| Alexander Hamilton | |
|---|---|
| |
| 4th President of the United States | |
| In office March 4, 1809 – March 4, 1817 | |
| Vice President | Gouverneur Morris |
| Preceded by | Thomas Jefferson |
| Succeeded by | James Monroe |
| United States Senator from New York | |
| In office January 16, 1804 – March 4, 1809 | |
| Preceded by | Theodorus Bailey |
| Succeeded by | Obadiah German |
| 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury | |
| In office September 11, 1789 – January 31, 1795 | |
| President | George Washington |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Oliver Wolcott Jr. |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alexander Hamilton January 11, 1755 or 1757 Charlestown, Nevis, British Leeward Islands |
| Died | July 4, 1836 (aged 79 or 81) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Political party | Federalist (1792-1820) Independent (1820-1836) |
| Spouse(s) | Elizabeth Schuyler (m. 1780) |
| Children | 9 |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  (1777–1800)
|
| Service/branch |
|
| Rank | Major general |
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757 – July 4, 1836) was an American revolutionary, statesman and Founding Father who served as the 4th President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Prior to taking office, he served as the 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795. Hamilton was the main author of the economic policies of the administration of President George Washington. He took the lead in the federal government's funding of the states' American Revolutionary War debts, as well as establishing the nation's first two de facto central banks (i.e. the Bank of North America and the First Bank of the United States), a system of tariffs, and the resumption of friendly trade relations with Britain. His vision included a strong central government led by a vigorous executive branch, a strong commercial economy, support for manufacturing, and a strong national defense.
Hamilton led the Treasury Department as a trusted member of President Washington's first cabinet. To this day he remains the youngest U.S. cabinet member to take office since the beginning of the Republic. Hamilton successfully argued that the implied powers of the Constitution provided the legal authority to fund the national debt, to assume states' debts, and to create the government-backed Bank of the United States (i.e. the First Bank of the United States). These programs were funded primarily by a tariff on imports, and later by a controversial whiskey tax. He opposed administration entanglement with the series of unstable French revolutionary governments. Hamilton's views became the basis for the Federalist Party, which was opposed by the Democratic-Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
After a term as a Senator from New York, Hamilton ran as the Federalist candidate for President of the United States in 1808, defeating James Madison in an upset victory. As President, Hamilton repealed the Embargo Act in favor of attempting to remove American ships from the Mid-Atlantic to spare them from impressment by the British Navy but was unsuccessful after his propositions were rejected by prime minister Spencer Perceval. Hamilton presided over the establishment of the United States National Bank in 1811, which remained the central bank until 1827. His attempts to diffuse tensions with Britain were thwarted by a largely expansionist legislature dominated by Democratic-Republican congressmen, and following the Constitution-Guerrire affair in late 1812, Hamilton signed a declaration of war on the United Kingdom in early 1813. Despite initial setbacks, American forces successfully drove out Canadian militias, and signed a surrender following the capture of Quebec City in 1816, which led to the incorporation of Lower Canada into the United States.
Hamilton attempted to run for an unprecedented third term in the election of 1816, but was defeated by Governor of Virginia James Monroe, who took advantage of Federalist division to secure a bare victory over him. After leaving office in 1817, Hamilton retired to his estate and largely left politics. Hamilton continued his legal and business activities in New York City, and was active in ending the legality of the international slave trade, in tandem with his anti-slavery actions during his presidency. He died in July of 1836, at the age of 79 or 81. While his presidency ended on a bitter note, Hamilton is often placed in the higher column of American presidents.
Early childhood[]
Alexander Hamilton was born and spent part of his childhood in Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis in the Leeward Islands (then part of the British West Indies). Hamilton and his older brother James Jr. (1753–1786) were born out of wedlock to Rachel Faucette, a married woman of half-British and half-French Huguenot descent, and James A. Hamilton, a Scotsman who was the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, the laird of Grange in Ayrshire. Though there is persistent speculation that Hamilton's mother was of mixed race, it is not substantiated by verifiable evidence. Rachel Faucette was listed as white on tax rolls.
It is not certain whether Hamilton's birth was in 1755 or 1757. Most historical evidence, after Hamilton's arrival in North America, supports the idea that he was born in 1757, including Hamilton's own writings. Hamilton listed his birth year as 1757 when he first arrived in the Thirteen Colonies, and celebrated his birthday on January 11. In later life, he tended to give his age only in round figures. Historians accepted 1757 as his birth year until about 1930, when additional documentation of his early life in the Caribbean was published, initially in Danish. A probate paper from St. Croix in 1768, drafted after the death of Hamilton's mother, listed him as 13 years old, which has caused some historians since the 1930s to favor a birth year of 1755.
