Selections from the Federalist

Alexander Hamilton was born on January 11, 1757 on the West Indian Island of Nevis. His mother died in 1769, around the same time his father went bankrupt. Hamilton joined a counting house in St. Croix where he excelled at accounting. From 1772 until 1774, he attended a grammar school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey, and went on to study at King's College.

Hamilton entered the Revolutionary movement in 1774 at a public gathering in New York City with a speech urging the calling of a general meeting of the colonies. That same year, he anonymously wrote two pamphlets entitled, A Full Vindication of the Measures of Congress from the Calumnies of Their Enemies and The Farmer Refuted. When the Revolutionary War began, Hamilton joined the army and became a Captain of artillery, where he served with distinction in the battles of Long Island, White Plains, Trenton and Princeton. He was introduced to George Washington by General Nathaniel Greene with a recommendation for advancement. Washington made Hamilton his aide-de-camp and personal secretary. He resigned in 1781 after a dispute with the General, but remained in the army and commanded a New York regiment of light infantry in the Battle of Yorktown.

Hamilton left the army at the end of the war, and began studying law in Albany, New York. He served in the Continental Congress in 1782-83, before returning to practice law, becoming one of the most prominent lawyers in New York City. In 1786, Hamilton participated in the Annapolis Convention and drafted the resolution that led to assembling the Constitutional Convention in 1787. He then helped to secure the ratification of the Constitution of New York with the help of John Jay and James Madison, who together wrote the collection of 85 essays which would become known as The Federalist. Hamilton wrote at least 51 of the essays. In 1789, Washington appointed him the first Secretary of the Treasury, a position at which he excelled at and gained a vast influence i