Hamilton, Alexander 1757-1804
US politician

Born on the island of Nevis in the West Indies, he studied at King's College (now Columbia) in New York City and wrote a series of pamphlets in defence of the rights of the colonies against Great Britain. On the outbreak of the American Revolution, as captain of artillery, he served in New York and New Jersey, and in 1777 became George Washington's aide-de-camp. In 1781, after a quarrel, he resigned his appointment, but fought at Yorktown. After the war he studied law, and became one of the most eminent lawyers in New York. In 1782 he was elected to the Continental Congress. In 1786 he played the leading role in the convention at Annapolis, which prepared the way for the great Constitutional Convention that met at Philadelphia in 1787. In the same year he conceived the series of essays arguing in favour of ratification afterwards collected as The Federalist, and himself wrote 51 out of the 85. On the establishment of the new government in 1789, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury and restored the country's finances to a firm footing. He devised a system of taxation, insisted on payment of the national debt and proposed the creation of the Bank of the United States. He and his supporters favoured a strong central government and were mistrustful of an unbridled democracy; they clashed politically with Thomas Jefferson's followers, who favoured limited government and envisaged an agrarian republic unsullied by commercial interests. In 1795 Hamilton resigned his office, but he remained the actual leader of the Federalist Party until his death. His successful effort to thwart the ambition of his rival, Aaron Burr, prompted Burr to challenge him to a duel in Weekauken, New Jersey, in which Hamilton was mortally wounded after firing into the air.

Bibliography: Nathan Schachner, Alexander Hamilton (1946)