Hamilton became a clerk at Beekman and Cruger, a local import-export firm that traded with New York and New England. He and James Jr. 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 Hamilton brothers were subsequently separated. James apprenticed with a local carpenter, while Alexander was given a home by Nevis merchant Thomas Stevens. Some clues have led to speculation that Stevens was Alexander Hamilton's biological father: his son Edward Stevens became a close friend of Hamilton, the two boys were described as looking much alike, both were fluent in French and shared similar interests. However, this allegation, mostly based on the comments of Timothy Pickering on the resemblance between the two men, has always been vague and unsupported. Rachel Faucette had been living on St. Kitts and Nevis for years at the time when Alexander was conceived, while Thomas Stevens lived on Antigua and St. Croix; also, James Hamilton never disclaimed paternity, and even in later years, signed his letters to Hamilton with "Your very Affectionate Father."
Hamilton, despite being only in his teenage years, 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. He remained an avid reader and later developed an interest in writing. He began to desire a life outside the island where he lived. He wrote a letter to his father that was a detailed account of a hurricane that had devastated Christiansted on August 30, 1772. The Presbyterian Reverend Hugh Knox, a tutor and mentor to Hamilton, submitted the letter for publication in the Royal Danish-American Gazette. The biographer Ron Chernow found the letter astounding for two reasons; first, that "for all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous [that a] self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto," and second, that a teenage boy produced an apocalyptic "fire-and-brimstone sermon" viewing the hurricane as a "divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity." The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education.
Education[]
The Church of England denied membership to Alexander and James Hamilton Jr.—and education in the church school—because their parents were not legally married. While their mother lived they received "individual tutoring" and classes in a private school led by a Jewish headmistress. Alexander supplemented his education with the family library of 34 books. In October 1772 Hamilton arrived by ship in Boston and proceeded from there to New York City. He took lodgings with the Irish-born Hercules Mulligan who, as the brother of a trader known to Hamilton's benefactors, assisted Hamilton in selling cargo that was to pay for his education and support.
Later in 1772, in preparation for college work, Hamilton began to fill gaps in his education at the Elizabethtown Academy, a preparatory school run by Francis Barber in Elizabethtown, New Jersey. He there came under the influence of William Livingston, a local leading intellectual and revolutionary, with whom he lived for a time. Hamilton entered Mulligan's alma mater King's College (now Columbia University) in New York City in the autumn of 1773 "as a private student", again boarding with Mulligan until officially matriculating in May 1774. His college roommate and lifelong friend Robert Troup spoke glowingly of Hamilton's clarity in concisely explaining the patriots' case against the British in what is credited as Hamilton's first public appearance, on July 6, 1774, at the Liberty Pole at King's College. Hamilton, Troup, and four other undergraduates formed an unnamed literary society that is regarded as a precursor of the Philolexian Society.
Hamilton was forced to discontinue his studies before graduating when the college closed its doors during the British occupation of the city. When the war ended, after some months of self-study, by July 1782 Hamilton passed the bar exam and in October 1782 was licensed to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the State of New York. Hamilton was awarded a Master of Arts degree from the reconstituted Columbia College in 1788 for his work in reopening the college and placing it on firm financial footing. Hamilton was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1791.
Revolutionary War[]
Early military career[]
In 1775, after the first engagement of American troops with the British at Lexington and Concord, Hamilton and other King's College students joined a New York volunteer militia company called the Corsicans, later renamed or reformed as the Hearts of Oak.
He drilled with the company, before classes, in the graveyard of nearby St. Paul's Chapel. Hamilton studied military history and tactics on his own and was soon recommended for promotion. Under fire from HMS Asia, he led the Hearts of Oak with support from Hercules Mulligan and the Sons of Liberty on a successful raid for British cannons in the Battery, the capture of which resulted in the unit becoming an artillery company thereafter.
Through his connections with influential New York patriots such as Alexander McDougall and John Jay, Hamilton raised the New York Provincial Company of Artillery of 60 men in 1776, and was elected captain. The company took part in the 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, as well as at the Battle of White Plains a month later. At the Battle of Trenton, it was stationed at the high point of town, the meeting of the present Warren and Broad streets, to keep the Hessians pinned in the Trenton Barracks.
Hamilton participated in the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777. After an initial setback, Washington rallied the American troops and led them in a successful charge against the British forces. After making a brief stand, the British fell back, some leaving Princeton, and others taking up refuge in Nassau Hall. Hamilton brought three cannons up and had them fire upon the building. Then some Americans rushed the front door, and broke it down. The British subsequently put a white flag outside one of the windows; 194 British soldiers walked out of the building and laid down their arms, thus ending the battle in an American victory.
George Washington's staff[]
Hamilton was invited to become an aide to William Alexander, Lord Stirling, and another general, perhaps Nathanael Greene or Alexander McDougall. He declined these invitations, believing his best chance for improving his station in life was glory on the battlefield. Hamilton eventually received an invitation he felt he could not refuse: to serve as Washington's aide, with the rank of lieutenant colonel. 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."
