1 The two other most prominent foreign-born founders were James Wilson and Charles Lee. Wilson, born in Scotland, came to America in 1765. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, and was appointed to the first United States Supreme Court. Lee, who had fought in America during the Seven Years War, returned to America in 1773, settling in Virginia. At the beginning of the Revolution he was Washington's second in command.Google Scholar

2 On Hamilton's early life, see generally Broadus Mitchell, Alexander Hamilton: A Concise Biography (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), and James Thomas Flexner, The Young Hamilton: A Biography (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1978).Google Scholar

3 Hamilton was elected to the national Congress in the 1780s, under the Articles of Confederation an office filled by a vote of the state legislature, not a vote of the people. He also served as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, as the choice of the state legislature. He successfully sought election to the New York ratifying convention in 1789. This was the last time he ran for office.Google Scholar

4 5 Julius Goebel, Jr., & Joseph H. Smith, eds., The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton 30-139 (New York: Columbia University Press for William Nelson Cromwell Foundation, 1964–81) [hereinafter cited as Law Practice].Google Scholar

5 He had almost no close friends who were his equals in age and status. He seems to have developed only one close friendship in his life—with John Laurens, an aristocratic South Carolinian who also served on Washington's staff. Nor could he develop warm relationships with his superiors. On the psychology of Hamilton, see Flexner, supra note 2; Forrest McDonald, Alexander Hamilton: A Biography (New York: W. W. Norton Co., 1979); and Jacob E. Cooke, Alexander Hamilton: A Biography 17, 37 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1982).Google Scholar

6 There is some question about this date. McDonald and Flexner, supra note 2, assert that he was born January 11, 1757. Mitchell, supra note 2, and Noemie Emery, Alexander Hamilton: An Intimate Portrait (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1982). date his birth as January 11, 1755. Richard B. Morris, Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation (New York: Harper & Row, Torchbook, 1969), gives no precise date of birth, and in his chronology of Hamilton's life writes “c. 1755–57 [Jan. 11] Alexander Hamilton born” (id. at xix). In this essay I have used the earlier date of 1755. The only important difference is that if Hamilton was born in 1757, he was an even greater prodigy than if he had been born in 1755.Google Scholar

7 Hamilton to Edward Stevens, Nov. 11, 1769, in 2 Harold C. Syrett, ed., The Papers of Alexander Hamilton 4 (26 vols. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961–68) [hereinafter cited as Hamilton Papers].Google Scholar

8 His knowledge of gunnery came from books and a rather comic exploit in which he helped drag some stolen cannon from the Grand Battery to the middle of New York, where they were abandoned when British ships began shelling the thieves. Flexner, supra note 2, at 80–83; Cooke, supra note 5, at 6–11.Google Scholar

9 At Yorktown he led a battalion of light infantry in a risky but successful assault on a British redoubt. He was acclaimed a hero, but much to his regret Congress failed to award him a medal or a commendation.Google Scholar

10 General Benjamin Lincoln observed “that Hamilton was a very extraordinary young man.” Flexner, supra note 2, at 135.Google Scholar

11 Even though he was the most important subordinate in the headquarters. General Washington had offered him a promotion to lieutenant colonel and a staff position, which he accepted; but despite the extraordinary honor of the position, he was not entirely pleased because it undermined “my desire … to keep my happiness independent of the caprices of others.” Hamilton to Philip Schuyler, Feb. 18, 1781. 2 Hamilton Papers 563–65. In February 1781 he used the pretext of a slight argument with Washington to resign. Though Washington asked Hamilton to reconsider, Hamilton was, in his own words, “inflexible,” and blamed the “open rupture” with “The Great Man” on Washington's “ill humor.” Hamilton to Maj. James McHenry, Feb. 18, 1781, id. at 569. In fact, however, it was his own ill-humor at being a subordinate—a position that kept him from winning glory at the front—that led to the break. He explained to his father-in-law that he had “always disliked the office of an Aide de camp as having in it a kind of personal dependance.” Hamilton to Schuyler, Feb. 18, 1781, id. at 565. He had refused similar offers “to serve in this capacity with two Major General's at an early period of the war” and was “induced” by Washington to “accept his invitation” despite his misgivings. Id. at 565, 566.Google Scholar

