Born into poverty on the island of Nevis on this day in 1757, or maybe 1755, the amazing Alexander Hamilton. Hamilton was nothing short of a wunderkind. Born to an extremely poor family in Nevis, his father and mother moved to St Croix when he was very little, and his no-account father left when he was about eight or ten... then his mother died of fever a couple years later... and he was apprenticed, fortunately, to the import/export firm of Beekman and Cruger. In that job on St Croix, young Hamilton learned about trade and finance, and was so impressive that the local worthies raised up a scholarship for him to send him to New York for school. He enrolled at Kings College (now Columbia University) and soon dove headfirst into the patriot cause. While still a student (he was either 18 or 20 in 1775, when he wrote A Farmer Refuted), he wrote some of the seminal patriotic letters to the editor of the early revolutionary period, anonymously matching wits with such prominent loyalists as Myles Cooper (dean of his own college). He joined the New York militia, then the Continental Army as an artillery officer, then served much of the war as General Washingtons chief aide-de-camp... he closed the wartime period as one of Washingtons two key commanders at Yorktown. Hamilton was a lawyer (and wrote the primary study guide for law students for decades), he was a key member of Washingtons command (and wrote the training manual for the army at Von Steubens request)... he served in the Continental Congress, became a prominent politician in New York, led the fight to hold a Constitutional Convention... After the Constitution was written, Hamilton organized his friends James Madison and John Jay to write a series of articles in its support during the ratification fight; Hamilton wrote well over half of them, as they came to be known as The Federalist Papers.... Hamilton served as Washingtons Secretary of the Treasury, and when Jefferson and Madison organized a political faction to oppose Washingtons policies, Hamilton led the party to defend them, becoming the chief of the Federalist Party. Hamilton accomplished SO MUCH, its impossible to encapsulated it in a short article. He was truly one of the few indispensable men of the American Founding. If youve never read about him... or if youve only read the attacks on him by the Jeffersonians who wrongly imagine him to be some big government activist or bankster elitist... please give him a chance by reading one of the great biographies of this great American. My two favorites are the ones by Rick Brookhiser and Ron Chernow... Brookhisers is the place to start; its short and wonderfully written, then move up to Chernow. Alexander Hamilton of New York, Founding Father. Hear, Hear! richardbrookhiser/book/alexander-hamilton-american
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 15:54:13 +0000
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