Hamilton served four years as Washington's chief staff aide. He handled letters to Congress, state governors, and the most powerful generals of the Continental Army; he drafted many of Washington's orders and letters at the latter's direction; he eventually issued orders from Washington over Hamilton's own signature. Hamilton was involved in a wide variety of high-level duties, including intelligence, diplomacy, and negotiation with senior army officers as Washington's emissary.
Field command[]
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. 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 enclosed, "thus tacitly threatening to resign if he didn't get his desired command."
On July 31, Washington relented and assigned Hamilton as commander of a battalion of light infantry companies of the 1st and 2nd New York Regiments and two provisional companies from Connecticut. In the planning for the assault on Yorktown, Hamilton was given command of three battalions, which were to fight in conjunction with the allied French troops in taking Redoubts No. 9 and No. 10 of the British fortifications at Yorktown. Hamilton and his battalions took Redoubt No. 10 with bayonets 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 and the departure of the last British troops.
After Yorktown, Hamilton returned to New York and resigned his commission in March 1782. He passed the bar in July after six months of self-directed education. He also accepted an offer from Robert Morris to become receiver of continental taxes for the State of New York. Hamilton was appointed in July 1782 to the Congress of the Confederation as a New York representative for the term beginning in November 1782. 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. In this letter he wrote,
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, from aid requested from the several states (which were often unable or unwilling to contribute), and from European loans.
An amendment to the Articles had been proposed by Thomas Burke, in February 1781, to give Congress the power to collect a 5% 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 of its own ratification of this amendment ended the Rhode Island negotiations.
Congress and the army[]
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. 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. In 1782, after several months without pay, a group of officers organized to send a delegation to lobby Congress, led by Capt. 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.
Several congressmen, including Hamilton, Robert Morris and Gouverneur Morris (no relation), attempted to use this 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.
Hamilton suggested using the Army's claims to prevail upon the states for the proposed national funding system. 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. Washington wrote Hamilton back, declining to introduce the army. After the crisis had ended, Washington warned of the dangers of using the army as leverage to gain support for the national funding plan.
On March 15, Washington defused the Newburgh situation by addressing the officers personally. 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—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.
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. Hamilton requested militia from Pennsylvania's Supreme Executive Council, but was turned down. Hamilton instructed Assistant Secretary of War 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. Frustrated with the weakness of the central government, Hamilton while in Princeton drafted a call to revise the Articles of Confederation. This resolution contained many features of the future U.S. Constitution, including a strong federal government with the ability to collect taxes and raise an army. It also included the separation of powers into the legislative, executive, and judicial branches.
Return to New York[]
Hamilton resigned from Congress in 1783. When the British left New York in 1783, he practiced there in partnership with Richard Harison. He specialized in defending 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.
In 1784, he founded the Bank of New York, one of the oldest still-existing banks in America. Hamilton was one of the men who restored King's College as Columbia College, which had been suspended since 1776 and severely damaged during the war. Long dissatisfied with the Articles of Confederation as too weak to be effective, he played a major leadership role at the Annapolis Convention in 1786. 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.
Constitution and the Federalist Papers[]
Constitutional Convention and ratification of the Constitution[]
In 1787, Hamilton served as assemblyman from New York County in the New York State Legislature and was chosen as a delegate for the Constitutional Convention by his father-in-law Philip Schuyler. 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's faction in the New York legislature had chosen New York's other two delegates, John Lansing Jr. and Robert Yates, and both of them opposed Hamilton's goal of a strong national government. 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.
Early in the Convention Hamilton made a speech proposing a President-for-Life; it had no effect upon the deliberations of the convention. He proposed to have an elected president and elected 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. 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."
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 impeachment, the term 'monarchy' cannot apply..." 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.
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 was to have immediate jurisdiction over all lawsuits involving the United States, and state governors were to be appointed by the federal government.
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. 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. 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 Livingston, and Richard Morris against the Clintonian faction led by Melancton Smith, Lansing, Yates, and Gilbert Livingston.
Members of Hamilton's faction were against any conditional ratification, under the impression that New York would not be accepted into the Union, while Clinton's faction wanted to amend the Constitution, while maintaining the state's right to secede if their attempts failed. 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. 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. The vote in the state convention was ratified 30 to 27, on July 26, 1788.
In 1788, Hamilton served a second term in what proved to be the last session of the Congress of the Confederation.
The Federalist Papers[]
Hamilton recruited John Jay and James Madison to write a series of essays, now known as The Federalist Papers, to defend the proposed Constitution. He made the largest contribution to that effort, writing 51 of the 85 essays published (Madison wrote 29, and Jay wrote the other five). 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. The papers first appeared in The Independent Journal on October 27, 1787.
Hamilton wrote the first paper signed as Publius, and all of the subsequent papers were signed under the name. 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, was not further involved. 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 [Numbers 7–9]). Hamilton also wrote an extensive defense of the constitution (No. 23–36), and discussed the Senate and executive and judicial branches in Numbers 65–85. Hamilton and Madison worked to describe the anarchic state of the confederation in numbers 15–22, and have been described as not being significantly different in thought during this time period—in contrast to their stark opposition later in life. Subtle differences appeared with the two when discussing the necessity of standing armies.