12 Hylton v, United States, 3 Dallas 199 (1796). See 4 Law Practice 297–335.Google Scholar

13 A year before meeting Betsey, he asked John Laurens to find him a wife, a woman who was “young, handsome (I lay most stress upon a good shape) sensible … . In politics, I am indifferent what side she may be of; I think I have arguments that will easily convert her to mine. As to religion a moderate stock will satisfy me. She must believe in God and hate a saint. But as to fortune, the larger the stock of that the better. You know my temper and circumstances and will therefore pay special attention to this article in the treaty.” Hamilton to Laurens, Apr. 1779, 2 Hamilton Papers 33–38, at 37. Hamilton later wrote that she was “a good hearted girl … though not a genius she has good sense enough to be agreeable, and though not a beauty, she has fine black eyes—is rather handsome and has every other requisite of the exterior to make a lover happy.” Hamilton to Laurens, June 30, 1780, id. at 347–48.Google Scholar

14 1 Law Practice 47.Google Scholar

15 A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, &c. from the Calumnies of their Enemies; In Answer to A Letter, Under the Signature of A. W. Farmer … (New York: James Rivington, 1774), reprinted in 1 Hamilton Papers 45–78; The Farmer Refuted … (New York: James Rivington, 1775), reprinted in 1 Hamilton Papers 81–165; Hamilton also published an essay supporting the patriot cause: “Remarks on the Quebec Bill: Part One, by the Author of The Farmer Refuted, &c.” in Rivington's New-York Gazetteer, June 15, 1775, reprinted in id. at 165–76.Google Scholar

16 Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution 27, 31 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1967).Google Scholar

17 Id. at 28.Google Scholar

18 Id. at 30.Google Scholar

19 Id. at 31. After the Revolution Jefferson would claim that the Declaration of Independence was based on no particular source. “All its authority,” he wrote “rests then on the harmonizing sentiments of the day, whether expressed in conversation, in letters, printed essays, or in the elementary books of public right, as Aristotle, Cicero, Locke, Sidney, &c.” Thomas Jefferson to Henry Lee, May 8, 1825, in 10 Paul Leicester Ford, ed., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson 343 (10 vols. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, Knickerbocker Press, 1892–99). See also Garry Wills, Inventing America: Jefferson's Declaration of Independence esp. 167–80 (New York: Random House, 1979).Google Scholar

20 McDonald concludes that Hamilton scanned many sources looking for rhetorical ammunition. McDonald, supra note 5, at 50 & 377 n.4. He writes that Goebel and others “take Hamilton's sprinkling of references to legal authorities to mean that he had studied more deeply in the law than I believe he actually had—as Hamilton no doubt intended his readers should… . To appreciate their superficiality one must read the sources thoroughly and compare them with Hamilton's polemic,” id. at 377 n.4. Given the speed at which Hamilton wrote his first two pamphlets it is impossible to believe that even a man of his genius could have mastered all the sources he cited.Google Scholar

21 1 Law Practice 48.Google Scholar

22 1 Law Practice 48.Google Scholar

23 Flexner, supra note 2, at 375.Google Scholar

24 The corporate law firm was unknown at the time and partnerships were rare.Google Scholar

25 Richard B. Morris, Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny: The Founding Fathers as Revolutionaries 221 (New York: Harper & Row, 1973).Google Scholar

26 Hamilton's most famous statements on the value of the British monarchy appear in his speech to the Constitutional Convention on June 18, 1787. For the text of that speech, see 1 Max Farrand, ed., The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, 282–93 (4 vols: New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

