=live}}</ref> The [[First Great Awakening|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."<ref name=chernow37>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/37 p. 37].</ref> The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education.<ref name="gordon">{{cite journal |first=John Steele |last=Gordon |author-link=John Steele Gordon |url=http://americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2004/2/2004_2_42.shtml |title=The Self Made Founder |journal=[[American Heritage (magazine)|American Heritage]] |date=April–May 2004 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081119235829/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2004/2/2004_2_42.shtml |archive-date=November 19, 2008}}</ref>

In October 1772, Hamilton arrived by ship in [[Boston]] and then proceeded to New York City, where he boarded with [[Hercules Mulligan]], the [[Ireland|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.<ref name=OBrien-Mulligan>{{cite journal |first=Michael J. |last=O'Brien |orig-year=October 30, 1915 |title=Field Day of the American Irish Historical Society Held in New York City |year=1916 |type=transcript of address |journal=The Journal of the American Irish Historical Society |volume=1 |number=1 |page=144 |url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofamerica15amer_0#page/n291/mode/2up/search/Mulligan}}</ref><ref name=Newton64>Newton (2015), [https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA64 p. 64].</ref> Hamilton sought to fill gaps in his education in preparation for college, and later that year began to attend [[Snyder Academy|Elizabethtown Academy]], a preparatory school run by [[Francis Barber (Colonel)|Francis Barber]] in [[Elizabeth, New Jersey]]. While there, he was introduced to [[William Livingston]], a local leading intellectual and [[Patriot (American Revolution)|revolutionary]] who influenced him, and he boarded with the Livingstons while studying.<ref name=Newton2019-227>Newton (2019), [{{GBurl|5oOiDwAAQBAJ|p=227}} pp. 227–228]. "Thus, when Alexander Hamilton arrived in Elizabethtown in October 1772 and moved in with the Livingstons, they lived in this house rented from Jacob De Hart."</ref>

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.<ref name=Newton69>Newton (2015), [https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA69 p. 69].</ref> His college roommate and lifelong friend [[Robert Troup]] spoke glowingly of Hamilton's clarity in concisely explaining Patriot case against the [[Kingdom of Great Britain|British]] during the [[American Revolution]] in what was Hamilton's first public appearance, on July 6, 1774.<ref>Randall, p. 78.</ref> 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]].<ref name=chernow53>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/53 p. 53].</ref><ref name=Cardozo1902>{{cite book |last=Cardozo |first=Ernest Abraham |title=A History of the Philolexian Society of Columbia University from 1802–1902 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q8aEAAAAIAAJ&pg=PT23 |year=1902 |location=New York |publisher=Philolexian Society |page=23}}</ref>

Later in 1774, [[Church of England]] clergyman [[Samuel Seabury]] in New York published a series of pamphlets promoting the [[Loyalism (American Revolution)|Loyalist cause]], seeking to provoke fear in the [[Thirteen Colonies]], which he hoped would discourage them from uniting against the British.<ref>Miller, p. 9.</ref> 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]],<ref>Mitchell 1:65–73; Miller, p. 19.</ref> and may have also authored the 15 anonymous installments of "The Monitor" for Holt's ''[[New York Journal]]''.<ref name=Newton116-117>Newton (2015), pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA116 116], [https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA117 117], 573.</ref> 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 College president [[Myles Cooper]], a Loyalist, from an angry mob by speaking to the crowd long enough to allow Cooper to escape.<ref>Mitchell, I:74–75.</ref> 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.<ref name="ReferenceA">Robert Troup "Memoir of General Hamilton", March 22, 1810</ref>

==Revolutionary War (1775–1782)==

===Early military career===
{{further|Hearts of Oak (New York militia)|New York and New Jersey campaign}}
[[File:Alexander Hamilton 1757 1804 hi.jpg |thumb|upright=1|''Alexander Hamilton in the Uniform of the New York Artillery'', a portrait by [[Alonzo Chappel]]]]

In 1775, following the outbreak of the [[American Revolutionary War|Revolutionary War]] with the [[Battles of Lexington and Concord]], Hamilton and other King's College students joined a New York volunteer [[Militia (United States)|militia]] company, [[Hearts of Oak (New York militia)|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.<ref>Chernow, Ron. ''Alexander Hamilton''. Penguin Press, (2004) ({{ISBN|1-59420-009-2}}).</ref>

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.<ref name=Newton127>Newton (2015), pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA127 127–128].</ref> Under fire from [[HMS Asia (1764)|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 (Manhattan)|the Battery]]. The seizure of the cannons resulted in the unit being re-designated an artillery company.<ref name=McDonald>{{cite book |last=McDonald |first=Forrest |title=Alexander Hamilton: A Biography |publisher=W. W. Norton |isbn=978-0-393-30048-2 |year=1982 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00forr}}</ref>{{rp|13}}

Through his connections with influential [[Province of New York|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 (Continental Army)|captain]].<ref name=chernow72>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n87 p. 72].</ref> The company took part in the [[New York Campaign|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 [[Trenton, New Jersey|Trenton]] at the intersection of present-day Warren and Broad streets to keep the [[Hessian (soldiers)|Hessians]] pinned in their Trenton barracks.<ref name=stryker158>{{cite book |last=Stryker |first=William S. |title=The Battles of Trenton and Princeton |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin & Co. |location=Boston |year=1898 |pages=158–159 |type=page image |url=https://archive.org/stream/battlesoftrenton00stry#page/158/mode/2up}}</ref><ref name="ketchum361-64" />

Hamilton participated in the [[Battle of Princeton]] on January 3, 1777. After an initial setback, Washington rallied the Continental Army troops and led them in a successful charge against the British forces. After making a brief stand, the British fell back, some leaving [[Princeton, New Jersey|Princeton]], and others taking up refuge in [[Nassau Hall]]. Hamilton transported three cannons to the hall, and had them fire upon the building as others rushed the front door and broke it down. The British subsequently put a white flag outside one of the windows;<ref name="ketchum361-64">{{cite book |last=Ketchum |first=Richard |title=The Winter Soldiers: The Battles for Trenton and Princeton |publisher=Holt Paperbacks |edition=1st Owl Books |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8050-6098-0 |page=310}}</ref> 194 British soldiers walked out of the building and laid down their arms, ending the battle in an American victory.<ref name=stryker290>{{cite book |last=Stryker |first=William S. |title=The Battles of Trenton and Princeton |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin & Co. |location=Boston |year=1898 |page=290 |type=page image |url=https://archive.org/stream/battlesoftrenton00stry#page/290/mode/2up}}</ref>

===George Washington's staff===
{{Further|Washington's aides-de-camp}}

Hamilton was invited to become an aide to [[Continental Army]] general [[William Alexander, Lord Stirling]], and another general, perhaps [[Nathanael Greene]] or [[Alexander McDougall]].<ref name=Newton189-190>Newton (2015), [https://books.google.com/books?id=9GvpCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA189 pp. 189–190].</ref> He declined these invitations, believing his best chance for improving his station in life was glory on the [[American Revolutionary War|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 (United States)|lieutenant colonel]].<ref>Lefkowitz, Arthur S., ''George Washington's Indispensable Men: The 32 Aides-de-Camp Who Helped Win the Revolution'', Stackpole Books, 2003, pp. 15, 108.</ref> 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."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hendrickson |first1=Robert |title=Hamilton I (1757–1789) |url=https://archive.org/details/hamilton0000hend |date=1976 |publisher=Mason/Charter |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/hamilton0000hend/page/119 119] |isbn=978-0-88405-139-8}}</ref>

Hamilton served four years as Washington's chief staff aide. He handled letters to the [[Second Continental Congress|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.<ref name=chernow90>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n105 p. 90].</ref> Hamilton was involved in a wide variety of high-level duties, including [[Military intelligence|intelligence]], diplomacy, and negotiation with senior army officers as Washington's emissary.<ref>Lodge, pp. 1:15–20</ref><ref>Miller, pp. 23–26.</ref>

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]].<ref name=chernow128-129>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n145 pp. 128–129].</ref> They had eight children, [[Philip Hamilton|Philip]],<ref name=chernow654-655>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n689 pp. 654–655].</ref> [[Angelica Hamilton|Angelica]], [[Alexander Hamilton Jr.|Alexander]], [[James Alexander Hamilton|James]],<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1878/09/26/86541502.pdf James Alexander Hamilton obituary] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225045627/https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1878/09/26/86541502.pdf |date=February 25, 2021 }}, ''[[The New York Times]]'', September 26, 1878.</ref> [[John Church Hamilton|John]], [[William S. Hamilton|William]], [[Eliza Hamilton Holly|Eliza]], and [[Philip Hamilton (the second)|another Philip]].<ref>{{Cite magazine |date=March 7, 2022 |title=The Rundown on Alexander Hamilton's 8 Children |url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/655807/alexander-hamilton-children |access-date=January 13, 2023 |magazine=Mental Floss |archive-date=January 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230113234342/https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/655807/alexander-hamilton-children |url-status=live}}</ref>

During the Revolutionary War, Hamilton became the close friend of several fellow officers. His letters to the [[Marquis de Lafayette]]<ref>Flexner, ''Young Hamilton'', p. 316.</ref> and to [[John Laurens]], employing the [[Sentimentalism (literature)|sentimental literary conventions]] of the late 18th century and alluding to Greek history and mythology,<ref>Trees, Andrew S., "The Importance of Being Alexander Hamilton", ''Reviews in American History'' 2005, pp. 33(1):8–14, finding Chernow's inferences to be overreading the contemporary style.</ref> have been read by [[Jonathan Ned Katz]] as revelatory of a [[homosocial]] or even homosexual relationship.<ref>[[Jonathan Ned Katz|Katz, Jonathan Ned]], ''[[Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A.]]'', Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1976, {{ISBN|978-0-690-01164-7}}, p. 445.</ref> 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.<ref>Gregory D. Massey, ''John Laurens and the American Revolution''; University of South Carolina Press, 2000. {{page needed|date=September 2024}}</ref>

===Field command===
{{further|Yorktown campaign}}

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.<ref>Chernow 2004, pp. 151–152</ref> 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 (document)|commission]] enclosed, "thus tacitly threatening to resign if he didn't get his desired command."<ref>Chernow 2004, pp. 153–159</ref>

On July 31, Washington relented and assigned Hamilton as commander of [[The Light Infantry Division at Yorktown (1781)|a battalion of light infantry companies]] of the 1st and 2nd New York Regiments and two provisional companies from Connecticut.<ref>Murray, p. 69.</ref> In the planning for [[Siege of Yorktown (1781)|the assault on Yorktown]], Hamilton was given command of three [[battalion]]s, which were to fight in conjunction with the allied [[France in the American Revolutionary War|French troops]] in taking [[Redoubt]]s 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 (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] and the departure of the last British troops.<ref>Mitchell, pp. I:254–260.</ref><ref name="Morris1970">{{cite book |last=Morris |first=Richard Brandon |title=The Peacemakers: The Great Powers and American Independence |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-tS4twEACAAJ |year=1970 |publisher=Harper & Row}}</ref>

==Return to civilian life (1782–1789)==

===Congress of the Confederation===
{{main|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]].<ref name=Murray2007>{{cite book |last=Murray |first=Joseph A. |title=Alexander Hamilton: America's Forgotten Founder |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2If-6zJM8VIC&pg=PT74 |year=2007 |publisher=Algora Publishing |isbn=978-0-87586-502-7 |page=74}}</ref> He also accepted an offer from [[Robert Morris (financier)|Robert Morris]] to become receiver of continental taxes for the [[New York state]].<ref>Chernow, pp. 165–171</ref> Hamilton was appointed in July 1782 to the [[Congress of the Confederation]] as a New York representative for the term beginning in November 1782.<ref>Syrett, p. III:117; for a one-year term beginning the "first Monday in November next", arrived in Philadelphia between November 18 and 25, and resigned July 1783.</ref> 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."<ref>Hamilton, Alexander. ''Alexander Hamilton: Writings''. Compiled by [[Joanne B. Freeman]]. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2001. pp. 70–71</ref>

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.<ref>Kohn; Brant, p. 45; Rakove, p. 324.</ref>

An amendment to the Articles had been proposed by [[Thomas Burke (North Carolina)|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 (contract law)|rescission]] of its own ratification of this amendment ended the Rhode Island negotiations.<ref name=chernow176>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n195 p. 176].</ref><ref>Brant, p. 100</ref>

===Congress and the army===
{{Further|Newburgh Conspiracy}}

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.<ref>Martin and Lender, pp. 109, 160: at first for seven years, increased to life after Arnold's treason.</ref> 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.<ref name=Tucker15>Tucker, p. 470.</ref> 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.<ref name=Tucker15/>

Several congressmen, including Hamilton, [[Robert Morris (financier)|Robert Morris]], and [[Gouverneur Morris]], attempted to use the so-called [[Newburgh Conspiracy]] as leverage to secure support from the states and in Congress for funding of the national government. They encouraged MacDougall to continue his aggressive approach, implying unknown consequences if their demands were not met, and defeated proposals designed to end the crisis without establishing general taxation: that the states assume the debt to the army, or that an impost be established dedicated to the sole purpose of paying that debt.<ref name=ellis141>Kohn; Ellis 2004, pp. 141–144.</ref>

Hamilton suggested using the Army's claims to prevail upon the states for the proposed national funding system.<ref>Kohn, p. 196.</ref> 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.<ref name=chernow177>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n196 pp. 177–180].</ref><ref>Hamilton's letter of February 13, 1783; Syrett, pp. III:253–255.</ref> Washington wrote Hamilton back, declining to introduce the army.<ref>Washington to Hamilton, March 4 and 12, 1783; Kohn; Martin and Lender, pp. 189–190.</ref> After the crisis had ended, Washington warned of the dangers of using the army as leverage to gain support for the national funding plan.<ref name=chernow177/><ref name=Washington1783>{{cite web |title=To Alexander Hamilton from George Washington, 4 April 1783 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0202 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319223520/http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-03-02-0202 |archive-date=March 19, 2016 |access-date=June 25, 2018}}</ref>

On March 15, Washington defused the Newburgh situation by addressing the officers personally.<ref name="ellis141"/> Congress ordered the Army officially disbanded in April 1783. In the same month, Congress passed a new measure for a 25-year impost—which Hamilton voted against<ref>Rakove, pp. 322, 325.</ref>—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.<ref>Brant, p. 108.</ref>

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.<ref name=chernow177/> Hamilton requested militia from Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council, but was turned down. Hamilton instructed Assistant Secretary of War [[William Jackson (secretary)|William Jackson]] to intercept the men. Jackson was unsuccessful. The mob arrived in Philadelphia, and the soldiers proceeded to harangue Congress for their pay. Hamilton argued that Congress ought to adjourn to [[Princeton, New Jersey]]. Congress agreed, and relocated there.<ref name=chernow182>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n201 pp. 182–183].</ref> 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 [[United States Congress|legislative]], [[Federal government of the United States#Executive branch|executive]], and [[Federal judiciary of the United States|judicial]] branches.<ref name=chernow182/>

