Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757[a] - July 12, 1804) was an American military officer, statesman, and Founding Father who served as the first U.S. secretary of the treasury from 1789 to 1795 during George Washington's presidency. Born out of wedlock in Charlestown, Nevis, Hamilton was orphaned as a child and taken in by a prosperous merchant. He pursued his education in New York City where, despite his young age, he was a prolific and widely read pamphleteer advocating for the American revolutionary cause, though an anonymous one. He then served as an artillery officer in the American Revolutionary War, where he saw military action against the British in the New York and New Jersey campaign, served for years as an aide to General George Washington, and helped secure American victory at the climactic Siege of Yorktown. After the Revolutionary War, Hamilton served as a delegate from New York to the Congress of the Confederation in Philadelphia. He resigned to practice law and founded the Bank of New York. In 1786, Hamilton led the Annapolis Convention to replace the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution of the United States, which he helped ratify by writing 51 of the 85 installments of The Federalist Papers. As a trusted member of President Washington's first cabinet, Hamilton served as the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury. He envisioned a central government led by an energetic president, a strong national defense, and a more diversified economy that significantly expanded industry. He successfully argued that the implied powers of the Constitution provided the legal authority to fund the national debt, assume the states' debts, and create the First Bank of the United States, which was funded by a tariff on imports and a whiskey tax. He opposed American entanglement with the succession of unstable French Revolutionary governments and advocated in support of the Jay Treaty under which the U.S. resumed friendly trade relations with the British Empire. He also persuaded Congress to establish the Revenue Cutter Service. Hamilton's views became the basis for the Federalist Party, which was opposed by the Democratic-Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson. Hamilton and other Federalists supported the Haitian Revolution, and Hamilton helped draft the constitution of Haiti. After resigning as Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton resumed his legal and business activities. He was a leader in the abolition of the international slave trade. In the Quasi-War, Hamilton called for mobilization against France, and President John Adams appointed him major general. The army, however, did not see combat. Outraged by Adams' response to the crisis, Hamilton opposed his reelection campaign. Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for the presidency in the electoral college and, despite philosophical differences, Hamilton endorsed Jefferson over Burr, whom he found unprincipled. When Burr ran for governor of New York in 1804, Hamilton again campaigned against him, arguing that he was unworthy. Taking offense, Burr challenged Hamilton to a pistol duel, taking place in Weehawken, New Jersey on July 11, 1804. Hamilton was fatally wounded, and then was immediately transported in a delirious state back across the Hudson River to the home of William Bayard Jr. in Greenwich Village, New York for medical attention, but succumbed to his wounds the following day. Scholars generally regard Hamilton as an astute and intellectually brilliant administrator, politician, and financier who was sometimes impetuous. His ideas are credited with laying the foundation for American finance and government. British historian Paul Johnson stated that Hamilton was a "genius-the only one of the Founding Fathers fully entitled to that accolade-and he had the elusive, indefinable characteristics of genius."[6] Early life and education Hamilton was born and spent the early part of his childhood in Charlestown, the capital of Nevis in the British Leeward Islands. Hamilton and his older brother, James Jr.,[7] were born out of wedlock to Rachel Lavien (née Faucette),[b] a married woman of half-British and half-French Huguenot descent,[c][16] and James A. Hamilton, a Scotsman who was the fourth son of Alexander Hamilton, the laird of Grange, Ayrshire.[17] Rachel Lavien was married on Saint Croix.[18] In 1750, Lavien left her husband and first son before travelling to Saint Kitts, where she met James Hamilton.[18] Hamilton and Lavien moved together to Nevis, her birthplace, where she had inherited a seaside lot in town from her father.[2] While their mother was living, Alexander and James Jr. received individual tutoring[2] and classes in a private school led by a Jewish headmistress.[19] Alexander supplemented his education with a family library of 34 books.[20] James Hamilton later abandoned Rachel Lavien and their two sons, allegedly to "spar[e] [her] a charge of bigamy...after finding out that her first husband intend[ed] to divorce her under Danish law on grounds of adultery and desertion."[17] Lavien then moved with her two children to Saint Croix, where she supported them by managing a small store in Christiansted. Lavien contracted yellow fever and died on February 19, 1768, leaving Hamilton orphaned.[21] Lavien's death may have had a severe emotional impact on Hamilton.[22] In probate court, Lavien's "first husband seized her estate"[17] and obtained the few valuables that she had owned, including some household silver. Many items were auctioned off, but a friend purchased the family's books and returned them to Hamilton.[23] The brothers 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.[23] James Jr. apprenticed with a local carpenter, while Alexander was given a home by Thomas Stevens, a merchant from Nevis.[24] Hamilton became a clerk at Beekman and Cruger, a local import-export firm that traded with the Province of New York and New England.[25] Despite being only a teenager, Hamilton 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.[26] He remained an avid reader, and later developed an interest in writing and a life outside Saint Croix. He wrote a detailed letter to his father regarding a hurricane that devastated Christiansted on August 30, 1772.[27] The Presbyterian Reverend Hugh Knox, a tutor and mentor to Hamilton, submitted the letter for publication in the Royal Danish-American Gazette. Biographer Ron Chernow found the letter astounding because "for all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous [that a] self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto" and that a teenage boy produced an apocalyptic "fire-and-brimstone sermon" viewing the hurricane as a "divine rebuke to human vanity and pomposity."[28] The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education.[29] In October 1772, Hamilton arrived by ship in Boston and proceeded from there to New York City, where he took lodgings with the Irish-born Hercules Mulligan, brother of a trader known to Hamilton's benefactors, who assisted Hamilton in selling cargo that was used to pay for his education and support.[30][31] Later that year, in preparation for college, Hamilton began to fill gaps in his education at the Elizabethtown Academy, a preparatory school run by Francis Barber in Elizabeth, New Jersey. While there, he came under the influence of William Livingston, a local leading intellectual and revolutionary with whom he lived for a time.[32][33][34] 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, while again boarding with Mulligan until officially matriculating in May 1774.[35] 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, 1773.[36] As King's College students, Hamilton, Troup, and four other undergraduates formed an unnamed literary society that is regarded as a precursor of the Philolexian Society.[37][38]

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