27 McDonald, supra note 5, at 50.Google Scholar

28 1 Law Practice 37–54.Google Scholar

29 1 Law Practice 47–48.Google Scholar

30 James Duane to Alexander Hamilton, May 5, 1782, 3 Hamilton Papers 88. This is the second indication in his papers that Hamilton planned to practice law. The first, id. at 82, is the “Suspension of the Rule Requiring Lawyers to Serve a Three-Year Clerkship in favor of Alexander Hamilton,” dated April 26, 1782. The chronology of the Duane letter and the suspension suggest that Duane found out about Hamilton's career plans at the time (or just after) the suspension was given. Duane then wrote to Hamilton on May 5, offering him the use of his library. Since there was a severe shortage of law books in New York at this time (1 Law Practice 6). it seems impossible that Hamilton could have made any serious preparations for the bar until he had access to a law library. Goebel states that Robert Troup “was living with the Hamiltons and tutoring his friend when Hamilton was studying for the bar in 1782.” Id. at 41. This statement, made to support the assertion that Hamilton wrote the practice manual printed in the Legal Papers, does not show that Hamilton was studying for the bar in January. But he could not have written the manual without access to a law library, which he only had after May 5. Goebel later admits: “How helpful Troup could have been is problematical. He was himself preparing for his examination.” Id. at 49. Troup was admitted to the bar in April, and as Goebel notes, “he was thus in a position to advise Hamilton on the nature of questions put in the course of the examination.” Id. Most probably, Hamilton's bar preparation did not begin until after Troup was admitted to practice. If Hamilton had been studying law before April, it is likely that he would have mentioned it in the many letters he wrote from January until April.Google Scholar

31 The “Practical Proceedings” are printed in 1 Law Practice 55–135. Goebel has also included examples of writs, pleas, and other forms, an extremely useful addition to the legal papers. Id. at 136–66.Google Scholar

32 1 Law Practice 50.Google Scholar

33 For at least two decades after he wrote his manual, other law students would use it—or copies of it—to prepare for their new profession. Long before West Publishing Company mass-produced introductions to the law, handwritten copies of the Hamilton practice manual circulated among those New York clerks lucky enough to obtain them.Google Scholar

34 1 Law Practice at 47.Google Scholar

35 Hamilton to Marquis de Lafayette, Nov. 3, 1782, 3 Hamilton Papers 191–93, at 192. Hamilton was not the only founding father to express ambivalence about entering the law. Four months before he started his law clerkship, John Adam wrote to a Harvard classmate: “Let us look upon a Lawyer. In the beginning of Life we see him, fumbling and raking amidst the rubbish of Writs, indightments, Pleas, ejectments, enfiefed, illaterbration and a 1000 other lignum Vitae words that have neither harmony nor meaning . When he gets into Business he often foments more quarrells that he composes, and inriches himself at the expense of impoverishing others more honest and deserving than himself. Besides the noise and bustle of Courts and the labour of inquiring into and pleading dry and difficult Cases, have very few Charms in my Eye.” The editors of the Adams legal papers, both recent graduates of Harvard Law School at the time, comment: “These seem to have been the last brave arguments of a young man about to enter upon a course which he had known for some time that he will take.” 1 L. Kinvin Wroth & Hiller B. Zobel, eds., Legal Papers of John Adam lii (3 vols: Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1965).Google Scholar

36 1 Law Practice 47.Google Scholar

37 Cooke, supra note 5, at 56.Google Scholar

38 Id. at 197.Google Scholar

39 Id. at 199–201.Google Scholar

40 Some Americans would have abolished the common law altogether, and only the most conservative patriots thought that all English law should be kept intact. When compared to how later revolutionaries dealt with the property rights (and human rights) of their opponents, the New York acts are mild indeed. The French nobility in the 1790s or the Russian aristocracy in the 1920s would have been quite happy to settle for the type of legislation that Goebel castigates. Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law 94–95 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1973); Morton Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law, 1790–1860 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1977), argues that most lawyers wanted to keep the common law, although the revolutionary firebrand James Otis asserted that it was “Better to observe the known Principles of Law than any one Precedent,” id. at 8. Shays' Rebellion in Massachusetts is only the most famous example of popular discontent with the law and distrust for legal procedures that protected the property of the rich and well-born at the expense of others. The natural law arguments of the Revolution also undermined at least for some Americans the value of common law precedents and procedure. The movement away from common law toward statutes began in the immediate postrevolutionary period, as people complained that the law was inaccessible. See Charles M. Cook, The American Codification Movement: A Study of Antebellum Legal Reform 3–19 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981).Google Scholar

41 1 Law Practice 230–31.Google Scholar

42 1 Law Practice 230 and passim.Google Scholar

43 In Goebel's view, had Hamilton been in New York City, where great amounts of property were stolen, in upstate New York, “where the British and Loyalists employed Indian allies against the frontier population,” or in the Carolinas, “where many Tory regiments including Tarleton's British Legion were engaged and where the war was conducted with almost singular barbarity,” then he might have been less sympathetic to Tory defendants. 1 Law Practice 222.Google Scholar

