Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton
A portrait of Alexander Hamilton by John Trumbull, 1792
1st United States Secretary of the Treasury
In office September 11, 1789 – January 31, 1795
President	George Washington
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Oliver Wolcott, Jr.
Personal details
Born	January 11, 1755 Nevis, British West Indies
Died	July 12, 1804 New York, New York

Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757 – July 12, 1804) was an American politician, statesman, writer, lawyer, and soldier. One of the United States' most prominent and brilliant early constitutional lawyers, he was an influential delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention and one of the principal authors of the Federalist Papers, which expounded the U.S. Constitution to skeptical New Yorkers, and remains a standard source on the meaning of the document. Hamilton was the first Secretary of the Treasury for the new United States of America, establishing the First Bank of the United States, public credit and the foundations for American capitalism, and stock and commodity exchanges. To promote his national vision and defend against the attacks of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, Hamilton founded the first political party in the United States, the Federalist Party, which he dominated until his death. He was deeply committed to the principles of republicanism, but his political enemies repeatedly alleged he was a secret monarchist who admired the British system. Madison referred to him as a Tory; Jefferson called him a monarchist. Hamilton vehemently denied these claims. As for democracy, he was suspicious but by creating the first mass political party in the modern world, he understood how the game of elections was to be played. His nationalist vision was rejected in the Jeffersonian triumph of 1800, but his former enemy, President James Monroe, came to emulate his programs as they too set up a national bank, tariffs, internal improvements, and an army and navy. The later Whig and Republican parties adopted many of Hamilton's themes but did not recognize him as a direct inspiration until about 1900.

Historians regard Hamilton as the Founding Father who most effectively advocated the principles of a strong centralized federal government and loose interpretation of the Constitution. He supported a strong national defense, aid to infant industries, solid national finances based on a national debt that linked the national government to the wealthy men across the country, and a strong banking system. His Report on Manufactures envisioned an industrial nation in what was then a distant, rural country. He rejected the states-rights localistic, agricultural orientation propounded by his arch-rival Thomas Jefferson. His Federalist Party united like minded men in every state, aided by generous federal patronage. He supported party newspapers that bolstered his position and excoriated the opposition. During the first three U.S. presidential terms of office, under Presidents George Washington and John Adams, Hamilton served in an influential position in the structural and policy formation of the presidents' cabinets..

Early years

A young Alexander Hamilton.

Alexander Hamilton was born in the West Indies island of Nevis to James Hamilton, the fourth son of a Scottish lord, and Rachel Fawcett Lavien of French Huguenot descent, who had been married to another man. (The couple may have lived apart from one another under an order of legal separation. Re-marriage was forbidden by RAchel's divorce decree.) There is some uncertainty as to the year of Hamilton's birth. Throughout his life, Hamilton stated that it was 1757, and that year went unquestioned for centuries. More recent examinations of probate court records at St. Croix indicate the year was 1755 (though the year is not explicitly noted) and for several decades it has been the more commonly cited year. According to Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow, Hamilton may have misrepresented his age upon entering King's College (now Columbia University) because he was relatively old for a university freshman, which may explain the discrepancy between the court records and Hamilton's own statements about his birth year. The birthday, January 11, can be neither substantiated nor refuted, and is still commonly accepted.

Hamilton was always sensitive to the fact that, under the laws of the time, he was born illegitimate. Hamilton's childhood was Dickensian. His father abandoned his two sons—with severe emotional consequences, even for the times—in the course of breaking with Hamilton's mother. Business misfortunes having caused his father to leave St. Croix, and his mother having died suddenly of a fever in 1768, young Hamilton was effectively orphaned when he entered the counting house of Nicholas Cruger to work as a clerk. Shortly afterward, Cruger, going abroad, left the boy in charge of the business. Improbably, Hamilton made a success of it. The business was his first real education. He gained, in the course of it, an ease dealing with, and even commanding, men much older than himself; and further improved his French, an accomplishment common enough in the Antilles, but uncommon in the continental colonies. Hamilton was, Chernow writes, more fluent in French than Thomas Jefferson, the great Francophile. It would prove to be useful later when he joined Washington's military staff during the American Revolution and when he became a member of his presidential cabinet.

