Alexander Hamilton

From Philosopedia

Hamilton, Alexander (1755-1804)

Hamilton, whose imprint on the United States is overlooked by those, some say, who overly emphasize George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams as the major Founding Fathers, was a theist, not a deist.

Also, he was one of the most colorful people of his time: having been born on the West Indian island of Nevis it is possible he had some African ancestors in his past; his published letters to John Laurens to “put on the toga” and come with him to Washington imply a possible love for the American Revolutionary soldier—”Adieu: I embrace you tenderly. . . . My friendship for you will burn with that pure flame which has kindled you your virtues. . . . I love you,” perhaps flowery language popular at the time rather than statements to be taken literally; having an adulterous affair with Maria Reynolds, which was the first great sex scandal in American politics; a person whose influence made Jefferson the President and Aaron Burr the Vice President, later being the one who thwarted Burr in becoming Governor of New York State; and after calling Burr a “dangerous man” and being challenged to a duel, lost his life in a Weehawken Heights, New Jersey, fight, dying at a physician’s house on Jane Street (after crossing the Hudson River to Manhattan.

Hamiltonians complain that Jefferson owned slaves and thought they were naturally inferior whereas Hamilton thought they deserved citizenship and should serve in the Revolutionary War. Hamilton supporters add that Jefferson’s ideal America was based on states’ rights, agrarian capitalism, and isolationism whereas Hamilton envisioned the nation we have become, a centralized industrial superpower with civil rights enforced by the Federal Government. Detractors claim he seriously considered proposing an American monarchy not unlike that of England’s. Hamilton, whose image appears on the U.S. $10 bill is, appropriately, buried at the western end of New York City’s Wall Street.

{CE; Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History; Michael Lind, The New York Times, 3 and 8 July 1998}