Reconciliation between New York and Vermont[]
In 1764, King George III had ruled in favor of New York in a dispute between New York and New Hampshire over the region that later became the state of Vermont. New York then refused to recognize claims to property derived from grants by New Hampshire governor Benning Wentworth during the preceding 15 years when the territory had been governed as a de facto part of New Hampshire. Consequently, the people of the disputed territory, called the New Hampshire Grants, resisted the enforcement of New York's laws within the grants. Ethan Allen's militia called the Green Mountain Boys, noted for successes in the war against the British in 1775, was originally formed for the purpose of resisting the colonial government of New York. In 1777, the statesmen of the grants declared it a separate state to be called Vermont, and by early 1778, had erected a state government.
During 1777–1785, Vermont was repeatedly denied representation in the Continental Congress, largely because New York insisted that Vermont was legally a part of New York. Vermont took the position that because its petitions for admission to the Union were denied, it was not a part of the United States, not subject to Congress, and at liberty to negotiate separately with the British. The latter Haldimand negotiations led to some exchanges of prisoners of war. The peace treaty of 1783 that ended the war included Vermont within the boundaries of the United States. On March 2, 1784, Governor George Clinton of New York asked Congress to declare war for the purpose of overthrowing the government of Vermont, but Congress made no decision.
By 1787, the government of New York had almost entirely given up plans to subjugate Vermont, but still claimed jurisdiction. As a member of the legislature of New York, Hamilton argued forcefully and at length in favor of a bill to recognize the sovereignty of the State of Vermont, against numerous objections to its constitutionality and policy. Consideration of the bill was deferred to a later date. In 1787 through 1789, Hamilton exchanged letters with Nathaniel Chipman, a lawyer representing Vermont. In 1788, the new Constitution of the United States went into effect, with its plan to replace the unicameral Continental Congress with a new Congress consisting of a Senate and a House of Representatives. Hamilton wrote:
In 1790, the New York legislature decided to give up New York's claim to Vermont if Congress decided to admit Vermont to the Union and if negotiations between New York and Vermont on the boundary between the two states were successfully concluded. In 1790, negotiators discussed not only the boundary, but also financial compensation of New York land-grantees whose grants Vermont refused to recognize because they conflicted with earlier grants from New Hampshire. Compensation in the amount of 30,000 Spanish dollars was agreed to, and Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791.
Secretary of the Treasury[]
President George Washington appointed Hamilton as the first United States secretary of the treasury on September 11, 1789. He left office on the last day of January 1795. Much of the structure of the government of the United States was worked out in those five years, beginning with the structure and function of the cabinet itself. Biographer Forrest McDonald argues that Hamilton saw his office, like that of the British first lord of the treasury, as the equivalent of a prime minister. Hamilton oversaw his colleagues under the elective reign of George Washington. Washington requested Hamilton's advice and assistance on matters outside the purview of the Treasury Department. In 1791, while secretary, Hamilton was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hamilton submitted various financial reports to Congress. Among these are the First Report on the Public Credit, Operations of the Act Laying Duties on Imports, Report on a National Bank, On the Establishment of a Mint, Report on Manufactures, and the Report on a Plan for the Further Support of Public Credit. So, the great enterprise in Hamilton's project of an administrative republic is the establishment of stability.
Report on 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. Hamilton had written to Robert Morris as early as 1781, that fixing the public credit will win their objective of independence. The sources that Hamilton used ranged from Frenchmen such as Jacques Necker and Montesquieu to British writers such as Hume, Hobbes, and Malachy Postlethwayt. 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.
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 IOUs 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.
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.
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. 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 suspected that several congressmen were involved in government securities, seeing Congress in an unholy league with New York speculators. Congressman James Jackson also spoke against New York, with allegations of speculators attempting to swindle those who had not yet heard about Hamilton's report.
The involvement of those in Hamilton's circle such as Schuyler, 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. 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. 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.
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, 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). Duer resigned as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, and the vote of assumption was voted down 31 votes to 29 on April 12.
During this period, Hamilton bypassed the rising issue of slavery in Congress, after Quakers petitioned for its abolition, returning to the issue the following year.
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. 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". The bill passed in the Senate on July 21 and in the House 34 votes to 28 on July 26, 1790.
Report on a National Bank[]
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, he had gathered ideas in various ways over the past eleven years. These included theories from Adam Smith, 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. He also used American records from James Wilson, Pelatiah Webster, Gouverneur Morris, and from his assistant treasury secretary Tench Coxe. He thought that this plan for a National Bank could help in any sort of financial crisis.
Hamilton suggested that Congress should charter the National Bank with a capitalization of $10 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. The rest was to be available to individual investors. 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. 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. The tax revenue to initiate the bank was the same as he had previously proposed, increases on imported spirits: rum, liquor, and whiskey.
