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Alexander Hamilton, like most of the Founding Fathers, was pretty interesting off-screen. Hamilton had a brilliant mind and made a valuable contribution to the birth of the United States, especially as Secretary of the Treasury, but devoted much of his intelligence to scheming and exacting revenge on his opponents.

Hamilton's enormous ego and strong desire for power alienated his fellow Founding Fathers because he was arrogant and argumentative in meetings. He tended to exaggerate his accomplishments and was also fond of flattering himself.

He disdained the common citizen, believing they were too ignorant to participate in government, or even to vote. The Federalist Party, in which Hamilton was a key figure, were elitists and echoed Hamilton's desire for a strong central government that dominated the states and was controlled only by the well-educated members of upper class society.

Hamilton's personality tended to be snide and sarcastic, although he could present himself well when the occasion required it. He loved gossip, and especially loved starting rumors by making comments suggesting his opponents were dishonorable and couldn't be trusted. Today, we would consider him perpetually snarky.

Although married, Alexander Hamilton had frequent affairs with other women, both married and single, and had the nerve to bring them into his own bed while his wife and children were away. One woman turned out to be a con artist who extorted a large sum of money from him, supposedly to keep her husband from beating Hamilton for sleeping with his wife. Hamilton preferred paying over a beating, possibly because he was small (5'6") and frail and likely to receive serious injuries.

Hamilton could be extremely mean-spirited: he held grudges and would secretly undermine his political opponents whenever he got a chance. He often provoked threats in response to his attitude, most famously with his political enemy Aaron Burr, who was Vice-President under Thomas Jefferson. In fact, the animosity toward Burr lead to a pistol duel over Hamilton's refusal to apologize for false comments and rumors he allegedly started against Burr at a party. The two men exchanged a number of "polite" letters about the incident, but Hamilton refused to apologize.

Eventually, Burr became so enraged he challenged Hamilton to a pistol duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Hamilton shot first and the bullet went approximately four feet wide and fourteen feet over Burr's head, lodging in a branch of a pine tree. "Throwing away a shot" was a common means of ending a duel honorably, but Burr apparently wanted to injure (or possibly kill) Hamilton, and fired directly at him. The bullet struck Hamilton's hip, pierced his abdomen, then bounced around inside, damaging organs, before becoming wedged in Hamilton's spinal column. He was instantly paralyzed from the waist down and aware he'd received a mortal wound. Hamilton died of his wounds the next day, the victim not only of Burr's anger but of his own personality flaws.

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βˆ™ 12y ago
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Anonymous

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βˆ™ 3y ago

Alexander had blue eye, red hair though he did where a white wig, he was 5,7 and he had white skin tone.

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Q: What kind of man was Alexander Hamilton?
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