===Return to New York===
{{further|Annapolis Convention (1786)}}

Hamilton resigned from Congress in 1783.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Alexander Hamilton Papers |url=https://www.loc.gov/collections/alexander-hamilton-papers/articles-and-essays/timeline/ |access-date=July 4, 2020 |website=Library of Congress |archive-date=July 4, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200704034105/https://www.loc.gov/collections/alexander-hamilton-papers/articles-and-essays/timeline/ |url-status=live}}</ref> When [[Evacuation Day (New York)|the British left New York in 1783]], he practiced there in partnership with [[Richard Harison]]. He specialized in defending [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|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.<ref name=chernow197-199>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n216 pp. 197–199].</ref><ref name=McDonald/>{{rp|64–69}} In 1784, Hamilton founded the [[Bank of New York]].<ref name=Globe2011>{{cite news |last1=Wallack |first1=Todd |title=Which bank is the oldest? Accounts vary |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/12/20/oldest-bank-america-accounts-vary/WAqvIlmipfFhyKsx8bhgAJ/story.html |work=[[The Boston Globe]] |date=December 20, 2011 |access-date=December 10, 2017 |archive-date=October 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201025202634/https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2011/12/20/oldest-bank-america-accounts-vary/WAqvIlmipfFhyKsx8bhgAJ/story.html |url-status=live}}</ref>

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.<ref name=Morris1988>{{cite book |last=Morris |first=Richard B. |title=The Forging of the Union, 1781–1789 |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1988 |page=[https://archive.org/details/forgingofunion00morr_0/page/255 255] |url=https://archive.org/details/forgingofunion00morr_0 |url-access=registration |isbn=978-0-06-015733-3}}</ref>

As a member of the legislature of New York, Hamilton argued forcefully and at length in favor of a bill to recognize the [[Vermont Republic|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."<ref>{{Cite web |title=Founders Online: From Alexander Hamilton to Nathaniel Chipman, 22 July 1788 |url=http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-05-02-0012-0088 |access-date=January 25, 2023 |website=founders.archives.gov |archive-date=March 24, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230324105030/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-05-02-0012-0088 |url-status=live}}</ref> Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Vermont |url=https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/vermont |access-date=January 25, 2023 |website=History.com |date=October 31, 2019 |archive-date=January 25, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230125214031/https://www.history.com/topics/us-states/vermont |url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1788, he was awarded a [[Master of Arts]] degree from his [[alma mater]], the former King's College, now reconstituted as Columbia College.<ref>{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/62640310R.nlm.nih.gov |title=Catalogue of Columbia College in the City of New-York : embracing the names of its trustees, officers, and graduates, together with a list of all academical honours conferred by the institution from A.D. 1758 to A.D. 1826, inclusive |date=1826 |publisher=T. and J. Swords |others=U.S. National Library of Medicine}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web |date=December 14, 2016 |title=Alexander Hamilton CC 1778 |url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/alumni/content/alexander-hamilton-cc-1778 |access-date=February 13, 2023 |website=Columbia College Alumni Association |archive-date=February 13, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230213220718/https://www.college.columbia.edu/alumni/content/alexander-hamilton-cc-1778 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Constitution and ''The Federalist Papers''===
{{Main|United States Constitution|The Federalist Papers}}
[[File:Alexander Hamilton making the first draft of the Constitution for the United States 1787 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=1|Portrait of Hamilton authoring the first draft of the [[U.S. Constitution]] 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 (United States)|Constitutional Convention]] in [[Philadelphia]] by his father-in-law [[Philip Schuyler]].<ref name=schachner>{{cite book |last=Schachner |first=Nathan |title=Alexander Hamilton |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto0000scha_p8e9 |location=New York |publisher=D. Appleton Century |asin=B0006AQUG2 |year=1946}}</ref>{{rp|191}}<ref>Morton, p. 169.</ref> 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 (vice president)|George Clinton]]'s faction in the New York legislature had chosen New York's other two delegates, [[John Lansing Jr.]] and [[Robert Yates (politician)|Robert Yates]], and both of them opposed Hamilton's goal of a strong national government.<ref name=chernow227-228>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n246 pp. 227–228].</ref><ref name=Morton15>Morton, p. 131.</ref> 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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|195}}

Early in the convention, Hamilton made a speech proposing a president-for-life; it had no effect upon the deliberations of the convention. [[Constitutional Convention (United States)#Alternative plans|He proposed]] to have an elected president and elected [[United States Senate|senators]] who would serve for life, contingent upon "good behavior" and subject to removal for corruption or abuse; this idea contributed later to the hostile view of Hamilton as a monarchist sympathizer, held by James Madison.<ref name=chernow232>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n251 p. 232].</ref> 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."<ref name=LarsonWinship2005>{{cite book |last=Madison |first=James |title=The Constitutional Convention: A Narrative History from the Notes of James Madison |editor1-first=Edward J. |editor1-last=Larson |editor2-first=Michael P. |editor2-last=Winship |location=New York |publisher=Modern Library |year=2005 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MKk_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA50 |pages=50–51 |isbn=978-0-8129-7517-8}}</ref>

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 [[Federal impeachment in the United States|impeachment]], the term 'monarchy' cannot apply ..."<ref name=LarsonWinship2005/> In his notes of the convention, Madison interpreted Hamilton's proposal as claiming power for the "rich and well born". Madison's perspective all but isolated Hamilton from his fellow delegates and others who felt they did not reflect the ideas of revolution and liberty.<ref>[[#stewart|Stewart, 2016]], p. 33</ref>

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 of the United States|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.<ref>Mitchell, pp. I:397–398.</ref>

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.<ref>Brant, p. 195.</ref> 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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|206}} He then took a highly active part in the successful campaign for the document's ratification in New York in 1788, which was a crucial step in its national ratification. He first used the popularity of the Constitution by the masses to compel George Clinton to sign, but was unsuccessful. The state convention in Poughkeepsie in June 1788 pitted Hamilton, Jay, [[James Duane]], [[Robert Le Roy Livingston|Robert Livingston]], and Richard Morris against the Clintonian faction led by [[Melancton Smith]], Lansing, Yates, and [[Gilbert Livingston (legislator)|Gilbert Livingston]].<ref name=Denboer15>Denboer, p. 196.</ref>

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.<ref name=Denboer15/><ref name=Kaplan15>Kaplan, p. 75.</ref> 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.<ref name=Kaplan15/> The vote in the state convention was ratified 30 to 27, on July 26, 1788.<ref>Denboer, p. 197.</ref>

====''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.<ref name=chernow247>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n266 pp. 247–248].</ref> The papers first appeared in ''[[The Independent Journal]]'' on October 27, 1787.<ref name=chernow247/>

Hamilton wrote the first paper signed as [[Publius (praenomen)|Publius]], and all of the subsequent papers were signed under the name.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|210}} Jay wrote the next four papers to elaborate on the confederation's weakness and the need for unity against foreign aggression and against splitting into rival confederacies, and, except for [[Federalist No. 64|No. 64]], was not further involved.<ref name=chernow252-257>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n271 pp. 252–257].</ref><ref name=schachner />{{rp|211}} 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).<ref name=chernow252-257/> 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.<ref name=chernow252-257/> Subtle differences appeared with the two when discussing the necessity of standing armies.<ref name=chernow252-257/>

==First U.S. secretary of the treasury (1789–1795)==
[[File:JEFraser Hamilton.jpg|thumb|A [[Statue of Alexander Hamilton (Washington, D.C.)|statue of Hamilton]] on the south patio of the [[Treasury Building (Washington, D.C.)|Treasury Building]] in [[Washington, D.C.]]]]

In 1789, Washington—who had become the [[List of presidents of the United States|first president of the United States]]—appointed Hamilton to be his cabinet's Secretary of the Treasury on the advice of [[Robert Morris (financier)|Robert Morris]], Washington's initial pick.<ref>Chernow, 2005, pp. 286–287.</ref> On September 11, 1789, Hamilton was nominated and confirmed in the Senate<ref>Chernow, 2005, p. 288.</ref> and sworn in the same day as the first [[United States secretary of the treasury]].<ref>White, 1944, [https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/bulr24&i=158 p. 156].</ref>

===Report on Public Credit===
{{main|First Report on the 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.<ref name=Murray121>Murray, p. 121.</ref> Hamilton had written to Morris as early as 1781, that fixing the public credit will win their objective of independence.<ref name=Murray121/> The sources that Hamilton used ranged from Frenchmen such as [[Jacques Necker]] and [[Montesquieu]] to British writers such as [[David Hume|Hume]], [[Hobbes]], and [[Malachy Postlethwayt]].<ref name=chernow296-299>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n315 pp. 296–299].</ref> 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.<ref name=chernow121>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n136 p. 121].</ref><ref name=schachner />{{rp|244–245}}

Hamilton divided the debt into national and state, and further divided the national debt into foreign and domestic debt. While there was agreement on how to handle the foreign debt, especially with France, there was not with regards to the national debt held by domestic creditors. During the Revolutionary War, affluent citizens had invested in bonds, and war veterans had been paid with [[promissory notes]] and [[IOU]]s that plummeted in price during the Confederation. In response, the war veterans sold the securities to speculators for as little as fifteen to twenty cents on the dollar.<ref name=chernow296-299/><ref>Murray, p. 124.</ref>

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.<ref name=chernow296-299/>

In the report, Hamilton felt that the securities should be paid at full value to their legitimate owners, including those who took the financial risk of buying government bonds that most experts thought would never be redeemed. He argued that liberty and property security were inseparable, and that the government should honor the contracts, as they formed the basis of public and private morality. To Hamilton, the proper handling of the government debt would also allow America to borrow at affordable interest rates and would also be a stimulant to the economy.<ref name=chernow296-299/>

The last portion of the report dealt with eliminating the debt by utilizing a ''[[sinking fund]]'' that would retire five percent of the debt annually until it was paid off. Due to the bonds being traded well below their face value, the purchases would benefit the government as the securities rose in price.<ref name=chernow300-305>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n319 pp. 300–305].</ref>{{rp|300}} 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 (politician)|William Maclay]] suspected that several congressmen were involved in government securities, seeing Congress in an unholy league with New York speculators.<ref name=chernow300-305/>{{rp|302}} Congressman [[James Jackson (Georgia politician)|James Jackson]] also spoke against New York, with allegations of speculators attempting to swindle those who had not yet heard about Hamilton's report.<ref name=chernow300-305/>{{rp|303}}

The involvement of those in Hamilton's circle such as Schuyler, [[William Duer (Continental Congressman)|William Duer]], [[James Duane]], Gouverneur Morris, and [[Rufus King]] as speculators was not favorable to those against the report, either, though Hamilton personally did not own or deal a share in the debt.<ref name=chernow300-305/>{{rp|304}}<ref name=schachner />{{rp|250}} Madison eventually spoke against it by February 1790. Although he was not against current holders of government debt to profit, he wanted the windfall to go to the original holders. Madison did not feel that the original holders had lost faith in the government but sold their securities out of desperation.<ref name=chernow300-305/>{{rp|305}} The compromise was seen as egregious to both Hamiltonians and their dissidents such as Maclay, and Madison's vote was defeated 36 votes to 13 on February 22.<ref name=chernow300-305/>{{rp|305}}<ref name=schachner />{{rp|255}}

The fight for the national government to assume state debt was a longer issue and lasted over four months. During the period, the resources that Hamilton was to apply to the payment of state debts was requested by [[Alexander White (Virginia)|Alexander White]], and was rejected due to Hamilton's not being able to prepare information by March 3, and was even postponed by his own supporters in spite of configuring a report the next day, which consisted of a series of additional duties to meet the interest on the state debts.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|297–298}} Duer resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and the vote of assumption was voted down 31 votes to 29 on April 12.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|258–259}}

During this period, Hamilton bypassed the rising issue of [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] in Congress, after [[Quaker]]s petitioned for its abolition, returning to the issue the following year.<ref name=chernow307>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n326 p. 307].</ref>

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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|263}} Thomas Jefferson wrote years afterward that Hamilton had a discussion with him, around this time period, about the capital of the United States being relocated to Virginia by means of a "pill" that "would be peculiarly bitter to the Southern States, and that some concomitant measure should be adopted to sweeten it a little to them".<ref name=schachner />{{rp|263}} The bill passed in the Senate on July 21 and in the House 34 votes to 28 on July 26, 1790.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|263}}

===Report on a National Bank===
{{further|History of central banking in the United States}}
[[File:First Bank of the United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania LCCN2011633532 (edited).jpg|thumb|upright=1|The [[First Bank of the United States]] in [[Philadelphia]], commissioned by Hamilton when the nation adopted a single currency]]

Hamilton's ''Report on a National Bank'' was a projection from the first ''Report on the Public Credit''. Although Hamilton had been forming ideas of a national bank as early as 1779,<ref name=schachner />{{rp|268}} he had gathered ideas in various ways over the past eleven years. These included theories from Adam Smith,<ref>Kaplan, p. 21.</ref> 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.<ref name=Cooke82/> He also used American records from [[James Wilson (Founding Father)|James Wilson]], Pelatiah Webster, Gouverneur Morris, and from his assistant treasury secretary Tench Coxe.<ref name=Cooke82/> He thought that this plan for a National Bank could help in any sort of financial crisis.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Sylla |first1=Richard |author-link1=Richard Sylla |last2=Wright |first2=Robert E. |last3=Cowen |first3=David J. |date=2009 |title=Alexander Hamilton, Central Banker: Crisis Management during the U.S. Financial Panic of 1792 |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_business-history-review_2009_spring_83_1/page/61 |journal=Business History Review |volume=83 |issue=1 |pages=61–86 |doi=10.1017/s0007680500000209 |s2cid=153842455 |issn=0007-6805}}</ref>

Hamilton suggested that Congress should charter [[First Bank of the United States|the national bank]] with a capitalization of $10&nbsp;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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|194}} The rest was to be available to individual investors.<ref>Cooke, p. 89.</ref> 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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|268}} Hamilton's bank model had many similarities to that of the Bank of England, except Hamilton wanted to exclude the government from being involved in [[public debt]], but provide a large, firm, and elastic money supply for the functioning of normal businesses and usual economic development, among other differences.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|194–195}} The tax revenue to initiate the bank was the same as he had previously proposed, increases on imported spirits: rum, liquor, and whiskey.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|195–196}}

