Commentary
It’s easy, if not entirely fair, to explain Alexander Hamilton’s relentless search for fame and power as the outcome of a life begun under very unfavorable conditions.
He was born on Jan. 11, 1757, an illegitimate child on the Caribbean island of Nevis, then a possession of the British Empire. His father deserted young Alexander’s mother when he was 8, and his mother died when he was 11.
Somehow he was apprenticed to a commercial firm, where he showed an astonishing talent for the business. A good-hearted Presbyterian minister “discovered” him and sent him to a New Jersey grammar school. A year later he was accepted by the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University). When that institution wouldn’t allow him to advance at his own accelerated pace, he enrolled in King’s College (now Columbia University), in New York City….