Book description
As one of the Founding Fathers of the United States, Hamilton
occupies an eccentric, even flamboyant, position compared with
Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison, and Marshall.
Hamilton's genius, forged during his service in the Continental Army
in the Revolution, brought him not only admiration but also suspicion.
As the country he helped to found grew and changed, so did his thinking.
Consistency with earlier positions was never a hallmark of
Hamilton's thought, which changed as the country changed from thirteen
breakaway British colonies to a single independent nation. Alexander
Hamilton's thought has, for over two hundred years, been noted for its
deviations from American revolutionary Whig orthodoxy. From a
conventional Whig at the beginning of his career, Hamilton developed a
Federalist viewpoint that liberty depended above all on the creation
of a powerful central government.
In this collection, we find the seeds of this development, as
Hamilton's early optimistic confidence in the triumph of American Whig
principles begins to give way, under the influence of his experience
during the Revolution, to his mature Federalism. Hamilton's political
philosophy reflected his vision of the central government as the
protector of individual liberties, in sharp contrast to the popular
democratic sentiments of his archrival Jefferson.
This comprehensive collection of his early writings, from the
period before and during the Revolutionary War, provides a fuller
understanding of the development of his thinking.
Hamilton wrote to persuade, and he had the ability to clarify
the complex issues of his time without oversimplifying them. From the
basic core values established in his earlier writings to the more
assertive vision of government in his mature work, we see how
Hamilton's thought responded to the emerging nation and how the nation
was shaped by his ideas.
Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) was a trusted military
aide and secretary to General George Washington during the American
Revolution and was later appointed inspector general of the army, with
the rank of major general. He was an attorney and politician, a member
of the Continental Congress in the 1780s, and a representative of New
York at the Annapolis Convention and the Constitutional Convention. He
supported the new Constitution in The Federalist, with Madison
and Jay. As the first U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was an
advocate of sound public credit, development of natural resources and
trade, and establishment of the first national Bank of the United
States. The opposition to his policies led to the factional divisions
from which developed the system of political parties.
Richard B. Vernier is an Adjunct Professor of American
History at Purdue University at Calumet and a specialist in the field
of Anglo-American ideas of political economy. He obtained his
doctorate from St. Catherine's College, Oxford.
Joyce Appleby is Professor Emerita of History at UCLA.
She obtained her doctorate from Claremont University.
