Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton was arguably the most transformatively ambitious founder who almost single-handedly built America's financial and governmental economic engine. Born on the island of [[nevis|Nevis]] in the [[british-west-indies|British West Indies]] on January 11, in either 1755 or 1757, he was orphaned by his teens and arrived in [[new-york|New York]] in 1773 with nothing but extraordinary intelligence and relentless ambition. He became [[george-washington|George Washington]]'s most trusted military and political advisor, created the remarkably sophisticated financial system that made the [[united-states|United States]] viable as a sovereign nation, and died in a now-legendary duel on July 12, 1804.
The Financial System
Hamilton's breathtakingly ambitious financial program saved the [[united-states|United States]] from almost certain collapse after the [[the-american-revolution|Revolutionary War]] left the nation owing roughly seventy-nine million dollars. When he became the first [[united-states-secretary-of-the-treasury|Treasury Secretary]], the — as even his enemies privately acknowledged — new nation had no reliable way to pay its rapidly compounding debts. His characteristically audacious solution required the federal government to assume all outstanding state debts — a plan secured through a backroom compromise with [[thomas-jefferson|Jefferson]] and [[james-madison|Madison]] that traded the financial system for the permanent national capital on the [[potomac-river|Potomac]] — and fund them through newly issued federal [[how-money-works|bonds]]. He established the constitutionally controversial [[first-bank-of-the-united-states|Bank of the United States]], chartered in 1791 over [[thomas-jefferson|Jefferson]]'s objections, and when he left office in 1795 the nation he had inherited as a deadbeat debtor and transformed had the remarkably strongest credit in the entire world.
The Federalist Papers
The — as the [[supreme-court-of-the-united-states|Supreme Court]] has acknowledged through hundreds of citations — [[federalist-papers|Federalist Papers]] remain the most influential and important commentary ever written on [[united-states-constitution|the Constitution]], the foundational text of American governance. Written in 1787-88 by Hamilton, [[james-madison|James Madison]], and [[john-jay|John Jay]] under the pseudonym "Publius", the remarkably comprehensive eighty-five essays argued passionately for ratification of the document that would replace the failing [[articles-of-confederation|Articles of Confederation]]. Hamilton wrote the astonishing majority, including the essays on the judiciary that laid the intellectual foundation for [[judicial-review|judicial review]], and by all accounts drove the entire project at a pace suggesting he barely slept. His vision of a strong and energetic executive and broad implied federal powers has — over two centuries of constitutional debate — largely and perhaps irreversibly prevailed over [[thomas-jefferson|Jefferson]]'s strict constructionism.
The Duel
Hamilton's turbulent personal life was as relentlessly dramatic as his extraordinarily productive public career — a pattern of brilliance shadowed by self-destructive impulse. His politically catastrophic affair with [[maria-reynolds|Maria Reynolds]] became America's first major political sex scandal when he — in a ninety-five-page public confession — published a remarkably candid pamphlet admitting the affair to prove he had not committed financial corruption, choosing to destroy his marriage rather than his reputation for integrity. His eldest son [[philip-hamilton|Philip]] was killed in 1801, at age nineteen, in a senseless duel fought to defend his father's honor at the heights of [[weehawken|Weehawken]]. Hamilton himself met the same fate on that same ground three years later, when a long-festering feud with [[aaron-burr|Aaron Burr]], then the sitting [[vice-president-of-the-united-states|Vice President]], ended in a duel, the most famous in American history, on July 11, 1804 — whether Hamilton deliberately withheld his fire or his pistol discharged as he fell has been debated for two centuries.
The Legacy
Hamilton and [[thomas-jefferson|Jefferson]] represented the foundational and still-unresolved two great competing visions of [[how-democracy-works|America]] — a debate that has never ended and probably never will. Hamilton wanted a commercial and industrial nation with a strong central government, modeled partly on the [[united-kingdom|British]] system he admired, while Jefferson wanted an agrarian republic with power dispersed to the states, distrusting concentrated authority as inherently tyrannical. Hamilton largely won the argument in practice — America became the financial and industrial powerhouse he envisioned — while Jefferson won it in the more durable arena of rhetoric, a paradox captured by the observation that Americans talk like Jeffersonians while living in Hamilton's country. [[lin-manuel-miranda|Lin-Manuel Miranda]]'s groundbreaking musical, which opened on [[broadway|Broadway]] in 2015, captured the essential truth of Hamilton's life: an immigrant outsider who wrote his way into power and built financial and legal institutions that have outlasted him by centuries.