James Alexander Hamilton

Background

James Alexander Hamilton was born on April 14, 1788 in New York City. He was the third son of Alexander Hamilton, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, and Elizabeth Schuyler.

Education

In 1805 Hamilton graduated from Columbia College and four years later, after studying in the law office of Judge Pendleton, was admitted to the bar.

Career

Hamilton began practice in Waterford, Saratoga County, New York City, but in 1810 moved to Hudson, New York City.

During the War of 1812 he served as brigade-major and inspector in the New York militia, but returned to the practice of law with the conclusion of peace. In 1827-1828, when the political star of Andrew Jackson was in the ascendancy, Hamilton was sent as one of the delegates of the Tammany Society to attend the anniversary celebration of the battle of New Orleans. He met the Jackson party at Nashville and journeyed with it down the Mississippi. His suavity and political standing soon won Jackson's friendship and confidence, and on his return from this trip he purposed to visit Crawford in Georgia in order to heal a political breach between the latter and Jackson. He did not see Crawford, but wrote to him, and the correspondence which ensued was instrumental in setting in motion the chain of events which ultimately led to political discord between Jackson and Calhoun. The winter of 1829 found Hamilton in Washington acting as the trusted henchman for Van Buren when the latter was obliged to be absent.

Upon the suggestion of Van Buren, Hamilton himself was appointed by the President, on March 4, 1829, to take charge of the department, which he surrendered to the regular appointee on March 27. Of Jackson's cabinet as a whole, despite his part in selecting it, he was a caustic critic, later characterizing it as "the most unintellectual and uneducated cabinet we ever had". Subsequently Jackson, wholly unknown to Van Buren and against his wishes, made Hamilton United States district attorney for the Southern District of New York, but the duties of the new office proved onerous, and he relinquished them in 1833. At Jackson's request he prepared a plan for a bank subordinate to the Treasury Department, but it was not used.

At every threat of war between 1833 and 1861 he offered his services to the army, but after 1833 he took part in politics only through the copious advice which he offered to statesmen of all parties.

He published a number of pamphlets, among them State Sovereignty: Rebellion against the United States by the People of a State is Its Political Suicide (1862), and two in defense of his father: The Public Debt and the Public Credit of the United States (1864), and Martin Van Buren's Calumnies Repudiated: Hamilton's Conduct as Secretary of the Treasury Vindicated (1870). In his seventy-ninth year he began the preparation of his autobiography, Reminiscences of James A. Hamilton; or Men and Events, at Home and Abroad, during Three Quarters of a Century, which was published in 1869.

He spent his declining years in and about New York City, where he died at the age of ninety.

Achievements

• James Alexander Hamilton is best remembered as a prominent Democrat and supporter of Andrew Jackson. As a member of President Jackson's so-called Appointing Council he is said to have been influential in securing the secretaryship of state for Van Buren.

Works

• book

  • book

Politics

Unlike his distinguished father, Hamilton was a Clintonian Democrat and a member of Tammany, and in this connection he was for sometime associated with Charles King and Johnston Ver planck in the publishing of the New York American. He gradually worked his way into the inner circle of the foremost Democratic leaders of his day, being on especially intimate terms with Martin Van Buren and William H. Crawford.

Always a staunch defender of his father's fiscal policies, in his later years he became a thorough Hamiltonian in his political philosophy. In 1840 he supported Harrison, and thereafter was identified with the Whigs and the Republicans.

Abroad during the revolutions of 1848, he contributed plans of constitutional and financial reform to his French and Italian friends. He was an ardent nationalist, refusing to favor abolition because he believed that slavery was protected by the Constitution. With the outbreak of the Civil War, however, he urged emancipation as a military measure, and in 1862 drafted an emancipation proclamation.

Personality

Hamilton was facile, smooth-tongued, and ambitious.

Interests

• Politicians

  Andrew Jackson

Connections

On October 17, 1810, Hamilton married Mary Morris, the daughter of Robert Morris and Frances Ludlam. Mary was older sister of Lewis Gouverneur Morris, the granddaughter of Richard Morris, Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, the great-granddaughter of Lewis Morris, an early colonial governor of New Jersey, and the grandniece of Lewis Morris, a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Hamilton later recalled their first years of marriage: "Both I and my wife were without means - our parents not being in a situation to do much for us. This I have always considered the most fortunate event of my life. I realized the embarrassments of my situation, and met them with the determination to overcome them. Nor did my resolution fail of its reward. Our self-denials were great, indeed, but our faith in the future was greater. .. Our poverty was so extreme that during our first year we boarded at four dollars per week for each. I now look back upon this event as not only the happiest, but the most fortunate occurrence of my long and eventful life. My poverty, with its burdens and responsibilities, nerved me to exertion, and necessity taught me the value of economy and self-denial. "

Together, Hamilton and his wife had six children.

Father:

Alexander Hamilton

Mother:

Elizabeth (Schuyler) Hamilton

Spouse:

Mary (Morris) Hamilton

Brother:

Alexander Hamilton

Brother:

Philip Hamilton

Brother:

John Church Hamilton

Brother:

Philip Schuyler Hamilton

Brother:

William Stephen Hamilton

Brother:

Angelica Hamilton

Sister:

Eliza (Hamilton) Holly

Daughter:

Frances "Fanny" (Hamilton) Bowdoin

Daughter:

Angelica (Hamilton) Blatchford

Daughter:

Mary Morris (Hamilton) Schuyler

Daughter:

Elizabeth "Eliza" (Hamilton) Schuyler

Son:

Alexander Hamilton Jr.

Son:

James Alexander Hamilton

References

• Origins of Legislative Sovereignty and the Legislative State: World Perspectives and Emergent Systems for the New Order in the New Age, Volume 7, Book 1
• Genealogical and Family History of Southern New York and the Hudson River Valley : A Record of the Achievements of Her People in the Making of a Commonwealth and the Building of a Nation. (3 Volumes)
• The Hudson: A Guidebook to the River
• Reminiscences of James a. Hamilton
• Cabinet Politician: The Postmasters General, 1829-1909
• The Hamilton Collection: The Wisdom and Writings of the Founding Father