He also, Chernow argues, came by his lifelong hatred of slavery there. His Caribbean homeland kept an enormous slave population down by iron laws and exemplary acts of terror. Hamilton knew slavery close up. That knowledge, not materialism, underlay his later barely-veiled contempt for the supposedly idealistic agrarian theories of the Jeffersonians. Hamilton knew their ideal society was built on the very real backs of black slaves. He rightly saw modernity and capitalism dooming that system.

As a teenager, Hamilton wrote a letter, published in a local paper, about a hurricane that had severely battered the West Indies. The letter was so eloquently written that it caused a sensation and the town soon raised money to fund his passage to New York to further his educational opportunities. After six months in Elizabeth, New Jersey, he settled in New York City in 1772, and began grammar school. Later, he attended King's College, originally studying anatomy with the intent of becoming a doctor.

The controversy stirring the colonies redirected his ambitions. When Anglican Clergyman Samuel Seabury published a series of pamphlets promoting the Tory cause with conviction, Hamilton struck back with his first political writings, A Full Vindication of the measures of Congress, and The Farmer Refuted written between 1774-1775 . With these pieces (which were thought to have been written by John Jay or John Adams,) Hamilton became a renowned junior patriot. He published two other pieces on the Quebec act, and it has recently been discovered that he authored fourteen installments of "The Monitor" which appeared in Holt's New York Journal. Hamilton also saved the president of King's College from being tarred and feathered by an angry mob of New York patriots. That president, Miles Cooper, was a Tory. Hamilton did not particularly like Cooper, but when alerted to the situation, he stood on the doorway of the president's house, remonstrating and pleading, while Cooper was led to safety out the back door. At night young Hamilton stayed up late, reading books on artillery and warfare. Through his connections with influential New York patriots like Alexander McDougall and John Jay, he raised his own artillery company, drilling them, selecting and purchasing their uniforms, and winning their loyalty. Hence, after an early but distinguished literary career, the teenaged artillery captain led sixty men into the American revolution. He won the interest of Nathanael Greene and George Washington by the proficiency and bravery he displayed in the campaign of 1776 around New York City. He and his King's College compatriots briefly, but seriously, engaged the British in one of the earliest shooting confrontations of the Revolution.

He joined Washington's staff in March 1777 with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and during four years served as his private secretary and confidential aide. The important duties with which he was entrusted attest Washington's entire confidence in his abilities and character; then and afterward. Indeed, reciprocal confidence and respect initially took the place of personal attachment in their relations, although later both men signed their letters "affectionately." During the war Hamilton became close friends with his fellow officers, including John Laurens and the Marquis de Lafayette.

Alexander Hamilton

But Hamilton was ambitious for military glory. It was an ambition he never lost. He became impatient of detention in what he regarded as a position of unpleasant dependence, and, in February 1781, he seized a slight reprimand administered by Washington as an excuse for resigning his staff position. But later, through Washington, he secured a field command and won laurels at Yorktown, where he led an infantry regiment that assaulted and captured Redoubt #10 of the British fortifications in the siege of Yorktown.

After the war, he served as a member of the Congress of the Confederation (from 1782 to 1783), and then retired to open his own law office in New York City. In 1784, he founded the Bank of New York, now the oldest ongoing banking organization in the United States. His public career resumed when he attended the Annapolis Convention as a delegate in 1786, and drafted its resolution for a Constitutional convention.

