Alexander Hamilton Facts & Worksheets

• He handled correspondence with Congress, governors, and generals, wrote and issued orders, and dealt with intelligence, diplomacy, and negotiations. Hamilton met Elizabeth Schuyler, the daughter of General Philip Schuyler, in Morristown, New Jersey, during the winter of 1779–1780.
• In December 1780, they got married and later had eight children. He was also a very close friend of John Laurens and Marquis de Lafayette. Some historians have wondered what these relationships were like, but most biographers think they were just examples of the affectionate writing style of the time.
• Hamilton wanted to be in charge of a pitch for a long time. He left Washington's staff in February 1781 after a small disagreement, but he kept asking to be in charge of the fight. Washington made him the commander of a light infantry battalion in July 1781. During the Yorktown campaign, Hamilton led three battalions in a night attack on Redoubt No. 10. They took it with bayonets while their French allies took Redoubt No. 9. These wins made the British give up at Yorktown, which effectively ended the war, but fighting did not stop until the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

LIFE OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON AFTER THE WAR

• After Yorktown, Alexander Hamilton quit his job in March 1782 and quickly became a lawyer. He passed the bar exam in July after only six months of study. That year, he was named New York's receiver of continental taxes and began working in the Congress of the Confederation. Hamilton had been against the Articles of Confederation for a long time. In a letter from 1780, he said that Congress did not have enough power to run the country well. 
• Hamilton’s main problem was that Congress could not raise money directly, so the Continental Army had to rely on inconsistent state contributions and foreign aid. 
• When Rhode Island turned down the measure in 1782, it stopped Congress from being able to collect a five percent import duty. Hamilton and James Madison tried to get the state to change its mind, but Virginia’s later withdrawal of support made the effort fail. Hamilton kept pushing for stronger national powers, like the ability to tax and make laws that are better than those of the states.
• Hamilton was in Congress when the Newburgh Conspiracy of 1783 happened. Unpaid Continental officers threatened to cause trouble. He saw the crisis as a way to get national taxes passed with the help of friends like Gouverneur Morris. He told Washington to secretly guide the officers and use the army’s demands to put pressure on the states.
• Washington declined, and later warned against using the military for political purposes. Washington’s personal plea ended the crisis peacefully, but people were upset with Hamilton's position. In June 1783, Hamilton also had to deal with soldiers in Philadelphia who were refusing to pay back their wages. The mob got to Congress when the Pennsylvania council refused to help, so Hamilton told them to move to Princeton.
• Hamilton wrote a resolution there that called for a stronger central government with the power to tax, an army, and separate branches. These were some of the first ideas for the US Constitution.
• Later that year, Hamilton quit Congress and went back to New York to practise law and defend Loyalists as part of the Treaty of Paris. He started the Bank of New York in 1784. He was also very important at the 1786 Annapolis Convention, which led to the Constitutional Convention.
• Hamilton supported a strong central government in Philadelphia in 1787, but his idea of giving presidents and senators life terms was controversial. He signed the final Constitution even though he had some doubts about it, and he led the fight to get it ratified in New York. 
• Hamilton also worked with Madison and Jay to write The Federalist Papers, in which he defended the Constitution and explained the ideas of federal power, separation of powers, and checks and balances.

US SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

• President George Washington named Alexander Hamilton the first Secretary of the Treasury in 1789. Hamilton took office on 11 September 1789. Hamilton was in charge of fixing the country’s finances, and he wrote a number of important reports that changed U.S. economic policy. His 1790 Report on Public Credit suggested that the federal and state debts be combined into national debts.
• He said that current holders of government securities, including speculators, should be paid the full value of their investments. This would build public trust, encourage investment, and let the US borrow money at low rates. He also suggested a sinking fund to help pay off debt over time. Critics like Madison did not want to reward speculators instead of original holders like veterans, but Hamilton won. However, the idea of taking on state debts met with a lot of opposition.
• Hamilton then wrote the Report on a National Bank (1791), which called for a federally chartered bank that would be based in part on the Bank of England. The bank would stabilise the currency, give out loans, and strengthen the federal government’s power if it were owned by both the public and private sectors. Jefferson and Madison were against the bank because they thought it was against the Constitution, but Washington signed it into law after Hamilton defended it using the Necessary and Proper Clause.
• Hamilton also suggested that the US Mint be built in 1791, which made the dollar the official currency of the country. He designed coins based on decimals, favoured a bimetallic system, and pushed for small-denomination coins so everyone could access money. The Coinage Act of 1792 was passed by Congress. This made it possible to make coins out of gold, silver, and copper.
• He wanted to create the Revenue Cutter Service in 1790 to enforce tariff laws and stop smuggling. This is the same service that is now known as the Coast Guard. He also put an excise tax on whisky to bring in money from different sources. This tax caused a lot of people in rural areas to fight back, which led to the Whisky Rebellion in 1794. 
• Hamilton’s Report on Manufactures (1791) called for protective tariffs, support for “infant industries,” and more industrial growth. Even though Congress mostly ignored it, Hamilton helped start the Society for the Establishment of Useful Manufactures in Paterson, New Jersey. However, the project did not work out.
• Hamilton played a big role in making the Jay Treaty (1794), which kept the peace and trade with Britain but made the divide between political parties even worse.
• Hamilton quit his job in 1795, but he stayed involved in politics. His policies made the federal government stronger, the economy more stable, and the Federalist Party stronger, even though Jefferson and Madison strongly opposed him, which led to the Democratic-Republican Party and the two-party system that we have today.

REYNOLDS AFFAIR

• Hamilton was the first major American politician to be publicly linked to a sex scandal in the summer of 1797. The affair started six years earlier, in 1791, when Hamilton, who was 34 years old, began dating Maria Reynolds, who was 23 years old. Hamilton said that Maria came to his house in Philadelphia and said that her husband, James Reynolds, had abused and left her. She said she needed money to go back to her family in New York.
• When Hamilton brought her $30 to her boarding house, she took him to her bedroom and started an affair that lasted until mid-1792.
• Reynolds probably set up the affair from the start because he knew about the cheating. Reynolds, who was of lower status, didn't want to fight; instead, he saw a chance to blackmail. He first asked for $1,000, which Hamilton gave him, and then he kept getting money from Hamilton by making him “loans” that were linked to his visits with Maria.
• Hamilton paid more than $1,300 in all. Hamilton finally agreed to end the relationship at James Reynolds’ request, but by then, he thought Maria and James were both involved in the scheme. In November 1792, Reynolds and his friend Jacob Clingman were arrested for making fake money and betting on veterans’ unpaid wages. After being freed, Clingman told Democratic-Republican congressman James Monroe that Reynolds had proof that Hamilton was involved in financial wrongdoing.
• In December 1792, Monroe, along with congressmen Muhlenberg and Venable, confronted Hamilton. Hamilton admitted to the affair and showed letters from both James and Maria Reynolds to show that the payments were made as part of a blackmail scheme over adultery, not because he was misusing Treasury funds. The congressmen said they would keep the issue private. But five years later, journalist James T. Callender published a pamphlet that accused Hamilton of corruption and used the old Reynolds documents out of context.
• Hamilton wrote to Monroe, Muhlenberg, and Venable in July 1797, asking them to publicly say that he had not done anything wrong with money. Monroe refused, even though the others did what they were told. This led to a heated argument with Hamilton that almost turned into a duel before Aaron Burr stepped in.
• Hamilton then wrote his own long defence, the Reynolds Pamphlet, in which he went into great detail about the affair. The pamphlet hurt his reputation and made him the target of ridicule from Democratic-Republicans, but Hamilton still made himself available for public service. Elizabeth, his wife, eventually forgave him, but she never forgave Monroe for what he did to cause the scandal.