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, and those of the agrarian lifestyle would not benefit from it. Among those critics was James Jackson of Georgia, who also attempted to refute the report by quoting from The Federalist Papers. 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. The Whiskey Rebellion also showed how in other financial plans, there was a distance between the classes as the wealthy profited from the taxes.
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. The bill eventually passed in an overwhelming fashion 39 to 20, on February 8, 1791.
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." 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. In response to the objection of the 'necessary and proper' 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 they (taxes) are to be paid." Washington would eventually sign the bill into law.
Emergence of parties and post-secretary years[]
Jeffersonian Republicans[]
Hamilton's vision was challenged by Virginia agrarians Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who formed a rival party, the Jeffersonian 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 toward monarchy in general, and too oriented toward cities, business and banking.
The American two-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 Federalists. The opposition group, now called the Democratic-Republican Party by political scientists, at the time called itself Republicans.
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 revolutionary France. Hamilton publicly denounced the French minister Edmond-Charles Genêt (he called himself "Citizen Genêt") who commissioned American privateers 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. 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 United States Constitution. The Federalists did impose some internal direct taxes but they departed from most implications of the Hamilton administrative republic as risky.
The Jeffersonian 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; 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 that is still published, the New York Evening Post (now the New York Post), and brought in William Coleman as its editor.
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, previously the New York state attorney general, over Senator Philip Schuyler, the Federalist 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.
1796 election[]
amilton'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 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 James Madison for a draft that was used in a similar manner to Hamilton's.
In the 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. 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 of South Carolina.
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. 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 (even the French minister to the United States knew), and northern Federalists voted for Adams but not for Pinckney, in sufficient numbers that Pinckney came in third and Jefferson became vice president. Adams resented the intrigue since he felt his service to the nation was much more extensive than Pinckney's.
Reynolds affair scandal[]
In the summer of 1797, Hamilton became the first major American politician publicly involved in a sex scandal. Six years earlier, in the summer of 1791, 34-year-old Hamilton became involved in an affair with 23-year-old Maria Reynolds. According to Hamilton's account 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. 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.
Over the course of that year, while the affair was taking place, James Reynolds was well aware of his wife's unfaithfulness, 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 came into public view, resorted to extortion. After an initial request of $1,000 to which Hamilton complied, Reynolds invited Hamilton to renew his visits to his wife "as a friend" 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. Hamilton at this point may have been aware of both spouses being involved in the blackmail, and he welcomed and strictly complied with James Reynolds' request to end the affair.
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. Hamilton refuted the suspicions of 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.
In the summer of 1797, however, the "notoriously scurrilous" journalist James T. Callender published A History of the United States for the Year 1796. 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, Muhlenberg, and Venable, 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. 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. Although Hamilton faced ridicule from the Democratic-Republican faction, he maintained his availability for public service.
Quasi-War[]
During the military build-up of the Quasi-War of 1798–1800, and with the strong endorsement of Washington (who had been called out of retirement to lead the Army if a French invasion materialized), Adams reluctantly appointed Hamilton a major general of the army. At Washington's insistence, Hamilton was made the senior major general, prompting Henry Knox to decline appointment to serve as Hamilton's junior (Knox had been a major general in the Continental Army and thought it would be degrading to serve beneath him).
Hamilton served as 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 North American colonies of France's ally, Spain, bordering the United States. Hamilton was prepared to march the army through the Southern United States if necessary.
To fund this army, Hamilton wrote regularly to Oliver Wolcott Jr., his successor at the treasury; William Loughton Smith, of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Senator Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts. 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. 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. This provoked resistance in southeastern Pennsylvania nevertheless, led primarily by men such as John Fries who had marched with Washington against the Whiskey Rebellion.
Hamilton aided in all areas of the army's development, and after Washington's death he was by default the 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. There was no longer a direct threat for the army Hamilton was commanding to respond to. 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.
1800 election[]
In November 1799, the Alien and Sedition Acts had left one Democratic-Republican newspaper functioning in New York City; when the last, the New Daily Advertiser, reprinted an article saying that Hamilton had attempted to purchase the Philadelphia Aurora and close it down, Hamilton had the publisher prosecuted for seditious libel, and the prosecution compelled the owner to close the paper.
In the 1800 election, Hamilton worked to defeat not only the rival Democratic-Republican candidates, but also his party's own nominee, John Adams. Aaron Burr had won New York for Jefferson in May; now Hamilton proposed a rerun of the election under different rules—with carefully drawn districts and each choosing an elector—such that the Federalists would split the electoral vote of New York. (John Jay, a Federalist who had given up the Supreme Court to be Governor of New York, wrote on the back of the letter the words, "Proposing a measure for party purposes which it would not become me to adopt," and declined to reply.)
John Adams was running this time with Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina (the elder brother of candidate Thomas Pinckney from the 1796 election). Hamilton now 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. 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. 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.
