PDF Summary:Alexander Hamilton, by Ron Chernow

In this comprehensive biography, journalist Ron Chernow describes the life and influence of Alexander Hamilton, arguing that Hamilton has been unfairly overlooked compared to other Founding Fathers. Though he never served as president, he had a profound impact on the structure of the American government and its economy. While Hamilton’s life ended in scandal and a fatal duel, Chernow believes that America today is the realization of Hamilton’s vision, far more so than that of his political rivals like Thomas Jefferson.

This guide will consider Hamilton’s life and legacy, including his unlikely ascension from a poor student from the Caribbean to a trusted advisor of George Washington and leader of one of the US’s earliest political parties. We’ll also discuss additional historical context for the 18th century, how the events of Hamilton’s life have influenced America today, historians’ responses to Chernow’s work, and the book’s adaptation into a hit 2015 musical.

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(Shortform note: Historians have debated how much The Federalist Papers really impacted ratification, since it wasn’t widely read outside of New York and the state only voted to ratify by a slim margin, 30-27. However, the essays have since been cited in hundreds of Supreme Court cases as a resource in interpreting the Constitution, particularly when it comes to defining the limits of federal versus state powers.)

Hamilton as Treasury Secretary

After the Constitution was ratified by a majority of the states, politicians began formally organizing the government, and in 1789 Washington was elected the first president of the US. Chernow argues that Washington was the only possible choice for the job by the turbulent 1780s, since he commanded near-universal respect after leading the Revolutionary Army to victory. Washington appointed a cabinet of ministers to assist him in decision-making, including Hamilton as the first Secretary of the Treasury. This was the highest office Hamilton would ever hold, and Chernow claims that Hamilton left a permanent mark on the US economy, driving it toward capitalism, industrialization, and trade.

Imposing New Taxes

As Treasury Secretary, Hamilton worked to establish the US banking system and impose federal taxes on trade. In a series of reports to Congress, he advised selling government bonds to help finance its operations for the next few years, printing paper money that could replace gold and silver as acceptable tax payments, consolidating individual state debts into a single national debt that Congress would have the responsibility of paying off, imposing taxes on foreign luxury goods like alcohol, tea, and coffee, and establishing the Coast Guard to prevent smuggling and ensure collection of customs duties. All of these policies were eventually adopted.

(Shortform note: These policies—having government bonds available for sale, using paper money, taxing imports—have all survived and even been expanded in the modern-day US. The Coast Guard has also grown, from fewer than a hundred initial members in 1790 to nearly 45,000 today. It is both a military and federal regulatory agency, whose duties outside of tax collection and anti-smuggling operations include search and rescue, enforcing fishing laws, collecting data for the National Weather Service, and operating as a branch of the US Navy during wartime.)

Chernow notes that Hamilton’s economic policies were often controversial, particularly his tax policies. Any tax was unpopular, since the heavy taxes imposed by Britain had been a driving force behind the revolution. Hamilton’s suggestion that domestic production of distilled spirits like whiskey be taxed led to the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794, in which protestors attacked tax collectors. Washington had to personally ride out with over 10,000 militiamen to quell the uprising. Even so, Chernow credits Hamilton’s policies with saving the young US from bankruptcy; by 1790, 90% of government income came from the import taxes he’d proposed.

(Shortform note: Taxes have remained unpopular throughout US history, though most of the taxes modern Americans are familiar with—such as the income tax, sales tax, or taxes designed to fund Social Security—originated in the early 20th century, long after the Founding period. People have differing reasons for resisting taxes; while some argue that taxes are theft by the government, others use tax resistance as a form of conscientious objection or oppose taxes that they feel unjustly target certain groups.)

Growing Resistance to Hamilton

Hamilton’s economic policies were often criticized by southern politicians like Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton’s former ally Madison, who broke with Hamilton over his debt reduction plan. They felt that Hamilton was gutting the rights of states by placing more and more regulatory power in the hands of the government, and in the Office of the Treasury in particular. They waged a particularly vicious attack on the Federal Reserve, arguing that the government had no right to establish credit and regulate commerce so directly. Hamilton retorted that the Constitution, by mentioning the federal government’s right to collect taxes and regulate trade between the states, gave his office “implied powers” over the economy.

