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Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757July 12, 1804) was a Founding Father of the United States, chief staff aide to General George Washington, one of the most influential interpreters and promoters of the U.S. Constitution, the founder of the nation's financial system, the founder of the Federalist Party, the world's first voter-based political party, the Father of the United States Coast Guard, and the founder of The New York Post. As the first Secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was the primary author of the economic policies of the George Washington administration. Hamilton took the lead in the funding of the states' debts by the Federal government, the establishment of a national bank, a system of tariffs, and friendly trade relations with Britain. He led the Federalist Party, created largely in support of his views; he was opposed by the Democratic-Republican Party, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, which despised Britain and feared that Hamilton's policies of a strong central government would weaken the American commitment to Republicanism. Born out of wedlock, raised in the West Indies, and orphaned as a child, Hamilton pursued a college education through the help of local wealthy men. Recognized for his abilities and talent, he was sent to King's College (now Columbia University), in New York City. Hamilton played a major role in the American Revolutionary War. At the start of the war in 1775, he joined a militia company. In early 1776, he raised a provincial artillery company, to which he was appointed captain. He soon became the senior aide to General Washington, the American forces' commander-in-chief. Washington sent him on numerous important missions to tell generals what Washington wanted. After the war, Hamilton was elected to the Congress of the Confederation from New York. He resigned, to practice law, and founded the Bank of New York. Hamilton was among those dissatisfied with the weak national government. He led the Annapolis Convention, which successfully influenced Congress to issue a call for the Philadelphia Convention, in order to create a new constitution. He was an active participant at Philadelphia; and he helped achieve ratification by writing 51 of the 85 installments of ''The Federalist'' Papers. To this day, it is the single most important reference for Constitutional interpretation.〔Ira C. Lupu, "The Most-Cited Federalist Papers," ''Constitutional Commentary'' (1998)〕 Hamilton became the leading cabinet member in the new government under President Washington. Hamilton was a nationalist, who emphasized strong central government and successfully argued that the implied powers of the Constitution provided the legal authority to fund the national debt, assume states' debts, and create the government-owned Bank of the United States. These programs were funded primarily by a tariff on imports, and later also by a highly controversial tax on whiskey. Facing well-organized opposition from Jefferson and Madison, Hamilton mobilized a nationwide network of friends of the government, especially bankers and businessmen. It became the Federalist Party. A major issue splitting the parties was the Jay Treaty, largely designed by Hamilton in 1794. It established friendly economic relations with Britain to the chagrin of France and the supporters of the French Revolution. Hamilton played a central role in the Federalist party, which dominated national and state politics until it lost the election of 1800 to Jefferson's Democratic Republicans. In 1795, he returned to the practice of law in New York. He tried to control the policies of President Adams (1797–1801). In 1798 and 99, Hamilton called for mobilization against France after the XYZ Affair and became commander of a new army, which he readied for war. However, the Quasi-War, while hard-fought at sea, was never officially declared and did not involve army action. In the end, Adams found a diplomatic solution which avoided a war with France. Hamilton's opposition to Adams' re-election helped cause his defeat in the 1800 election. When Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied for the presidency in the electoral college in 1801, Hamilton helped to defeat Burr, whom he found unprincipled, and to elect Jefferson despite philosophical differences. Hamilton continued his legal and business activities in New York City, but lost much of his national prominence within the Federalist party. When Vice President Burr ran for governor of New York state in 1804, Hamilton crusaded against him as unworthy. Taking offense at some of Hamilton's comments, Burr challenged him to a duel in 1804 and mortally wounded Hamilton, who died the next day. ==Childhood in the Caribbean== Alexander Hamilton was born in and spent part of his childhood in Charlestown, the capital of the island of Nevis, in the Leeward Islands; Nevis was one of the British West Indies. Hamilton was born out of wedlock to Rachel Faucette, a married woman of partial French Huguenot descent, and James A. Hamilton, the fourth son of the Scottish laird Alexander Hamilton of Grange, Ayrshire.