Alexander Hamilton: life, ideas and books

Life

Alexander Hamilton was born on the Caribbean island of Nevis in 1755 or 1757; sources disagree on the year. He came to New York as a young man, studied at King's College, now Columbia University, and wrote pamphlets for the Patriot cause. During the Revolutionary War he served as an artillery officer and for four years as an aide-de-camp to George Washington, and he fought at Yorktown.

He represented New York in the Confederation Congress, founded the Bank of New York in 1784 and attended the Annapolis Convention in 1786 and the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He wrote 51 of the 85 essays in The Federalist Papers. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, from 1789 to 1795, he shaped the federal government's finances, and later he served as a senior army officer during the Quasi-War with France. He died in 1804 after a duel with Aaron Burr in Weehawken, New Jersey.

Ideas

Hamilton argued for a strong national government with an energetic executive, and he held that the Constitution carried implied powers. As Treasury Secretary he urged that the federal government assume the states' war debts, honour public securities at face value and charter a national bank, and he favoured a diversified economy that included manufacturing. He believed that sound public credit and a capable government were conditions of national strength and security.

Major works

• The Federalist Papers (1787-88), with James Madison and John Jay.
• A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress and The Farmer Refuted (1774-75).
• Report on Public Credit (1790) and Report on a National Bank (1790-91).

Why conservatives read him

Hamilton gives the conservative tradition its argument for order, institutional capacity and national strength, balancing the Jeffersonian emphasis on limited government. His defence of an independent judiciary in the Federalist and of a stable currency and credit informs debates over the courts, public debt and executive authority. Conservatives often disagree about how far to follow his case for federal power, which keeps him a lively part of the argument.