In 1787, he served in the New York State Legislature and attended the Constitutional Convention. Throughout the convention's proceedings Hamilton argued consistently for a strong central government, including a king-like president (minus the familial inheritance of power), and an upper legislative body based on the English House of Lords. For this, he was long derided by political foes as a monarchist. So too was John Adams. Hamilton opposed equal representation in the Senate, saying the concept "shocks too much the ideas of justice and every human feeling." He also wanted senators to serve for life, subject to good behavior. He supported a larger House of Representatives. Finally, Hamilton strongly advocated the abolition of slavery.

Although the U.S. Constitution which the convention eventually produced was less oligarchic than Hamilton had proposed, and the tenures of those exercising power were shorter than he desired, he was active in the successful campaign for its ratification in New York. Hamilton recruited John Jay and James Madison to write a defense of the proposed Constitution. It was he who made the largest single contribution to the authorship of the Federalist Papers (writing 51 of the 85 that were published), which were extremely influential in that state and others during the debates over ratification, and are still often cited in interpretations of the original intent of the Constitution. Hamilton was the only New Yorker to afix his signature to the Constitution.

In 1788, Hamilton served yet another term in what proved to be the last time the Continental Congress met under the Articles of Confederation.

Secretary of the Treasury: 1789-1795

On the advice of Robert Morris, with whom he had discussed economics as an aide-de-camp during the American Revolution, President George Washington appointed Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury when the first Congress passed an act establishing the Treasury Department. Hamilton served in that post from September 11, 1789, until January 31, 1795. It is for his tenure as Treasury secretary, as well as his contributions to the Federalist Papers, that Hamilton is considered one of America's greatest early statesmen.

Hamilton's term was marked by innovation, planning and masterful reports. In office for barely a month, he proposed the creation of a seagoing branch of the military to discourage smuggling and enhance tax collections. The following summer, Congress authorized a Revenue Marine force of ten cutters, the precursor to the United States Coast Guard. He also played a crucial role in creating the United States Navy (the Naval Act of 1794). Hamilton's perceptive and creative mind, coupled with a driving ambition to set his ideas in motion, resulted in many proposals to Congress. His proposals included a plan for import duties and excise taxes for raising revenue and encouraging American manufacturing, funding the Revolutionary War debt including debts owed by the states, and suggestions on naval laws. He also developed plans for a congressional charter for the First Bank of the United States.

Funding the debt

Through a series of reforms, including a simple, workable tax system, an independent central bank, and a dollar tied to gold, Hamilton converted the $80 million national debt from a liability into an asset and provided liquidity to a cash-starved economy. To Hamilton, a national debt was not an evil but, "if it is not excessive, will be a national blessing"; in times of crisis, he argued, it would become a necessary strategic instrument of national policy.

In 1790, Hamilton put forth a plan to pay off at face value the international and internal debts run up by the Continental Congress, and the debts of the states they acquired in fighting the Revolution. He consolidated all one national debt; people would turn in their paper at face value and receive federal bonds. He proposed to pay off all foreign debt to help restore credit in Europe, which would then enable the nation to issue bonds to pay off the domestic debt. Rich Americans would eagerly purchase the new bonds, thus guaranteeing that the "aristocracy of wealth and talent" had a stake in the success of the new government. His plan was for the Treasury to assume the state debts, which would stabilize the country and prevent any one state from pulling down the system.

Hamilton, contrary to popular belief, did not believe in perpetual debt. He thought it was a weakness that should be avoided except under exceptional circumstances. He had set up a sinking fund that would have paid off all government debt, and wrote numerous articles denouncing perpetual government debt. PAH, vol. 6, pp. 98-106; Report on Public Debt, January 1790; and PAH, vol. 12, p. 570; Fact No. II National Gazette, Philadelphia, October 16, 1792.

He published the Report on the Public Credit in January 1790. It was a milestone in American financial history, marking the end of an era of slipshod finance and debt repudiation which had virtually ruined American credit. The secret of British economic superiority and stable government, Hamilton argued, was its successful handling of debt.