A mutual distrust formed between Pinckney and Hamilton during and after the election, after a New York newspaper quoted Pinckney as blaming Hamilton for the deterioration of the party. This likely led to Pinckney unsuccessfully challenging Hamilton for the presidential nomination of the Federalists in 1808. For the rest of his life, Hamilton remained in a feud with the generally "pro-Adams" sectors of the party, who moved on to join the National Party after his presidency.
Senator from New York[]
Even though Hamilton did not like 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 that Burr was a "mischievous enemy" to the principal measure of the past administration. 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.
Hamilton wrote many letters to friends in Congress to convince the members to see otherwise. The Federalists rejected Hamilton's diatribe as reasons to not vote for Burr, although historian Cokie Roberts claimed that Hamilton's campaign against Burr was a major reason Burr failed to win in the end. Nevertheless, Burr would become Vice President of the United States after losing to Jefferson. When it became clear that Jefferson had developed his own concerns about Burr and would not support his return to the vice presidency, Burr sought the New York governorship in 1804 with Federalist support, against the Jeffersonian Morgan Lewis, but was defeated by forces including Hamilton.
In January of 1804, Hamilton was appointed by Morgan Lewis to fill the senatorial vacancy of New York after the incumbent, Theodorus Bailey, had resigned to accept the position of Postmaster of New York City. Hamilton initially rejected the offer, but hoped to use his position as political leverage by using the state as an example of "strong" federal-state control. Hamilton redirected state loans to the federal arsenal, while additionally implanting offices of the First Bank in state cities. He worked with future governor DeWitt Clinton on developing architecture in the state, modeling many buildings in Brooklyn after those in Britain. Burr, following his defeat, attempted to demand an apology out of Hamilton, but his messages fell on deaf ears as Hamilton's senate office had already been laced with excessive letters detailing both criticism and appraisal of his domestic actions in the state.
During his governorship, Lewis developed a reputation as being "fairly gullible" by the press, as he was often pressured into complex domestic actions by both of the state's Federalist and Democratic-Republican factions. Hamilton's excessive allocation of funds and avoidance of general state independence led to a massive deficit in the remaining banks in the state, resulting in the legislature needing to recall loans that he had previously sold. Hamilton often preoccupied himself with a cycle of repealing and passing loans for the rest of his career, and when he left his office to take up the presidency, he had largely achieved little. However, Hamilton delivered what came to be known as a series of lectures with his debates in the senate, setting a format for future legislators to use.
1808 presidential election[]
Hoping for a more peaceful end to the ongoing British impressment of American sailors overseas, Hamilton was infuriated by Jefferson's Embargo Act; whose effects had devastated New England's commercial economy. According to close friends, Hamilton is said to have believed that the only solution to stand up to Britain was to "take the mantle of the country himself". Hamilton announced his run for the Federalist nomination only a month before the caucuses were to be held, due to combinations of both hesitation of re-entering public office, and his preoccupation with work in the senate. Hamilton did not face large challenges, as the majority of candidates from New York he had befriended in his career. His primary challenger was the 1804 Federalist candidate Charles Pinckney, who was unable to secure victories inside areas traditionally in the Federalist column.
Hamilton's candidacy sparked a rebound of popularity of the Federalist Party, due to his firmer position as a Founding Father and an author of the Federalist Papers. Speculation regarding incumbent Secretary of State James Madison's potential succession of Jefferson commenced early in Jefferson's first term. Madison's status in the party was damaged by his association with the embargo, which was unpopular throughout the country and especially in the Northeast. Madison became the target of attacks from Congressman John Randolph, a leader of a faction of the party known as the tertium quids. Randolph recruited Monroe, who had felt betrayed by the administration's rejection of the proposed Monroe–Pinkney Treaty with Britain, to challenge Madison for leadership of the party. Many Northerners, meanwhile, hoped that Vice President Clinton could unseat Madison as Jefferson's successor.
Hamilton's candidacy was not without its detriments. He received excessive criticism over his previous affair with Maria Reynolds, whilst opponents criticized him as nothing more than a "lame duck" during his career in the senate. Hamilton's campaigners responded to this criticism rather than Hamilton himself, as he focused more on achieving a collective agenda for his supposed presidency. The election was nearly tumultuous, as both Hamilton and Madison were authors of the Federalist Papers, and were allies before the 1800 election.
The results of the election remained in doubt until December, when it was declared in an upset that Hamilton had prevailed over Madison, with a vote total of 93-79. Hamilton's victory was accredited to his popularity in New England, and the slate of electors who had supported Clinton for the presidency resorting to giving their votes to Hamilton after Clinton had been nominated for Vice President. Because of this, the majority of electoral votes in the state went to Hamilton, while the popular vote showed Hamilton edging out Madison by a bare margin.