The bill passed through the Senate practically without a problem, but objections to the proposal increased by the time it reached the House of Representatives. It was generally held by critics that Hamilton was serving the interests of the Northeast by means of the bank,<ref>Cooke, p. 90.</ref> and those of the agrarian lifestyle would not benefit from it.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|270}} Among those critics was [[James Jackson (Georgia politician)|James Jackson]] of Georgia, who also attempted to refute the report by quoting from ''The Federalist Papers''.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|270}} Madison and Jefferson also opposed the bank bill. The potential of the capital not being moved to the Potomac if the bank was to have a firm establishment in Philadelphia was a more significant reason, and actions that Pennsylvania members of Congress took to keep the capital there made both men anxious.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|199–200}} ''The Whiskey Rebellion'' also showed how in other financial plans, there was a distance between the classes as the wealthy profited from the taxes.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bogin |first=Ruth |date=July 1988 |title=Petitioning and the New Moral Economy of Post-Revolutionary America |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_william-and-mary-quarterly_1988-07_45_3/page/392 |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=45 |issue=3 |pages=392–425 |jstor=1923642 |issn=0043-5597}}</ref>

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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|200–201}} The bill eventually passed in an overwhelming fashion 39 to 20, on February 8, 1791.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|271}}

Washington hesitated to sign the bill, as he received suggestions from Attorney General [[Edmund Randolph]] and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson dismissed the [[Necessary and Proper Clause]] as reasoning for the creation of a national bank, stating that the enumerated powers "can all be carried into execution without a bank."<ref name=schachner />{{rp|271–272}} Along with Randolph and Jefferson's objections, Washington's involvement in the movement of the capital from Philadelphia is also thought to be a reason for his hesitation.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|202–203}} In response to the objection of the clause, Hamilton stated that "Necessary often means no more than needful, requisite, incidental, useful, or conductive to", and the bank was a "convenient species of medium in which [taxes] are to be paid."<ref name=schachner />{{rp|272–273}} Washington would eventually sign the bill into law.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|272–273}}

Hamilton's push for a national bank was not an isolated event but a broader, long-running effort to establish a central banking system in the United States—one that would ultimately result in the [[Federal Reserve]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Johnson |first=Roger |date=December 1999 |title=Historical Beginnings... The Federal Reserve |url=http://www.bos.frb.org/about/pubs/begin.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101225064903/http://www.bos.frb.org/about/pubs/begin.pdf |archive-date=December 25, 2010}}</ref> While Hamilton's vision laid the groundwork for a structured financial system, the concept of [[History of central banking in the United States|centralized banking]] has remained one of the most polarizing economic debates in American history, garnering both staunch [[Criticism of the Federal Reserve|criticism]] and fervent support from economists and the public alike.<ref>{{cite news |last=Taylor |first=John B. |date=2010-01-11 |title=Taylor: Federal Reserve Monetary and the Financial Crisis: A Reply to Chairman Ben Bernanke |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703481004574646100272016422 |access-date=2025-03-23 |work=Wall Street Journal |language=en-US |issn=0099-9660}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Born of a Panic: Forming the Fed System {{!}} Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis |url=https://www.minneapolisfed.org/article/1988/born-of-a-panic-forming-the-fed-system |access-date=2025-03-23 |website=www.minneapolisfed.org}}</ref>

===Establishing the mint===
{{main|United States Mint}}
{{Css Image Crop|Image = NNC-US-1795-G$10-Turban Head (small eagle).jpg |bSize = 475|cWidth = 232|cHeight = 232|oTop = 3|oLeft = 3|Location = right|Description=The [[Turban Head eagle]] was one of the first gold coins minted under the [[Coinage Act of 1792]].}}
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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|197}}<ref>Mitchell, p. 118.</ref>

Because the most circulated coins in the United States at the time were [[Spanish dollar|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.<ref>Engerman; Gallman, p. 644.</ref> 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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|197}} Despite his own preference for a monometallic [[gold standard]],<ref name=Studentski>Studentski; Krooss, p. 62.</ref> he ultimately issued a bimetallic currency at a fixed 15:1 ratio of silver to gold.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|197}}<ref name=nussbaum>{{cite journal |first=Arthur |last=Nussbaum |author-link=Arthur Nussbaum |title=The Law of the Dollar |journal=[[Columbia Law Review]] |volume=37 |number=7 |date=November 1937 |pages=1057–1091 |type=citing 2 Annals of Cong. 2115 (1789–1791) |jstor=1116782 |issn=0010-1958}}</ref><ref>Cooke, p. 87.</ref>

Hamilton proposed that the U.S. dollar should have fractional coins using decimals, rather than eighths like the Spanish coinage.<ref>Engerman; Gallman, pp. 644–645.</ref> This innovation was originally suggested by [[Superintendent of Finance of the United States|Superintendent of Finance]] [[Robert Morris (financier)|Robert Morris]], with whom Hamilton corresponded after examining one of Morris's [[Nova Constellatio]] coins in 1783.<ref>James Ferguson, John Catanzariti, Elizabeth M. Nuxoll and Mary Gallagher, eds. ''The Papers of Robert Morris'', University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973–1999 (Volume 7, pp. 682–713)</ref> 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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|198}}<ref name="Cooke82">[[Jacob E. Cooke|Cooke]], p. 88.</ref> One of his main objectives was for the general public to become accustomed to handling money on a frequent basis.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|198}}

By 1792, Hamilton's principles were adopted by Congress, resulting in the [[Coinage Act of 1792]], and the creation of the mint. There was to be a ten-dollar gold Eagle coin, a silver dollar, and fractional money ranging from one-half to fifty cents.<ref name=Studentski/> The coining of silver and gold was issued by 1795.<ref name=Studentski/>

===Revenue Cutter Service===
{{main|United States Revenue Cutter Service}}
[[File:USRC Massachusetts (1791).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A 19th-century portrait of a Revenue Marine cutter, which may be of either the [[USRC Massachusetts (1791)|USRC ''Massachusetts'']] or its replacement, the ''Massachusetts II'']]

Smuggling off American coasts was an issue before the Revolutionary War, and after the Revolution it was more problematic. Along with smuggling, lack of shipping control, pirating, and a revenue imbalance were also major problems.<ref name=Gibowicz07>Gibowicz, p. 256.</ref> In response, Hamilton proposed to Congress to enact a naval police force called [[Revenue Cutter Service|revenue cutters]] in order to patrol the waters and assist the custom collectors with confiscating contraband.<ref name=chernow340>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n359 p. 340].</ref> This idea was also proposed to assist in tariff controlling, boosting the American economy, and promote the merchant marine.<ref name=Gibowicz07/> It is thought that his experience obtained during his apprenticeship with Nicholas Kruger was influential in his decision-making.<ref name=chernow32>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n47 p. 32].</ref>

Concerning some of the details of the System of Cutters,<ref>Gibowicz, pp. 256–257.</ref> Hamilton wanted the first ten [[Cutter (boat)|cutters]] in different areas in the United States, from New England to Georgia.<ref name=chernow340/><ref>Storbridge, p. 2.</ref> 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;<ref name=chernow340/> and provisions were made for the employees' food supply and etiquette when boarding ships.<ref name=chernow340/> Congress established the Revenue Cutter Service on August 4, 1790, which is viewed as the birth of the [[United States Coast Guard]].<ref name=Gibowicz07/>

===Whiskey as tax revenue===
{{see also|Whiskey Rebellion}}
[[File:Google Arts Project - Alexander Hamilton (1792 portrait) by John Trumbull.jpg|thumb|Hamilton in 1792, painted by [[John Trumbull]]]]

One of the principal sources of revenue Hamilton prevailed upon Congress to approve was an [[excise tax]] on whiskey. In his first Tariff Bill in January 1790, Hamilton proposed to raise the three million dollars needed to pay for government operating expenses and interest on domestic and foreign debts by means of an increase on duties on imported wines, distilled spirits, tea, coffee, and domestic spirits. It failed, with Congress complying with most recommendations excluding the excise tax on whiskey. The same year, Madison modified Hamilton's tariff to involve only imported duties; it was passed in September.<ref>Stockwell, p. 357.</ref>
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.<ref name=chernow342-343>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n361 pp. 342–343].</ref><ref name="Murray141">Murray, p. 141.</ref> 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.<ref name="Murray141"/> In lieu of the excise on production citizens could pay 60 cents by the gallon of dispensing capacity, along with an exemption on small stills used exclusively for domestic consumption.<ref name="Murray141"/> He realized the loathing that the tax would receive in rural areas, but thought of the taxing of spirits more reasonable than land taxes.<ref name=chernow342-343/>

Opposition initially came from Pennsylvania's House of Representatives protesting the tax. William Maclay had noted that not even the Pennsylvanian legislators had been able to enforce excise taxes in the western regions of the state.<ref name=chernow342-343/> Hamilton was aware of the potential difficulties and proposed inspectors the ability to search buildings that distillers were designated to store their spirits, and would be able to search suspected illegal storage facilities to confiscate contraband with a warrant.<ref name="Murray40">Murray, pp. 141–142.</ref> 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.<ref name=chernow342-343/> Hamilton cautioned against expedited judicial means, and favored a jury trial with potential offenders.<ref name="Murray40"/> As soon as 1791, locals began to shun or threaten inspectors, as they felt the inspection methods were intrusive.<ref name=chernow342-343/> Inspectors were also [[tarred and feathered]], blindfolded, and whipped. Hamilton had attempted to appease the opposition with lowered tax rates, but it did not suffice.<ref name=chernow468>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n503 p. 468].</ref>

Strong opposition to the whiskey tax by [[cottage industry|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 Lee III|Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee]], and more federal troops than Washington had usually commanded during the Revolution.<ref>[[#chernow|Chernow, 2005]], pp. 475–476.</ref> This overwhelming display of force intimidated the leaders of the insurrection, ending the rebellion virtually without bloodshed.<ref>Mitchell, I:308–331.</ref>

===Manufacturing and industry===
{{further|Report on Manufactures}}
[[File:Great Falls of Paterson 2016.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|The Great Falls of the Passaic River in [[Paterson, New Jersey]], 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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|274, 277}} In the report, Hamilton quoted from ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'' and used the French [[physiocrats]] as an example for rejecting [[agrarianism]] and the physiocratic theory, respectively.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|233}} Hamilton also refuted Smith's ideas of government noninterference, as it would have been detrimental for trade with other countries.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|244}} Hamilton also thought that the United States, being a primarily agrarian country, would be at a disadvantage in dealing with Europe.<ref>Cooke, p. 100.</ref> 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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|233}}<ref name=schachner />{{rp|276}}

Hamilton argued for [[industrial policy]] to support a modern manufacturing industry in the United States.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Sylla |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Sylla |date=2024 |title=Alexander Hamilton's Report on Manufactures and Industrial Policy |url=https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.38.4.111 |journal=Journal of Economic Perspectives |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=111–130 |doi=10.1257/jep.38.4.111 |issn=0895-3309|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=Bairoch>{{cite book |last=Bairoch |first=Paul |author-link=:de:Paul Bairoch |title=Economics and World History: Myths and Paradoxes |url={{GBurl|LaF_cCknJScC |p=33}} |year=1995 |publisher=University of Chicago Press |isbn=978-0-226-03463-8 |page=33}}</ref> 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,<ref name=Cooke101>Cooke, p. 101.</ref> for withdrawing duties levied on raw materials needed for domestic manufacturing,<ref name=schachner />{{rp|277}}<ref name=Cooke101/> and pecuniary boundaries.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|277}} He also encouraged immigration as a way to improve the American work force.<ref name=Cooke101/><ref>Mitchell, p. 145.</ref> 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.<ref>Stephen F. Knott, ''Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth'' (2002), pp. 43, 54, 56, 83, 108.</ref>

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 (Passaic River)|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.<ref name=Shriner>{{cite web |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MtQwAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA59 |page=59 |title=Four Chapters of Paterson History |first=Charles Anthony |last=Shriner |date=1919 |publisher=Lont & Overkamp}}</ref>

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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|231}} The factory town was named ''Paterson'' after New Jersey's Governor [[William Paterson (judge)|William Paterson]], who signed the charter.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|232}}<ref name=Cooke103>Cooke, p. 103.</ref> 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.<ref name=Cooke102>Cooke, p. 102.</ref> Hamilton also suggested the first stock to be offered at $500,000 and to eventually increase to $1&nbsp;million, and welcomed state and federal government subscriptions alike.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|280}}<ref name=Cooke102/> The company was never successful, with numerous shareholders reneged on stock payments and some going bankrupt. [[William Duer (Continental Congressman)|William Duer]], the governor of the program, was sent to debtors' prison, where he died.<ref name=Matson>{{cite journal |last=Matson |first=Cathy |year=2010 |url=http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-10/no-03/matson/ |title=Flimsy Fortunes: Americans' Old Relationship with Paper Speculation and Panic |journal=Common-place |volume=10 |issue=4 |access-date=May 2, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409230828/http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-10/no-03/matson/ |archive-date=April 9, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> In spite of Hamilton's efforts to mend the disaster, the company folded.<ref name=Cooke103/>

===Jay Treaty===
{{main|Jay Treaty}}

When [[War of the First Coalition|France and Britain went to war]] in early 1793, all four members of the Cabinet were consulted on what to do. They and Washington unanimously agreed to remain neutral, and to have the French ambassador who was raising privateers and mercenaries on American soil, [[Edmond-Charles Genêt]], recalled.<ref name="Elkins McK">{{cite book |first1=Stanley M. |last1=Elkins |first2=Eric |last2=McKitrick |title=The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788–1800 |url=https://archive.org/details/ageoffederalism00elki |year=1994 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-506890-0}}</ref>{{rp|336–341}} 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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|327–328}}

To avoid war, Washington sent Chief Justice John Jay to negotiate with the British, with Hamilton largely writing Jay's instructions. The result was a treaty denounced by the Republicans, but Hamilton mobilized support throughout the land.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Todd |last=Estes |title=Shaping the Politics of Public Opinion: Federalists and the Jay Treaty Debate |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |year=2000 |volume=20 |number=3 |pages=393–422 |jstor=3125063}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Elkins McK" />{{rp|Ch 9}} Historian George Herring notes the "remarkable and fortuitous economic and diplomatic gains" produced by the Treaty.<ref>{{cite book |first=George C. |last=Herring |title=From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 |url=https://archive.org/details/fromcolonytosupe1776herr |url-access=limited |year=2008 |page=[https://archive.org/details/fromcolonytosupe1776herr/page/n98 80] |isbn=978-0-19-507822-0}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Elkins McK" />{{rp|411–412}}<ref>{{cite journal |last=Bemis |first=Samuel Flagg |title=Jay's Treaty and the Northwest Boundary Gap |journal=The American Historical Review |volume=27 |number=3 |date=April 1922 |pages=465–484 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3mMSAAAAYAAJ |jstor=1837800 |hdl=2027/hvd.32044020001764 |hdl-access=free}}</ref>