(Shortform note: The doctrine of implied powers has been questioned repeatedly throughout US history, as critics argue that it violates both the spirit of the Constitution and the text of the Tenth Amendment. However, it would eventually be held up by the Supreme Court, the government body which has the power to dismiss laws based on whether or not they violate the Constitution. In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Court ruled that “implied powers” was a fair defense of the Federal Reserve, since the Constitution declares that the federal government should have as much power as is “necessary and proper” to carry out its duties.)

Chernow suggests that Jefferson’s criticisms of Hamilton were partly motivated by resentment. Washington went to Hamilton for suggestions far more often than he went to Jefferson or even Vice President John Adams, who worked primarily in the Senate. Throughout Hamilton’s career, critics would accuse him of being a closet authoritarian who manipulated Washington into passing undemocratic policies. However, Chernow points out that records of cabinet meetings show that Washington was unafraid to disagree with or override Hamilton’s suggestions.

(Shortform note: These accusations are an example of the political trope of the manipulative advisor or “power behind the throne,” who is accused of using their personal relationship with a ruler to advance their own interests. While some genuine historical examples exist, people often invoke this trope so they can criticize their government without directly attacking the ruler, instead scapegoating another, less important figure. The American revolutionaries used this rhetorical sleight-of-hand themselves in their 1774 Petition to the King, in which Congress claimed it was still loyal to King George III and merely resisted the unjust policies of Parliament.)

Federalism Versus Republicanism

While serving as Treasury Secretary, Hamilton also became an important figure in the emergence of the first American political parties, which had begun to develop during the Constitutional ratification process and became powerful forces under the Washington administration. They were not formal organizations, but loose alliances of politicians who shared beliefs about the US economy, foreign relations, the future of slavery, and so on. Loyalty tended to consolidate around powerful figures, and Chernow argues that Hamilton and Jefferson were the unofficial heads of the Federalist and Republican parties, respectively. Both men dominated American politics even after they each left their positions in Washington’s cabinet.

(Shortform note: The terms “federalist” and “republican” accurately describe the US government, since it is both a federation (a union of states under a central government) and a republic (a democracy in which citizens elect officials to represent them). The Federalists of the 1790s took their name from the pro-Constitution faction of the ratification process (the anti-Constitution faction were the “anti-federalists”), while the Republicans took their name from the French revolutionaries who overthrew France’s monarchy in 1789. These names reflect the parties’ different visions for how the US should function: by consolidating many perspectives into a single authoritative voice, or giving those many perspectives an equal voice in debate.)

The development of political parties was initially viewed with alarm by many, as they were seen as a threat to cooperation in government and a vestige of the monarchy, in which factions competed for the king or queen’s favor. As a result, party activity such as selecting presidential candidates to represent the larger group’s interests was generally done behind the scenes. In his 1796 farewell address, Washington disavowed “factionalism” and asked that politicians seek unity over infighting, to little effect. The press recognized and wrote about party allegiances, and several pro-Federalist and pro-Republican newspapers were funded by Hamilton and Jefferson to drum up public support for their causes.

(Shortform note: The US has consistently had two dominant political parties throughout its history, though the modern-day Democratic and Republican parties didn’t emerge until the mid-1800s, and their political stances have shifted dramatically over nearly two centuries. While there are other parties, such as the Libertarian and Green parties, political analysts generally agree that the structure of US elections makes it next to impossible for them to gain influence.)

North Versus South and the Slavery Question

Chernow notes that most Federalists came from northern states, while most Republicans came from southern states. This was reflected in the parties’ contrasting beliefs about the future of the US economy. The North was increasingly urban and dependent on manufacturing, and while slavery was still practiced in states like New York and New Jersey, slaves were a small portion of the population and mostly worked in domestic household positions. By contrast, in southern states like Virginia and South Carolina, the economy depended on the production of cash crops like sugar, cotton, and tobacco on massive slave plantations, and slaves made up close to half of the total population.

(Shortform note: This tension between North and South and their two divergent economies—the latter of which depended on slavery as a continued practice—would escalate for much of the next century, eventually erupting into the American Civil War of the 1860s. Eleven southern states (by this period there were 37 states total) attempted to secede and form their own country, resulting in four years of war and at least 600,000 deaths. The war ended with a Northern victory and nationwide abolition of slavery in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution. Despite this, the Mason-Dixon line, the border between the states of Maryland and Pennsylvania, is still treated as a kind of cultural border between northeastern and southern Americans.)

