The Ambitious Founder

Alexander Hamilton’s life reads like a story of relentless determination.
Born in poverty in the Caribbean, he arrived in the American colonies as a teenager with little more than talent and courage. During the Revolutionary War, he became George Washington’s trusted aide, helping write letters, battle plans, and speeches that shaped the army’s success.

After the war, Hamilton helped design the new nation’s government.
He:

• Co-wrote The Federalist Papers — essays that explained and defended the U.S. Constitution.
• Became the first Secretary of the Treasury, where he built the country’s financial system almost from scratch.
• Founded the U.S. Mint, the Coast Guard, and laid the groundwork for a modern banking system.
• Advocated for a strong national government to unify the young republic.

He was brilliant, intense, and often controversial. He was a man driven by both logic and passion.

The Schuyler Connection

In 1780, Hamilton married Elizabeth (Eliza) Schuyler, daughter of a respected New York family. Through Eliza, he became close to her sister Angelica Schuyler Church, a woman known for her intelligence, humor, and independent spirit.

Angelica had already lived in Europe and met political leaders and writers there. She and Hamilton discovered an immediate intellectual connection. Their letters reveal a friendship full of energy, respect, and admiration.

Angelica once told her sister that she “loved him very much” and wished she could “borrow him for a little while.” Historians believe this playful comment shows affection and closeness. Hamilton and Angelica exchanged many letters with one another that showed deep admiration.

Hamilton did not always practice restraint.
In the early 1790s, while serving in public office, he began a relationship with Maria Reynolds, a married woman. When her husband discovered it, he demanded money to stay silent — the nation’s first known case of political blackmail.

Years later, when opponents accused Hamilton of corruption, he published what became known as the Reynolds Pamphlet a public confession to the affair in order to prove that his only crime was personal, not political.

The scandal devastated his wife, Eliza, and damaged his reputation. It was a painful example of how brilliance and ambition can crumble under the weight of human weakness.

Hamilton’s life reminds us that wisdom is not just about intelligence. It’s also about self-control.

The Duel and the Cost of Pride

By 1804, Hamilton’s lifelong rivalry with Aaron Burr reached a breaking point. Burr, angry at Hamilton’s political attacks, challenged him to a duel — an illegal but still “honor-based” practice at the time.

At dawn on July 11, 1804, they met across the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey — the same place Hamilton’s son had died in a duel three years earlier.

Hamilton raised his pistol first, but scholars believe he deliberately fired into the air, refusing to kill. Burr did not hesitate. His bullet struck Hamilton, who died the next day.

It was a tragic end for one of America’s greatest minds. He was a man destroyed not by his enemies, but by his own pride and passions.

3. The Question of Slavery

Hamilton was not a radical abolitionist, but he opposed slavery and belonged to the New York Manumission Society.
If his political influence had lasted into the 1820s:

• He could have strengthened antislavery sentiment in federal policy, perhaps using economic arguments rather than moral ones.
• The Missouri Compromise (1820) might have been framed differently — prioritizing national unity around commerce rather than regional balance over slavery.

Probable outcome:
The North’s economic and moral opposition to slavery could have gained political structure sooner, possibly softening (or, conversely, accelerating) sectional conflict.