===Resignation from public office===
{{See also|Second Report on Public Credit}}

Hamilton's wife suffered a miscarriage<ref>{{cite web |last1=Knox |first1=Henry |title=Letter from Henry Knox to Alexander Hamilton, 24 November 1794 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-17-02-0369 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=February 5, 2017 |archive-date=October 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171020084259/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-17-02-0369 |url-status=live}}</ref> while he was absent during his armed repression of the Whiskey Rebellion.<ref name=Chernow478>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n513 p. 478].</ref> In the wake of this, Hamilton tendered his resignation from office on December 1, 1794, giving Washington two months' notice,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hamilton |first1=Alexander |title=Letter from Alexander Hamilton to George Washington, 1 December 1794 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-17-02-0392 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=December 24, 2019 |archive-date=September 22, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220922135026/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-17-02-0392 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name=chernow480>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n515 p. 480].</ref> Some months later, Hamilton resumed his law practice in New York to remain closer to his family.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hamilton |first1=Alexander |title=Letter from Alexander Hamilton to Angelica Schuyler Church, 6 March 1795 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-18-02-0181 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=December 24, 2019 |archive-date=September 20, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220920225625/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-18-02-0181 |url-status=live}}</ref>

===Emergence of political parties===
{{further|Federalist Party|Democratic-Republican Party}}
[[File:T Jefferson by Charles Willson Peale 1791 2.jpg|thumb|upright=1|A 1791 portrait of Hamilton's political rival [[Thomas Jefferson]]]]

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.<ref name=Henretta2011>{{cite book |first=James A. |last=Henretta |display-authors=etal |title=America's History, Volume 1: To 1877 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5PmY3sBubw8C&pg=PA207 |year=2011 |pages=207–208 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-312-38791-4}}</ref>

The two-party system [[First 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 [[Federalist Party|the Federalists]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Madison to Jefferson |date=March 2, 1794 |url=http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mjm&fileName=05/mjm05.db&recNum=591 |access-date=October 14, 2006 |quote=I see by a paper of last evening that even in New York a meeting of the people has taken place, at the instance of the Republican party, and that a committee is appointed for the like purpose |archive-date=November 14, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114125555/http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mjm&fileName=05%2Fmjm05.db&recNum=591 |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name=Smith832>See also Smith (2004), p. 832.</ref>

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 [[privateer]]s 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.<ref name=Young2011>{{cite journal |last1=Young |first1=Christopher J. |s2cid=144349420 |date=Fall 2011 |title=Connecting the President and the People: Washington's Neutrality, Genet's Challenge, and Hamilton's Fight for Public Support |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |volume=31 |issue=3 |pages=435–466 |doi=10.1353/jer.2011.0040}}</ref> 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.<ref name="Cook2014">{{cite book |first=Brian J. |last=Cook |title=Bureaucracy and Self-Government |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AUxjBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA56 |date=2014 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-1-4214-1552-9 |pages=56–57}}</ref> The Federalists did impose some internal direct taxes, but they departed from most implications of Hamilton's administrative republic as risky.<ref>Balogh 2009, 72–110</ref>

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 (editor)|William Coleman]] as its editor.<ref name=Nevins1922>Allan Nevins, ''The Evening Post: A Century of Journalism'' (1922) [https://archive.org/details/eveningpostacen00nevigoog ch. 1 online]</ref> Hamilton's and Jefferson's incompatibility was heightened by the unavowed wish of each to be Washington's principal and most trusted advisor.<ref>Cooke, pp. 109–110</ref>

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]].<ref>Lomask, pp. 139–140, 216–217, 220.</ref>

==1796 presidential election==
{{main|1796 United States 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 [[George Washington's Farewell Address|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.<ref>Garrity and Spalding, pp. 47, 50–55.</ref><ref>Murray, p. 207.</ref>

In the [[1796 United States presidential election|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]].<ref name=chernow117>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n132 p. 117].</ref>

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.<ref name=chernow510>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n545 p. 510].</ref> 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.<ref>Elkins and McKitrick; ''Age of Federalism'', pp. 523–528, 859. Rutledge had his own plan, to have Pinckney win with Jefferson as Vice President.</ref> Adams resented the intrigue since he felt his service to the nation was much more extensive than Pinckney's.<ref>Elkins and McKitrick, p. 515.</ref>

==Reynolds affair==
{{main|Hamilton–Reynolds affair}}
[[File:James Monroe (1758-1831).jpg|thumb|[[James Monroe]], 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.<ref name=Brookhiser3>{{cite book |first=Richard |last=Brookhiser |title=Alexander Hamilton, American |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KNqw3yCfG5YC&pg=PA3 |year=2011 |page=3 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |isbn=978-1-4391-3545-7}}</ref> 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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|366–369}} Hamilton recorded her address and subsequently delivered $30 personally to her boarding house, where she led him into her bedroom and "Some conversation ensued from which it was quickly apparent that other than pecuniary consolation would be acceptable". The two began an intermittent illicit affair that lasted approximately until June 1792.<ref name="Reynolds Pamphlet">{{cite web |last1=Hamilton |first1=Alexander |title=Printed Version of the "Reynolds Pamphlet", 1797 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-21-02-0138-0002 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=July 17, 2016 |archive-date=July 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160710111423/http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-21-02-0138-0002 |url-status=live}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{harvnb |Freeman |2001}}</ref> After an initial request of $1,000,<ref>{{cite web |last1=Reynolds |first1=James |title=Letter from James Reynolds to Alexander Hamilton, 19 December 1791 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-10-02-0045 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=December 24, 2019 |archive-date=July 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725021529/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-10-02-0045 |url-status=live}}</ref> with which Hamilton complied, Reynolds invited Hamilton to renew his visits to his wife "as a friend"<ref>{{cite web |last1=Reynolds |first1=James |title=Letter from James Reynolds to Alexander Hamilton, 17 January 1792 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-10-02-0106 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=December 24, 2019 |archive-date=August 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200807020238/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-10-02-0106 |url-status=live}}</ref> 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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|369}} Hamilton at this point may have been aware of both spouses being involved in the blackmail,<ref>Murray, p. 165.</ref> and he welcomed and strictly complied with James Reynolds' eventual request to end the affair.<ref name="Reynolds Pamphlet"/><ref>{{cite web |last1=Reynolds |first1=James |title=Letter from James Reynolds to Alexander Hamilton, 2 May 1792 |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-11-02-0284 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=December 24, 2019 |archive-date=July 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200725020135/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-11-02-0284 |url-status=live}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Reynolds Pamphlet"/> Hamilton refuted the suspicions of [[financial speculation]] by exposing his affair with Maria and producing as evidence the letters by both of the Reynolds, proving that his payments to James Reynolds related to blackmail over his adultery, and not to treasury misconduct. The trio agreed on their honor to keep the documents privately with the utmost confidence.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|366–369}}

Five years later however, in the summer of 1797, the "notoriously scurrilous" journalist [[James T. Callender]] published ''A History of the United States for the Year 1796''.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|334}} The pamphlet contained accusations based on documents from the confrontation of December 15, 1792, taken out of context, that James Reynolds had been an agent of Hamilton. On July 5, 1797, Hamilton wrote to Monroe,<ref>{{Cite web|title=From Alexander Hamilton to James Monroe|url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-21-02-0078-0001|date=July 5, 1797|access-date=April 28, 2025|via=[[Founders Online]]}}</ref> Muhlenberg,<ref>{{Cite web|title=From Alexander Hamilton to Frederick A. C. Muhlenberg|url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-21-02-0079|date=July 5, 1797|access-date=April 28, 2025|via=[[Founders Online]]}}</ref> and Venable,<ref>{{Cite web|title=From Alexander Hamilton to Abraham B. Venable|url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-21-02-0081|date=July 5, 1797|access-date=April 28, 2025|via=[[Founders Online]]}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=That Time Alexander Hamilton Almost Dueled James Monroe|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/time-when-alexander-hamilton-almost-dueled-james-monroe-180957045/|date=October 26, 2015|access-date=May 6, 2025|via=[[Smithsonian Magazine]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last1=Stello|first1=Heidi|title=The Near Duel Between James Monroe and Alexander Hamilton|url=https://academics.umw.edu/jamesmonroepapers/2015/09/03/the-near-duel-between-james-monroe-and-alexander-hamilton|date=September 3, 2015|access-date=May 6, 2025|via=[[University of Mary Washington]]}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite AV media |title=Alexander Hamilton |medium=Audiobook |people=Chernow |date=December 26, 2004 |time=12:58 |chapter=Epilogue}}</ref> Although Hamilton faced ridicule from the Democratic-Republican faction, he maintained his availability for public service.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|334–336}}

==Quasi-War==
{{main|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 (United States)|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.<ref name=chernow558-560>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n593 pp. 558–560].</ref><ref>Kaplan, pp. 147–149</ref>

Hamilton served as [[List of Inspectors General of the United States Army|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 [[Spanish North America|North American colonies]] of France's ally, Spain, bordering the United States.<ref>Morison and Commager, p. 327; Mitchell II:445.</ref> Hamilton was prepared to march the army through the [[Southern United States]] if necessary.<ref>{{cite book |title=His Excellency |first=Joseph J. |last=Ellis |author-link=Joseph J. Ellis |year=2004 |publisher=Vintage Books |isbn=978-1-4000-3253-2 |pages=250–255}}</ref>

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.<ref>Newman, pp. 72–73.</ref> 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.<ref>Kaplan, p. 155.</ref> This provoked resistance in southeastern Pennsylvania nevertheless, led primarily by men such as [[John Fries]] who had marched with Washington against the Whiskey Rebellion.<ref>Newman, pp. 44, 76–78.</ref>

Hamilton aided in all areas of the army's development, and after Washington's death he was by default the [[Commanding General of the United States Army|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.<ref>{{cite book |first=Neil A. |last=Hamilton |title=Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hikn4BGc2nUC&pg=PA18 |year=2010 |publisher=Infobase |page=18 |isbn=978-1-4381-2751-4}}</ref> There was no longer a direct threat for the army Hamilton was commanding to respond to.<ref>Mitchell II:483</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |first=Lynn H. |last=Parsons |title=The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9lkWDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA17 |year=2011 |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=17 |isbn=978-0-19-975424-3}}</ref>

==1800 presidential election==
{{main|1800 United States presidential election}}
[[File:Aaron Burr post-failure.jpg|thumb|Prior to running for [[Governor of New York]], Hamilton's foe [[Aaron Burr]] was shut out of [[Presidency of Thomas Jefferson|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.<ref>James Morton Smith, ''Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties'' (Ithaca, repr. 1966), pp. 400–417.</ref>

In the [[1800 presidential election]], Hamilton worked to defeat both the Democratic-Republicans and also his party's own nominee, John Adams.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|392–399}} Aaron Burr had won New York for Jefferson in May via the New York City legislative elections, as the legislature was to choose New York's electors; now Hamilton proposed a direct election, with carefully drawn districts where each district's voters would choose an elector—such that the Federalists would split the electoral vote of New York. Jay, who had resigned from the Supreme Court to become Governor of New York, wrote on the back of a letter, "Proposing a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt," and declined to reply.<ref>Monaghan, pp. 419–421.</ref>

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.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|350–351}} Hamilton's ideas involved coaxing middle-state Federalists to assert their non-support for Adams if there was no support for Pinckney and writing to more of the modest supports of Adams concerning his supposed misconduct while president.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|350–351}} Hamilton expected to see southern states such as the Carolinas cast their votes for Pinckney and Jefferson, and would result in the former being ahead of both Adams and Jefferson.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|394–395}}

In accordance with these plans, and a recent personal rift with Adams,<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|351}} Hamilton wrote a pamphlet called ''Letter from Alexander Hamilton, Concerning the Public Conduct and Character of John Adams, Esq. President of the United States'' that was highly critical of him, though it closed with a tepid endorsement.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|396}}

Jefferson defeated Adams. But both he and Aaron Burr received 73 votes in the Electoral College. With Jefferson and Burr tied, the [[U.S. House of Representatives]], under electoral laws of the time, had to choose between the two candidates.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|352}}<ref name=schachner />{{rp|399}} Several Federalists who opposed Jefferson supported Burr, and for the first 35 ballots, Jefferson was denied a majority. Before the 36th ballot, Hamilton threw his weight behind Jefferson, supporting the arrangement reached by [[James A. Bayard (politician, born 1767)|James A. Bayard]] of Delaware, in which five Federalist representatives from Maryland and Vermont abstained from voting, allowing those states' delegations to go for Jefferson, ending the impasse and electing Jefferson president rather than Burr.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|350–351}}

Even though Hamilton disliked Jefferson and disagreed with him on many issues, he viewed Jefferson as the [[lesser of two evils]]. Hamilton spoke of Jefferson as being "by far not so a dangerous man" and of Burr as a "mischievous enemy" to the principal measure of the past administration.<ref>Harper, p. 259.</ref> 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.<ref>Isenberg, Nancy. ''Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr'', New York: Penguin Books, 2007, pp. 211–112.</ref>{{contradictory inline|date=October 2022}}

Hamilton wrote many letters to friends in Congress to convince the members to see otherwise.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|352}}<ref name=schachner />{{rp|401}} In the end, Burr would become vice president after losing to Jefferson.<ref name=Monticello>{{cite web |last1=Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia |title=Aaron Burr |url=https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/aaron-burr |website=Monticello.org |publisher=Thomas Jefferson Foundation |access-date=December 3, 2019 |archive-date=December 3, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191203172527/https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/aaron-burr |url-status=live}}</ref> However, according to several historians, the Federalists had rejected Hamilton's diatribe as reasons to not vote for Burr.<ref name=McDonald />{{rp|353}}<ref name=schachner />{{rp|401}} In his book ''American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of US Foreign Policy'', historian John Lamberton Harper stated Hamilton could have "perhaps" contributed "to a degree" in Burr's defeat.<ref>{{cite book |last=Harper |first=John Lamberton |date=2004 |title=American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of US Foreign Policy |location=Cambridge, New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press |pages=260–261 |isbn=978-0-521-83485-8 |quote=The result could be seen as a moral victory for Hamilton, but had he actually contributed to it? The answer is perhaps and to a degree. Bayard wrote him afterward, "Your views in relation to the election, differed very little from my own, but I was obliged to yield to a torrent [of anti-Jefferson sentiment] which I perceived might be diverted, but could not be opposed." Bayard was no doubt familiar with the terms of the deal Hamilton had wished to make with Jefferson. In fact, though Jefferson would later deny it, before changing his vote Bayard had received assurances through Jefferson's friend, Congressman Samuel Smith of Maryland, similar to those Hamilton had proposed. But Bayard, as he recounted to things Hamilton, had also sought assurances from Burr. |quote-page=260}}</ref> Ron Chernow, alternatively, claimed that Hamilton "squelched" Burr's chance at becoming president.<ref name=chernow638>Chernow, p. 638.</ref> When it became clear that Jefferson had developed his own concerns about Burr and would not support his return to the vice presidency,<ref name=Monticello /> Burr sought the New York governorship [[1804 New York gubernatorial election|in 1804]] with Federalist support, against the Jeffersonian [[Morgan Lewis (governor)|Morgan Lewis]], but was defeated by forces including Hamilton.<ref>ANB, "Aaron Burr".</ref>

