History 111
ALEXANDER HAMILTON, AMERICAN by Richard Brookhiser
(Book Review) Publish on 1999 ,Alexander Hamilton, American, it’s a 240 pages biography book on which author Richard Brookhiser sets the arguments to describe one of America’s founding fathers, Mr Alexander Hamilton. Richard Brookhiser takes us through the times on which Hamilton lived, accounting all the extraordinary events that surrounded and shape his life and character from his humble beginnings in St. Croix to the years he hold a position of power as the nation’s Treasury Secretary. All through the book Brookhiser explore other’s points of view about Hamilton. As all persons involved in politics Hamilton had supporters, enemies and people that could not described or comprehend what kind of American he was. Alexander Hamilton is known for many as a genius and a great economist but others point to his achievements as “forcing the dominion of big money or big government or both”(Brookhiser 4). The contrast of opinions on Hamilton serves as points of examination for Brookhiser, who put all perceptions at test with the facts of reality to create a real perspective. As the author points out on the book, “the tread that runs through every chapter, and every aspect of Hamilton’s life, is his identity as an American.
The author sets to tell Hamilton’s history through ten chapters which go from the earliest accounts of Hamilton’s childhood to his last moments of agony before death. Brookhiser begins with a brief introduction into the person that Hamilton was, by taking a look onto the commemoration of independence at New York City on July 4, 1789. At the Nation’s capital at the time Alexander Hamilton was in charge of the main oration. Althoug the subject of the speech was a eulogy for a revolutionary hero General Nathanael Greene “the foundation was a meditation on character and opportunity”(. Hamilton speech and analisys was better suited for himself due to the fact that from all Founder Fathers he was the only one that came from real humble beginnings.
After the introduction the author takes the journey to the erliest years as Hamilton grows up at St. Croix on the Virgin Islands. At a very young age Hamilton showed signs of his great abilities as a writer. One of his letters ended up published on the Gazette which helped him to be sponsor by friends and employers to come to the mainland. He got his education at king’s college in New York and start writing about politics and the ongoing revolution.
On the chapter entitled War, Brookhiser takes us to Hamilton’s involvement in the revolution, but most importantly his relationship with the great commander and future president George Washington. As the autor describe it “for the first time in his life –and also for the last-Alexander Hamilton was meeting a man who was greater than himself”(. After war he was put on charge of The Treasury wich was by far the largest department of the new government. With regard to the others in Washington’s cabinet, Brookhiser said of Hamilton, “ He worked harder than his colleagues and had more work to do. (Brookhiser, p.83).” His First Report on Public Credit Hamilton realized that assumption of the debts of the states by the government would lead the United States to have more creditworthiness, the Treasury Secretary’s most important arguments, according to Brookhiser, were that individual states were inflating their way out of debt or defaulting and that these actions brought dishonor to all US citizens. Hamilton, in his position as first Secretary of the Treasury, took a nation that was mired in debt and gave it one of the world’s first modern financial systems.
All of hamilton’s achievements will be tainted by an affair he held with a married woman Maria Reynolds. As the first political scandal of the newly United States, the episode will haunt Hamilton’s reputation until the en of his life. Hamilton wrote Observations on Certain Documents, publicly admitting his affair with Maria Reynolds.
All through his life Alexander Hamilton show his masterful skills as a writer from his earliest contributions to the main land on "The Farmer Refuted," to the “The Federalist papers” which he used to support the new constitution. His written abilities were used by Washington many times during the years that they work together and on the most important moments like on Washington’s Farewell Address.