(An excellent reference for anyone who wants a better unde...)
An excellent reference for anyone who wants a better understanding of the Constitution, this compilation of eighty-five articles explains and defends the ideals behind the highest form of law in the United States. The essays were written and published anonymously in New York newspapers during the years 1787 and 1788 by three of the Constitution's framers and ratifiers: Alexander Hamilton, General George Washington's Chief of Staff and first Secretary of the Treasury; John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States; and James Madison, father of the Constitution, author of the Bill of Rights, and fourth President of the United States.
Thomas Jefferson hailed The Federalist Papers as the best commentary ever written about the principles of government. Milestones in political science and enduring classics of political philosophy, these articles are essential reading for students, lawyers, politicians, and those with an interest in the foundation of U.S. government and law.
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As one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Ha...)
As one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Hamilton occupies an eccentric, even flamboyant, position compared with Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison, and Marshall. Hamilton’s genius, forged during his service in the Continental Army in the Revolution, brought him not only admiration but also suspicion. As the country he helped to found grew and changed, so did his thinking.
Consistency with earlier positions was never a hallmark of Hamilton’s thought, which changed as the country changed from thirteen breakaway British colonies to a single independent nation. Alexander Hamilton’s thought has, for over two hundred years, been noted for its deviations from American revolutionary Whig orthodoxy. From a conventional Whig at the beginning of his career, Hamilton developed a Federalist viewpoint that liberty depended above all on the creation of a powerful central government.
In this collection, we find the seeds of this development, as Hamilton’s early optimistic confidence in the triumph of American Whig principles begins to give way, under the influence of his experience during the Revolution, to his mature Federalism. Hamilton’s political philosophy reflected his vision of the central government as the protector of individual liberties, in sharp contrast to the popular democratic sentiments of his archrival Jefferson.
This comprehensive collection of his early writings, from the period before and during the Revolutionary War, provides a fuller understanding of the development of his thinking.
Hamilton wrote to persuade, and he had the ability to clarify the complex issues of his time without oversimplifying them. From the basic core values established in his earlier writings to the more assertive vision of government in his mature work, we see how Hamilton’s thought responded to the emerging nation and how the nation was shaped by his ideas.
Alexander Hamilton (17551804) was a trusted military aide and secretary to General George Washington during the American Revolution and was later appointed inspector general of the army, with the rank of major general. He was an attorney and politician, a member of the Continental Congress in the 1780s, and a representative of New York at the Annapolis Convention and the Constitutional Convention. He supported the new Constitution in The Federalist, with Madison and Jay. As the first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was an advocate of sound public credit, development of natural resources and trade, and establishment of the first national Bank of the United States. The opposition to his policies led to the factional divisions from which developed the system of political parties.
Richard B. Vernier is an Adjunct Professor of American History at Purdue University at Calumet and a specialist in the field of Anglo-American ideas of political economy. He obtained his doctorate from St. Catherine's College, Oxford.
Joyce Appleby is Professor Emerita of History at UCLA. She obtained her doctorate from Claremont University.
A full vindication of the measures of the Congress from the calumnies of their enemies: in answer to a letter, under the signature of A.W. Farmer, ... detected, and his wit ridiculed :...
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Title: A full vindication of the measures of the Congre...)
Title: A full vindication of the measures of the Congress from the calumnies of their enemies : in answer to a letter, under the signature of A.W. Farmer, whereby his sophistry is exposed, his cavils confuted, his artifices detected, and his wit ridiculed : in a general address to the inhabitants of America and a particular address to the farmers of the province of New-York.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
Publisher: Gale, Sabin Americana
Description:
Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, Sabin Americana, 1500--1926 contains a collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition, religious history and more.
Sabin Americana offers an up-close perspective on life in the western hemisphere, encompassing the arrival of the Europeans on the shores of North America in the late 15th century to the first decades of the 20th century. Covering a span of over 400 years in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, this collection highlights the society, politics, religious beliefs, culture, contemporary opinions and momentous events of the time. It provides access to documents from an assortment of genres, sermons, political tracts, newspapers, books, pamphlets, maps, legislation, literature and more.