44 1 Law Practice 221.Google Scholar

45 1 Law Practice 219.Google Scholar

46 1 Law Practice 219.Google Scholar

47 Edmund S. & Helen M. Morgan, The Stamp Act Crisis (New York: Collier Books, 1963), especially ch. 11; Bernard Bailyn, The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974); Benjamin W. Labaree, The Boston Tea Party (New York: Oxford University Press, 1966); Pauline Maier, From Resistance to Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972); and id., The Old Revolutionaries (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1980). especially ch. 2 on Isaac Sears, a leader of the Sons of Liberty in New York.Google Scholar

48 1 Law Practice 201.Google Scholar

49 1 Law Practice 221.Google Scholar

50 1 Law Practice 219.Google Scholar

51 Indeed, his Anglophilia was notorious at the Constitutional Convention. He asserted that the “British Govt. was the best in the world: and that he doubted much whether any thing short of it would do in America.” 1 Farrand, supra note 26, at 288. He thought that the “house of Lords is a most noble institution,” id., and “As to the Executive … . The English model was the only good one on this subject,” id. at 289.Google Scholar

52 Nelson, John R. Jr., Alexander Hamilton and American Manufacturing: A Reexamination, 65 J. Am. Hist. 971, 972 (Mar. 1979).Google Scholar

53 IdGoogle Scholar

54 Hamilton to James Duane, Aug. 5, 1783, excerpted in 1 Law Practice 215, full text in 3 Hamilton Papers 430.Google Scholar

55 Hamilton to Robert R. Livingston, Aug. 13, 1783, excerpted in 1 Law Practice 216, full text in 3 Hamilton Papers 431.Google Scholar

56 Id.Google Scholar

57 1 Law Practice 223.Google Scholar

58 The utility of Hamilton's arguments have been recently recognized by one constitutional law casebook, which devotes a long first chapter to the controversy over the Bank of the United States, and has excerpts from Hamilton's defense of the Bank. Paul Brest & Sanford Levinson, Process of Constitutional Decisionmaking: Cases and Materials 1–60 (2d ed. Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1983).Google Scholar

59 Cooke, supra note 5, at 158–60, gives the details of Hamilton's life from the time he left office until he resumed law practice. Cooke's evidence clearly supports his conclusion that “Hamilton did not immediately reopen his law office,” id. at 159.Google Scholar

60 5 Law Practice at 9–10.Google Scholar

61 Smith states: “For 1795 the Cash Book records fees received amounting to about 2,350. This total has to be supplemented by the fees appearing in the Memoranda of Retainers in the Law Register.” 5 Law Practice 366. My total, based on fees given in the Cash Book and the Law Register, is over 3,600. As I indicate in the next paragraph of the text, however, it is most likely that all figures for Hamilton's income are lowGoogle Scholar

62 5 Law Practice 366.Google Scholar

63 Cooke, supra note 5, at 66.Google Scholar

64 2 Law Practice 47.Google Scholar

65 4 Law Practice 130. The total area was almost 6,000 square miles.Google Scholar

66 4 Law Practice 79–80.Google Scholar

67 3 Law Practice 37.Google Scholar

68 3 Law Practice 2.Google Scholar

69 3 Law Practice 226.Google Scholar

70 5 Law Practice 66 and passim. Smith gives no totals for Hamilton's case load, and from the Law Register it is not always possible to tell which side of a case Hamilton was on or if it is an old case or a new case with the same parties or parties with similar names. The “Table of Cases, Opinions, and Related Documents,” id. at 669–97, unfortunately does not include the dates of the cases. Nonetheless, it seems likely that the ratio given here of cases to income earned is relatively accurate.Google Scholar

71 Nelson, supra note 52, at 979.Google Scholar

72 Allan McLane Hamilton, The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton 165 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910). The author of this volume was Hamilton's grandson.Google Scholar

73 McDonald, supra note 5, at 10.Google Scholar

74 Id. at 34; see also id. at 177. Similar statements about Hamilton's antislavery beliefs can be found in nearly all biographies of him. How committed Hamilton actually was to antislavery is open to question. See Flexner, supra note 2, at 39.Google Scholar

75 3 Hamilton Papers 597; 25 id. 414. In February 1803 Hamilton was elected “Consellor” of the Society. 26 id. 81.Google Scholar

76 Edgar J. McManus, A History of Negro Slavery in New York 170 (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1966).Google Scholar

