HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, one of the greatest of American statesmen, was born 11th January 1757 in the West Indian island of Nevis, the son of a Scotch merchant who had married a young Frenchwoman. His father soon failed in business, and Alexander at the age of twelve had to enter the counting-house of a merchant named Cruger at St Croix. His extraordinary abilities, however, induced some of his friends to procure for him a better education than could be got at home. He was accordingly sent to a grammar-school at Elizabethtown, New Jersey; and in the spring of 1774 he entered King's (now Columbia) College, New York. On the first appearance of disagreement between Great Britain and her colonies, Hamilton, still a collegian and barely eighteen, wrote a series of papers in defence of the rights of the latter, which were at first taken for the production of the eminent statesman Jay, and which secured for the writer the notice and consideration of the popular leaders. On the outbreak of the war he obtained a commission as captain of artillery, saw some active service in New York and New Jersey, and gained the confidence of Washington, who made him his aide-de-camp in 1777, and with whom he acquired the greatest influence as his friend and adviser. In 1781, through hasty temper on both sides, the friendship was broken for a brief period, and Hamilton resigned his appointment on the staff; but he continued with the army and distinguished himself at Yorktown.
In 1780 he married a daughter of General Schuyler, who was a member of a powerful New York family. On the termination of the war he left the service with the rank of colonel, and, betaking himself to legal studies, soon became one of the most eminent lawyers in New York. In 1782 he was returned to congress by the state of New York. But there was as yet no national government nor any power higher than that of the several states, which were now nearly bankrupt; and in 1786 Hamilton took the leading part in the deliberations of the inter-state commercial convention at Annapolis, which prepared the way for the great convention that met at Philadelphia in the following year for the purpose of revising the articles of confederation. There, although his own plan for the formation of an aristocratic republic was set aside, the spirit of his system was to a large extent adopted. But Hamilton's best work for the constitution was done after the convention was dissolved. He conceived and started the famous series of essays which originally appeared in a New York journal, and which were afterwards collected under the title of The Federalist. Fifty-one out of the eighty-five essays were the work of Hamilton. They constitute the writings by which he is most widely known; they can scarcely be too highly praised for comprehensiveness, profundity, clearness, and simplicity, and their strength and value have been recognised in Europe as well as in America.
On the establishment of the new government in 1789 with Washington as president, Hamilton was appointed secretary of the treasury. The disorder of the public credit, and the deficiency of official accounts of the state treasury, rendered this office one of peculiar difficulty. In order to re-establish public credit, he carried, in the face of much opposition, a measure for the funding of the domestic debt, founded a national bank, rearranged the system of duties, and altogether showed himself to possess the genius of the great financier. Moreover, he practically organised the administration; and his reports, many of them on subjects outside the immediate scope of his own department, exhibit his profound ability as a statesman. In 1795 he resigned his office, and resumed the practice of law in New York, where he was still constantly consulted by Washington and by his cabinet. He was the actual leader of the Federal (q.v.) party until his death, and was foremost in the fierce party strife of 1801. His successful efforts to thwart the ambition of his personal rival, Aaron Burr (q.v.), finally involved him in a duel with him. Hamilton had reason to regard the practice of duelling with especial abhorrence, but he appears to have felt under an obligation to accept the challenge; and on the morning of 11th July 1804 they met on the west bank of the Hudson, on the same spot where Hamilton's eldest son had received his death-wound in a duel three years before. Hamilton was mortally wounded, and died the next day, leaving the nation his indignant mourners, and his slayer for the time an exile. Hamilton's errors, like his strength, arose largely from his strong, masterful will and passionate nature. The immediate effects of his brilliant services at a crisis in his country's fate endure to this day; his influence is stamped on every page of the American constitution; and his writings still impress the reader by their vigour, their learning, and the maturity of intellect they display. His works, exclusive of The Federalist, were edited by his son, John C. Hamilton (7 vols. 1851), who also published a Life (2 vols. 1834-40). See Riethmüller's eulogistic Hamilton and his Contemporaries (Lond. 1864), and Lives by Morse (1876), Shea (1879), Henry Cabot Lodge ('American Statesmen,' 1882), and Sumner (1890); Lodge has also edited Hamilton's Complete Works (9 vols. 1885).