〔''Practical Proceedings in the Supreme Court of the State of New York.'' Alexander Hamilton. Forward by Williard Sterne Randall. p. ix. 2004. ''New York Law Journal''.〕 His mother moved with the young Hamilton to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands, then ruled by Denmark. It is not certain whether the year of Hamilton's birth was 1757 or 1755; most historical evidence after Hamilton's arrival in North America supports the idea that he was born in 1757, and many historians had accepted this birth date. But, Hamilton's early life in the Caribbean was recorded in documents which were first published in Danish in 1930; this evidence has caused historians since then to favor a birth year of 1755.〔Chernow, p. 17.〕 Hamilton listed his birth year as 1757 when he first arrived in the Thirteen Colonies. He celebrated his birthday on January 11. In later life, he tended to give his age only in round figures. Probate papers from St. Croix in 1768, after the death of Hamilton's mother, list him as then 13 years old, a date that would support a birth year of 1755. Historians have posited reasons for the different dates of birth being used: If 1755 is correct, Hamilton may have been trying to appear younger than his college classmates or perhaps wished to avoid standing out as older; if 1757 is correct, the probate document indicating a birth year of 1755 may have been in error, or Hamilton may have been attempting to pass as 13, in order to be more employable after his mother's death.〔Chernow; Flexner; Mitchell's ''Concise Life''. McDonald, p. 366, n. 8, favors 1757 but acknowledges its minority status, saying that the probate clerk's alternate spelling of "Lavien" suggests unreliability.〕 Hamilton's mother had been married previously to Johann Michael Lavien of St. Croix.〔〔Chernow, p. 10.〕 Rachel left her husband and first son, Peter, traveling to St. Kitts in 1750, where she met James Hamilton.〔Chernow, p. 12.〕 Hamilton and Rachel moved together to Rachel's birthplace, Nevis, where she had inherited property from her father.〔 The couple's two sons were James Jr. and Alexander. Because Alexander Hamilton's parents were not legally married, the Church of England denied him membership and education in the church school. Hamilton received "individual tutoring"〔 and classes in a private school led by a Jewish headmistress.〔Florence Lewisohn, "What So Proudly We Hail-Alexander Hamilton's West Indian Boyhood," in ''American Revolution Bicentennial Commission of the Virgin Islands,'' St. Croix: 1975, pp. 17–30.〕 Hamilton supplemented his education with a family library of 34 books.〔Chernow, p. 24.〕 James Hamilton abandoned Rachel and their sons, allegedly to "spar() () a charge of bigamy ... after finding out that her first husband intend() to divorce her under Danish law on grounds of adultery and desertion."〔 Thereafter, Rachel supported her children in St. Croix, keeping a small store in Christiansted. She contracted a severe fever and died on February 19, 1768, 1:02 am, leaving Hamilton orphaned. This may have had severe emotional consequences for him, even by the standards of an 18th-century childhood.〔E.g., Flexner, ''passim''.〕 In probate court, Rachel's "first husband seized her estate"〔 and obtained the few valuables Rachel had owned, including some household silver. Many items were auctioned off, but a friend purchased the family's books and returned them to the young Hamilton.〔Chernow, p. 25.〕 Hamilton became a clerk at a local import-export firm, Beekman and Cruger, which traded with New England; he was left in charge of the firm for five months in 1771, while the owner was at sea. He and his older brother James Jr. were adopted briefly by a cousin, Peter Lytton; but when Lytton committed suicide, the brothers were separated.〔Chernow, p. 26.〕 James apprenticed with a local carpenter, while Alexander was adopted by a Nevis merchant, Thomas Stevens. According to the writer Ron Chernow, some evidence suggests that Stevens may have been Alexander Hamilton's biological father; his son, Edward Stevens, became a close friend of Hamilton. The two boys were described as looking much alike, were both fluent in French, and shared similar interests.〔Chernow, pp. 27–30.〕 Hamilton continued clerking, but he remained an avid reader, later developing an interest in writing, and began to desire a life outside the small island where he lived. He wrote an essay published in the ''Royal Danish-American Gazette'', a detailed account of a hurricane which had devastated Christiansted on August 30, 1772. His biographer says that, "Hamilton's famous letter about the storm astounds the reader for two reasons: for all its bombastic excesses, it does seem wondrous the 17-year-old self-educated clerk could write with such verve and gusto. Clearly, Hamilton was highly literate and already had considerable fund of verbal riches."〔Chernow, p. 37〕 The essay impressed community leaders, who collected a fund to send the young Hamilton to the North American colonies for his education.〔Gordon, John Steele. ("The Self Made Founder )," ''American Heritage'', April/May 2004.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Alexander Hamilton」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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