==Duel with Burr and death==
{{main|Burr–Hamilton duel}}
[[File:Duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.jpg|thumb|A 1901 illustration of Burr fatally wounding Hamilton in [[Burr–Hamilton duel|their 1804 duel]] in [[Weehawken, New Jersey]]]]
[[File:Alexander Hamilton Grave.JPG |thumb|Hamilton's tomb in [[Trinity Church Cemetery]] 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.<ref name=jbf/><ref>Kennedy, ''Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson'', p. 72.</ref> Cooper claimed that the letter was intercepted after relaying the information, but stated he was "unusually cautious" in recollecting the information from the dinner.<ref name=chernow680-681>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n715 pp. 680–681].</ref>

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.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|423–424}} After a series of attempts to reconcile differences between the two failed, a duel was arranged through liaisons on June 27, 1804.<ref name=schachner />{{rp|426}}

The concept of honor was fundamental to Hamilton's vision of himself and of the nation.<ref>{{cite book |first=Andrew S. |last=Trees |title=The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2004 |page=169}}</ref> 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.<ref name=chernow-interview>{{Cite journal |title=An Interview with Ron Chernow |first1=Kenneth T. |last1=Jackson |first2=Virginia |last2=Paley |date=Spring 2004 |access-date=April 12, 2017 |url=http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/Ron%20Chernow%20Interview.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/Ron%20Chernow%20Interview.pdf |archive-date=October 9, 2022 |url-status=live |journal=The New-York Journal of American History |pages=59–65}}</ref> Such affairs of honor were often concluded prior to reaching the final stage of a duel.<ref name=chernow-interview/>

Before the duel, Hamilton wrote an explanation of his decision to participate while at the same time intending to "[[Deloping|throw away]]" his shot.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Hamilton |first1=Alexander |title=Statement on Impending Duel with Aaron Burr, (28 June – 10 July 1804) |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0241 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=February 7, 2017 |archive-date=February 8, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170208033757/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0241 |url-status=live}}</ref> His desire to be available for future political matters also played a factor.<ref name=jbf>{{cite journal |last=Freeman |first=Joanne B. |title=Dueling as Politics: Reinterpreting the Burr–Hamilton Duel |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_william-and-mary-quarterly_1996-04_53_2/page/289 |journal=[[William and Mary Quarterly]] |series=Third Series |volume=53 |number=2 |date=April 1996 |pages=289–318 |type=subscription |jstor=2947402}}</ref> A week before the duel, Hamilton and Burr both attended an annual [[Independence Day (United States)|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.<ref>{{citation |editor-surname1=Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture |periodical=The William and Mary Quarterly |title=What Was Hamilton's "Favorite Song"? |volume=12 |issue=2 |pages=298–307 |date=April 1955 |publisher=Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture |language=de |jstor=1920510}}</ref>

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]].<ref>Adams, pp. 93–94.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book |title=A Place In History: Albany In The Age Of Revolution |last=Roberts |first=Warren |publisher=Excelsior Editions/State University of New York Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4384-3329-5 |location=Albany, NY |page=135}}</ref> 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.<ref>Winfield, Charles H. (1874). ''History of the County of Hudson, New Jersey from Its Earliest Settlement to the Present Time''. New York: Kennard and Hay. Chapter 8, "[https://web.archive.org/web/20070703220610/http://duel2004.weehawkenhistory.org/winfieldch8duels.pdf Duels]". pp.&nbsp;p.219</ref> 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.<ref>Fleming, p. 323</ref> Hamilton also refused the more sensitive [[Hair trigger|hairspring]] setting for the dueling pistols offered by [[Nathaniel Pendleton]], and Burr was unaware of the option.<ref name=Brookhiser212/>

Burr shot Hamilton, delivering what proved to be a fatal wound, while Hamilton apparently "[[Deloping|deloped]]", as he had indicated was his intention in his letter beforehand; and his shot went well above Burr's head, breaking a tree branch. The seconds, Pendleton and Van Ness,<ref>Fleming, p. 345</ref> disagreed on which man fired first in the duel.<ref name=Brookhiser212>{{cite book |last=Brookhiser |first=Richard |title=Alexander Hamilton, American |page=212 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=2000 |isbn=978-1-4391-3545-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KNqw3yCfG5YC&pg=PA212 |via=Google Books}}</ref> 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.<ref name=chernow704>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n739 p. 704].</ref> 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.<ref>Cooke, p. 242</ref>

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]].<ref name=schachner />{{rp|429}}<ref>Emery, p. 243</ref>

The paralyzed Hamilton was immediately attended by [[David Hosack|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.<ref name=chernow705>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n740 pp. 705–708].</ref> On his deathbed, Hamilton asked the [[Episcopal Bishop of New York]], [[Benjamin Moore (bishop)|Benjamin Moore]], to give him [[holy communion]].<ref name="papers-v26"/> Moore initially declined to do so on the grounds that participating in a duel was a [[mortal sin]] and that Hamilton, although undoubtedly sincere in his faith, was not a member of the [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalian]] denomination.<ref name=fleming>{{cite book |last=Fleming |first=Thomas |title=Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr and the Future of America |url=https://archive.org/details/duelalexanderham00flem |location=New York |publisher=Basic Books |year=1999 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/duelalexanderham00flem/page/328 328]–329 |isbn=978-0-465-01736-2}}</ref> 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.<ref name=fleming/>

After final visits from his family, friends, and considerable suffering for at least 31 hours, Hamilton died at two o'clock the following afternoon, July 12, 1804,<ref name=chernow705/><ref name=jch836>{{cite book |first=John Church |last=Hamilton |title=Life of Alexander Hamilton: A History of the Republic of the United States of America, as Traced in His Writings and in Those of His Contemporaries, Volume VII |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton, Osgood and Company |year=1879 |page=836 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7lYSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA836 |quote=At two in the afternoon, my father died.}}</ref> at Bayard's home just below present-day [[Gansevoort Street]] in Greenwich Village, New York City.<ref name=Miller1990>{{cite book |first=Terry |last=Miller |title=Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way |page=164 |publisher=Crown Publishers |year=1990 |isbn=978-0-517-57322-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0sZ4AAAAMAAJ&q=%22present+Gansevoort%22&pg=PA164}} Cited in {{cite news |title=F.Y.I.: Answers to Questions About New York |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/nyregion/answers-to-questions-about-new-york.html |last=Pollak |first=Michael |date=July 8, 2011 |work=The New York Times |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170719130201/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/nyregion/answers-to-questions-about-new-york.html |archive-date=July 19, 2017}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0271 |title=Founders Online: The Funeral, [14 July 1804] |website=founders.archives.gov |access-date=July 3, 2021 |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709181350/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-26-02-0001-0271 |url-status=live}}</ref> Moore conducted Hamilton's funeral service at [[Trinity Church (Manhattan)|Trinity Church]] at present-day 89 [[Broadway (Manhattan)|Broadway]] in [[Manhattan]].<ref name="papers-v26" /> Gouverneur Morris gave the eulogy and secretly established a fund to support his widow and children.<ref name=chernow712-713-725>Chernow, pp. [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n747 712–713], [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n760 725].</ref> Hamilton was buried in the [[Trinity Church Cemetery|church's cemetery]].<ref>{{cite book |first=Doug |last=Keister |title=Stories in Stone New York: A Field Guide to New York City Area Cemeteries & Their Residents |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AkNldfGIyCcC&pg=PA127 |year=2011 |publisher=Gibbs Smith |page=127 |isbn=978-1-4236-2102-7}}</ref>

==Religion==
===Religious faith===
As a youth in the [[West Indies]], Hamilton was an Orthodox and conventional [[Presbyterian]] of the [[Old and New Lights|New Lights]]; he was mentored there by a former student of [[John Witherspoon]], a moderate of the New School.<ref>McDonald, ''Alexander Hamilton'' p. 11; Adair and Harvey (1974)</ref> He wrote two or three [[hymns]], which were published in the local newspaper.<ref name=chernow38>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n53 p. 38].</ref> [[Robert Troup]], his college roommate, noted that Hamilton was "in the habit of [[praying]] on his knees night and morning".<ref name=jch-life/>{{rp|10}}

During the [[American Revolution]], however, Hamilton became less religious and instead became "a conventional liberal with theistic inclinations who was an irregular churchgoer at best," according to [[Brown University]] historian [[Gordon S. Wood]]. In his final years of life, though, Hamilton returned to his [[Protestant]] faith,<ref>Wood, Gordon. ''Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815'' (2009) pp. 589–590</ref> and was [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalian]]. Historian [[Ron Chernow]] wrote:

{{blockquote |[H]e was not clearly affiliated with the denomination and did not seem to attend church regularly or take communion. Like Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, Hamilton had probably fallen under the sway of [[deism]], which sought to substitute reason for revelation and dropped the notion of an active God who intervened in human affairs. At the same time, he never doubted God's existence, embracing Christianity as a system of morality and cosmic justice.<ref name=chernow205>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n224 p. 205].</ref>}}

When the [[Constitutional Convention (United States)|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".<ref name=adair1955>{{cite journal |title=Was Alexander Hamilton a Christian Statesman? |first1=Douglass |last1=Adair |first2=Marvin |last2=Harvey |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=12 |number=2 |date=April 1955 |at=pp. 308–329 at 315 n.8 |jstor=1920511 |quote=The first story alleges [that he was asked] why God had not been suitably recognized in the Constitution. 'Indeed, Doctor,' Hamilton is supposed to have replied, 'we forgot it.' ... The second story [is of a] purported remark on the Convention floor, when Franklin moved that each session in the future be opened with prayer. Hamilton is supposed to have replied that there was no need for calling in 'foreign aid.'}}</ref> 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.<ref name=adair1955/>{{rp|316}} After 1801, Hamilton expressed his belief in Christianity, proposing a Christian Constitutional Society in 1802 to take hold of "some strong feeling of the mind" to elect "fit men" to office, and advocating "Christian welfare societies" for the poor.

After being shot in his [[Burr–Hamilton duel|duel]] with [[Aaron Burr]] on July 11, 1804, Hamilton spoke of his belief in God's mercy.{{efn|Adair and Harvey, "Christian Statesman?"; Quotes on the Christian Constitutional Society are from Hamilton's letter to James A. Bayard of April 1802, quoted by Adair and Harvey. McDonald, says p. 356, that Hamilton's faith "had not entirely departed" him before the crisis of 1801. |group="note"}} On his deathbed, Hamilton asked the [[Episcopal Bishop of New York]], Benjamin Moore, to give him [[holy communion]].<ref name="papers-v26"/> Moore initially declined to do so, on two grounds: that to participate in a duel was a mortal sin, and that Hamilton, although undoubtedly sincere in his faith, was not a member of the Episcopalian denomination.<ref name=fleming /> After leaving, Moore was persuaded to return that afternoon following urgent pleas of Hamilton's friends. After receiving Hamilton's solemn assurance that he never intended to shoot Burr and repented for his part in the duel, Moore gave him communion.<ref name=fleming/> Bishop Moore returned the next morning, stayed with Hamilton for several hours until his death, and conducted his subsequent funeral service at [[Trinity Church (Manhattan)|Trinity Church]].<ref name="papers-v26">{{cite book |last=Moore |first=Benjamin |orig-year=July 12, 1804 |chapter=Letter to William Coleman (Editor, ''New-York Evening Post'') |title=The Papers of Alexander Hamilton |editor-first=Harold Coffin |editor-last=Syrett |editor-link=Harold Syrett |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-231-08925-8 |pages=314–316, 328 |url={{GBurl|La4WnvtSBzkC |pg=PA316}} |volume=26}}</ref>

===Relationship with Jews and Judaism===
Hamilton's birthplace had a large Jewish community, comprising roughly a quarter of [[Charlestown, Nevis|Charlestown]]'s white population by the 1720s.<ref name=chernow17/> He came into contact with Jews on a regular basis; as a small boy, he was tutored by a Jewish schoolmistress, and had learned to recite the [[Ten Commandments]] in the original [[Biblical Hebrew|Hebrew]].<ref name=jch-life>{{cite book |title=The Life of Alexander Hamilton, Vol. 1 |last=Hamilton |first=John Church |year=1834 |publisher=Halsted & Voorhies |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/lifealexanderha05hamigoog/page/n16 3] |url=https://archive.org/details/lifealexanderha05hamigoog}}</ref>

Hamilton exhibited a respect for Jews, which was described as "a life-long reverence."<ref name=chernow18>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n33 p. 18].</ref> He believed that Jewish achievement was a result of [[divine providence]]:

{{blockquote |The state and progress of the Jews, from their earliest history to the present time, has been so entirely out of the ordinary course of human affairs, is it not then a fair conclusion, that the cause also is an <em>extraordinary</em> one—in other words, that it is the effect of some great providential plan? The man who will draw this conclusion, will look for the solution in the Bible. He who will not draw it ought to give us another fair solution.<ref name=jch-711>{{cite book |title=Life of Alexander Hamilton: A History of the Republic of the United States of America, as Traced in His Writings and in Those of His Contemporaries, Volume VII |first=John Church |last=Hamilton |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton, Osgood and Company |year=1879 |page=711 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7lYSAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA711}}</ref>}}

Based primarily on the phonetic similarity of Lavien to a common Jewish surname, it has been suggested that [[Johann Michael Lavien|Johann Lavien]], the first husband of Hamilton's mother, was Jewish or of Jewish descent.<ref name=chernow10-26>Chernow, pp. [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/10 10], [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n41 26].</ref> On this contested foundation, it was rumored that Hamilton himself was born Jewish, a claim that gained some popularity early in the 20th century<ref name=Newton34>Newton (2015),[{{GBurl|9GvpCQAAQBAJ|p=34}} p. 34].</ref> and which was given serious consideration by one present-day historian.<ref name=Porwancher>{{Cite book |last=Porwancher |first=Andrew |date=2021 |title=The Jewish World of Alexander Hamilton |publisher=Princeton University Press |page=1 |isbn=978-0-691-21115-2}}</ref> 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.<ref>Newton (2015), [{{GBurl|9GvpCQAAQBAJ|p=14}} p. 14]</ref><ref>Newton (2019), [https://books.google.com/books?id=5oOiDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 p. 18] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221226171807/https://books.google.com/books?id=5oOiDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA18 |date=December 26, 2022 }}.</ref> The consensus of mainstream scholars and historians, however, is that Hamilton was not Jewish.<ref name=chernow_10-12_26>Chernow, pp. [{{GBurl|id=4iafgTEhU3QC|p=10}} 10–12], [{{GBurl|id=4iafgTEhU3QC|p=26}} 26].</ref>

==Legacy==
{{See also|List of things named after Alexander Hamilton|Cultural depictions of Alexander Hamilton}}