James Madison and Thomas Jefferson strongly opposed all of Hamilton's financial plans, arguing that a bank was unconstitutional, that the original debt holders often sold their certificates and the new owners --who mostly lived in the North--were not really worthy enough. Hamilton argued that the rich and powerful men of every state, who held the state debt certificates, would give their loyalty to the national government, and without that loyalty the new nation would risk not having enough credit it might need in a future war. After six months of rancorous debate, Hamilton, Jefferson and Madison met and worked out The Compromise of 1790. The national capital would move from New York City to Philadelphia for ten years, and then permanently to what would later be called Washington DC (District of Columbia), and both the fundings of the Confederation debt and the assumption of the state debts would pass Congress. Furthermore, the Northern anti-slavery forces would allow the removal of the capital to a slave state.

New federal taxes; Whiskey rebellion

Hamilton asked for a whiskey tax and a high import tariff to help pay for the debt and increase domestic manufacturing (Report on Manufactures). Congress gave him the whiskey tax (excise tax) and the tariff but at a rate lower than he had wished. Finally, Hamilton asked for the creation of a national bank (First Bank of the United States) to help the government fulfill its financial obligations and create some income due to interest on loans and power to create a national currency through issuance of public credit.

Strong opposition to taxing liquor erupted into the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania and Virginia in 1794. Hamilton felt compliance with the laws was important, so he accompanied President Washington, General "Light Horse Harry" Lee and Federal troops to help put down the insurrection, virtually without bloodshed.

Before John Jay was sent to England to negotiate Jay's Treaty, President Washington discussed with his cabinet whether it would be useful to join the Armed Neutrality against England if the United States could not get reasonable terms. They decided it was not, but that this should be kept private. Hamilton revealed this to George Hammond, the British Minister to the United States. (Jay in fact bluffed in London, threatening to join the Neutrality if the United States' terms were not met, but as the British knew he was bluffing, this tactic failed.).

Hamilton as an industrialist

Statue of Hamilton by Franklin Simmons, overlooking the Great Falls of the Passaic River in Paterson, New Jersey. Hamilton envisioned the use of the falls to power a new city based on industry.

Hamilton was among the first to predict an industrial future. In 1778, he visited the Great Falls of the Passaic River in northern New Jersey and saw that the falls could one day be harnessed to provide power for a manufacturing center on the site. As Secretary of the Treasury, he put this plan into motion, helping to found the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures, a private corporation that would use the power of the falls to operate mills. Although the company did not succeed in its original purpose, it leased the land around the falls to other mill ventures and continued to operate for over a century and a half.

Out of the Cabinet

Main article: Maria Reynolds

In 1794, Hamilton became intimately involved in an affair with Maria Reynolds that badly damaged his reputation and prevented him from rising further in politics. Reynolds's husband, James, blackmailed Hamilton for money, though he was content to permit sexual liaisons between Hamilton and his wife. When James Reynolds was arrested for counterfeiting, he contacted several prominent Jeffersonian Republicans, most notably James Monroe. When they visited Hamilton with their suspicions of malfeasance, he insisted he was innocent of any misconduct in public office, while admitting to an affair with Maria Reynolds.

Monroe promised to keep details from public knowledge, but Thomas Jefferson had no such compunctions. When rumors began spreading, Hamilton was forced to publish a confession of his affair, which shocked his family and supporters. A duel with Monroe over his supposed breach of confidentiality was averted by then-Senator Aaron Burr.

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 adviser and friend. Hamilton influenced Washington in the composition of his Farewell Address, and Washington often consulted with him, as did members of his Cabinet. Relations between Hamilton and Washington's successor, John Adams, however, were frequently strained. 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. During the Quasi-War of 1798-1800, and with Washington's strong endorsement, Adams very reluctantly appointed Hamilton a major general of the army.

Adams had also held it right to retain Washington's cabinet, except for cause; he found, in 1800, that they were asking advice of Hamilton, rather than himself, and fired several of them. Hamilton also wrote a pamphlet which was highly critical of Adams (although it closed with a tepid endorsement) which may have hurt Adams's 1800 reelection campaign and split the Federalist Party, contributing to the victory of the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Jefferson, in the election of 1800.