Chernow describes Hamilton as a committed abolitionist who worked with the New York Manumission Society to defend slaves and free African-Americans in court. While not all Federalists opposed slavery outright, many favored scaling back the practice alongside a push toward greater industrialization to create a domestic market for American raw materials. Republicans, on the other hand, largely saw slavery as essential to the American way of life and condemned the push for abolition as an attempt by Federalists to break down Republican power and deprive southern voters of economic influence. Several fights against slavery were waged in Congress in the last years of the 18th century, but all failed.

Complicating Hamilton’s Abolitionism

Several historians have criticized Chernow’s depiction of Hamilton as an abolitionist as being based on little or no evidence. While Hamilton did call slavery immoral in his writings, this was not uncommon among the Founding Fathers, the vast majority of whom owned slaves themselves. Many revolutionary figures condemned slavery in public while continuing to benefit from it in practice.

This was also true for most of the founders of the New York Manumission Society, which Chernow describes as the vehicle for Hamilton’s anti-slavery legal work—Hamilton may have defended the rights of slave owners in court as often as those of African Americans. Financial records show that Hamilton bought and sold slaves on behalf of his wife’s family, and recent scholarship suggests that he owned several by the 1790s, as would have been typical for a white man of his class living in New York. There’s no evidence that he supported any of the failed anti-slavery campaigns in Congress.

Friendship With Britain Versus With France

France’s democratic revolution in 1789 and subsequent war with much of Europe, including Britain, would become a flashpoint in the struggle between Federalists and Republicans. The two parties disagreed about whether to maintain neutrality in the conflict and which country—Britain or France—could prove to be a better ally to the US in the coming decades. Though both Jefferson and Hamilton had left office by 1794, they continued to exert influence in Congress and the cabinet of the US’s second president, the Federalist John Adams.

The Federalists favored a renewed friendship with Britain, seeing it as a more stable and economically valuable partner. Hamilton in particular advocated for increased trade between the US and Britain. By contrast, Republicans saw the French Revolution as the ideological companion to the American Revolution, fought against a monarchy on the same principles of democracy and freedom. Jefferson and others also argued that the US owed France for its assistance during the Revolutionary War.

Too Much Government Versus Too Much Democracy

Chernow argues that the French Revolution and its violent aftermath embodied some of Hamilton’s worst fears about the future of the US—namely, that a justified democratic revolt against a monarchy would devolve into chaos and mob rule. Looking at Hamilton’s writings, Chernow observes that he repeatedly expressed concern that a weak central government and “too much democracy” would lead to anarchy. The 1793 Reign of Terror in France, in which thousands of supposed traitors and former elites were imprisoned or publicly executed (including the French royal family), was interpreted by many Federalists as just that.

Republicans like Jefferson, a known Francophile who’d lived in Paris for years during the Revolutionary War, tended to use more idealistic and populist rhetoric, championing the rights of the common man and decrying “too much government” as a slippery slope toward authoritarianism. While Federalists condemned the Terror, Republicans largely dismissed the reports of violence as propaganda and expressed solidarity with the revolutionaries.

(Shortform note: Historians have waged a long and contentious debate over responsibility for the Terror and its scope. Those who blame Maximilien Robespierre, a revolutionary leader, generally argue that the Terror began in early 1793 and ended with his execution in the summer of 1794, but others claim that the killings began as early as 1792 and went on well into 1795. The number of people killed has been suggested to be as low as two thousand or as high as fifty thousand. Scholars also disagree on whether the violence was inevitable or a gradual perversion of what began as a noble democratic movement.)

When war between France and Britain broke out in 1793, the question of how the US should respond was complicated by the fact that the executed King Louis XVI had supported the American Revolution, and several important revolutionary allies, such as the Marquis de Lafayette, fled France in fear for their lives during the Terror. The Washington and Adams administrations both recognized the new French government and exchanged diplomats, but they attempted to remain neutral otherwise, which would become progressively more difficult through the end of the decade.

(Shortform note: Ironically, the support King Louis XVI and Lafayette gave to the American Revolution contributed to their downfall during the French Revolution. France’s participation in that war left its government nearly bankrupt during a period of repeated food shortages, adding to Louis XVI’s unpopularity, and Lafayette’s military service led to him being named captain of the Paris National Guard, which he would then order into the Champ de Mars massacre. Louis XVI was guillotined in 1793, and Lafayette escaped to present-day Belgium, only for the Austrian government to imprison him as a potentially dangerous revolutionary. The US government was unable to negotiate his release, though it did send him money for several years.)

