So there is no Hamilton monument in Washington, but at least we now have Ron Chernow's moving and masterly ''Alexander Hamilton,'' which is by far the best biography ever written about the man.
He is the most neglected, first because he was a relentless climber (and nobody has unalloyed views about ambition), second because he was a great champion of commerce (and nobody has uncomplicated views about that either) and third because his most bitter rivals, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, outlived him by decades and did everything they could to bury his reputation. He was the most progressive because he saw that America could be a capitalist superpower, and he figured out which institutions it would need to realize that destiny. Within five decades he was dead at the hands of Aaron Burr.Īlexander Hamilton was the most progressive, and is the most neglected, of the founding fathers. Within three decades he had served as Treasury secretary and forged the modern financial and economic systems that are the basis for American might today. Within two decades he was one of New York's most successful lawyers and had written major portions of The Federalist Papers. Within a decade he was effectively George Washington's chief of staff, organizing the American revolutionary army and serving bravely in combat. Within three years he was a successful businessman. By the time he was a young teenager, he and his brother were orphaned, alone and destitute. Croix seized all of his possessions, sold off his personal effects and gave the rest to his mother's first husband. During those same years, his aunt, uncle and grandmother also died. He was adopted by a cousin, who promptly committed suicide. When he was around 12, his mother died of a fever in the bed next to his. When Alexander Hamilton was 10, his father abandoned him.
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