Now for the first time, these high-quality digital scans of original works are available via print-on-demand, making them readily accessible to libraries, students, independent scholars, and readers of all ages.
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The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification:
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SourceLibrary: Huntington Library
DocumentID: SABCP04786600
CollectionID: CTRG04-B413
PublicationDate: 17740101
SourceBibCitation: Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary of books relating to America
Notes: In reply to Samuel Seabury's pseudonymous "Free thoughts on the proceeding of the Continental Congress ... ." Signed (p. 35): A friend to America. Atrributed to Alexander Hamilton.
Collation: 35 p. ; 21 cm
The Fate of Major Andre: A Letter from Alexander Hamilton to John Laurens
(John André (1750 – 1780) was a British Army officer hange...)
John André (1750 – 1780) was a British Army officer hanged as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point, New York to the British. The character and the last moments of Andre are well depicted by Colonel Hamilton, aide-de-camp to Washington, in a letter to John Laurens, and is considered one of Hamilton's best known productions. Of Hamilton's numerous historical sketches, the most celebrated is this letter to Colonel Laurens giving an account of the fate of Major André, in which refinement of feeling and inflexible impartiality of view are alike conspicuous. Hamilton was with Washington when he was first apprized of the flight of that traitor Benedict Arnold and the arrest of Andre. In reference to the fall of the British officer who was thus involved in the punishment which Arnold deserved, Hamilton, moved by a generous sympathy for the fate of one so young, so chivalrous, and so promising, exerted his utmost efforts to discover some legal and honorable expedient to save him. When all proved unavailing, he felt deeply for the unfortunate officer, and published a narrative of the facts in the case, in a letter to his friend Laurens, which reflects equal credit, both upon his intellect and his heart. It was a model of elegance, clearness, simplicity and force in the art of narration. The fate of Major Andre made a profound sensation in England, though as little as possible was said about it publicly. The King made such poor amends as he could; he conferred a baronetcy on Andre's brother, and erected a monument to him in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription in which the nature of the service in which Andre perished, and the fate which befell him, are alike concealed beneath a decent veil of words. It was many a long year before the question of whether or no he came under the description of a spy could be approached with even the appearance of calmness, and many more before his death ceased to be called "the only blot on Washington's fame." His enemies had wept for him; his friends might be excused if they found it hard to be just. Many of us have stood before his monument in the Abbey. As one stands there and thinks of Andre's story, those great words, Duty, Glory, and Honour, take a more solemn meaning, and treachery and infidelity are seen in all their hideous nakedness. It is said that Benedict Arnold was once seen standing there. Hamilton was against the harsh decision, and it is well known that a majority of these officers themselves, catching the wide-spread sympathy of the hour, were inclined to revoke the sentence, had it not been for the counter and too ascendant influence of Greene and Lafayette.
The Essential Hamilton: Letters & Other Writings: A Library of America Special Publication
(America's most controversial founder—in his own words
A ...)
America's most controversial founder—in his own words
A brash immigrant who rose to become George Washington’s right-hand man. A fierce partisan whose nationalist vision made him Thomas Jefferson’s bitter rival. An unfaithful husband whose commitment to personal honor brought his life to a tragic early end. The amazing success of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical Hamilton has stoked an extraordinary resurgence of interest in Alexander Hamilton, the brilliant and divisive founder who profoundly shaped the American republic. Now, Library of America presents an unrivaled portrait of Hamilton in his own words, charting his meteoric rise, his controversial tenure as treasury secretary, and his scandalous final years, culminating in his infamous duel with Aaron Burr. Selected and introduced by acclaimed historian Joanne B. Freeman, here is a reader’s edition of Hamilton’s essential public writings and private letters, plus the correspondence between Burr and Hamilton that led to their duel and two conflicting eyewitness accounts of their fatal encounter.
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The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 17931794 matched Ha...)