===Constitution===
{{See also|History of the United States Constitution}}
Hamilton's interpretations of the [[Constitution of the United States|Constitution]], which are set forth in ''[[The Federalist Papers]]'', remain highly influential, and continue to be cited in scholarly studies and court decisions.<ref>Susan Welch, John Gruhl and John Comer, ''Understanding American Government'' (2011) p. 70</ref> 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]].<ref>Melvyn R. Durchslag, ''State sovereign immunity: a reference guide to the United States Constitution'' (2002) p xix</ref> Jefferson especially opposed Hamilton's support of a ''de facto'' central bank, which Hamilton believed was permissible under [[United States Congress|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.<ref name="Thomas Frederick Wilson 1992 94">{{cite book |first=Thomas Frederick |last=Wilson |title=The Power "to Coin" Money: The Exercise of Monetary Powers by the Congress |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VIAbb1cKqp4C&pg=PA94 |year=1992 |publisher=M. E. Sharpe |page=94 |isbn=978-0-87332-795-4}}</ref>

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 of the United States|federal government]] broad freedom to select the best means to execute its constitutionally enumerated powers and confirmed the doctrine of [[implied powers]].<ref name="Thomas Frederick Wilson 1992 94"/> The [[American Civil War]] and the [[Progressive Era]], Hamilton's defenders argue, demonstrated the sorts of crises and politics that Hamilton's administrative republic sought to avoid.<ref name="Tulis1987">{{cite book |first=Jeffrey |last=Tulis |title=The Rhetorical Presidency |url=https://archive.org/details/rhetoricalpresid0000tuli |url-access=registration |year=1987 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-0-691-02295-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/rhetoricalpresid0000tuli/page/31 31]}}</ref>{{how|This is an over-broad contention completely lacking in any context.|date=May 2020}}

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]], [[Charles James Fox|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.<ref>{{cite book |first=Lawrence S. |last=Kaplan |title=Thomas Jefferson: Westward the Course of Empire |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m9AXpiJXw48C&pg=PA284 |year=1998 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |page=284 |isbn=978-1-4616-4618-1}}</ref>

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]].<ref name=chernow397-398>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n416 pp. 397–398].</ref> 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 [[History of the Republican Party (United States)|Republicans]] wrote laudatory biographies on Hamilton prior to entering politics.<ref>Before they became [[United States Senate|senators]], for instance, [[Henry Cabot Lodge]] and [[Arthur H. Vandenberg]] wrote highly favorable biographies of Hamilton.{{cite book |first=Merrill D. |last=Peterson |author-link=Merrill D. Peterson |title=The Jefferson Image in the American Mind |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0QNrZoAgGAsC |year=1960 |pages=114, 278–280 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=978-0-8139-1851-8}}</ref>

According to [[Princeton University]] historian [[Sean Wilentz]], Hamilton and 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.<ref name=wilentz>{{cite journal |first=Sean |last=Wilentz |title=Book Reviews |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-american-history_2010-09_97_2/page/476 |journal=Journal of American History |date=September 2010 |volume=97 |number=2 |page=476}}</ref> Conversely, these modern scholars favoring Hamilton portray Jefferson and his allies as relatively naïve and  dreamy idealists.<ref name=wilentz/>

===Slavery===
Hamilton is not known to have ever owned slaves, although members of his family did. At the time of her death, Hamilton's mother owned two slaves and wrote a will leaving them to her sons. Due to their illegitimacy, however, Hamilton and his brother were held ineligible to inherit her property and never took ownership of the slaves.<ref name="New-York Journal"/>{{rp|17}} As a youth in Saint Croix, Hamilton later worked for a company that traded slaves as well as sugar and other staples of the [[Triangular trade|Transatlantic economy]].<ref name="New-York Journal"/>{{rp|17}} Historians have discussed whether Hamilton personally owned slaves later in life.<ref>Multiple sources:
* {{cite book |last=Miller |first=John Chester |title=Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation |date=1959 |publisher=Harper Torchbooks |location=New York |page=122 (''note'') |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00mill/page/122/mode/2up |quote=Although Hamilton was a member of the New York Manumission Society, he held slaves throughout his life.}}
* {{cite book |last1=Hendrickson |first1=Robert A. |title=Hamilton I, 1757-1789 |date=1976 |publisher=Mason/Charter |location=New York |page=432 |url=https://archive.org/details/hamilton0000hend |quote=It is not known whether either Betsy or Hamilton owned a slave.}}
* {{cite book |last1=McDonald |first1=Forrest |title=Alexander Hamilton: A Biography |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00forr |date=1982 |publisher=W. W. Norton |page=[https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00forr/page/373 373] (''Footnotes'') |isbn=978-0-393-30048-2 |quote=Historians have sometimes asserted that Hamilton, despite his activities in behalf of emancipation, did personally own slaves, though his family stoutly denied it.}}
* {{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=David Brion |title=The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 |date=1999 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |page=172 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Problem_of_Slavery_in_the_Age_of_Rev/9lsvDwAAQBAJ |quote=Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay were figures of prominence who either owned or had owned Negro slaves.}}
* {{cite book |last1=Sterne |first1=William Randall |title=Alexander Hamilton: A Life |date=2003 |publisher=HarperCollins |location=New York |isbn=9780060195496 |page=293 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00rand/page/292/mode/2up |quote=Hamilton himself never owned a slave, but he could never convince his wife to free her one slave, her body servant.}}
* {{cite book |last=Hogeland |first=William |editor-last1=Romano |editor-first1=Renee C. |editor-last2=Potter |editor-first2=Claire Bond |title=Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical Is Restaging America's Past |publisher=Rutgers University |location=New Brunswick, New Jersey |date=2018 |pages=28 |chapter=From Ron Chernow's 'Alexander Hamilton' to 'Hamilton: An American Musical' |isbn=978-0-8135-9033-2 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G3BADwAAQBAJ |quote=Many in both the North and South had deep concerns, no doubt often sincere, about the vileness of the institution [of slavery]. Many of those same people also held people in bondage, including Hamilton himself.}}</ref>

[[Ron Chernow]], in his 2004 [[Alexander Hamilton (book)|biography of Hamilton]], argued that, while there is "no definite proof" that Hamilton personally owned slaves, "oblique hints" in Hamilton's papers suggest "he and Eliza may have owned one or two household slaves."<ref name=chernow210>Chernow, p. [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/210 210].</ref> 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.<ref name="Allan McLane Hamilton">{{cite book |last=Hamilton |first=Allan McLane |author-link=Allan McLane Hamilton |year=1910 |chapter=Friends and Enemies |title=The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton: Based Chiefly Upon Original Family Letters and Other Documents, Many of Which Have Never Been Published |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YmgoAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA268 |location=New York |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |publication-date=1910 |page=268 |access-date=October 13, 2016 |quote=It has been stated that Hamilton never owned a negro slave, but this is untrue. We find that in his books there are entries showing that he purchased them for himself and for others.}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=McDonald |first1=Forrest |title=Alexander Hamilton: A Biography |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00forr |date=1982 |publisher=W. W. Norton |page=[https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00forr/page/373 373] (''Footnotes'') |isbn=978-0-393-30048-2}}</ref> 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."<ref>Hamilton, John C., The Life of Alexander Hamilton, D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1834–1840, vol. 2, p. 280</ref>

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 Black soldiers 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 Blacks.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hamilton |first1=Alexander |editor1-last=Hamilton |editor1-first=John C. |title=The Works of Alexander Hamilton [...] |volume=1 |date=1850 |location=New York |pages=76–77 |url=https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Works_of_Alexander_Hamilton_Correspo/cnABAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0 |chapter=Hamilton to President of Congress}}</ref> 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 [[Gradual emancipation (United States)|gradually abolish]] slavery in New York.<ref name="New-York Journal"/> Rather than legally emancipate all enslaved people in the state, the 1799 act declared all children born after July 4, 1799 free pending a period of apprenticeship lasting 28 years for men and 25 years for women. Enslaved people born prior to that date were not emancipated, and the final end of slavery in New York did not occur until 1827.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Zilversmit |first1=Arthur |title=The First Emancipation |date=1969 |publisher=University of Chicago |location=Chicago |pages=182, 214 |url=https://archive.org/details/firstemancipatio0000arth}}</ref>

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."<ref>{{cite book |first=John Chester |last=Miller |title=Alexander Hamilton and the Growth of the New Nation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nWRbVDAUP2gC&pg=PA41 |year=1964 |publisher=Transaction |pages=41–42 |isbn=978-1-4128-1675-5}}</ref> He never advocated for the [[American Colonization Society|colonization]] of free people of color outside the United States, which many contemporaries considered essential to any plan for emancipation.<ref name="New-York Journal">{{cite journal |last1=Horton |first1=James Oliver |title=Alexander Hamilton: slavery and race in a revolutionary generation |journal=New-York Journal of American History |date=2004 |volume=65 |pages=16–24 |url=http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/Horton%20-%20Hamiltsvery_Race.pdf |access-date=April 2, 2017 |archive-date=July 8, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210708062531/http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/Horton%20-%20Hamiltsvery_Race.pdf |url-status=live}}</ref>{{rp|22}} In the 1790s, Hamilton's political agenda sometimes came into conflict with proslavery interests. When the enslaved population of [[Saint-Domingue]] [[Haitian Revolution|rose up]] against their French enslavers, Hamilton and other Federalists supported the revolutionaries and urged closer economic and diplomatic ties with [[First Empire of Haiti|new nation of Haiti]].<ref name="New-York Journal"/>{{rp|23}} His suggestions shaped the [[Constitution of Haiti|Haitian constitution]], promulgated the year after his death.<ref name="New-York Journal"/>{{rp|23}} At other times, political expediency led Hamilton to form close relationships with slaveholders like [[William Loughton Smith]] whose support was critical to the strength of the Federalist Party in South Carolina.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cooke |first1=Jacob Ernest |title=Alexander Hamilton |date=1982 |publisher=Scribner's |location=New York |page=45 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cook}}</ref>

===Economics===
{{Further|Economic history of the United States}}
[[File:US10dollarbill-Series 2004A.jpg|thumb|Hamilton has appeared on the [[United States ten-dollar bill]] since 1928.]]
Hamilton has been portrayed as the patron saint<ref name=":0" /> of the [[American School (economics)|American School]] economic philosophy that, according to historian [[Michael Lind]], later dominated American economic policy after 1861.<ref name=":0">Lind, Michael, ''Hamilton's Republic'', 1997, pp. xiv–xv, 229–230.</ref> Hamilton's ideas and work influenced 19th century German economist [[Friedrich List]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Notz |first1=William |year=1926 |title=Friedrich List in America |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_american-economic-review_1926-06_16_2/page/248 |journal=American Economic Review |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=248–265 |jstor=1805356}}</ref> and  [[Henry Charles Carey]], who served as [[Abraham Lincoln]]'s chief economic advisor during the [[Lincoln administration]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Levermore |first=Charles H. |title=Henry C. Carey and his Social System |journal=Political Science Quarterly |year=1890 |volume=5 |issue=4 |publisher=The Academy of Political Science |page=561 |jstor=2139529}}</ref>

In fall 1781, Hamilton firmly supported government intervention in favor of business after the manner of [[Jean-Baptiste Colbert]].<ref name=chernow170>Chernow, [https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cher/page/n189 p. 170].</ref><ref>''Continentalist'' V, April 1782 (but written in fall 1781).</ref><ref>Syrett, p. 3:77.</ref> 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]].<ref>Bairoch, pp. [{{GBurl|LaF_cCknJScC|p=17}} 17], [{{GBurl|LaF_cCknJScC|p=33}} 33].</ref> He is credited with the idea that [[industrialization]] was only possible with [[tariff]]s that protected the "[[infant industries]]" of an emerging nation.<ref name=Bairoch/>

===Public administration===
{{main|Public administration}}
Political theorists credit Hamilton with the creation of the modern administrative state, citing his arguments in favor of a strong executive, linked to the electoral support of the people, as the linchpin of an administrative republic.<ref name=Green2002>{{cite journal |last=Green |first=Richard T. |title=Alexander Hamilton: Founder of the American Public Administration |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_administration-society_2002-11_34_5/page/541 |journal=Administration & Society |volume=34 |issue=5 |date=November 2002 |pages=541–562 |doi=10.1177/009539902237275 |s2cid=145232233}}</ref>{{sfn |Derthick |1999 |p=122}} 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 [[Representative democracy|republican]] government.<ref>Harvey Flaumenhaft, "Hamilton's Administrative Republic and the American Presidency", in Joseph M. Bessette and Jeffrey Tulis, ''The Presidency in the Constitutional Order'' (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981)</ref> As evidence of Hamilton's global influence, some scholars have compared Hamilton's recommendations to the development of [[Meiji Japan]].<ref>Austin, pp. 261–262.</ref>

==In popular culture==
{{main|Cultural depictions of Alexander Hamilton}}
[[Image:Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton.jpg|thumb|[[Lin-Manuel Miranda]] performing the title role in the musical [[Hamilton (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.<ref name="Browne">Hamilton was not mentioned in standard reference guides to popular culture. See, e.g., {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U3rJxPYT32MC&pg=PA971 |title=The Guide to United States Popular Culture |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-87972-821-2 |editor1-last=Browne |editor1-first=Ray Broadus |location=Madison |page=971 |type=index |editor2-last=Browne |editor2-first=Pat}}</ref>

In 2015, he gained significant mainstream attention with the debut of the [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]] musical ''[[Hamilton (musical)|Hamilton]]'', which is based on [[Alexander Hamilton (book)|a biography]] by [[Ron Chernow]]. [[Lin-Manuel Miranda]] plays Hamilton in the musical, which 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."<ref name="Mead2015">{{cite magazine |last=Mead |first=Rebecca |date=February 9, 2015 |title=All About the Hamiltons |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180219195610/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/09/hamiltons?currentPage=all |archive-date=February 19, 2018 |magazine=[[The New Yorker]]}}</ref> The [[Off-Broadway]] production of ''Hamilton'' won the 2015 [[Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical]] and seven other [[Drama Desk Award]]s. In 2016, ''Hamilton'' received the [[Pulitzer Prize for Drama]], and set a record for [[Tony Award]] nominations with 16,<ref name="nyti-Ham">{{Cite news |last=Paulson |first=Michael |date=May 3, 2016 |title=''Hamilton'' Makes History With 16 Tony Nominations |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/theater/hamilton-tony-nominations-record.html |work=The New York Times}}</ref> winning 11, including [[Tony Award for Best Musical|Best Musical]].<ref name="Viagas2016">{{cite journal |last=Viagas |first=Robert |date=June 12, 2016 |title=''Hamilton'' Tops Tony Awards With 11 Wins |url=http://www.playbill.com/article/tony-time-its-broadways-biggest-night |journal=Playbill |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170130021429/http://www.playbill.com/article/tony-time-its-broadways-biggest-night |archive-date=January 30, 2017}}</ref> During the [[Obama administration]], a plan to replace Hamilton on the [[United States ten-dollar bill|ten-dollar bill]] was shelved due partly to the musical's popularity.<ref>{{cite web |first1=Ben |last1=White |first2=Nolan D. |last2=McCaskill |url=https://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/treasurys-lew-to-announce-hamilton-to-stay-on-10-bill-222204 |title=Tubman replacing Jackson on the $20, Hamilton spared |website=[[Politico]] |date=April 20, 2016 |access-date=January 11, 2019}}</ref> On July 3, 2020, [[Disney+]] released the movie ''[[Hamilton (2020 film)|Hamilton]]'', an authorized film of the Broadway stage production performed by the original cast.<ref>{{Cite news |date=May 12, 2020 |title=Hamilton film to be released a year early on Disney+ |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52637384 |access-date=December 6, 2024 }}</ref>