The Practicalities of American Involvement

A large part of Hamilton’s support for Britain over France was motivated by the fact that Britain would be a more valuable trading partner, providing everyday goods to the US while France generally exported only luxuries. An alliance could also open up trade between the US and the Caribbean, where Britain still owned several colonies, and ensure the safety of US ships in the Atlantic—at this time, the British navy was the most powerful in the world. Entering into a war with Britain would, in Hamilton and Chernow’s view, prove disastrous for the US’s economy and internal stability. The eventual position of the Adams administration, supported by Hamilton, was to maintain neutrality.

(Shortform note: Though US-British relations would remain turbulent throughout the 19th century, particularly as Britain maintained neutrality during the American Civil War, since World War II the two countries have been close political and economic allies. Today, the US is Britain’s biggest export market, and the two countries are each other’s largest direct investors.)

The neutrality approach met with several roadblocks. Once Britain joined the war against France in 1793, it began illegally capturing American ships and sailors and conscripting them into the fight. Chief Justice John Jay signed a treaty with Britain on behalf of the US in 1794 that brought an end to this practice, but the treaty was viewed by much of the public as unfairly biased—Britain did not promise to return the captured ships, and while the US granted Britain most-favored-nation status in trade, it didn’t receive the same privileges in return. Chernow notes that many Americans opposed any kind of agreement with Britain, still seeing them as the enemy of the Revolutionary War.

(Shortform note: Historically, most-favored-nation (MFN) status referred to one nation giving another certain advantages in trade, such as the receiving nation having to pay lower tariffs or being able to import and export greater quantities of goods to and from the giving nation. In the modern day, all member nations of the World Trade Organization give MFN status to each other, ensuring equal benefits for participating in the WTO. Member nations may vote to strip other nations of their MFN status as a form of political pressure.)

In response to American neutrality, US-France relations steadily deteriorated throughout the 1790s. Under the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, France began capturing American ships, trade between the two nations was embargoed, and the US paused repaying its loans from the Revolutionary War. However, by 1800 these tensions had relaxed, and by the end of the European war in 1803 the relationship between the US and France was strong enough to facilitate the Louisiana Purchase; a massive sale of land in North America to the US.

(Shortform note: The peace surrounding the Louisiana Purchase would prove temporary, as the Napoleonic Wars between France and much of Europe began later in 1803 and continued on and off until 1815. While the US maintained neutrality, Britain once again seized American ships and sailors, which became one of several factors leading the US to declare war on Britain in 1812. The War of 1812 ultimately ended with a truce, while the Napoleonic Wars ended with the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte and the temporary restoration of the French monarchy.)

The Slow Collapse of Federalism

By the end of the 18th century, Federalism’s popularity was waning. Chernow argues that the party lost all significance under a succession of Republican presidents, beginning with Jefferson’s election in 1800. Though Federalism continued operating for another decade, it had few voters outside of New England. Chernow attributes the party’s collapse to infighting, a series of unpopular measures implemented by Adams, and Hamilton’s own diminishing influence as he was beset by scandal and increasingly out of step with the party line.

Infighting

Chernow describes Adams as an extremely prideful and paranoid figure who, like Jefferson, resented Hamilton’s close relationship with Washington. After Adams took office, his feud with Hamilton became more bitter and personal, as he repeatedly questioned Hamilton’s race and the circumstances of his birth. He also suspected, correctly, that members of his cabinet were Hamilton sympathizers—Chernow notes that Adams’s Secretary of State and Treasury Secretary regularly solicited Hamilton’s advice before writing policy. This led Adams to exclude them from decision-making and ultimately purge the cabinet in his final year in office.

As a result of their rivalry, pro-Hamilton and pro-Adams factions formed within the Federalist party. The issue came to a head with Hamilton’s publication of an anti-Adams pamphlet in 1800. Though it was intended to be read by only a few Federalists, it was soon leaked to the press. Chernow argues that the pamphlet made both Hamilton and Adams look incompetent and petty, as it used private White House documents to highlight Adams’s personal insults against Hamilton, yet ended with an endorsement of his re-election against Jefferson as the lesser of two evils. It’s unclear how much impact the pamphlet had on Adams’s loss, but it further broke down communication between the two factions.

