Alexander Hamilton Biography

Dictionary of Literary Biography on Alexander Hamilton

Alexander Hamilton is justly remembered for his creative and energetic contributions to important American institutions in the founding era--to the Constitution, both at the framing convention and in the explanatory The Federalist, and to an enduring financial system through his administration as first Secretary of the Treasury. Always acknowledged as one of the giants among the founders, Hamilton is recognized as the designer of vigorous, practical, and forward-looking institutions. But Hamilton's achievements, while appreciated, nevertheless often provoke regret. The democratic principles of the new nation were perhaps better embodied by his more philosophical opponent, Thomas Jefferson; the Federalist program perhaps represented a compromise of those principles with a world of recalcitrant and diffuse regional interests. Hamilton's reputation as an antirepublican, even monarchist, spokesman for privileged banking interests was in force in his own day, which saw its share of political factionalism, intrigue, and mud-slinging. Mixed contemporary opinion has its counterpart in modern ambivalence about Hamilton: was he the hero of the American system, or, as Noah Webster put it, its "evil genius"? Was he the embodiment of lofty principles, or of pragmatic compromise? That ambivalence has its counterpart, too, in the circumstances surrounding Hamilton's birth and death, for the stories of both have achieved near legendary status, and both are infused with irregularities and mysteries that may redound to their subject's credit or to his dishonor.

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