Alexander Hamilton

Not really. Aaron Burr challenged Alexander Hamilton to a duel, but Alexander Hamilton intentionally provoked Burr's anger. Both men shared responsibility for Hamilton's death.

Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton belonged to rival political parties, but were on good social terms until Burr defeated Hamilton's father-in-law, Philip Schuyler, in the US Senate race of 1791. Schuyler had been the incumbent Senator from New York, and Hamilton took the defeat badly. The animosity between the two men simmered over several years, but turned to outright hatred after the Presidential election of 1800.

The only political parties at the turn of the 19th-century were the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans. The parties allowed more than one candidate to run for President; no one intentionally ran for Vice-President. When the Electoral College voted, whichever candidate received the most votes became President; the one who received the second greatest number of votes became Vice-President, even if the President and Vice-President represented different parties.

The incumbent President, Federalist John Adams, had become unpopular and lost to Democratic-Republicans Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, who each received the same number of votes. The House of Representatives was responsible resolving the tie. After the House cast 36 tied votes, Alexander Hamilton, who was something of a schemer and manipulator, used his influence to sway the decision in favor of Jefferson.

In 1804, after Burr had been defeated in the New York Gubernatorial race (largely due to Hamilton's political tricks), he learned Hamilton had allegedly made some "despicable" comments about Burr's character. The particulars are unknown because Hamilton's insults were only implied, not quoted.

A man named Dr. Cooper wrote a private letter to an acquaintance, and the letter was somehow leaked to a newspaper. The part Burr found offensive was:

"Genl. Hamilton and Judge Kent have declared in substance that they looked upon Mr. Burr to be a dangerous man, and one who ought not to be trusted with the reins of Government. I could detail to you a still more despicable opinion which General Hamilton has expressed of Mr. Burr."

Burr exchanged several letters with Alexander Hamilton requesting -- then demanding -- an apology, but Hamilton only taunted Burr, pretending innocence. Burr's anger eventually escalated to the point of challenging Hamilton to a duel to defend his honor.

Hamilton accepted, but history tells us he fired first and deliberately threw away the shot, striking a tree limb about fourteen feet above and four feet wide of Burr's head. Burr either believed Hamilton intended to shoot him, or simply took advantage of an opportunity (the truth has never been determined), and fired directly at Hamilton, hitting him in the abdomen. Hamilton sustained organ damage and a severed spinal cord, and died the next day, July 12, 1804.

Hamilton's vision for America was much like Roman virtue. The expansion and domination of trade backed by an elite military. However, as is often a source of misperception Hamilton was not a love of England just its' empire. "While extolling as vice England's practices, it was not Hamilton's intention to improve but to replace England's supremacy. "To make a second England of America, eventually to take over Britain's ascendancy."1

However, Hamilton was much unlike his brethren. It must be remembered that Hamilton was a late comer to the Revolution and was not a part of the causes and motivations that preceded that event by a century. "There was no sharp break between a placid pre-Revolutionary era and the turmoil of the 1760's and 1770's. The argument, the claims and counter-claims, the fears and apprehensions that fill the pamphlets, letters, newspapers, and state papers of the Revolutionary years had in fact been heard throughout the century."2

"...Hamilton stressed the representative variety of popular government, he never committed himself to the definition of republican government propounded in the Federalist by his collaborator James Madison. Madison is the creator and sole advocate of the idea of republican government."3 "A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place."4

Eventually, Madison found himself disillusioned after the adoption of the federal Constitution. "He [Madison] was apparently not aware of the results which the Constitution would produce. He soon became one of the chief architects of the party which opposed the Federalists' interpretation of the Constitution."3 Madison had soon realized that "not all of his Federalist colleagues shared his particular conception of a republican America; some of them he was appalled to learn, even thought in terms of deliberately promoting what he thought necessary to forestall."5

"Although Hamilton's policies were adopted at the time, they were not the only policies available and many of these same policies were actually abandoned within a few years after Hamilton's retirement from government."6

In my book The Never Realized Republic: Political Economy and Republican Virtue I have two chapters devoted to Hamilton's vision:

Chapter V

The Foundation of Hamilton's Vision:

The Power of Authority

Chapter VI

Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury:

The Financing of His Vision

This is fresh scholarship based in a precise historicity. Please see it on Amazon.com.

1Gerald Stourzh, Alexander Hamilton and the Idea of Republican Government, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1970), 6.

2The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution,(Cambridge: Mass, 1992), rev. ed., Foreword, XV.

3 The Federalist Papers, Clinton Rossiter, ed., (New York: Nal Penguin Inc., 1961), No. 10, 81.

4 Robert E. Brown, Charles Beard and the Constitution,(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956), 81.

5 Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 120.

6 Rose, "Alexander Hamilton and the Historians," 855, For other proposals of Morris, see ibid., 862, Madison, ibid., 863, and Jefferson, ibid., 867. See how "the government could have settled its obligations honorably with a far smaller load of debt than Hamilton wished to impose." Frank Bourgin, The Great Challenge: The Myth of Laissez-faire in the Early Republic, (N.Y.: George Braziller), 74.

Alexander Hamilton was born in Charlestown on the island of Nevis, West Indies, on July 11 in either 1755 or 1757 (the exact year is in dispute) to Rachel Faucett Lavien, a single mother divorced by her first husband for committing adultery, and by her second for committing bigamy.

Rachel and her two sons, Alexander and James, moved to Christiansted, in the US Virgin Islands, where Rachel ran a small store to support the family. Alexander's first job was helping his mother run the store until her death from scarlet fever when he was approximately 13.

Hamilton's second job was working as a clerk at a small import-export firm, Beekman and Cruger, that traded with New England.

Alexander Hamilton emigrated to America in 1772 and eventually entered King's College (now Columbia University) where he studied law. While there, he wrote articles and political pamphlets that were published in the New York Journal.

Hamilton joined the military and fought in the Revolutionary War. He met a number of influential people, like John Jay, and was eventually invited to become General George Washington's aide, obtaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He served under Washington for four years, making many important social and political contacts that helped him launch his political career after the War.

Alexander Hamilton was one of the founders of the Federalist Party, a staunch supporter of the Constitution who wrote many of the Federalist Papers encouraging the States to ratify the plan for government.

The Federalists supported a strong central government and a ruling elite. They believed the average citizen was too ignorant to participate in government, or even to vote. The Federalists were opposed by the Anti-Federalists who later formed the Democratic-Republican party under Thomas Jefferson. Democratic-Republicans believed the states should retain more power; they were also slightly more populist than the Federalists.