A decade later James Hamilton abandoned his family. Alexander, the second of these, was born in 1755 (other historians say 1757). Kitts and eventually into the arms of James Hamilton, with whom she had two more children. Croix and fled, without benefit of divorce, to St. Upon her release, Rachel abandoned her husband and son on St.
It is hard to imagine an unhappier marriage than that of his mother Rachel to John Lavien, who had her thrown in prison because she would not sleep with him but apparently would with others. Though Hamilton never returned to the Caribbean and rarely spoke of his upbringing, Chernow emphasizes how much he was haunted by the scenes of his youth, especially the viciousness of slave society and the languid morals of the islands.įor examples of the latter, Hamilton did not have to look far. Hamilton was born on the fly-speck island of Nevis, in the West Indies, and spent his childhood there and on St. The time has therefore become ripe for a Hamilton revival, and signs of it have been visible in everything from editorials in the Weekly Standard propounding a Hamilton-inspired vision of “national greatness” to a major Hamilton exhibition at the New-York Historical Society this fall. Capitalism bestrides the globe, conservative Republicans have dominated national politics, and Jefferson’s reputation suffers from a generation’s sustained assault by scholars and popular writers consumed by his unsavory relation to slavery. Hamilton, said FDR, was “the most brilliant, honest, and able exponent” of the view that “popular government was essentially dangerous and essentially unworkable.” And there Hamilton languished, as Jefferson’s anti-democratic foil, for the rest of the century. Roosevelt made clear his opinion of the two founders by celebrating the Virginian-he put Jefferson’s face on the nickel and consecrated the Jefferson Memorial-and by consigning Hamilton, gently but firmly, to the infamous company of the robber barons and economic royalists.
In that alleged synthesis, Hamilton was not so subtly demoted: in the famous formula of the political journalist Herbert Croly, Hamiltonian means were to be mustered for the sake of Jeffersonian ends.įranklin D. Though many Progressives liked Hamilton’s expansive view of federal power, his support for banks and bonds rankled them they felt it wiser to combine his principles with those of his bitter rival, Thomas Jefferson.
His fame peaked early, spurred by Henry Cabot Lodge’s admiring biography (1882) and by Republican eulogists as diverse as Theodore Roosevelt and Calvin Coolidge. The 20th century was not kind to Alexander Hamilton.
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