==References==

===Notes===
{{Notelist|30em}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist|30em}}

===Bibliography===
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite book |last1=Ambrose |first1=Douglas |first2=Robert W. T. |last2=Martin |title=The Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton: The Life & Legacy of America's Most Elusive Founding Father |url=https://archive.org/details/manyfacesofalexa0000unse |publisher=[[NYU Press]] |isbn=978-0-8147-0714-2 |year=2006}}
* {{cite book |last=Bailey |first=Ralph Edward |title=An American Colossus: The Singular Career of Alexander Hamilton |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.59580 |publisher=Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co |year=1933}}
* {{cite book |last=Brookhiser |first=Richard |author-link=Richard Brookhiser |title=Alexander Hamilton, American |publisher=Simon & Schuster |isbn=978-0-684-86331-3 |year=2000}}
* {{cite book |last=Chernow |first=Ron |author-link=Ron Chernow |title=Alexander Hamilton |year=2005 |publisher=[[Penguin Press]] |isbn=978-0-14-303475-9 |ol=35261741M |ref=chernow}}
* {{cite book |last=Cooke |first=Jacob Ernest |title=Alexander Hamilton |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |isbn=978-0-684-17344-3 |year=1982 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00cook}}
* {{cite book |last=Ellis |first=Joseph J. |title=Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-0-375-70524-3 |year=2002 |author-link=Joseph Ellis |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/foundingbrothers0000elli}}
* {{cite book |last=Ellis |first=Joseph J. |title=His Excellency: George Washington |publisher=Vintage |isbn=978-1-4000-3253-2 |year=2005}}
* {{cite book |last=Emery |first=Noemie |title=Alexander Hamilton: An intimate portrait |publisher=Putnam |isbn=978-0-399-12681-9 |year=1982 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00emer}}
* {{cite book |last=Flaumenhaft |first=Harvey |title=The Administrative Republic of Alexander Hamilton |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xJh2HwAACAAJ |year=1980 |publisher=University of Chicago, Department of Political Science}}
* {{cite book |last=Fleming |first=Thomas |title=Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America |url=https://archive.org/details/duelalexanderham00flem |publisher=Basic Books |isbn=978-0-465-01737-9 |year=2000}}
* {{cite book |last=Flexner |first=James Thomas |title=The Young Hamilton: A Biography |publisher=[[Fordham University]] Press |edition=2nd |isbn=978-0-8232-1790-8 |year=1997 |author-link=James Thomas Flexner}}
* {{cite book |last=Hendrickson |first=Robert |title=Hamilton I (1757–1789) |url=https://archive.org/details/hamilton0000hend |publisher=Mason/Charter |year=1976 |isbn=978-0-88405-139-8}}
* {{cite book |last=McDonald |first=Forrest |title=Alexander Hamilton: A Biography |publisher=[[W. W. Norton Company]] |isbn=978-0-393-30048-2 |year=1982 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00forr}}
* {{cite book |last=Miller |first=John Chester |title=Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto0000mill |publisher=[[Harper & Row]] |isbn=978-0-06-012975-0 |year=1959}}
* {{cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Broadus |title=Alexander Hamilton: Youth to Maturity (1755–1788), Volume 1 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto0001mitc |publisher=Macmillan |year=1957}}
* {{cite book |last=Mitchell |first=Broadus |title=Alexander Hamilton: The National Adventure (1788–1804), Volume 2 |publisher=Macmillan |year=1957}}
* {{cite book |last=Murray |first=Joseph A. |title=Alexander Hamilton: America's Forgotten Founder |publisher=Algora |isbn=978-0-87586-501-0 |year=2007}}
* {{cite book |last=Newton |first=Michael E. |title=Alexander Hamilton: The Formative Years |publisher=Eleftheria Publishing |isbn=978-0-9826040-3-8 |ol=28143176M |year=2015}}
* {{cite book |last=Randall |first=William Sterne |title=Alexander Hamilton: A Life |publisher=[[HarperCollins]] |isbn=978-0-06-201532-7 |ol=35758376M |year=2015 |ref=randall}}
* {{cite book |last=Schachner |first=Nathan |title=Alexander Hamilton |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto0000scha_p8e9 |publisher=D. Appleton Century Co. |location=New York City |asin=B0006AQUG2 |year=1946}}
{{refend}}