(Shortform note: Hamilton did not intend to hurt Adams’s reelection campaign, but in the years since, sub-groups within political parties have used similar tactics to undermine elections, either in protest of specific figures or of changes to a party’s platform. For example, in 1884, the “mugwumps” switched their votes to Democrat rather than vote for the corrupt Republican candidate James G. Blaine, and in 2016 the Never Trump movement unsuccessfully attempted to block Donald Trump’s nomination with a mix of public personal attacks and proposed revisions to the Republican National Convention’s voting process.)

Unpopular Policies

Public support for American neutrality toward the Britain-France conflict waxed and waned throughout the Adams presidency, but Chernow argues that the tide turned decidedly against the Federalist party with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, passed by the Adams administration but endorsed by Hamilton. These acts were widely interpreted as an authoritarian abuse of power that enabled Federalist persecution of Republicans and immigrants.

The Sedition Act criminalized publishing false information about the government or politicians. While the act’s stated purpose was to cut down on misinformation from the press, which had grown substantially in the 1790s, and to protect politicians from slander, Chernow notes that it was wielded primarily against Republican journalists and newspapers. Legal challenges accused the act of being a form of legalized censorship.

(Shortform note: Defenders of the Sedition Act sometimes argued that journalists encouraged dissension and violence by publishing misinformation. While the Act didn’t survive into the 19th century, similar fears about the power and influence of the news media did—in the 1890s, critics of “yellow” or sensationalist tabloid journalism suggested that it was partially responsible for the US entering the Spanish-American War. Today, research shows that various governments may themselves use internet “troll farms” on social media to spread misinformation or encourage support for particular policies.)

The remaining acts all focused on the rights of recent immigrants to the US, making it more difficult for them to attain citizenship and allowing them to be deported or detained without trial. These policies prompted the emigration of many French citizens living in the US and were widely condemned as prejudiced and undemocratic, not to mention hypocritical on Hamilton’s part, as he had himself emigrated from the Caribbean. Jefferson campaigned on a promise to appeal the acts, and he kept this promise for all but one, the Alien Enemies Act, which allows citizens of a nation the US is at war with to be imprisoned indefinitely without charge. As of 2023, it remains in effect, despite controversy over its use during World War II to imprison Japanese Americans.

(Shortform note: Over a hundred thousand Japanese Americans were imprisoned in concentration camps as potential “alien enemies” between 1942 and 1946. Half of those interned were children, and over two-thirds held US citizenship. Conditions in the camps were poor, and nearly two thousand people died inside, mostly from disease. In the decades since, the US government has issued a formal apology and paid reparations to the surviving former detainees, but the Alien Enemies Act has never been formally challenged, and revisions made to it since 1946 have only expanded its reach.)

Hamilton’s Fall From Grace

Chernow argues that the Adams pamphlet was only one of a series of missteps Hamilton made near the end of his career. Being the de facto head of the Federalist party, Hamilton fell out of favor as the party did, but he also attracted personal condemnation for the Reynolds scandal of 1797. By the time of his death in 1804, Hamilton was an increasingly unpopular figure of waning influence.

Hamilton’s 1791 affair with Maria Reynolds, a married woman, and subsequent blackmail by her husband was the nation’s first sex scandal, revealed by gossip columnist and Republican sympathizer James Callender in a series of pamphlets that accused Hamilton not only of adultery, but also insider trading—conspiring with the Reynolds to use his knowledge of the US economy to buy and sell government bonds at critical times and make a profit. Hamilton retaliated by publishing what became known as the Reynolds Pamphlet, in which he confessed to the affair but denied any financial wrongdoing. Chernow agrees with Hamilton’s summary of events, but he calls the Reynolds Pamphlet a fatal mistake nonetheless.

(Shortform note: Some historians have theorized that Hamilton actually was conspiring with the Reynolds to commit fraud, and the story of the affair was a total fabrication designed to cover his tracks. Callender himself later suggested that the spelling and grammatical errors in Maria Reynolds’ letters (as reproduced in the Pamphlet by Hamilton) were inconsistent and may have been an educated man’s attempt to reconstruct how a less educated woman would write. Skeptics of this theory point out that there’s no evidence for Hamilton laundering money in his financial records and that he was heavily in debt for much of his life.)

By the standards of the day, the pamphlet was shockingly detailed and embarrassing. Chernow notes that many of Hamilton’s allies had advised him to simply ignore Callender’s accusations, and while his confession did not damage his position within the party or his relationship with Washington, it did ensure that he never held public office again. It also made it difficult for Hamilton to criticize other politicians—for example, when he targeted Jefferson, who had his own sex scandal involving the enslaved woman Sally Hemings, Hamilton was accused of hypocrisy.

