Life of Alexander Hamilton - Essay Example

Alexander Hamilton College: Alexander Hamilton Alexander Hamilton was born in 1757 in Nevis, British West Indies. He was the result of a legitimate marriage between a Scottish merchant of an aristocratic descent and an English-French Huguenot lady. In 1766, his father moved his family to St. Croix and left his wife with his two sons. The father left the three for business purposes and from then, Hamilton was under the care of his mother. The mother, who later opened a small store to raise her family, educated his two sons with basic education, where Hamilton was able to learn to speak French fluently. During the time of his mother’s death, Hamilton became an apprentice clerk at a Christiansted established mercantile whereby the mercantile proprietor became one of his beneficiaries. Due to his intelligence and ambition in his work, the organizations founders decided to educate him (Hamilton, Madison Jay & Pole, 2005). In 1772, Hamilton got letters of introductions that enabled him to travel to New York City. His patrons in New York organized for him to join Barber’s Academy at Elizabeth town. One of his patrons was William Livingston, who offered him accommodation. He later became his fellow during the signing of the constitution. By late 1773, Hamilton got the chance to join King’s College but due to the revolution that was taking place, his education was interrupted. While still a teenager, Hamilton had written many pro-Whig pamphlets, which were read by the majority of scholars in the region. Later after revolution war broke out in America, Hamilton agreed to join an artillery captaincy. While holding the position, he was able to fight for the principle campaigns of 1776-1777. This made him win a rank as the lieutenant colonel a year later. As a result of his promotion, Hamilton was allowed to join the staff of General Washington as the secretary as well as aide-de-camp. This brought him close to aide-de-camp, and this made him became his confidant. Around 1780, Hamilton wedded Elizabeth Schuyler, a New Yorker, who hailed from a politically powerful family (Hamilton, 2005). This was a milestone in his life as he did not have any relatives in New York, and neither was he famous in politics at that period. Due to some disagreements with Washington, he took a commandant position under the Lafayette campaign in 1781. Resultantly, he resigned his commission in November of the same years as a way of avoiding creating a scandal with Washington. After the resignation, Hamilton studied law at Albany and started practicing immediately. However, the practice of law did not last long as he got attracted by service towards the public. This made him play some insignificant parts in public debates since he was absent most of the times due to legal matters. Being an extremist on the side of nationalism put him at odds with a majority of the delegates, and this got him frustrated by conservative views of some of his fellow delegates (Chernow, 2004). However, this did not deter him from doing his work. At one point, he sat on a Committee of Style whereby he was the only delegate among the three from his country that signed the complete document. All the others refused due to their personal interests. In the following year, he held a critical position in the ratification of New York although his views were that many of the constitutions aspects were deficient. Fighting with a determined opposition, Hamilton conducted a campaign that went on successfully in collaboration with John Jay and James Madison in the writing of the Federalist. This made him be elected once again to a Continental Congress later in 1787. Following his election as a Continental Congress man, he won the position of Secretary of the Treasury in 1789. Due to the chance that was accorded to him after the win, he commenced placing the state’s disorganized finances in a transparent manner. In a number of reports that he represented, he gave a program meant to not only to stabilize the national finances but also to shape the country’s future as that powerful and industrialized state. Also, he was the person that proposed the establishment of a national banking system. Tied to the national banking system was the funding of the national debt, the assumption of the country’s debts accumulated due to war and also he encouraged other leaders to venture into manufacturing. His policies would later collide with those of Jefferson and Madison (McDonald, 2012). The duos dispute with Hamilton were that he was engaged a lot in pro-business economic programs. Also, other disputes included; Hamilton’s sympathy for Great Britain, his disdain for the common citizen and his opposition to the principles and the excesses caused by the French revolution. All these disputes contributed to the formation of the first US party system. This put Hamilton and the rest of Federalist against Jefferson and Madison as well as the Democratic-Republicans. Hamilton’s views prevailed in most of the Presidential administration. This was prevalent especially after Jefferson went against the government in 1793. In the year 1795, Hamilton was forced to resign from Treasury department due to family and financial requirements. His resignation forced him to return to his profession as a lawyer (Kaplan, 2002). Hamilton did not hold any other public position except for stint where he was the inspector general of the army during the undeclared war with France. While still practicing law, Hamilton continued to exert a strong impact on the New York as well as the country politics. He tried to prevent the election of John Adams as a president in 1796 since he was opposed to his policies and methods of governance. After he had failed in that attempt, he continued to influence Adam’s administration by using the cabinet. The rivalry of the two became evident to the public when Hamilton wrote a letter denouncing Adams. The letter was published by the help of the Democratic-Republicans in the year 1800. The letter caused a lift in the Federalist Party, resulting in Republicans Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr winning the presidential seat. However, since the duo tied, it was up for the Congress to decide the outcome (Stourzh, 2010). At this point, Hamilton lobbied all the Congress Federalists to vote for Jefferson in order to change the votes. Fortunately, the Congress voted for Jefferson while Burr assumed the vice presidency. Two years later, Hamilton and his family moved into the Grange where he had built a country home in the rural parts of Manhattan. However, the expenses incurred in investing in that home strained him financially. During the New York gubernatorial race held in 1804, Hamilton had to race against Burr. Hamilton had the fears that Burr would outnumber him and, therefore, he once again spoke against the vice president like he had with Jefferson. This compelled New York Republicans George and De Witt Clinton to start a campaign against Burr (Murray, 2007). However, the Clintons but not Hamilton’s were responsible for Burr’s defeat. After reading papers that Hamilton had expressed his unforgiving opinion about Burr over the campaign period, Burr became furious and decided to challenge Hamilton to a duel. The two were to meet on dueling grounds located in Weehawken. The date of the duel was set to be July 11, 1804. The two men fired at each other with their pistols, but only Hamilton was hit. Consequently, he died of the gun wounds a day after. He died in his late forties and was buried in a Trinity Church in New York City. In conclusion, Hamilton is seen to be a man of good morals since he did not entertain any form of corruption while in office. He is remembered among the founding fathers in the United States of America since brought significant transformations in the banking sector. Similarly, he led to the improvement of the manufacturing sector by backing up the sector. Also, he brought about changes in the political structure of the United States since it was through him that the US party system was created. References Chernow, R. (2004). Alexander Hamilton. New York: Penguin Press. Hamilton, A. (2005). The Works of Alexander Hamilton (Vol. 5). GP Putnams sons. Hamilton, A., Madison, J., Jay, J., & Pole, J. R. (2005). The federalist (Vol. 43). Hackett Publishing. Kaplan, L. S. (2002). Alexander Hamilton: Ambivalent Anglophile. Wilmington, Del: SR Books. McDonald, F. (2012). Alexander Hamilton: A biography. New York: Norton Publishers. Murray, J. A. (2007). Alexander Hamilton: Americas forgotten founder. New York: Algora Publishers. Stourzh, G. (2010). Alexander Hamilton and the idea of republican government. Stanford, California Publishing Press. Read More