===Studies===
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Adair |first1=Douglas |name-list-style=amp |first2=Marvin |last2=Harvey |title=Was Alexander Hamilton a Christian Statesman? |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_william-and-mary-quarterly_1955-04_12_2/page/308 |journal=William and Mary Quarterly |volume=12 |issue=2 |year=1955 |pages=308–329 |jstor=1920511}}
* {{cite book |last=Austin |first=Ian Patrick |title=Common Foundations of American and East Asian Modernisation: From Alexander Hamilton to Junichero Koizumi |location=Singapore |publisher=Select Books |year=2009 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Rmg3gNJ5L44C&pg=PR7 |isbn=978-981-4022-52-1}}
* {{cite journal |last=Bailey |first=Jeremy D. |title=The New Unitary Executive and Democratic Theory: The Problem of Alexander Hamilton |journal=[[American Political Science Review]] |year=2008 |volume=102 |issue=4 |pages=453–465 |doi=10.1017/S0003055408080337 |doi-access=free}}
* Balogh, Brian. 2009. ''A Government out of Sight: The Mystery of National Authority in Nineteenth Century American''. New York: Cambridge University Press.
* Bordewich, Fergus M. ''The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government'' (2016) on 1789–91.
* {{cite book |last=Brant |first=Irving |title=The Fourth President: a Life of James Madison |url=https://archive.org/details/fourthpresidentl00bran |location=Indianapolis |publisher=Bobbs-Merill |year=1970}} A one-volume recasting of Brant's six-volume life.
* {{cite book |last=Burns |first=Eric |title=Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism |location=New York |publisher=PublicAffairs |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-58648-428-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/infamousscribble00burn |url-access=registration}}
* {{cite journal |last=Chan |first=Michael D. |title=Alexander Hamilton on Slavery |journal=Review of Politics |volume=66 |issue=2 |year=2004 |pages=207–231 |jstor=1408953 |doi=10.1017/s003467050003727x |doi-access=free}}
* {{cite book |last=Denboer |first=Gordon R. |title=The Documentary History of the First Federal Elections, 1788–1790, Volume III |location=Madison |publisher=University of Wisconsin Press |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-299-10650-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rklx9c7MJFoC&pg=PA196 |access-date=July 11, 2020}}
* {{cite book |last=Derthick |first=Martha |title=Dilemmas of Scale in America's Federal Democracy |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=X11p-A_vbpoC |access-date=March 6, 2015 |date=1999 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-64039-8 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207094828/https://books.google.com/books?id=X11p-A_vbpoC |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last1=Elkins |first1=Stanley |first2=Eric |last2=McKitrick |title=Age of Federalism |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=1993 |edition=Online |url=https://www.questia.com/library/book/the-age-of-federalism-by-stanley-elkins-eric-mckitrick.jsp |access-date=August 24, 2017 |archive-date=May 4, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120504230710/http://www.questia.com/library/book/the-age-of-federalism-by-stanley-elkins-eric-mckitrick.jsp |url-status=dead}} Detailed political history of the 1790s; [https://archive.org/details/ageoffederalism00elki online free]
* {{cite book |last1=Engerman |first1=Stanley L. |first2=Robert E. |last2=Gallman |title=The Cambridge Economic History of the United States |publisher=Cambridge University Books |isbn=978-0-521-55307-0 |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6sDXBGMbrWkC&pg=PA644 |access-date=July 11, 2020 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207094842/https://books.google.com/books?id=6sDXBGMbrWkC&pg=PA644 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite journal |last=Fatovic |first=Clement |title=Constitutionalism and Presidential Prerogative: Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian Perspectives |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_american-journal-of-political-science_2004-07_48_3/page/429 |journal=[[American Journal of Political Science]] |year=2004 |volume=48 |issue=3 |pages=429–444 |doi=10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00079.x}}
* {{cite book |last=Federici |first=Michael P. |title=The Political Philosophy of Alexander Hamilton |isbn=978-1-4214-0539-1 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=2012 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6-sfIjGNDQC&pg=PA33 |access-date=July 11, 2020 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207094828/https://books.google.com/books?id=m6-sfIjGNDQC&pg=PA33#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Flaumenhaft |first=Harvey |title=The Effective Republic: Administration and Constitution in the Thought of Alexander Hamilton |location=Durham, NC |publisher=Duke University Press |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-8223-1214-7}}
* {{cite book |last=Flexner |first=James Thomas |title=George Washington |publisher=Little Brown |year=1965–1972}}. Four volumes, with various subtitles, cited as "Flexner, ''Washington''". Vol. IV. {{ISBN|978-0-316-28602-2}}.
* {{cite book |last1=Garrity |first1=Patrick J. |first2=Matthew |last2=Spalding |title=A Sacred Union of Citizens: George Washington's Farewell Address and the American Character |publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8476-8262-1 |year=2000 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q4axDZ5OMdcC&pg=PA196 |access-date=July 11, 2020 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207093629/https://books.google.com/books?id=q4axDZ5OMdcC&pg=PA196#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}
* Gaspar, Vitor. "The making of a continental financial system: Lessons for Europe from early American history." ''Journal of European Integration'' 37.7 (2015): 847–859, summarizes Hamilton's achievements in Atlantic perspective.
* {{cite book |last=Gibowicz |first=Charles J. |title=Mess Night Traditions |publisher=Author House |isbn=978-1-4259-8446-5 |year=2007 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0Vo62GFJlpoC&pg=PA256 |access-date=July 11, 2020 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207093750/https://books.google.com/books?id=0Vo62GFJlpoC&pg=PA256#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Harper |first=John Lamberton |title=American Machiavelli: Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of US Foreign Policy |location=New York |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-521-83485-8}}
* {{Cite book |last=Hogeland |first=William |date=2024 |title=The Hamilton Scheme: An Epic Tale of Money and Power in the American Founding |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux |isbn=9780374167837 |oclc=1393205277}} Reviewed in [[Reason (magazine)|Reason]], July 2024, https://reason.com/2024/06/16/the-dark-side-of-alexander-hamilton/
* {{cite journal |last=Horton |first=James Oliver |title=Alexander Hamilton: Slavery and Race in a Revolutionary Generation |journal=New York Journal of American History |year=2004 |volume=65 |issue=3 |pages=16–24 |url=http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/Horton%20-%20Hamiltsvery_Race.pdf |access-date=January 23, 2011 |archive-date=July 8, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210708062531/http://www.alexanderhamiltonexhibition.org/about/Horton%20-%20Hamiltsvery_Race.pdf |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Edward |title=The Bank of the United States and the American Economy |location=Westport, CT |publisher=Praeger |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-313-30866-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WLX8Q_pXSagC&pg=PA21 |access-date=July 11, 2020 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207093751/https://books.google.com/books?id=WLX8Q_pXSagC&pg=PA21 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Lawrence S. |title=Alexander Hamilton: Ambivalent Anglophile |isbn=978-0-8420-2878-3 |publisher=Rowman and Littlefield |year=2001 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WUY3zsMtIB0C&pg=PA155 |access-date=July 11, 2020}}
* {{cite book |last=Keister |first=Doug |title=Stories in Stone New York: A Field Guide to New York City Area Cemeteries & Their Residents |publisher=Gibbs Smith |year=2011 |isbn=978-1-4236-2102-7}}
* {{cite book |last=Kennedy |first=Roger G. |title=Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-19-513055-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/burrhamiltonjeff00kenn_0}}
* Knott, Stephen F. "The Four Faces of Alexander Hamilton: Jefferson's Hamilton, Hollywood's Hamilton, Miranda's Hamilton, and the Real Hamilton." ''American Political Thought'' 7.4 (2018): 543–564.
* {{cite book |last=Knott |first=Stephen F. |title=Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth |location=Lawrence |publisher=University Press of Kansas |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-7006-1157-7}}
* {{cite journal |last=Kohn |first=Richard H. |title=The Inside History of the Newburgh Conspiracy: America and the Coup d'Etat |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_william-and-mary-quarterly_1970-04_27_2/page/188 |journal=The William and Mary Quarterly |volume=27 |issue=2 |year=1970 |pages=188–220 |jstor=1918650}} A review of the evidence on Newburgh; despite the title, Kohn is doubtful that a ''coup d'état'' was ever seriously attempted.
* {{cite journal |last=Larsen |first=Harold |title=Alexander Hamilton: The Fact and Fiction of His Early Years |journal=William and Mary Quarterly |volume=9 |issue=2 |year=1952 |pages=139–151 |jstor=1925345}}
* {{cite book |last=Levine |first=Yitzchok |chapter-url=http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/21464 |chapter=The Jews of Nevis And Alexander Hamilton |title=Glimpses into American Jewish History |publisher=The Jewish Press |date=May 2, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615161002/http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/21464 |archive-date=June 15, 2011}}
* {{cite journal |last=Lind |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Lind |year=1994 |title=Hamilton's Legacy |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_wilson-quarterly_summer-1994_18_3/page/40 |journal=[[The Wilson Quarterly]] |volume=18 |issue=3 |pages=40–52 |jstor=40258878}}
* {{cite journal |last=Littlefield |first=Daniel C. |title=John Jay, the Revolutionary Generation, and Slavery |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_new-york-history_2000-01_81_1/page/91 |journal=New York History |year=2000 |volume=81 |issue=1 |pages=91–132 |issn=0146-437X}}
* {{cite book |last=Lomask |first=Milton |title=Aaron Burr, the Years from Princeton to Vice President, 1756–1805 |location=New York |publisher=Farrar, Straus & Giroux |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-374-10016-2 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/aaronburr0000loma}} First volume of two, contains Hamilton's lifetime.
* {{cite journal |last=Martin |first=Robert W. T. |s2cid=143255588 |title=Reforming Republicanism: Alexander Hamilton's Theory of Republican Citizenship and Press Liberty |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_journal-of-the-early-republic_spring-2005_25_1/page/21 |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |year=2005 |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=21–46 |doi=10.1353/jer.2005.0012}}
* {{cite journal |last=Matson |first=Cathy |year=2010 |url=http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-10/no-03/matson/ |title=Flimsy Fortunes: Americans' Old Relationship with Paper Speculation and Panic |journal=Common-place |volume=10 |issue=4 |access-date=May 2, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160409230828/http://www.common-place-archives.org/vol-10/no-03/matson/ |archive-date=April 9, 2016 |url-status=dead}} Summarizes speculations of William Duer and others in the context of the national economy.
* {{cite book |last=McCraw |first=Thomas K. |title=The Founders and Finance: How Hamilton, Gallatin, and Other Immigrants Forged a New Economy |year=2012}}
* {{cite book |last=McManus |first=Edgar J. |title=History of Negro Slavery in New York |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofnegrosl0000mcma |publisher=Syracuse University Press |year=1966}}
* {{cite journal |last=Mitchell |first=Broadus |title=The man who 'discovered' Alexander Hamilton |journal=Proceedings of the New Jersey Historical Society |year=1951 |volume=69 |pages=88–115}}
* {{cite book |last=Monaghan |first=Frank |year=1972 |orig-year=1935 |title=John Jay: Defender of Liberty Against Kings & Peoples, Author of the Constitution & Governor of New York, President of the Continental Congress, Co-Author of the Federalist, Negotiator of the Peace of 1783 & the Jay Treaty of 1794, First Chief Justice of the United States |url=https://archive.org/details/johnjaydefendero00mona/mode/2up |edition=Reprint |location=New York |publisher=AMS Press |isbn=0404046479 |lccn=74-153339 |oclc=424884}}
* {{cite book |last1=Morgan |first1=Philip D. |last2=O'Shaughnessy |first2=A. J. |chapter=Arming Slaves in the American Revolution |editor-last=Brown |editor-first=Christopher Leslie |name-list-style=amp |editor2-first=Philip D. |editor2-last=Morgan |title=Arming Slaves: From Classical Times to the Modern Age |url=https://archive.org/details/armingslavesfrom00brow_039 |url-access=limited |location=New York |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-10900-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/armingslavesfrom00brow_039/page/n194 180]–208 |year=2006}}
* {{cite book |isbn=978-1-59797-675-6 |title=The Hamiltonian Vision, 1789–1800: The Art of American Power During the Early Republic |last1=Nester |first1=William |date=June 2012 |publisher=U of Nebraska Press}}
* {{cite book |last=Nettels |first=Curtis P. |title=The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775–1815 |url=https://archive.org/details/emergenceofnatio0000nett |location=New York |publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston |year=1962}}
* {{cite book |last=Newman |first=Paul Douglas |title=Fries's Rebellion: The Enduring Struggle for the American Revolution |location=Philadelphia |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-8122-3815-0}}
* {{cite book |last=Newton |first=Michael E. |title=Discovering Hamilton: New Discoveries in the Lives of Alexander Hamilton, His Family, Friends, and Colleagues, from Various Archives Around the World |publisher=Eleftheria Publishing |isbn=978-0-9826040-4-5 |year=2019 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5oOiDwAAQBAJ |access-date=February 4, 2021 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207093756/https://books.google.com/books?id=5oOiDwAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last1=Northup |first1=Cynthia Clark |last2=Turney |first2=Elaine C. Prange |last3=Stockwell |first3=Mary |title=Encyclopedia of Tariffs and Trade in U.S. History |publisher=Greenwood Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-313-31943-3}}
* {{cite book |last=Norton |first=Joseph |title=Shapers of the Great Debate at the Constitutional Convention of 1787: A Biographical Dictionary (Shapers of the Great American Debates) |publisher=Greenwood; annotated edition |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-313-33021-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8zcjYPZxPV0C&pg=PA131 |access-date=July 11, 2020 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207093725/https://books.google.com/books?id=8zcjYPZxPV0C&pg=PA131 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Rakove |first=Jack N. |author-link=Jack N. Rakove |title=The beginnings of National Politics: an interpretive history of the Continental Congress |location=New York |publisher=Knopf |year=1979 |isbn=978-0-394-42370-8 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/beginningsofnati00jack}}
* {{cite book |last=Rossiter |first=Clinton |author-link=Clinton Rossiter |title=Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00ross |year=1964 |location=New York |publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World}}
* {{cite book |last=Sharp |first=James |title=American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis |location=New Haven |publisher=Yale University Press |year=1995 |isbn=978-0-300-06519-0 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/americanpolitics0000shar_g0z6}} Survey of politics in the 1790s.
* {{cite journal |last=Sheehan |first=Colleen |author-link=Colleen Sheehan |title=Madison v. Hamilton: The Battle Over Republicanism and the Role of Public Opinion |journal=American Political Science Review |year=2004 |volume=98 |issue=3 |pages=405–424 |doi=10.1017/S0003055404001248 |s2cid=145693742}}
* {{cite book |last=Smith |first=Robert W. |title=Keeping the Republic: Ideology and Early American Diplomacy |location=DeKalb |publisher=Northern Illinois University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-87580-326-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Staloff |first=Darren |title=Hamilton, Adams, Jefferson: The Politics of Enlightenment and the American Founding |location=New York |publisher=Hill and Wang |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-8090-7784-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/hamiltonadamsjef00stal}}
* {{cite book |last=Steward |first=David O. |title=Madison's Gift: Five Partnerships That Built America |publisher=imon and Schuster |year=2016 |isbn=978-1-4516-8859-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=poGMCwAAQBAJ |ref=stewart |access-date=February 26, 2019 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207093759/https://books.google.com/books?id=poGMCwAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last1=Storbridge |first1=Truman R. |first2=Dennis L. |last2=Noble |title=Alaska and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service: 1867–1915 |publisher=Naval Institute Press |isbn=978-1-55750-845-4 |year=1999 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VSx7-ZqB1C0C&pg=PA2 |access-date=July 11, 2020 |archive-date=December 7, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231207093633/https://books.google.com/books?id=VSx7-ZqB1C0C&pg=PA2 |url-status=live}}
* {{cite book |last=Stourzh |first=Gerald |title=Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government |location=Stanford |publisher=Stanford University Press |year=1970 |isbn=978-0-8047-0724-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto0000stou}}
* {{cite book |last=Stryker |first=William S. |title=The Battles of Trenton and Princeton |publisher=Houghton, Mifflin & Co. |location=Boston |year=1898 |url=https://archive.org/stream/battlesoftrenton00stry}}
* {{cite book |last1=Studenski |first1=Paul |first2=Herman Edward |last2=Krooss |title=Financial History of the United States |publisher=Beard Books |isbn=978-1-58798-175-3 |year=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_0UqxH-5fdkC&pg=PA62 |location=Frederick, MD |edition=5th}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Sylla |first1=Richard |author-link1=Richard Sylla |first2=Robert E. |last2=Wright |name-list-style=amp |first3=David J. |last3=Cowen |title=Alexander Hamilton, Central Banker: Crisis Management during the US Financial Panic of 1792 |url=https://archive.org/details/sim_business-history-review_2009_spring_83_1/page/61 |journal=[[Business History Review]] |volume=83 |issue=1 |year=2009 |pages=61–86 |doi=10.1017/s0007680500000209 |s2cid=153842455}}
* {{cite book |last=Thomas |first=Charles Marion |title=American neutrality in 1793; a study in cabinet government |location=New York |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=1931}}
* {{cite journal |last=Trees |first=Andrew S. |s2cid=143944159 |title=The Importance of Being Alexander Hamilton |journal=Reviews in American History |year=2005 |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=8–14 |doi=10.1353/rah.2005.0019}}
* {{cite book |last=Trees |first=Andrew S. |title=The Founding Fathers and the Politics of Character |location=Princeton |publisher=Princeton University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-691-11552-8}}
* {{cite book |last=Tucker |first=Spencer C. |author-link=Spencer C. Tucker |title=The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783–1812 [three volumes]: A Political, Social, and Military History |publisher=ABC-CLIO |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-59884-156-5}}
* {{cite book |last=Wallace |first=David Duncan |title=Life of Henry Laurens, with a sketch of the life of Lieutenant-Colonel John Laurens |url=https://archive.org/details/lifeofhenrylaure00walluoft |location=New York |publisher=Putnam |year=1915}}
* {{cite journal |last=Weston |first=Rob N. |title=Alexander Hamilton and the Abolition of Slavery in New York |journal=Afro-Americans in New York Life and History |year=1994 |volume=18 |issue=1 |pages=31–45 |issn=0364-2437}} An undergraduate paper, which concludes that Hamilton was ambivalent about slavery.
* {{Cite journal |last=White |first=Leonard D. |author-link=Leonard D. White |date=1944 |title=Public Administration Under the Federalists |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/P?h=hein.journals/bulr24&i=146 |journal=Boston University Law Review |volume=24 |pages=144–187 |via=[[HeinOnline]]}}
* {{cite book |last=White |first=Leonard D. |author-link=Leonard D. White |title=The Federalists |location=New York |publisher=Macmillan |year=1949}} Coverage of how the Treasury and other departments were created and operated.
* {{cite journal |last=White |first=Richard D. |title=Exploring the Origins of the American Administrative State: Recent Writings on the Ambiguous Legacy of Alexander Hamilton |journal=Public Administration Review |volume=60 |issue=2 |year=2000 |pages=186–190 |doi=10.1111/0033-3352.00077}}
* {{cite book |last=Wood |first=Gordon S. |title=Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 |year=2009 |location=New York |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-503914-6 |url=https://archive.org/details/empireoflibertyh00wood}} The most recent synthesis of the era.
* {{cite book |last=Wright |first=Robert E. |title=Hamilton Unbound: Finance and the Creation of the American Republic |year=2002 |location=Westport, CT |publisher=Greenwood Press |isbn=978-0-313-32397-3}}
* {{cite book |last=Wright |first=Robert E. |author-mask=3 |title=One Nation Under Debt: Hamilton, Jefferson, and the History of What We Owe |url=https://archive.org/details/onenationunderde0000wrig |location=New York |publisher=McGraw-Hill |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-07-154393-4}}
* {{cite book |last=James |first=Davida Siwisa |title=Hamilton Heights and Sugar Hill: Alexander Hamilton's Old Harlem Neighborhood Through the Centuries |publisher=[[Fordham University Press]] |date=April 2, 2024 |isbn=9781531506155}}
{{refend}}

===Sources===
{{refbegin|30em}}
* Cooke, Jacob E., ed. ''Alexander Hamilton: A Profile''. 1967. (Short excerpts from Hamilton and his critics.)
* Cunningham, Noble E. ''Jefferson vs. Hamilton: Confrontations that Shaped a Nation''. 2000. (Short collection of primary sources, with commentary.)
* {{cite book |editor-last=Freeman |editor-first=Joanne B. |title=Alexander Hamilton: Writings |year=2001 |isbn=978-1-931082-04-4 |publisher=The Library of America |page=[https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00alex_0/page/1108 1108] |url=https://archive.org/details/alexanderhamilto00alex_0/page/1108}} (All of Hamilton's major writings and many of his letters.)
* Freeman, Joanne B., ed., ''The Essential Hamilton: Letters & Other Writings'' (abridged ed.) (Library of America, 2017)
* Frisch, Morton J., ed. ''Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton.'' 1985.
* Goebel, Julius Jr., and Joseph H. Smith, eds. ''The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton''. 5 vols. Columbia University Press, 1964–80. (Comprehensive edition of Hamilton's legal papers.)
* Hamilton, Alexander. ''[[Report on Manufactures]]''. (Economic program for the United States.)
* Hamilton, Alexander. ''[[Report on Public Credit]]''. (Financial program for the United States.)
* Hamilton, Alexander; [[John Church Hamilton|Hamilton, John Church]]. ''The Works of Alexander Hamilton: Miscellanies, 1789–1795: France; Duties on imports; National bank; Manufactures; Revenue circulars; Reports on claims''. 1850. John F. Trow, printer. ([https://books.google.com/books?id=75YoAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA149 free online e-book edition] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405165725/https://books.google.com/books?id=75YoAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA149 |date=April 5, 2023 }})
* Hamilton, Alexander; [[Madison, James]]; [[Jay, John]]. ''[[The Federalist Papers]]''. (Published under the shared pseudonym "Publius".)
* {{cite book |editor-last=Lodge |editor-first=Henry Cabot |editor-link=Henry Cabot Lodge |title=The Works of Alexander Hamilton, 10 vols. |year=1904 |url=https://archive.org/details/worksalexanderh10hamigoog |location=New York; London |publisher=G. P. Putnam's Sons}}
* Morris, Richard, ed. ''Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation''. 1957. (Excerpts from Hamilton's writings.)
* National Archives, [https://founders.archives.gov/about Founders Online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210413112423/https://founders.archives.gov/about |date=April 13, 2021 }} – searchable edition
* [[Sylla, Richard]] and David J. Cowen, eds. ''Alexander Hamilton on Finance, Credit, and Debt'' (Columbia UP, 2018) 346 pp. (partly abridged version of key documents; [http://eh.net/?s=Sylla+Cowen%2C online review] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190805131517/http://eh.net/?s=Sylla+Cowen%2C |date=August 5, 2019 }})
* [[Harold Syrett|Syrett, Harold C.]], Jacob E. Cooke, and [[Barbara Chernow]], eds. ''The Papers of Alexander Hamilton''. 27 vols. Columbia University Press, 1961–87. (Includes all letters and writings by Hamilton, and all important letters written to him; the definitive edition of Hamilton's works, intensively annotated.)
* [[George Rogers Taylor|Taylor, George Rogers]], ed. ''Hamilton and the National Debt''. 1950. (Excerpts from 1790s writings representing all sides.)
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Spoken Wikipedia|En Alexander Hamilton-article.ogg|date=July 11, 2020}}
{{Sister project links |s=Author:Alexander Hamilton |wikt=Hamiltonism |v=no |b=Outline of U.S. History/The Formation of a National Government}}
{{Library resources box |onlinebooks=yes |by=yes}}
* [https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/hamilton/ Alexander Hamilton: A Resource Guide] from the [[Library of Congress]]
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Alexander Hamilton}}
* {{Librivox author |id=4266}}

{{Alexander Hamilton}}
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{{s-ttl |title=[[List of Inspectors General of the U.S. Army|Inspector General of the United States Army]] |years=1798–1800}}
{{s-aft |after=[[Thomas Humphrey Cushing|Thomas Cushing]]<br />{{small |Acting}}}}
{{s-bef |before=[[George Washington]]}}
{{s-ttl |title=[[Senior Officer of the United States Army]] |years=1799–1800}}
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{{s-bef |before=[[George Washington]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=President General of the [[Society of the Cincinnati]]|years=1800–1804}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Charles Cotesworth Pinckney|Charles Pinckney]]}}
{{s-end}}
}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamilton, Alexander}}
[[Category:Alexander Hamilton]]
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