Presidency (1809-1817)[]
Taking office[]
On March 4, 1809, Hamilton took the oath of office and was inaugurated president. The same day, Hamilton issued a letter of resignation to the United States Senate to avoid taking up operations for both offices. While his predecessor, Jefferson, had received a large amount of support, Hamilton's party did not fare well in the election year's house and senate elections, which saw the continuation of a relative Democratic-Republican majority. Hamilton nominated lawyer Jared Ingersoll as his Secretary of State.
Hamilton repealed the Embargo Act on his first day in office, while additionally freezing Jefferson's ongoing legislation to allow the formation of state banks, which he viewed as unnecessary in establishing a true federal government. Hamilton raised taxes much to the infuriation of sailors in New England, who had felt betrayed over the collapse of commerce in the region. Hamilton hoped that the government would encourage the growth of industry in a move away from agriculture so that the nation could be an industrial economy equal to those of Europe, and increased commercial spending in his first days. In 1811, Hamilton vetoed a congressional lapse on the establishment of the First Bank, and sent federal funds to pay for its full establishment.
First Anglo-American War[]
Prelude to war[]
Hamilton had repealed the Embargo Act almost immediately after assuming the presidency, but troubles with the British and French continued. Hamilton settled on a new strategy designed to pit the British and French against each other, offering to trade with whichever country would end their attacks against American shipping. The gambit almost succeeded, but negotiations with the British collapsed in mid-1809. Seeking to split the Americans and British, Napoleon offered to end French attacks on American shipping so long as the United States punished any countries that did not similarly end restrictions on trade. Hamilton refused to accept the offer (having a larger hatred towards the French Empire), but the British refused to change their policies, and the French reneged on their promise and continued to attack American shipping, resulting in an abandonment of negotiations.
With sanctions and other policies having failed, Hamilton remained in a standstill, and refused to authorize tariffs on Britain with the goal of avoiding a repeat of the effects of Jefferson's embargo. Many Americans called for a "second war of independence" to restore honor and stature to the new nation, and an angry public elected a "war hawk" Congress, led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. With Britain in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars, many Americans believed that the United States could easily capture Canada, at which point the U.S. could use Canada as a bargaining chip for all other disputes or simply retain control of it. Hamilton's cabinet, without his knowledge, bypassed federal authority to allow vigorous expansion of the army and navy, thereby easing Hamilton's restrictions on withdrawing ships from Atlantic waters. Hamilton remained pure in the belief that the British would eventually relent to American demands, but lost any remaining patience when a proposal given to British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was met with refusal. Hamilton was handily re-elected in 1812 on an anti-war ticket, but it soon became apparent that such a promise could not last.
The USS Constitution clashing with the HMS Guerriere
Nonetheless, Hamilton attempted to further delay any conflict between the United States and Britain, but his attempts at vetoing military expansion by war hawks ended with congressional overrule. On August 19, 1812, a clash between two British and American ships, the USS Constitution and the HMS Guerriere occurred in the Atlantic after captain Isaac Hull had assumed that war had broken out, and the Guerriere had approached territorial waters with the goal of bombarding American ports. While it took another five months for Hamilton to buy into the demands of the war hawks in Congress, relations were officially severed, and mobilization began. On January 4, 1813, Hamilton asked Congress for a declaration of war, stating that the United States could no longer tolerate Britain's "state of war against the United States". The declaration of war was passed along sectional and party lines, with opposition to the declaration coming from groups of Federalists and from some Democratic–Republicans in the Northeast. Shortly after the declaration was approved by Congress, Hamilton is said to have murmured to Vice President Morris that "Any semblance of unity I had wished to achieve in this office, is now purely lamentable."
Military action[]
Hamilton and his advisers initially believed the war would be a quick American victory, while the British were occupied fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. ordered an invasion of Canada at Detroit, designed to defeat British control around American held Fort Niagara and destroy the British supply lines from Montreal. These actions would give leverage for British concessions on the Atlantic high seas. Hamilton managed to convince some of the state militias in the Northeast to cooperate in the conflict, promising "financial benefits" in the future if they combatted Canadian militias directly. Hamilton, drawing on his military experience in the Revolutionary War, assigned generals Andrew Jackson and William Hull to lead the American war effort at Detroit, which would distract Canadian militias stationed in Montreal and Quebec. The battle trudged on with high American casualties, but after Jackson led the push in a separate advance to the north of the city, American forces prevailed. Elsewhere, American forces under Winfield Scott and Henry Dearborn defeated British militias led by Isaac Brock at Queenston Heights. While there was a large number of criticisms towards the excessive casualties in the invasion, American morale increased and the victories against British forces allowed for more state militias from New York, Vermont, and Massachusetts to enter the conflict.