Although Jefferson had beaten Adams, both he and his nominal running mate, Aaron Burr, received 73 votes in the Electoral College. At the time, electors did not cast distinct ballots for a President and Vice President, but rather each had two votes, with the highest vote-getter becoming President, and the second-place finisher becoming Vice President. (In large part as a result of this election, the Twelfth Amendment was proposed and ratified, adopting the method under which presidential elections are held today.) With Jefferson and Burr tied, the United States House of Representatives had to choose between the two men. Several Federalists who opposed Jefferson supported Burr, but Hamilton reluctantly threw his weight behind Jefferson, causing one Federalist congressman to abstain from voting after 36 tied ballots. This ensured that Jefferson was elected President rather than Burr. Even though Hamilton did not like Jefferson and disagreed with him on many issues, he was quoted as saying, "At least Jefferson was honest." Burr then became Vice President of the United States. When it became clear that he would not be asked to run again with Jefferson, Burr sought the New York governorship in 1804, but was badly defeated.

Family life

In spring 1779 Hamilton asked his friend John Laurens to find him a wife in South Carolina: [Mitchell vol 1 p 199]:

"She must be young--handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape) Sensible (a little learning will do)--well bred. . . chaste and tender (I am an enthusiast in my notions of fidelity and fondness); of some good nature--a great deal of generosity (she must neither love money nor scolding, for I dislike equally a termagant and an oeconomist)--In politics, I am indifferent what side she may be of--I think I have arguments that will safely convert her to mine--As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me--She must believe in god and hate a saint. But as to fortune, the larger stock of that the better."

Hamilton however found his own bride--one who matched his specifications. On December 14, 1780, he married Elizabeth Schuyler, daughter of General Philip Schuyler, and thus joined one of the richest and most political families in the state of New York.

Hamilton grew extremely close to Eliza's sister Angelica Church, who was married to a Member of Parliament.

Hamilton's widow Elizabeth [1] (known as Eliza or Betsy) survived him for fifty years, until 1854; Hamilton had referred to her as "best of wives and best of women." An extremely religious woman, Eliza spent much of her life working to help widows and orphans. After Hamilton's death, she cofounded New York's first private orphanage, the New York Orphan Asylum Society. Despite the Reynolds affair, Alexander and Eliza were very close and as a widow she always strove to guard his reputation and enhance his standing in American history.

Duel with Aaron Burr

Hamilton fights his fatal duel with Aaron Burr.

Main article: Hamilton-Burr duel

Soon after the election, a newspaper referred to a "despicable opinion" attributed to Hamilton about Burr. This probably resulted from comments Hamilton made in private, sarcastically questioning Burr's integrity. Sensing a chance to regain political honor, Burr demanded an apology. Hamilton refused on the grounds that he could not recall the instance.

After an exchange of testy letters, and despite the attempts of mutual friends to avert a confrontation, a duel was nevertheless scheduled for July 11, 1804 along the bank of the Hudson River beneath a rocky ledge in Weehawken, New Jersey.

At dawn, the duel began, and Vice President Aaron Burr shot Hamilton. Hamilton's shot was fired into the air away from his opponent. A letter that he wrote the night before the duel states, "I have resolved, if our interview [duel] is conducted in the usual manner, and it pleases God to give me the opportunity, to reserve and throw away my first fire, and I have thoughts even of reserving my second fire." The circumstances of the duel, and Hamilton's actual intentions, are still disputed; the guns were obtained by Hamilton, they have survived, and they have a hair-trigger setting that may be switched on or off.

After considerable suffering, Hamilton died the next day and was buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan (Hamilton was Episcopalian). Gouverneur Morris, a political ally of Hamilton's, gave the eulogy at his funeral and secretly established a fund to support his widow and children; Hamilton's oldest son, Philip, had also been killed in a duel in Weehawken in 1801--defending his father's honor.

