Antoni Saade Mrs. Deborah Sprenger Dual United States and Virginia History 12 October 2014 Alexander Hamilton: Politician, Lawyer, Soldier Few figures in American history have influenced the United States in as many aspects as Alexander Hamilton. Born in the British West Indies in 1755, Hamilton came to the colonies as a teenage boy and quickly embarked on a momentous career. He came to be a notable member of the Continental Congress, an author of the Federalist Papers, a champion of the Constitution, and the first secretary of the Treasury, where he helped found the first national bank, the U.S. Mint, and a tax collection bureau that would later become the U.S. Coast Guard. Troubled by personal and political scandals in his later years, …show more content…
Outright rebellion and war against the mother country was unthinkable at the time, although the Battle of Lexington and Concord were merely a few months, a war of words was reality. One New York Loyalist in particular, known as ‘the Farmer’ in his sympathetic writings, favored royal British authority in the American colonies and denounced all actions of a colonial American congress (Ronemus). It was with his response to ‘the Farmer’ that Hamilton became first involved with the radical politics of New York and used the name ‘Friend to America.’ In his reply, Hamilton defends the American congress, writing in reference to members of parliament on December 15, 1774, “That they are enemies to the rights of mankind is manifest, because they wish to see one part of their species enslaved by another. That they have an invincible aversion to common sense is apparent in many respects: They endeavor to persuade us, that the absolute sovereignty of parliament does not imply our absolute slavery (Hamilton).” Hamilton continued to write in defense of colonial-American rights throughout the war, garnering support for the Patriot cause all the