The Pacificus-Helvidius Debates of 17931794 matched Hamilton and Madison in the first chapter of an enduring discussion about the proper roles of executive and legislative branches in the conduct of American foreign policy. Ignited by President Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation of 1793, which annulled the eleventh article of America’s Treaty with France of 1778, the debate addressed whether Washington had the authority to declare America neutral, despite an early alliance treaty with France. Hamilton argued that Washington’s actions were constitutional and that friction between the two branches was an unavoidable, but not harmful, consequence of the separation of powers. Madison countered that Washington’s proclamation would introduce new principles and new constructions” into the Constitution and contended that the power to declare war and make treaties can never fall within the definition of executive powers.” In the introduction, Morton Frisch asserts that the debate between Hamilton and Madison helped to clarify certain constitutional principles that we now associate with executive power generally” such as that foreign policy is essentially an executive function. Yet it is the open-ended character of our Constitution that has continued to allow different interpretations of the limits of the powers of government, a debate that continues to this day. Frisch writes in the introduction, The open-ended character of some of the constitutional provisions afforded opportunities for extending the powers of government beyond their specified limits. Although not given prior sanction by the Constitutional Convention, such additions served to provide a more complete definition of powers without actually changing the ends of government.”
The Liberty Fund edition brings together for the first time all the relevant original documents of this controversy: Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation, the full text of the Pacificus and Helvidius letters, Jefferson’s letter to Madison imploring him to answer Hamilton’s arguments, and Hamilton’s Americanus letters, intended as his final response to Madison’s rebuttal. This edition is supplemented with an introduction by Frisch, which places the work in historical context.
Morton J. Frisch (19232006) was Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Northern Illinois University.
Alexander Hamilton was an American statesman and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He was an influential interpreter and promoter of the U. S. Constitution, as well as the founder of the nation's financial system, the Federalist Party, the United States Coast Guard, and the New York Post newspaper.
Background
Alexander Hamilton was born out of wedlock in Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis, in British West Indies. His father, James Hamilton, was a Scottish trader and his mother, Rachel Fawcett Lavien, was a married woman of British and French Huguenot descent.
There is an ambiguity about the year of Alexander’s birth. Although he himself listed his birthday as January 11, 1757 a probate paper drafted after his mother’s death in 1768, listed him as 13 years old, making 1755 the year of his birth.
He had an elder brother called James Hamilton. He also had a half brother called Peter, born out of his mother’s marriage to John Michael Lavien.
In 1765, as Alexander turned eleven, the family moved to St. Croix. Very soon their father abandoned the family, ostensibly to save Rachel from a charge of bigamy. Living in the lowest rung of white society, Rachel began to run a store in Christiansted while Alexander took up a job.
By then, Lavien had posted a public summon for her to appear before a divorce court. In it, he declared her a whore who had given birth to illegitimate children. It made them subject of malicious gossips and made life all the more difficult.
In early 1768, Rachel contracted a severe fever and died on February 19, 1768, leaving her children orphaned. Her husband then came forward to take control of her assets, thus depriving the two brothers, whom he called "sons of a whore" of their inheritance.
Soon after Rachel’s death, Alexander Hamilton found home with Thomas Stevens, a merchant. According to many, Stevens might have been Hamilton’s biological father because Hamilton had a striking resemblance with Stevenson’s son, Edward. That only Alexander was given a home, not James, could be another reason for this assumption.
Sometime now, Alexander found employment with Beekman and Cruger, an import-export firm owned by a New Yorker called Nicholas Cruger, while his brother, James, became an apprentice with a local carpenter. Eventually the two brothers separated and never met again.
Education
Nicholas Cruger instantly took a liking to young Hamilton and began to give him instruction in global finance. Very soon, the young boy was inspecting cargoes, preparing bills of lading and advising captains. As the company also dealt in slaves, he also came in contact with the darker side of life.
After work, Hamilton spent his time reading in the library of Reverend Hugh Knox, gaining extensive knowledge in literature, history and science. Concurrently, he also started publishing an occasional poem in the local paper. In 1772, he impressed his readers with a vivid account of the hurricane.
In October 1772, Cruger and Knox pulled in their resources to send young Hamilton to Elizabethtown, New Jersey. Here, living with William Livingston, at that time a leading intellectual, he enrolled at Elizabethtown Academy and concentrated on filling the gaps in his education.
In 1773, Hamilton was sent to New York City, where he enrolled at King’s College to study medicine as a private student, officially matriculating in May 1774. Although his mentors had hoped that he would return to St. Croix to set up his own practice it was not to be.