Hamilton's legacy

Alexander Hamilton on the U.S. $10 bill

From the start, Hamilton set a precedent as a Cabinet member by dreaming up federal programs, writing them in the form of reports, pushing for their approval by appearing in person to argue them on the floor of Congress, and then implementing them. Hamilton did this brilliantly and forcefully, setting a high standard for administrative competence.

Another of Hamilton's legacies was his strongly pro-federal interpretation of the U.S. Constitution. Though the Constitution was drafted in a way that was somewhat ambiguous as to the balance of power between Federal and state governments, Hamilton consistently took the side of greater Federal power at the expense of states. Thus, as Secretary of the Treasury, he established, against the intense opposition of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, the country's first national bank. Hamilton justified the creation of this bank, and other robust Federal powers, on Congress's constitutional powers to issue currency, to regulate interstate commerce, and anything else that would be "necessary and proper." Jefferson, on the other hand, took a stricter view of the Constitution: parsing the text carefully, he found no specific authorization for a national bank. This controversy was eventually settled by the Supreme Court of the United States in McCulloch v. Maryland, which in essence adopted Hamilton's view, granting the federal government broad freedom to select the best means to execute its constitutionally enumerated powers, specifically the doctrine of implied powers.

Hamilton’s portrait began to appear during the Civil War on the $2, $5, $10, and $50 notes. His face continues to grace the front of the ten dollar bill, but after the death of Ronald Reagan, some suggested replacing Hamilton with Reagan; Hamilton, however, survived. Hamilton also appears on the $500 Series EE Savings Bond.

On the south side of the Treasury Building in Washington, D.C. is a statue of Hamilton. Inscribed on the inside facing the building are these words:

He smote the rock

Of the natural resources,

And abundant streams

Of revenue gushed forth.

He touched the dead corpse

Of the public credit, and

It sprung upon its feet.

Hamilton's upper Manhattan home is preserved as Hamilton Grange National Memorial.

Hamilton's influence on economics

Alexander Hamilton is considered the "patron-saint" of the American System or School of economic philosophy that dominated United States policy from the time of Abraham Lincoln until 1932 and then in part through the New Deal changes of Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1932-1973 when the United States began a path of embracing the opposing system of "Free Market" economics whose leading proponents where Adam Smith and classical liberals of Europe He inspired the writings and work of leading economists including Friedrich List who called Hamilton's system the "National System" which became an inspiration for Bismarck's Germany; and Henry C. Carey who wrote the "Harmony of Interest" comparing Hamilton's system to Smith's system of free-market and free-trade which became the model together with Henry Clay's planed "American System" for Lincoln's Republican Party that enacted and maintained Hamilton's economic philosophy before changing course in modern times.

Hamilton College and Columbia College

Alexander Hamilton served as one of the first trustees of the Hamilton-Oneida Academy when Samuel Kirkland opened the missionary school in 1793. When the academy received a college charter in 1812 the school was formally named Hamilton College. There is a prominent statue of Alexander Hamilton in front of the school's chapel (commonly referred to as the "Al-Ham" statue) and the Burke Library has an extensive collection of Hamilton's personal documents. The college has a number of Hamilton's personal artifacts which are periodically exhibited.

Columbia College, Hamilton's alma mater, whose students formed his makeshift artillery company and fired some of the first shots against the British, has official memorials to Hamilton. The College's main classroom building for the humanities is Hamilton Hall, and a large statue of Hamilton stands in front of it.