(Shortform note: Though rumors about Sally Hemings would follow Jefferson for the rest of his life, and sexual violence committed against slaves by slave owners was common in this era, Callender’s claims were largely dismissed by historians until the late 1990s, when a history of the Hemings family published by historian Annette Gordon-Reed and a DNA test conducted on their surviving descendants demonstrated that Jefferson almost certainly was the father of at least four of Sally Hemings’s children, all of whom were born into slavery.)

Hamilton’s Death and Legacy

Chernow argues that Hamilton’s death in a duel with politician Aaron Burr would be his most famous misstep, overshadowing accounts of his life up until the modern day. This is partly due to the sensationalism of the crime, as both Hamilton and Burr were famous public figures, dueling had recently been outlawed in New York, and Hamilton was relatively young (47) at the time of his death.

Duel With Burr

Burr was a frequent target of Hamilton’s criticism, as he switched party allegiances throughout his career. Hamilton was even harsher toward Burr than toward leading Republicans, describing him as a morally bankrupt opportunist who behaved in whatever way was politically convenient for him. Burr challenged Hamilton to a duel over the personal nature of the insults and his belief that Hamilton had cost him two critical elections—though Chernow suggests that his loss of the presidency in 1800 and the governorship of New York in 1804 had more to do with Burr’s general unpopularity.

(Shortform note: While he finished his term as Jefferson’s Vice President, Burr never held political office again after the duel, and the remainder of his life was beset by scandal. For example, in 1807 he was accused of treason for supposedly attempting to found his own country in the American Southwest and subsequently fled to Europe. Today, Burr is known primarily as Hamilton’s killer.)

The circumstances of Hamilton’s death have been repeatedly questioned by historians, with attendees giving different accounts of who fired first. Chernow agrees with the theory that Hamilton deliberately withheld his fire, as he had written a statement before the duel declaring his intention to “hold his shot” out of a moral objection to killing and desire to resolve the conflict without violence. This was considerably riskier than arranging an apology in advance, but Hamilton’s friends failed to convince him to either forgo the duel or make a genuine attempt to defend himself. The result was that Hamilton was fatally shot by Burr, dying at home the next day.

(Shortform note: Dueling, in which one person challenges another to a fight to the death in the name of honor, dates back to medieval Europe. Typically, both participants must use the same weapon—often swords or pistols—and follow strict rules of conduct regarding where, when, and how they can fight. Though dueling was extremely common in 18th and 19th century America, it rarely resulted in any deaths. The practice died out by the 1870s, though it remains a popular trope in American Western films.)

Hamilton’s Memory

Hamilton was mourned by all of New York, and Burr would be remembered by history as a villainous murderer. Even so, Chernow argues that the many controversies of Hamilton’s life continued to haunt his legacy after his death. While his widow, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, attempted to rehabilitate his image by commissioning a lengthy biography by their son, historians have often pulled from Adams’s and Jefferson’s many attacks on Hamilton to depict him as an indiscreet and manipulative politician whose relevance ended with that of the Federalist party.

(Shortform note: While Hamilton was generally treated as a minor character in revolutionary history prior to the success of the 2015 musical, he appears as an outright villain in such works as Gore Vidal’s 1973 novel Burr, the 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams, and Dumas Malone’s six-volume biography Jefferson and His Time, in which Malone accuses Hamilton of having “lusted for personal as well as national power.”)

By recounting Hamilton’s life, Chernow hopes to prove that these framings are both inaccurate and fail to recognize the ways in which the modern US is the realization of Hamilton’s vision, far more so than that of Jefferson or many of the other Founding Fathers. The US of today has a strong central government and an urban, capitalist economy, with the New York banks and stock exchanges founded in Hamilton’s day (and with his encouragement) as the country’s financial center. Chernow believes that even with Hamilton’s personal struggles, and though he was never president, Hamilton left an indelible stamp on the very structure of the US.

(Shortform note: Chernow’s argument is arguably an oversimplification, since the division between state and federal powers and the future of the US economy would remain controversial issues for much of the 19th century—the Civil War‘s battle over slavery was followed by the Reconstruction era’s attempt to reassert federal power and then by the withdrawal of that power in the Compromise of 1877. The US has not followed a straight line of urban and federal development from Hamilton today, but continued to struggle over its future.)