Career
In September 1774, as the First Continental Congress was being held in Philadelphia, Hamilton began to take interest in its proceeding. Very soon he started supporting the Patriots against the Loyalists, convinced that they had valid grudges against England.
In December 1774, 17 year old Hamilton wrote his first published article in support of the Patriots’ cause against Samuel Seabury’s pamphlets supporting the Loyalist view points. Entitled A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress, it consisted of 35 pages.
His second article, The Farmer Refuted was published in February 1775. He also wrote two articles attacking Quebec Act of 1774. Fifteen installments of The Monitor, published anonymously in New York Journal might have also been written by him.
Although he supported revolutionary cause, he was against attacking the Loyalist. On May 10, 1775, as an angry mob came to attack Myles Cooper, the then President of King's College, Hamilton is believed to have helped him to escape by keeping the mob engaged with his talk.
In 1775, Alexander Hamilton, along with fellow students, formed a volunteer militia company called the Corsicans, renamed later as Hearts of Oak. Before classes they would practice drills in the graveyard of St. Paul’s Chapel. Hamilton, always an avid reader, also studied military history and tactics.
In August 1775, Hamilton’s militia company took part in its first expedition, when it successfully raided the British canons in the Battery, the southern tip of Manhattan Island in New York City After this, the volunteer company was made an artillery company.
In 1776, Hamilton was commissioned as Captain and instructed to raise the New York Provincial Company of Artillery to protect Manhattan Island. He quickly raised a troop of 60 men and began to take part in different campaigns around the city.
On 27 August 1776, when the Battle of Long Island broke out and Hamilton’s troops fought side by side with Washington’s Army. Later they took part in the Battle of the White Plain (October 28, 1776), the Battle of Trenton (December 26, 1776) and Battle of Princeton (January 3, 1777).
In March 1777, Hamilton was made a lieutenant colonel in the Continental Army and appointed aides-de-camp to General Washington. He spent four years, drafting Washington’s letters, composing reports on reforms, restructuring the Continental Army and also undertook various intelligence as well as diplomatic duties.
Eager to return to the battlefield, he was assigned to a New York light infantry battalion as its Commander on July 31, 1781. In October, he led a victorious charge in the Battle of Yorktown, which effectively finished off the War of Independence.
After the war, Alexander Hamilton resigned his commission and in 1782 entered the Congress of the Confederation as a representative from New York. It was a tough period for the newly born state and he now proceeded to solve its teething problems.
By now, he had already been vocal about the decentralized nature of the Congress, which had no right to tax and was dependent upon the states not only for voluntary financial support, but on various other matters.
Hamilton drafted a resolution to revise the Articles of Confederation. It contained many features, which were later included in U. S. Constitution, created in 1787 and ratified in 1788. It included a strong federal government with the power to collect taxes and raise an army. It also proposed separation of powers into Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary.
In 1783, Alexander Hamilton left the Congress in frustration, returning to New York to study law, passing the examination by the end of the year. Thereafter, he set up his practice in New York City. Many of his clients were loyalist, who had been sued as trespassers. Most significant of these cases was Rutgers v. Waddington (1784), in which he defended a British subject, who held a brewery during military occupation and now faced damages from its owner. He won the case, arguing that the Trespass Act violated the 1783 Treaty of Paris.
Hamilton was equally active in the financial market. On June 9, 1784, he founded the Bank of New York, which opened with a capital of $500, 000 in Lower Manhattan. It continued to function until it was merged with the Mellon Financial Corporation on July 2, 2007.
Hamilton was always for a strong federal government and throughout 1780s he continued to work in that direction, writing number of essays on it. Later as the new constitution was ready for ratification, he used his power of oratory to turn the tide of anti-federalism and have the constitution approved.
In 1789, as George Washington became the President of the United States, he appointed Hamilton as the first Secretary of Treasury. At that time, the financial condition of the federal government was in bad shape. He now crafted number of policies that saved the new-bon country from financial doom.
On January 31, 1795, Hamilton resigned from his position as First Secretary, leaving the federal government economically more stable. He now returned to New York to continue his legal practice. However, he remained closed to President Washington, writing drafts for the latter’s letters and addresses.