77 There is one reference to the Manumission Society in Hamilton's legal papers, at 5 Law Practice 477—to what the editors note as the unidentified case of Vanderbilt v. M. Lann. The Cash Book notion is that Hamilton received 6.00 from a “Vanderbilt on the subject of negroes sold to Scalle—(Manumission SocietyD].” Manumission Society records for February 1797 (the date of this entry) indicate that the Society had come to some unspecified agreement with a Vanderbilt about some slaves. New York Manumission Society Papers, New York Historical Society, Microfilm Reel 2. It is impossible to know if these two cases are the same. If they are, then Hamilton apparently was representing a slaveowner.Google Scholar

78 5 Law Practice 494. McDonald uses this evidence to prove that Hamilton did not own slaves but only purchased them for someone else. McDonald, supra note 5, at 373 n. 12; 21 Hamilton Papers 110–11. McDonald appears to be quite correct in his analysis. It is not clear, however, that buying and selling slaves for others was any more moral than personally owning them. Either way, Hamilton does not appear as McDonald might wish.Google Scholar

79 5 Law Practice 555.Google Scholar

80 5 Law Practice 437.Google Scholar

81 2 Law Practice 850–53.Google Scholar

82 1 Law Practice 688–92.Google Scholar

83 1 Law Practice 691.Google Scholar

84 I Law Practice 775–848. For more on this case see also Leonard W. Levy, ed., Freedom of the Press from Zenger to Jefferson: Early American Libertarian Theories (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966); id., Legacy of Suppression: Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, Belknap Press, 1960).Google Scholar

85 See Stanley N. Katz, ed., A Brief Narrative of the Case and Trial of John Peter Zenger, Printer of the New York Weekly Journal (2d ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); Paul Finkelman, The Zenger Case: Prototype of a Political Trial, in Michal R. Belknap, ed., American Political Trials at 21–42 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981).Google Scholar

86 1 Law Practice 844–46. Despite Hamilton's arguments, he should not be mistaken for a precursor of today's civil libertarians. He was perfectly willing to allow prosecutions for seditious libel, or personal libel, if they supported his cause. Id. at 784 n.37. His well-known, but mild, opposition to the Sedition Act of 1798 was based not on any strong convictions but on his political sense. He knew the statute would not work. It of course ultimately backfired and was one of the reasons for the demise of the Federalist party. Throughout his career he defended victims of politically motivated suits or prosecutions, but they were always politically in agreement with him or perhaps a little to the right of him. Had he been truly committed to civil liberties, he would have defended a Jeffersonian during the Sedition Act prosecutions, just as he was so willing to defend Tories in the 1780s.Google Scholar

87 1 Law Practice 695.Google Scholar

88 4 Law Practice 295.Google Scholar

89 1 Law Practice 3.Google Scholar

90 Like so many other lawyers, John Adams left the profession to devote his life to public service during and after the Revolution. The description of Adams, in the wonderful edition of his legal papers (the only work comparable to the volumes edited by Goebel and Smith) could be applied to any number of patriots: “As a framer of and apologist for the constitutional basis of revolution, he [Adams] put his broad understanding of law and politics and his personal experience with many of the critical issues to constant use in the congressional debates which formulated the theoretical consensus leading to the … Declaration of Independence in 1776.” I Wroth & Zobel, supra note 35, at xciii.Google Scholar

91 5 Law Practice 10 n.4; 12 n.7.Google Scholar

92 Cooke, supra note 5, at 66, writes: “His fees were modest, however, and he earned enough only to look after his current expenses. But then, the accumulation of money meant little to him.” See also the Cash Book printed in 5 Law Practice.Google Scholar

93 2 Law Practice 48–165.Google Scholar

94 Cooke, supra note 5, at 160.Google Scholar

95 5 Law Practice 10, n .4. But at about the same time Hamilton accepted a 50 general retainer from H &. S Johnson & Co, a New York merchant house, with the stipulation that he would only handle their cases if he was “under no opposite engagement,” id. at 9,12 n.7. Since his list of clients reads like a Who's Who for New York merchants, insurance companies, bankers, shippers, and speculators, it is likely that he often was faced with conflicts of interest. While it is unclear how he handled such problems, it is likely that he mediated between his clients whenever possible.Google Scholar

96 4 Law Practice 191–201.Google Scholar

97 See 4 Law Practice 313–14.Google Scholar

98 The Court in this case agreed with him that the legislation was not unconstitutional.Google Scholar