英语故事
Alexander Hamilton
亚历山大•汉密尔顿是美国的开国元勋之一，宪法的起草人之一，财经专家，是美国的第一任财政部长。因政党恶斗而丧失生命的知名政治人物。
Alexander Hamilton
Alexander Hamilton (January 11, 1755 or 1757 – July 12, 1804) was the first United States cretary of the treasury, a founding father, economist, and political philosopher. Aide-de-camp to General George Washington during the American revolutionary war, he was a leader of nationalist forces calling for a new constitution; he was one of America’s first constitutional lawyers, and wrote most of the federalist papers, a primary source for constitutional interpretation. He was the financial expert
of Washington’s administration; the Federalist Party formed to support his policies. Born and raid in the Caribbean, Hamilton attended king’s college (now Columbia University) in New York. At the start of the American revolutionary war, he organized an artillery company and was chon as its captain. Hamilton became the nior aide-de-camp and confidant to General George Washington, the American commander-in-chief. After the war, Hamilton was elected to the continental congress from New York, but he resigned to practice law and found the bank of New York. He rved in the New York legislature, and he was the only New Yorker who signed the U.S. constitution. He wrote about half the federalist papers, which cured its ratification by New York; they are still the most important unofficial interpretation of the constitution. In the new government under President Washington he became cretary of the treasury. An admirer of British political systems, Hamilton was a nationalist who emphasized strong central government and successfully argued that the implied powers of the constitution could be ud to fund the national debt, assume state debts, and create the government-owned b
ank of the United States. The programs were funded primarily by an ariff on imports and a highly controversial whiskey tax.
By 1792, the coalition led by Hamilton was oppod by a coalition led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Hamilton’s Federalist Party now had to compete with Jefferson’s Democratic - Republican Party. The parties fought over Hamilton’s fiscal goals and national bank, as well as his foreign policy of extensive trade and friendly relations with Britain, especially the jay treaty which was ratified, by a single vote, after a lengthy struggle between the two coalitions. Embarrasd by a blackmail affair that became public; Hamilton resigned as the cretary of the treasury in 1795 and returned to the practice of law in New York. In 1798, the quasi-war with France led Hamilton to be awarded the rank of nior officer of the United States army and to argue for, and attempt to rai and organize, an army to fight the French (by invading the colonies of Spain, then a French ally).
Hamilton’s opposition to his fellow federalist John Adams hurt the party in the 1800 elections. When Thomas Jefferson and Aaron burr tied in the Electoral College, Hamilton helped defeat his bitter personal enemy burr and elect Jefferson as president. With his party’s defeat, Hamilton’s nationalist and industrialization ideas lost their former national prominence. Hamilton’s inten rivalry with burr resulted in a duel, in which Hamilton was mortally wounded. Hamilton was always denounced by the Jeffersonian and later the Jacksonians, but his economic ideas, especially support for a protective tariff and a national bank, were promoted by the Whig party and after the 1850s by the newly created Republican Party, which hailed him as the nation’s greatest cretary of the treasury.
Early military career
