Hamilton, Alexander

(January 11, 1757—July 12, 1804), Secretary of the ‘‘reasury, was born at Nevis in the West Indies. He was on the one side of Scottish, on the other of French, birth. Deprived of parental care at an early age, he developed an astonishing precocity, and was in 1772 sent to New York City. There, after ashort period of preparation, he entered King’s (now Columbia) College. While the Revolutionary fever was at its height Hamilton, in July, 1774, made a public speech on the patriotic side, marvelous for a boy of seventeen. He followed up this succe by a vigorous war of pamphlets. When hostilities began Hamilton organized a cavalry company and served at Long Island and White Plains. As a member of Washington’s staff he rendered valuable aid; resigning from membership in the staff in 1781 he ended a brilliant. military career at York town, studied law, and married the daughter of General Schuyler. For a short time, 1782-1783, he was in the Continental Congre . He had risen to eminence at the New York bar, when he took part in the Anna polis Convention of 1786. There followed two years of contests and triumphs of the greatest renown to himself and moment to his country. Hamilton was one of the chief members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. He advocated a very strong central gov-rnment, but accepted the results of that a embly, and returned to New York to further by pen and voice the ratification of our National Constitution. It is little exaggeration to say that Hamilton was practically the Federal party in New York. Of the eighty-five papers in the Federalist fifty-one are undisputedly his, and he had a part in the production of others. At the State ratifying Convention in 1788 at Poughkeepsie he contended almost single-handed against a two thirds majority, which he converted into a minority. He entered Washington’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury in 1789. His report on the public credit, reports on revenue, the mint, the bank, manufactures, etc., were of the utmost value in placing the finances on a sound footing. Meanwhile within the Cabinet he was confronted with Jefferson, advocate of radically different ideas; the two great leaders quarreled almost ince antly, and Hamilton resigned in 1795. He had previously accompanied the army for the suppre ion of the Whiskey Insurrection. He defended Jay’s Treaty with Great Britain in the able “Camillus ” letters, and was concerned in the preparation of Washington’s Farewell Addre . He was in 1798 appointed inspector-general in view of the imminent war with France. But he quarreled with President Adams and intrigued against the latter and in favor of Pinckney. Hamilton and Burr had been political enemies; the latter, while Vice-President, brought on a duel at Weehawken, N. J., July 11, 1804, in which Hamilton was mortally wounded. He wrote, besides the papers mentioned above, the ‘‘ Pacific us” letters, report on the public debt in 1789, etc. Hamilton was perhaps the most brilliant of American statesmen; his State papers were models of luminous and convincing argumentation; and he had an extraordinary genius for administrative organization. His weakne es were, an imperious self-confidence and want of popular sympathies. 319