The Man Who Made Modern America: Alexander Hamilton

Many of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America have national monuments symbolizing to the people their greatness and their contributions to shape what the Nation is today. One Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton, does not have his own monument in this country. Historians and many other people will say, "we are standing on Hamilton's monument", meaning the United States of America. Alexander Hamilton was a great leader because he assured financial security of the United State, a strong military force for the Nation, and helped create a more diversified and prosperous economy

Alexander Hamilton was born in the British West Indies in 1755 to Rachel Lavien and James Hamilton. His parents were never married, causing Alexander to be a bastard child. This would haunt him later in his life. Both his parents passed away before he was fourteen, leaving him an orphan in an aristocratic world. He found a job as a bookkeeper for a clergyman and wanted a war to get out of his city. He wrote in his local paper and caught the attention of clergymen who then sent him to New York to further his education. Alexander attended King's College in 1773. He wrote patriotic papers about the crisis deepening with Great Britain. Two years later war broke out and Hamilton was captain of an artillery company in New York in 1776.

"At age twenty-two he was promoted lieutenant colonel and appointed on the staff of the commander in chief, George Washington" (125). Washington took Alexander under his wing and from then on they shared a father-son relationship.

Hamilton was elected but the New York Assembly to be one of its representatives to the Confederation Congress, in 1782. There he met James Madison, who shared many of the same ideas as Hamilton, and the partnership for strengthening the national government was being comprehended. In a couple of years these two men were trying to add powers to the Confederation in a couple of convention that eventually led to the essay The Federalist to support the Constitution. Even though Hamilton supported the Constitution he had many doubts. He believed "that the British government was "the best in the world" and that "he doubted much whether anything short of it would do in America""(126-127). He stood by Madison in the ratification debates. After all the changes both agreed that it would fail because it strayed away from Madison's original plan.

In 1789, Alexander was given the compliment "the greatest statesmen of the age"(127). That same year he was appointment by President George Washington to be secretary of the treasury. Washington knew he was the perfect man for the job because they shared a continental standpoint and a passion for the Union, a realistic point of view about human nature, and a common attitude on the future of the United States. During the same year the government created other departments to help run the country. Washington was very strict and present with these secretaries, but when it came to Hamilton he was very lenient and gave the upper hand to Hamilton on how the treasury was run. Hamilton was now the most significant minister in the new administration. Hamilton thought that the most meaningful measures of every government starts with the treasury. Being arrogant by nature,