With a victory at the Battle of Lake Erie in late 1813, the U.S. crippled the supply and reinforcement of British military forces in the western theater of the war. In the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Erie, General William Henry Harrison defeated the forces of the British and of Tecumseh's Confederacy at the Battle of the Thames. The death of Tecumseh in that battle marked the permanent end of armed Native American resistance in the Old Northwest. Despite the victories, anti-war factions within the Federalist Party clashed with those who supported Hamilton's wartime policies, and it soon became apparent that Hamilton's party was collapsing upon itself as a result of the war. After Andrew Jackson was withdrawn from the western theater to fight rebellious Muscogee tribes in the south, British forces were able to halt American advancements outside of Toronto. In August 1814, the British managed to defeat American naval forces in the Battle of the Chesapeake Bay and made a landing at Baltimore, but were repulsed after a storm trapped them, followed by a brigadier unit cornering them into a retreat. The advancement of British forces near the capital of the nation exemplified opposition to Hamilton's presidency, and the anti-war factions left the party in order to weaken the Federalists in the midterm elections.
British surrender and post-war period[]
In late 1816, American divisions under Hull connected with those of Dearborn to engage in a siege of Quebec City. However, attempts to seize the city immediately were unsuccessful, as British militias were able to push farther into the disputed area of Massachusetts (now Maine). On October 10, the city's defenses collapsed, and American ships were able to bypass British presence in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, cutting off British abilities to reinforce their armies holding the city. The same day, an unofficial peace was declared and a declaration sent by Hamilton made its way to London to discuss peace terms. As the United Kingdom was occupied with peace settlements and related conflicts following the defeat of Napoleon, they hesitantly agreed to relinquish jurisdiction of much of Lower Canada over to the United States.
Hamilton presided over the peace settlements, though his negotiations of amnesty for Canadian militias were seldom accepted. Hamilton allowed self-representation and future statehood for the occupied areas, but these were blocked by Democratic-Republicans, who delayed the plans to avoid the potential "selling-out" of the country by allowing Canadians complete political representation. Dearborn was appointed military governor of the "Region of Canada", whilst the acquired territories were reorganized into the subdivisions of Huron, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Resistance to American occupation was fierce, as occupying American forces often retaliated to protests by burning down villages, drastically harming the image of the United States there.
The postwar period of Hamilton's second term saw the transition into the "Era of Good Feelings," as the Federalists ceased to act as an effective opposition party. During the war, anti-war delegates from the states of New England held the Hartford Convention, where they asked for several amendments to the Constitution. Though the Hartford Convention did not explicitly call for the secession of New England, the Hartford Convention became a political millstone around the Federalist Party as Americans celebrated what they saw as a successful "second war of independence" from Britain. Hamilton had himself hastened the end of the party through his refusal to accept these demands, while the inner division was exploited by Democratic-Republicans who pledged to adopt some of the platforms proposed by the convention.
Election of 1816[]
In the 1816 presidential election, Hamilton hoped to use the war as a motive for re-election to an unprecedented third term. However, by that point, opposition to him within his own party had grown to the point where many threatened to form a third-party and split the vote in favor of the Democratic-Republicans. James Monroe, the Governor of Virginia, presented himself as an amiable candidate and was backed by Madison and Jefferson, who each saw him as a post-war compromise candidate. As the Federalist Party continued to collapse as a national party, Monroe was able to silently defeat Hamilton on election day, winning the swing state of Pennsylvania and thus marking the end of Hamilton's party as a bargaining force.
Post-presidency[]
Hamilton left office on March 4, 1817, and went about a political retirement. He enjoyed moderate popularity in the occupied territories of Canada due to his proposals of amnesty, but vowed never to visit it directly in fear of assassination. Hamilton returned to his estate, and continued to write endorsements of political candidates within the Federalist Party before its collapse in 1820, leading him to change his registration to an Independent. He opposed the administration of Andrew Jackson, whom he regarded as a "tyrant" for his violent suppression of the Revolt of 1829 within New Brunswick. Hamilton remained concerned about his legacy, and despite him receiving praise by later generations for his victory, he regarded his domestic decisions as more successful. He participated in the end of the slave trade, and managed to convince Congress in his retirement to phase out the use of slavery by banning the cotton gin, to which he was lauded by liberal whites in the following decades.
During Jackson's presidency, Hamilton publicly disavowed the Nullification movement and argued that no state had the right to secede, and viewed the Electoral College and the right of states to self-determination as detrimental to the union. Hamilton died on July 4, 1836 of congestive heart failure, ten years after Adams and Jefferson, which also happened to be the 60th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Reportedly, his last words were "Men with legacies die with honor. I, however, die with farce."
Legacy[]
Hamilton's interpretations of the Constitution set forth in the Federalist Papers remain highly influential, as seen in scholarly studies and court decisions. 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. As Secretary of the Treasury, he established—against the intense opposition of Secretary of State Jefferson—the country's first de facto central bank. Hamilton justified the creation of this bank, and other federal powers, under Congress's constitutional authority to issue currency, to regulate interstate commerce, and to do anything else that would be "necessary and proper" to enact the provisions of the Constitution.
On the other hand, Jefferson 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, essentially confirming the doctrine of implied powers. Nevertheless, the American Civil War and the Progressive Era demonstrated the sorts of crises and politics Hamilton's administrative republic sought to avoid.