References

Biographies

• Brookhiser, Richard. Alexander Hamilton, American. Free Press, (1999) (ISBN 0684839199).
• Chernow, Ron. Alexander Hamilton. Penguin Books, (2004) (ISBN 1594200092), unusually well written.
• Ellis, Joseph J. Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (2002), won Pulitzer Prize.
• Flexner, James Thomas. The Young Hamilton: A Biography. Fordham University Press, (1997) (ISBN 0823217906).
• Fleming, Thomas. Duel: Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and the Future of America. (2000) (ISBN 0465017371).
• McDonald, Forrest. Alexander Hamilton: A Biography(1982) (ISBN 039330048X), intellectual history focused on AH's republicanism.
• Miller, John C. Alexander Hamilton: Portrait in Paradox (1959), full-length scholarly biography;
• Mitchell, Broadus. Alexander Hamilton (2 vols, 1957-62), the most detailed scholarly biography; also published in abridged edition
• Randall, Willard Sterne. Alexander Hamilton: A Life. HarperCollins, (2003) (ISBN 0060195495). Popular.

Specialized studies

• Douglas Ambrose and Robert W. T. Martin, eds. The Many Faces of Alexander Hamilton: The Life & Legacy of America's Most Elusive Founding Father (2006) 11 essays by scholars
• Elkins, Stanley M. and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism. (1994), scholarly history of the 1790s.
• Flaumenhaft; Harvey. The Effective Republic: Administration and Constitution in the Thought of Alexander Hamilton Duke University Press, 1992
• Roger G. Kennedy; Burr, Hamilton, and Jefferson: A Study in Character Oxford University Press, 2000
• Knott, Stephen F. Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth University Press of Kansas, (2002) (ISBN 0700611576).
• Nettels, Curtis P. The Emergence of a National Economy, 1775-1815 (1962). The standard economic history.
• Rossiter, Clinton. Alexander Hamilton and the Constitution (1964), a conservative appraisal.
• Sharp, James. American Politics in the Early Republic: The New Nation in Crisis. (1995) scholarly synthesis.
• Sheehan, Colleen. "Madison V. Hamilton: The Battle Over Republicanism And The Role Of Public Opinion" American Political Science Review 2004 98(3): 405-424.
• Stourzh, Gerald. Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government (1970), intellectual history.
• White, Leonard D. The Federalists (1949), coverage of how the Treasury and other departments were created and operated.
• Richard D. White; "Political Economy and Statesmanship: Smith, Hamilton, and the Foundation of the Commercial Republic" Public Administration Review, Vol. 60, 2000
• Wright; Robert E. Hamilton Unbound: Finance and the Creation of the American Republic Praeger (2002)

Primary sources

• Hamilton, Alexander. Alexander Hamilton: Writings (2001), Library of America edition, over 1000 pages.
• Syrett, Harold C. ed. The Papers of Alexander Hamilton (27 vol, Columbia University Press, 1961-87)
• Cooke, Jacob E. ed., Alexander Hamilton: A Profile (1967), short excerpts from AH and his critics.
• Cunningham, Noble E. Jefferson vs. Hamilton: Confrontations that Shaped a Nation (2000), short collection of primary sources with commentary.
• Morris, Richard. ed. Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation (1957), short excerpts from AH's writings
• Selected Writings and Speeches of Alexander Hamilton. Morton J. Frisch ed. (1985).
• George Rogers Taylor; ed, Hamilton and the National Debt 1950, excerpts from all sides in 1790s
• Federalist Papers under the shared pseudonym "Publius" by Alexander Hamilton (c. 52 articles), James Madison (28 articles) and John Jay (five articles)
• Report on Manufactures, his economic program for the United States.
• Report on Public Credit, his financial program for the United States.

External links

• The Alexander Hamilton Historical Society (AHHS)
• Works by Alexander Hamilton at Project Gutenberg
• Hamilton's Report on Manufactures (Columbia University Press)
• The Rise and Fall of Alexander Hamilton by Ian Finseth
• Hamilton's Congressional biography
• The New York Historical Society's Alexander Hamilton Exhibit
• Alexander Hamilton: Debate over a National Bank (Feb 23 1791)
• Alexander Hamilton by Henry Cabot Lodge: analysis by politician/PhD who edited AH's Works