During this period, he clashed repeatedly with several influential leaders like Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Aaron Burr. In spite of that, when the quasi war broke out in 1798, John Adams, the then President of United States, appointed him a Major General.
From July 18, 1798, to June 15, 1800, Hamilton served as Inspector General; but was effectively the head of the United States Army. Then after Washington’s death, he became the Senior Officer of the United States Army, holding the position from December 14, 1799, to June 15, 1800.
On June 27, 1804, Hamilton was challenged in a duel by Aaron Burr, who felt the other man had insulted him. After a series of attempts to reconcile failed Hamilton decided to accept the offer, but throw away the shots.
The duel began at dawn on July 11, 1804, on the bank of the Hudson River in New Jersey. While Hamilton’s shot hit branches above his opponent’s head, Burr’s shot wounded him fatally and he died from it on July 12, 1804. He was later buried in the Trinity Churchyard Cemetery in Manhattan.
Achievements
Alexander Hamilton is best remembered as the builder of national infrastructure under a very difficult condition. He not only worked hard to create a strong federal government, but as the first Secretary of Treasury, he also contributed significantly to improve the financial condition of his country.
During his tenure as the Secretary of Treasury, he submitted various financial reports to Congress. Among these, most significant 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.
(Vols. 8-27 have various assistant and associate editors.)
Religion
As a youth in the West Indies, Hamilton was an orthodox and conventional Presbyterian of the "New Light" evangelical type (as opposed to the "Old Light" Calvinists); he was taught there by a student of John Witherspoon, a moderate of the New School. He wrote two or three hymns, which were published in the local newspaper. Robert Troup, his college roommate, noted that Hamilton was "in the habit of praying on his knees night and morning. "
According to Gordon Wood, Hamilton dropped his youthful religiosity during the Revolution and became "a conventional liberal with theistic inclinations who was an irregular churchgoer at best"; however, he returned to religion in his last years.
Stories were circulated that Hamilton had made two quips about God at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. During the French Revolution, he displayed a utilitarian approach to using religion for political ends, such as by maligning Jefferson as "the atheist, " and insisting that Christianity and Jeffersonian democracy were incompatible. After 1801, Hamilton further asserted the truth of Christianity; he proposed a Christian Constitutional Society in 1802, to take hold of "some strong feeling of the mind" to elect "fit men" to office, and he wrote of "Christian welfare societies" for the poor. After being shot, Hamilton spoke of his belief in God's mercy.
On his deathbed, Hamilton asked the Episcopal Bishop of New York, Benjamin Moore, to give him holy communion. Moore initially declined to do so, on two grounds: that to participate in a duel was a mortal sin, and that Hamilton, although undoubtedly sincere in his faith, was not a member of the Episcopalian denomination. After leaving, Moore was persuaded to return that afternoon by the urgent pleas of Hamilton's friends, and upon receiving Hamilton's solemn assurance that he repented for his part in the duel, Moore gave him communion. Bishop Moore returned the next morning, stayed with Hamilton for several hours until his death, and conducted the funeral service at Trinity Church.
Politics
Hamilton's vision of politics 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 quarrel between Hamilton and Jefferson is the best known and historically the most important in American political history. Hamilton's and Jefferson's incompatibility was heightened by the unavowed wish of each to be Washington's principal and most trusted advisor.
Views
Hamilton has been portrayed as the "patron saint" of the American School of economic philosophy that, according to one historian, dominated economic policy after 1861. He firmly supported government intervention in favor of business, after the manner of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, as early as the fall of 1781.
Hamilton opposed the British ideas of free trade, which he believed skewed benefits to colonial and imperial powers, in favor of protectionism, which he believed would help develop the fledgling nation's emerging economy.
Membership
In 1791, Alexander Hamilton was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Connections
On December 14, 1780, Alexander Hamilton married Elizabeth Schuyler, the daughter of Revolutionary War general, Philip Schuyler. They enjoyed a very close relationship, and had eight children.
In the summer of 1791, Hamilton met Maria Reynolds, married to some James Reynolds. Eventually the two began an illicit affair that lasted until June 1792. The incident did not have any impact upon his marriage; but many believe it robbed him his chance to become the next President of the United States.
